Here's a church that had problems. Even good churches have problems, but at this point, this wasn't a healthy church. They had major issues in this church, but yet Paul said, I want you to know that I thank God for you. I'm thankful for you. Do you realize that even when we meet people that maybe they bring problem into our lives, maybe there's difficulty with them, circumstances, maybe situations in our lives that are less than ideal. You and I can always find something within that that you and I can be thankful for, that we can have a heart of gratitude toward our God. Maybe if it's an ornery person, just thank God that you're not like them. How about that? But there's always something for which we can be thankful. And Paul is thanking God for them on your behalf for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ and in everything you're enriched by Him in all utterance and in all knowledge even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you so that you come behind in no gift waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. who shall also confirm you unto the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful. You ought to underline those three words. God is faithful. by whom you were called under the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." And so Paul is giving us a thankful list. Some items on that for which you and I can always be thankful. We've got so much that we can thank Him for. And the first thing is that we ought to be grateful. We ought to be thankful for the grace of God that redeemed us. We saw that in verse 4. He said, I thank my God always on your behalf for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ. And listen folks, where would we be without the grace of God in our lives? I'm grateful for grace tonight. Paul said, I am what I am by the grace of God and God's unmerited, undeserved love in our lives. We've received grace. It was given them. and then were to reveal His grace. It was confirmed in them. It was made firm. The testimony of God's grace was without question in their lives. They had believed on the Lord. They had a changed life. God had changed them. And that's a blessing. And so we're grateful for God's grace, not only that saved us, but also that strengthens us in the journey as we walk with the Lord. You know, as is thy day, so shall thy strength be. And so no matter what comes our way, God's grace is sufficient, isn't it? Then number two, we can be thankful for the goodness of God that enriches us. Look at verse number five, that in everything you are enriched. We're spiritual billionaires. Listen, can I tell you, you may have nothing of this world, but with Jesus you have everything. You have everything, but if you don't have Him, you don't really have anything. Isn't that right? Yeah. Because one day everything in this world is going to pass, but what I have in Him, that's going to last. Isn't that a blessing? And so this is sort of where we left off. I'm going to sort of catch up right here, that we can be thankful He's enriched us with the benefits of life, how God has blessed us in His Son. And we saw two benefits that God had given to the church at Corinth and given to us is the word, where he talked about all knowledge, look at that, in all utterance and in all knowledge. I'm going to deal with knowledge first, that we know Him. It's the ability to know God, alright? And we're able to know Him, and it speaks of a growing knowledge. We're going to be growing in our knowledge of the Lord and in His grace in our lives. And then the other is all utterance, not only that I know the Lord, but I can speak for the Lord, that I can share Him with others, that we can share the testimony of Christ, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you. And so we're thankful He equips us, but He also enables us, look at verse 7, this is another blessing, so that you come behind in no gift. Did you see that? The Corinthian church lacked no gift. They were fully equipped to do what God had given for them to do in that city. And can I tell you, every Christian is blessed by God with some divine enablement, some spiritual gift whereby He has gifted you to serve Him and to edify His church and to make a difference in our world. And we have everything necessary to impact our community and our world for Jesus Christ. But then, not only the benefits, but then the blessings. Two blessings. First of all, His faithfulness. Look at that. God is faithful. You know, preacher, what does that mean? It means God never fails. God has never failed, and He will never fail. He never lets us down. The Corinthians may not have been faithful to God, but God was faithful to them. Faithfulness is something that God is to us and desires from us. Look over at chapter 4, would you? Just look over chapter 4, find verse 1. Notice he says, Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required in stewards. that a man be found faithful. Your Christian life is a stewardship from God. That means I am to manage my life for God. My life is to be fruitful for Him. And part of that is faithfulness. You know what? God didn't call us to be successful. He called us to be faithful. Every Christian may not be able to do everything. I can't play a piano. You don't want me to sing. Tom has never put me on the list. Now, I'm the pastor. If I want on the list, I should get on the list, right? But you don't want me on the list. I promise you don't, alright? And so anyway, with all that said, there may be a whole lot of things we can't do, but let me just tell you this. There's one thing every Christian can be, and that's faithful. I can be faithful in my life to God. I can be faithful in my prayer life, faithful in my devotional life. I can be faithful in sharing my faith. I can be faithful in my giving. I can be faithful in my church attendance. I can be faithful in serving God, living out His precepts, promises, and truths in my daily life. I may not be everything, but I sure can be faithful. faithful, and God desires that we're faithful because He's faithful, amen? And so we can thank