God's Good and Glorious Plan

2 Thessalonians 2:13-17

Rejoicing in God's electing and sustaining grace

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Good morning church family! (Welcome guests; introduce self)

I am so thankful to be with you this morning, worshiping the Lord. It has been so sweet to lift our voices in praise together to our Creator and Savior! At the end of our service, we’re going to have the privilege of celebrating Jesus’ finished work through the Lord’s Table. And at this time, we are going to worship him through the study of his Word.

I’ve been eagerly anticipating studying this passage with you for the last couple of weeks! While all of God’s Word is rich and a delight to study, the truths spoken of in these 5 short verses are especially powerful.

If you were here with us last week, you may recall that in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 we heard some harder teaching on what will happen to those who refuse to love the truth and so be saved. It is never easy to hear about the condemnation and judgment that comes for those who reject the truth and find their delight in unrighteousness. I bring this up again because what we are studying in the following verses is a response of thanksgiving for the good and glorious plan of God for the Thessalonian believers! Not all will stand condemned at the return of Jesus, and for that we should be very thankful.

With that in mind, let’s read our text for today:

Paul and his companions turn quickly from their reflections on those who are perishing to giving thanks to God for these brothers and sisters in Christ who are beloved by the Lord! The truth of the matter is that there are some whom God will save and that is worthy of praise and thanksgiving!

Remember, these Thessalonian believers had left behind their pagan ways of life for faith in Jesus Christ. They had received the gospel as preached by Paul and his team and it radically transformed their lives. We heard this recounted at the very beginning of the first letter:

When God rescues and redeems a lost sinner into a fruitful saint, it is time to rejoice! Praise God for his good and glorious plan to save them! We heard it back then and we hear it again today – God chose them to receive salvation. As we unpack this text, our aim is…

You cannot read these passages without having the good and glorious plan of God to save his people come leaping off the pages at you! He is a God who does a great work of salvation in sinners like the Thessalonians and like us, solely because of his grace. And for that we ought to rejoice! Today we join Paul and his friends as we…

Give thanks always. At all times; in all places; on all occasions. No matter what, give thanks for God’s plan to save! Does that describe your daily disposition? Do you take time each morning to say, “God, thank you for your plan of salvation! Thank you for rescuing and redeeming me and others from your wrath for our sin!”? Do you do that at any point in your day?

Paul’s example for us is to give thanks to God always for his plan of salvation, and not simply our own salvation, but for the salvation of other brothers and sisters!

Let’s look at what Paul says in more detail. There are important matters discussed here. In verse 13, Paul identifies them as brothers, beloved by the Lord, and states that he gives thanks to God because God chose them as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. Some of your Bibles may even have a footnote next to the word firstfruits showing an alternative translation of “chose them from the beginning” to be saved. Then in verse 14, speaking of their salvation, he says that God called the Thessalonians through their gospel, so that they may obtain the glory of their Lord Jesus Christ.

What we have in these two verses is a beautiful and succinct explanation of God’s good and glorious plan to save his people. They reveal the source of salvation, the means of salvation, and the outcome of salvation. So, let’s seek to understand these further.

The Greek word translated into chose means that God chose or selected for the purpose of showing special favor. This is a different word than we heard in the first letter when Paul said that God had chosen them, but they have a very similar meaning. This one is more nuanced to show that it was God’s choice to show favor. They are loved by God, not because of anything they have done, but simply because of his divine grace and mercy. This is quite like how God explains his love in the Old Testament:

God’s love towards people has always been his choice as an act of divine grace, not due to our merit. Similar to this idea of choosing is the concept of God calling his people to himself. This is also not a new idea, even in the letters to the Thessalonians.

