[0:00] This message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alfred, Georgia. It is our prayer that you'll be blessed by the preaching of God's Word. But I would like to start off by showing you this.
[0:10] Colossians 3.17 is the verse, and we'll use the last part of this verse. The Bible says, And whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.
[0:21] And then it says, Giving thanks to God and the Father by Him. Giving thanks to God. And we want to do that. And the first thing I just remind you tonight, You know, if you're not thankful for anything else, You ought to be thankful for your salvation.
[0:34] Because I'm going to read to you about three or four verses here That you can write down and remember, Or ask me for them later, I'll give them to you. Number one, I'm thankful for my salvation because He saved me by His grace.
[0:47] Look what the Bible says in Ephesians 2.8 and 9. If you don't already know the verse, The Bible says in Ephesians 2.8, For by grace are you saved through faith. And that not of you says it's a gift of God, Not of works, lest any man should boast.
[1:00] That means I don't deserve to be saved. I don't deserve to go to heaven. I didn't do anything to earn it. But there's a good God who loved us and took on human flesh, Became a man, was born here on this earth, Died on a cross so we could be saved.
[1:15] And so tonight, I'm thankful that I'm saved by the grace of God. Here's another one, Titus 3.5, So they can get that one up for you. But let me remind you, He loved you before you loved Him.
[1:30] He loved you before you loved Him. The Bible says, We love Him because He first loved us. And the Bible says, But God committed His love toward us. And while we were yet sinners, While we were still sinning, Our God loved us.
[1:44] And so tonight, I thank God for my salvation. The Bible says in Titus 3.5, Look at this verse. Salvation is not by what you do, It's by what He did. The Bible says, Not by works of righteousness, Which we have done, But according to His mercy, He saved us.
[2:02] Not by what I did, But according to His mercy, He saved us. Come on up, you want to preach too? Somebody get me a microphone, We'll let her preach. Alright. And by the watching of regeneration, And renewing of the Holy Ghost.
[2:15] That's okay. And by the renewing of the Holy Ghost. Here's another one. You ought to thank God about your salvation. Not only are you saved by what He did, But you can know that you are saved eternally.
[2:27] Look at what the Bible says, If you would, In Hebrews 7.25. Hebrews 7.25. The Bible says, Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost, That come unto God by Him, Seeing He ever lives to make intercession.
[2:43] Look at the verse. We're saved by His grace. We're saved all the way to the highest limit you could possibly imagine. To the uttermost. Like to infinity.
[2:53] And so all the way to infinity, We're saved. And the way you can know you're saved, Is He's always praying for you. He's always making intercession. But in Hebrews 9.12, He makes a very wonderful statement.
[3:06] Hebrews 9.12, He said, Neither by the blood of goats and calves, But by His own blood, He entered into the holy place, Having obtained eternal redemption.
[3:17] Eternal redemption for us. So we're saved by grace. We're eternally saved. If you're here, And you don't know Him tonight, You can. And one of the things that would make us most thankful is, Our sin had separated us from God.
[3:31] But by the mercy and the grace of God, We can be saved. And that's how we are saved. So that ought to be a good way, And a good reason to be thankful. Let me have a word of prayer with you.
[3:42] And Lupe is going to go first. I don't know where she is, But she told me, I'm first tonight. Where's Lupe? Did she leave? Okay, there she is. Somebody get a microphone to Lupe. Father in heaven, I thank you for the chance to be with your people tonight.
[3:55] I thank you for allowing us to be in here tonight, With the Spanish congregation, And all of us together. Thank you for all of our friends that came, Guests that are with us tonight.
[4:07] I hope you'll bless them, And let them feel welcome. And I thank you for your kindness to us, And we love you and praise you. Thank you for all you do for us, In Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you very much.
[4:17] Appreciate you all. Amen. Okay. You know, I wrote down several things, In case I had to preach to you. And so I'm just going to give you a little outline, That I thought about, As I got ready to come tonight, I didn't know if you'd be ready to say anything, So I had to be prepared.
[4:35] And so I just thought about, What I'd like to thank God for. If I were doing the, If I were preaching a whole message tonight, You know what? I thank Him, I get to serve Him. You realize how big a deal that is? If you work in the nursery, Or if you sing, Or if you play an instrument, Or if you teach a Sunday school class, God lets us serve Him.
[4:55] That's a tremendous blessing, Beyond anything I can imagine. And I thought about that. I thought about how I've been privileged to suffer a little bit. Had some bad things happen to me.
[5:06] And everybody in this room has had some, And Lupe mentioned that as she started. And we've all had some bad things happen in our lives. And yet, Even in our suffering, God's always blessed us. You ever, You think about that?
[5:17] He has been there for you. He has gotten you through the mess. And He's helped you help others through that. And I can think about times when Betty and I honestly didn't have any money.
[5:28] We were barely making it. Churches that didn't take care of us. And such as that. We were young getting started. And yet, God always saw that. And I just thought about that. He's always provided.
[5:39] Think about that. Every one of us. Man, We're all fat and sassy. Even you skinny guys. You know, The truth is, The truth is, You've eaten. You got clothes. And we had a good meal today.