God for His faithfulness and then we ought to seek to be faithful. But then secondly, not only am I thankful for the blessing of His faithfulness, but the blessing of His fellowship. Look at verse number 9. Would you look there? Look at verse number 9. He said, God is faithful by whom you were called under the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ. Now I want to stop a moment and we're going to talk about the difference between relationship and fellowship in the Christian life because here's where a lot of people get all tripped up. There is a difference in my relationship and in my fellowship. Okay? And so, there should be some stuff there in your notes. It's my relationship by which I enter God's family. The moment you're saved, you're brought into a right relationship with God. But then through fellowship, that's the enjoyment of God's family. That has to do with how I live as a Christian after I'm saved. Okay? So relationship and fellowship are different. They're not the same. Relationship, I enter God's family. Fellowship, I enjoy God's family. Okay? Relationship has to do with my position before God. My position before God. We call it our standing. We stand in grace. We're accepted in the blood. My position is fixed. Alright? But then on the other hand, fellowship has to do with my practice. How I live my daily life. That's my state. It has to do with my conduct. How I'm living. We learned the Corinthians were all saints. Every Christian is a saint. But they didn't live very saintly. They weren't honoring the Lord with their lives. They were still God's children. But you know what? They sure weren't enjoying their place in the family because you can't live in sin. You can't walk contrary to God and enjoy being a Christian. You can't do it. And so my relationship, which comes through salvation, fellowship has to do with my sanctification, my growth in grace. I enter God's family in relationship. I enjoy God's family through fellowship. Relationship has to do with my position, fellowship, my practice. Relationship is unchanging. It's unchanging. That's a better word than unchangeable. It is unchanging. That means once I'm God's child, I am forever God's child regardless of my practice. There's a lot of people on radios and Christians reading books that are written by men that blur this. Men like John MacArthur. R.C. Sproul, John Piper. I don't recommend you spend a lot of time reading their books. These men are what we would call dyed-in-the-wool Calvinists, okay? And when you read John MacArthur and you begin reading what he says about salvation, he adds all kinds of things to salvation. We're going to learn in John's Gospel that salvation comes through believing. Ninety-eight times John teaches us that salvation comes through simple faith in the person of Jesus Christ. Somebody would say, preacher, I just have a hard time with easy believism. Well, let me ask you a question. Do you want hard believism? It is easy to believe. Jesus has already done the hard work. He died on the cross for your sins. Salvation is not a matter of conduct, what I do after I get saved. It's everything to do my relationship with getting saved, believing on Christ, receiving Him as Savior. And so they're different. And you don't want to blur them. You don't want to blur them. Salvation and sanctification are separate works of God. They are not the same. And many times even well-meaning independent Baptist preachers want to blur those two areas and they make a person's salvation or the assurance of it based on how they live after they're saved rather than on faith in Jesus Christ. And there is only one assurance of salvation, one way to be sure you're saved. You say, preacher, what is it? It is faith in Jesus Christ. That's it. These things have I written to you, John says, I John 5, verse 13, These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God. He didn't say believe on the name of the Son of God and do this and this and this and walk this way and act that way. He didn't say that. He said believing on Jesus Christ. The rest is growth in grace after believing on Christ. You say, preacher, why? I just think when you get saved, you're a new creature. You're exactly right. And sanctification is living out that new creation that we became the day we were saved. Are you following me? And that brings clarity in our lives because if my salvation is predicated on what I do after I get saved, then Christian, I'm in trouble and so are you. I just read a statement from R.C. Sproul who's a died-in-the-wool Calvinist this week. I read a statement on him that he couldn't even really be sure he was saved because he hadn't persevered yet. yet made it to the end. Thank God. I don't have to persevere. I'm preserved. And we're going to see that in our passage tonight. And Christian, listen, God created you and redeemed you for Himself. He wants to fellowship with you. He wants you to walk with Him in your daily life, to follow Him in your spiritual life, to become the person He wants you to be. That is your fellowship. When I walk with God day in and day out, seeking to be the person that He wants me to be, being filled with the Spirit, living out His truth, trying to honor Him best I know how in my life each day. And God said that is how we have fellowship with God. Alright? And by the way, there's nothing like sweet fellowship with God to enter His presence. Can I tell you that every time I read my Bible, I'm not on the mountaintop? I'm just not. Now, there are times that I'm on the mountaintop. Every time I read my Bible, I don't just go, wow, look at that. Now, there are times I do. You know, I've used this illustration before. You know, we eat a lot. Well, maybe you don't. I do. I eat at least three meals a day, and then I pepper in some stuff in between. Anybody can say amen right there if you want to. Thank you, Brother Farrar. Yeah, I'm with you. And I couldn't tell you everything I ate Monday. I couldn't tell you. I just couldn't. I wish I could. I mean, if I sit down and really thought about it, but I can just promise you everything