God divinely chooses and calls people to himself, so that they may be saved. This is evidence of his divine grace and mercy at work towards us. When we speak of God’s divine grace, I mean…

Grace – God’s unmerited favor and care to the unworthy

God’s unmerited favor and care means that he deals with us not according to what we deserve but according to his own goodness and generosity. We know from the teachings of Scripture that we do not deserve anything good from God due to our rebellion against him, yet his grace leads him to bless us despite our rebellion. He extends kindness to the unworthy! Paul explains it like this in his letter to the Romans:

God leaves no room in his Word to believe that anything other than his grace saves you. It is his unmerited favor and care that provides salvation through faith in his Son, Jesus Christ. This is a gift to be received, not earned.

Mercy – To have compassion for someone whom you have power or authority over

Compassion - To have concern for the sufferings of others (so that you are motivated to take action)

Mercy – To have concern for the sufferings of others whom you have power or authority over so that you are motivated to take action

God, as our Supreme Authority and Creator, is definitively over us and we are quite needy people, being dead in our sin and under his just judgment. Which is why God’s mercy is such a sweet truth for us to consider. Paul lays it out for us beautifully in his letter to the Ephesians:

Are you following the argument I am making from the writings of Scripture? God’s plan of salvation from eternity past is grounded in his divine grace and mercy. Anyone who has been blessed to be rescued and redeemed from sin and wrath, whether the Thessalonians or Paul or any other believer in history, has great reasons to rejoice in the electing and sustaining grace of God! Without God’s mercy and grace, none would be saved!

So far from recoiling at the reality that God chooses whom he will save or set his love upon, these realities should cause us to be in awe that he chooses to save or set his love upon any of us! Before faith in Christ, we were all dead in our sin, rebels against our perfectly Holy God and King. As we heard last week, the just judgment for those who refuse to love the truth is condemnation. Yet God, in his grace and mercy, plucks some out of that path and calls us into new life.

How does he do that? What are the means of salvation? Paul gave us the answer in these two verses:

God saves people by calling them to himself through the gospel (the Good News about Jesus) that faithful people like Paul/Silas/Timothy share. As we’ve said before, God uses faithful people to reach people! We talked about that all the way back in the first sermon in this series. And the message that they preached, from the Scriptures, was that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and rise from the dead for the forgiveness of sins, then they pointed to Jesus as the Christ.

Yet it was not enough to merely hear the gospel message preached by these men. The hearing must be united with belief in the truth! There was a necessary response within the hearts or souls of these men and women. They were convicted by God the Holy Spirit unto faith in Christ!

Wherever there is a man or woman, boy or girl, who professes faith in Jesus Christ for salvation, there is a supernatural work of God taking place! God the Holy Spirit enables our hearts to believe, convicts our hearts to believe, and then sanctifies or makes us holy (cleansing our hearts from sin’s defilement). Our salvation is a miracle of God! He takes people who were previously described as “dead in sin” and under God’s just judgment and declares – THIS ONE IS JUSTIFIED (legally and positionally righteous – just as if I’d never sinned) and THIS ONE IS ALIVE IN CHRIST! This miraculous work of salvation is all part of God’s plan to make a people for himself and to be in relationship with these people. This is the same plan he has had from eternity past and has been working out since the creation of all things! (SLIDE)

We are speaking of truly awesome realities this morning. Who knew such deep truths could be contained in such relatively short verses!?

There is yet one more beautiful truth to explore in verse 14, it is the outcome of God’s plan to save. Paul says, “So that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” God’s plan of salvation not only justifies (makes us positionally righteous), but it also sanctifies us (makes us increasingly holy) until we ultimately share in the glory of Christ (glorification or full holiness). Sanctification is the process of God refining us in holiness over the course of our lives so that we might be ready to spend eternity with him in heaven. It culminates when either Christ returns or calls us home through death, at which point we will no longer be stained by sin and will be perfectly holy (glorified).

Pastor Mark prayed through a powerful passage that reveals this truth last week:

This is God’s good and glorious plan to save! This was also the way that Paul prayed for the Thessalonians earlier in this letter:

They were confident that God’s plan to save had a definitive outcome of glory for everyone who is called. This is a tremendous reason to rejoice and give thanks this morning! If your faith is in Jesus Christ, if you have been chosen/called by God, then this will be your outcome. You’ve already experienced miraculous salvation by God’s power at work in you! Now he is continuing to work in you through his Spirit to make you holy and prepare you for eternal life with him!