[5:50] But this isn't like you don't ever get to eat. You just had a little bit bigger meal tonight. God's been good to us. And He's provided for us. And I think that is great.
[6:01] And I think about all the promises. Think about all the promises. I think about how that, We're promised heaven. We're promised His love. We're promised all of His goodness and blessing.
[6:13] We're promised that even the bad junk that happens to us, He will use that and work it out for our good. And then I thought about you as a church. And I'll just read to you so I don't forget this one. But I want to thank you for praying and giving and serving and coming.
[6:26] As a church, I am very blessed to be able to work at Vision. Thank you for taking care of my family. Thank you for taking care of the church staff and our families. Thank you for praying.
[6:38] Robert and Kelly are going through major stuff right now with Kelly's disease. And I thank you for praying and caring about them. And people in this church have just gone over and above to help and love.
[6:50] And I appreciate that so much. Thank you for loving the world and trying to get the gospel to them. You're a very unusual church. You do far above and beyond what most churches would do.
[7:01] I want to thank the ones that do all the cleaning here. Nobody ever thanks you much and you don't get paid and you've worked long hours. But this building, no telling what would happen if it weren't for you.
[7:13] Thank you. Thanks for those that keep the nursery. When the little girl ran by the second time, I thought I was preaching in Peru in this, let's see, the probably the fourth church, third or fourth church that we started.
[7:28] And I was preaching in the building and this, these children would just run through the building all the time. I was preaching and I'd move around more. I was younger and I moved more. And I remember stepping back one time as I stepped back, a little kid's foot was right under my foot.
[7:42] I think all the parents learned that now we better get a nursery or the pastor will kill a kid by stepping on them. And so thank you for taking care of the nursery. Thank the guys that run the sound and the video and all the things they do.
[7:55] They put up with a lot of headaches and they work very hard at that. I'm thankful for all those that do music. Thank you for singing. Thank you for practicing. I tell people all over the world, literally that I come in on Sunday morning.
[8:09] You're already here practicing, man. I appreciate you. I appreciate your practice. I know you're doing it for the Lord. I know you're not doing it for me, but I thank you for it. I'm thankful for all the Sunday school teachers. You're working with all the people.
[8:20] You're helping people. I'm thankful for the deacons. We have two deacons that have been ordained and they are a gift of God to me. I feel that way.
[8:31] I'm thankful for those that do all the discipling here. You're discipling other people and I thank you for that. I thank you for those that work with the children here. That's a very important ministry.
[8:41] I think sometimes it's easy to think it's not, but thank you. I'm thankful for those that do all the outreach here. You put gospel tracks. A family came because somebody gave an invitation to a video.
[8:54] Other people have come because somebody went out and gave that out. I'm thankful for working with a tremendous pastoral team that loves the Lord and doing a great job. I'm thankful for those who are patient with my teaching and preaching.
[9:06] I'm thankful for those of you that pray. And I'm thankful for all of you that I've forgotten because I'm sure I forgot something. Somebody's going to say afterwards, Well, you didn't thank my group, but I do thank you. And my grandkids got here while I was writing this one.
[9:18] So if I left you anything out, I promise you my grandkids came in and ruined that. But I'm thankful for this church. I'm thankful for the opportunity I have to work with you. And we love you and thank you. Thank you for all you do.
[9:30] You're a tremendous church. God has done great things. And he is going to do even greater things, I think, before it's over. So thank you for all you do. Thanks for the meal tonight.
[9:40] Thanks for all you've done. Thanks just honestly for being like you are. Thank you for my little Sunday school class. You're probably one of my favorite groups. People I get to spend time with every week when I'm here.
[9:51] I love our little Sunday school class. You are a blessing to me. I enjoy that class more than I could ever tell you. So I just want to tell you I love you guys and thank you. Let me have a word of prayer and Trent will come and have some announcements Sunday morning.
[10:03] There'll be no church Thursday night. So if you show up here, there'll be no turkey for you. You will be the turkey for showing up. So don't come Thursday. And Sunday morning we'll be back in the book of Matthew.
[10:16] Sunday night we'll be back in the book of Numbers. And looking forward to what God's going to do. And we're just going to watch God build. Let me just say thank you to Miguel Sanabria.
[10:29] How about standing up, Miguel? You don't see him much. But Miguel's the pastor of our Spanish church. He's over in the corner. He is standing up. And Miguel's doing a great job.
[10:41] How about a round of applause for Miguel? And then I am thankful to God for Robert Canfield.
[10:52] Where'd Robert go? Robert carries a lot of load here. Robert, you're supposed to be talking to us. Robert, look this way. Robert, Robert. That's Robert. And thankful for Robert and what he does.
[11:09] And I'm thankful for Trent and all the work that he does here at our church. You want to stand up, Trent, so I know who you are? He's let his beard grow out this month. He's trying to catch Evan in one month.
[11:21] I don't think it's going to happen. But anyway, I'm thankful for all these guys. And I'm thankful for you. Father, bless this church tonight. Bring honor to your name. Thank you for the opportunity to be with your people. Thank you for the good year you've given us.
[11:32] And help us to honor you more. In Jesus' name, amen. This message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alfredo, Georgia. For more information, log on to www.visionbaptist.com where you can find our service times, location, contact information, and more audio and video recordings.