I ate Monday didn't wow me till I got to the little Hersey Minotiers. They sort of wowed me. They sort of helped my taste buds a little bit, okay? You see what I'm getting at? And so every time you go to the Word of God and feed on it doesn't mean you're going to walk away wowed, but there's going to be those times you are. But you know what? You're nourishing your soul spiritually. You're walking in truth. You're learning truth. You're growing in grace. And that's what God desires from our lives. The problem in Corinth is they were out of fellowship with God. They had forgotten the truth that they had been called into the fellowship of His sons, and they were going their way rather than God's way. Now let me give you a third. We're thankful for His goodness because of the benefits of life, the blessings of life, and then the burdens of life. You say, wait a minute, burdens of life? I can be thankful for God's goodness and the burdens of life? Absolutely. Paul carried a burden for this church. It comes out in the book as he's writing to them. And he's writing with a broken heart, yet he thanked God for them. And all of us carry burdens in life. There's the verse of Scripture, Acts 14.22, that we must, through much tribulation, enter into the kingdom of God. You know what that's meaning? That means that there's no smooth sailing to heaven. We may have some periods of smooth sailing, but there's going to be some rough patches. There's going to be some stormy seas. As long as we're living in this broken, fallen world, Christian, there are going to be burdens that we carry in our lives. There's going to be difficulty. There's going to be tribulation and trials and hardship. Thank God for the times of smooth sailing. But the reality of it is that I'm going to have some rough, stormy waters too between now and heaven. And the Bible doesn't say I'm to be thankful for every burden, but in every burden. God's not saying I'm to be thankful for every trial or trouble or tragedy that comes into our lives, but He is saying we can be thankful in the midst of them. Isn't that right? Everything that happens to us is not good, but God works it for our good, Romans 8.28. That's the promise. I can be thankful for God's goodness in the midst of the storms of life, that God is faithful, that God helps me bear the burden, that God gives me the grace to bear up under the load, that God sustains us along the way, that God gives us peace and comfort and help and wisdom and direction and ability to go on even in the midst of the burdens of life that we carry. Thank God He can lift our load. Isn't that a blessing? There are caregivers in our church. I don't know how they make it. but the grace of God. There's people in our church right now, you're carrying heavy burdens, that under normal circumstances they would overwhelm you, but it's the grace of God that's sustaining you. Thank God for His goodness and His grace in our lives. Isn't that right? So, I'm thankful for grace, I'm thankful for goodness, of God, but let me give you something else we can be thankful for. And that's the glory of God that awaits us. How about that? Look at verse 7. So that you come behind in no gift, add every gift of the Spirit, If they have problems with those gifts, we'll see them a little bit later on. We deal with the gift of tongues and the misuse of the gift of tongues and other gifts. We'll look at those. We get there. But notice he says, "...waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall also confirm you unto the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." Let's look at these verses. Do you know what Paul is going to say in chapter 15 verse 19? Don't turn there. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. Aren't you glad this isn't all there is? Aren't you glad that there's something after this? Aren't you glad there is a future glory? I sure am. I'd be thankful for that. Let me give you two areas real quick and we're going to be done tonight. First of all, He's going to come for us. Look at verse 7 again. Waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. That word coming there has the idea of an unveiling. An unveiling. It describes something concealed being revealed. One day the glory of the life to come is going to be unveiled and revealed to every child of God. Right now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. We see through a glass darkly. I don't know what awaits us. What are we going to do in heaven, preacher? I don't know everything that we're going to do when we get on the new earth. I don't know. I have no idea. I know it's going to be an exciting place. I know it's going to be an adventurous place. I know it's going to be a glorious place. I know all of that. It's going to be a wonderful place. I just know you want to go there. Amen? But I don't know what it's all going to look like and be like. But one day we will. That's why the Bible calls it hope. We live by faith and not by sight. Isn't that right? If it was by sight, it wouldn't be by faith, Paul says. And Paul here is describing the Lord's coming for His own, the rapture, the catching away of the saints of God, what he calls in verse 8, the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul called it our gathering to gather unto Him in 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 3, to be face to face with Christ. Every generation of God's people have lived with the expectation it would be their day that Jesus would come. Preacher, do you know when Jesus is coming? I have no idea. But I'm telling you, I'm living with the expectation it's going to be my day, and that my faith will become sight, and that we'll escape the undertaker, and we'll experience the upper taker. How about that? That's the hope we have. Ron Pendry. I remember Ron. He's now in heaven. He said, I'm going to live to the rapture. I'm going to live to the rapture. We know that he didn't. But he lived in the hope that he would, didn't he? And that's how we're going to live. Not looking for a hole in the ground, but a hole in the sky. Isn't that right? That word