It's hard for us to grasp what glory will be like. Absolute perfection without flaws or faults or stain of sin. It sounds too good to be true. But it is not. This is the hope for every Christian. That we will be with our Creator in perfection forever, enjoying the beauty of what he has made in the New Heaven and Earth. We get glimpses of it in the Scriptures. Earlier this year, we heard about the New Heaven and Earth in Isaiah 65. This passage was a beautiful foretelling of what God will do at the end of the age. He will do away with sin, suffering, sorrow, and death. Weeping will be no more; death shall be no more; no one will conquer or oppress another; those who are his will enjoy the fruit of their labors because they are God’s children and he delights to bless them!

In the New Testament, we hear echoes of this same outcome and promise. Paul speaks of the hope of glorified bodies in his letter to the Philippians:

The Apostle John speaks very similarly to Isaiah in his Revelation:

God’s Word is beautifully consistent! This is the hope of future glory! He will recreate everything in its perfect state. It will be an Edenic-like world without the stain of sin or any of the suffering and death that sin has brought. *pause*

It’s hard for us to imagine the beauty and wonder of living in this New Creation, especially since we’ll be in the presence of our God whose glory radiates and illuminates all of it. I think it goes without saying, these are marvelous truths to consider this morning. God has told us far in advance where he is taking all human history. He has laid out the plan, the essential details are not hidden from us.

And this future reality can be your hope – today! God gave this revelation for his people thousands of years ago. They were able to hope in this new creation through faith in the Savior, just as you can today. Their hope can be your hope.

Which leads me to the question – Do you have this hope? Have you believed the truth of the gospel? That you are a sinner who needs Jesus Christ to save you and that he is the only way to be forgiven and redeemed? These Thessalonians believed. I have believed. I hope and pray that each of you will believe (or already have). *pause*

Let’s give thanks always for God’s plan to save! This is one way we can rejoice in God’s electing and sustaining grace. We find a second way to rejoice in verse 15. Let’s read it again:

Because they have tasted and seen the love and grace of God in salvation, they are now to…

Another way we might say this, in line with our series title, respond in firm faith! And truthfully, we know they have already been demonstrating steadfastness and faith. Paul and his companions revealed they were boasting about it to other churches back in 2 Thessalonians 1:4.

These people have had steadfast or enduring/persevering faith since the day of their conversion. They were immediately thrown into affliction and persecution! They had to count the cost of following Christ right away. Believing in Jesus was not a matter of convenience or ease for them, it required them to make a break with their previous ways of life. They likely lost friendships, family relations, and were publicly ostracized in their community.

Hence, they are commanded – “Stand firm… hold fast”. Pastor John Stott put it this way, “Since the storm may rage for a long time, they must keep standing firm and keep on holding fast.” (BST) They had no way of knowing how long they would face affliction or persecution, either physical or spiritual. In fact, as we heard last week, the expectation is that things will get far worse for Christians before the Lord comes again to gather us to him. This calling is an ongoing practice until Christ returns or calls us home in death.

I don’t know how you personally process this command, but I am amazed by our brothers and sisters in Christ throughout history who have responded in steadfast faith, especially in places of great turmoil and persecution. We have things fairly easy here in America in our day and age. We do not have to fear the government knocking down the door to arrest us like our brothers and sisters in China or Cuba do. We are not facing the doors being locked from the outside while the church is lit on fire like our brothers and sisters in Nigeria do. According to a report by the NGO International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), published in August and updated in late September this year, since the Boko Haram uprising in July 2009 to September of this year, 19,100 Christian churches in Nigeria have been destroyed, looted, or violently closed, representing an average of 1,200 churches per year, 100 per month, or more than three per day. Can you imagine? Yet they too are called to stand firm and hold fast as they look forward to the life to come. Situations like these make the warnings and exhortations of 1 Peter 5 come to life:

No matter our circumstances, the wonderful truths of verses 13-14 must lead to a response of continuing to stand firm and hold fast, knowing that a glorious outcome will one day be ours. This is an act of worship/rejoicing as you day-by-day reveal that you trust the Lord and find your hope in him.