waiting means to welcome. It's waiting and watching, looking and longing. It has the idea of an expectancy. Titus 2.13, looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ. And church, listen to me. It could happen in a moment. Paul's going to tell us over in chapter 15 verse 51. We get to that great resurrection chapter of the Bible, the twinkling of an eye. the twinkling of an eye, not a blink, but a twinkle, just the amount of time that it takes for light to reflect from the eye, just that moment, that split moment, less than a nanosecond, will be translated from here to there. You say, you know, my wife's afraid to fly. She just is. I can't get her on an airplane. That's okay. You know what? But that's going to happen so fast, honey, you won't have time to worry about it. And then the last thing, He's going to confirm us. Now Christian, this is important. Look at verse 8 again. "...who shall also confirm you unto the end." You know what the devil likes to tell you? You're not saved. He loves to tell you that. He loves to bring doubt into the lives of God's people. God really doesn't love you. God really didn't save you. You really didn't mean that. You know, a new Christian, the moment they get saved, the first thing the devil does is makes them try to question whether or not God saved them. That's one of the first things. That's why we give them verses of assurance to try to help them to have assurance. Our assurance is not in how we feel. Feelings come and feelings go and feelings are deceiving. I'll stake my claim on the Word of God and all else is worth believing. You can't trust your emotions. They'll lie to you. They will. Now listen, there's some doubt that's good. Thank God I doubted when I went forward at 11 years old because I had a little religious experience there, but I really didn't get saved, and that was God the Holy Spirit dealing with me. But after I got truly saved and I trusted Christ, then there's times the devil comes along at me and says, Boy, if you was a Christian, you wouldn't have thought that. If you was a Christian, you wouldn't have done that. If you was a Christian, Let me just tell you something. The Corinthians weren't living very Christianly. They had a lot of spiritual problems in their lives. Matter of fact, somebody today would look at some of them and say, man, listen, that guy can't be saved. Remember, salvation is not based on what we do, but He did. Notice verse 8. "...who shall also confirm you unto..." How long, church? The end. That means to establish us. It has to do with God's plan and purposes for His children. Under the end is a statement of eternal security. Let me give you some verses. How about Philippians chapter 1 and verse number 6? Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. That is the good work of God's salvation. And let me tell you something, church. Eternal security is woven throughout the fabric of the Scriptures. It is. And the God... I'm studying for Sunday's message, and the Bible talks about, "...whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." Well, friend, listen, if you could lose it, it wouldn't be everlasting. Right? by fact that it is eternal life means it's going to last forever. And if God took it away from you or if you could lose it, it wouldn't be eternal. God would be lying to you. And what can God not do? Lie. He always keeps His word, doesn't He? And God's the one who keeps us. See, that's the difference between the Calvinist doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, that if you were elected or predestined to salvation, that you'll be saved whether anybody ever shares the gospel with you or not. I kid you not. You cannot resist it. You can't say no if you wanted to. And then, because He saved you, you're going to persevere. That means you're going to live saintly until you get to heaven. That doesn't mean there couldn't be times of backsliding, but your life will prove your election. But guess what? If it doesn't, you blow it at the end. Well, you weren't really elect, and therefore you weren't really saved, and you might have thought you were saved, but you weren't, and you're not going to heaven. Where's the assurance in that? Where's the comfort in that? Where is the hope in that? It is not there. And we are kept... Listen, it is God who saves us and it is God who keeps us. We are kept by the power of God. And my life that comes after salvation should be a thank you note to the God who saved me. I don't live in order to be saved or to stay saved. I live for God because I'm saved. You see what I'm saying? And that's the difference. And notice what he says. Nothing's going to stop his purposes, right? But notice he said that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. That means to be without blemish or fault. At the moment that our salvation will be complete, we will have been glorified, saved to sin no more, completely conformed to the image of His Son. Jot down in your notes beside that verse or in the margin of your Bible Jude verse 24. Jude verse 24. Now to Him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless. So listen, it's God that keeps us from falling, that presents us faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. Christian, your future is as secure and bright as the promises of God. And we can be thankful for that, can't we? Isn't that encouraging? Isn't that encouraging? All of us have bad days, don't we? That we're less than what we ought to be. But I'm glad that it's God who keeps us, aren't you? And it's God who confirms us. And it's God who's going to present us faultless. Christian, you have so much to thank Him for. The grace that redeemed you. the goodness of God. Oh, thank God for the goodness of God in our lives that enriches us and then the glory that one day awaits us. We are of all people most wonderfully blessed. Amen. Let's stand to our feet tonight. Maybe you have something that you want to thank Him for tonight. Well, I'm going to invite you to come and find your place here at the altar and say, Lord, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.