But this also begs the question, what are they to stand firm in and hold fast to? Paul tells us, “stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.” Christians are to hold to the traditions that have been taught to them by the Apostle Paul and Silas and Timothy. When they say traditions how should we understand that? What are they referring to? Traditions means the content of traditional instruction or the content of instruction that has been handed down. They are speaking of the instruction that has been handed down to them by God in the gospel! This was repeatedly stated in the first letter in chapter 2. Here is one example of it:

Paul is commanding them to hold fast to the word of God that had been taught to them. This passage must not be used by false teachers or modern-day church leaders or denominations to enforce adherence to their man-made church traditions. Our only standard of truth is God’s Word. Paul is seeking to protect them from the lies that had been perpetuated in their midst about the resurrection and return of Christ! They do not need other “new” revelation/teaching, they just need to stand firm and hold fast to the truth from God’s Word that they’ve already been taught.

And that goal has not changed down through the ages. This is timely counsel for Christians in our day. We do not need “new” revelation/teaching as we already have God’s revealed and sufficient Word. Our job, if we can say it that way, is to value his Word highly and to cling to it and stand upon it day-by-day, no matter what it costs us!

It is only by standing firm and holding fast to God’s Word that Christians, and the church at large (remember this is written to the brothers/gathered saints/the church in Thessalonica), will please God in this present age and hear, “Well done good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your master” when he returns! Over the years/decades/centuries, we have seen so many individuals and entire churches or denominations shipwreck themselves by failing to stand firm and hold fast to the trustworthy Word of God.

There is a reason anyone who desires to be a pastor must meet this qualification:

If the leaders of the church are not men who hold firm to the trustworthy Word as taught by Jesus and his disciples, then they will allow error into the church, and it will cause great harm to many! For Paul also warns Timothy:

There is a war for truth that rages all around us and even within us. We need, as individuals and as a church, to stand firm and hold fast to the Word of God. God has called the church to be the pillar and buttress of the truth. It is our duty to ensure that our lost and hurting world continues to hear the true Gospel so that they can turn from their sin and believe in Jesus Christ. It is also our duty to ensure that believers within the church continue to be discipled into greater obedience to the truth.

Will you do your part to be a Christian who stands firm and holds fast to the truth? Will you do your part to make Harvest a church that does the same? This means that you must personally be committed to drawing near to God through his Word and committed to putting it into practice in your life. Faith leads to obedience. And then you have to be committed to helping others do the same! None of us is called to lone-ranger Christianity. We are in this together. We are the family of God. We are one body. Each member looks out for one another. When you see someone who appears to be struggling, love them enough to check in on them. If you see sin, address it, in love. Evaluate what is necessary to care for one another and then get after it!

I feel like we’ve heard this somewhere before… Oh yeah, in the first letter:

I love how these letters reveal a beautiful picture of church life and mutual ministry. I hope that our church can model what we see taught in them.

The alternative is not something I want to consider for any of us or our church as a whole! The stakes are incredibly high for any individual, church or denomination that fails to take the command to stand firm and hold fast seriously. They will succumb to false teaching, promote lies, and be used as a tool of the Deceiver rather than the Lord. I would not want to be them on the day of the Lord because he will hold them accountable!

On a lighter note, aren’t you thankful that it is possible to stand firm and hold fast? Paul would not have commanded it otherwise. And praise God that it is not solely dependent on us! This section of the letter ends with this beautiful prayer that reminds us of the sustaining grace of God in this endeavor. Let’s read verses 16-17 again:

Have you noticed how the entire Trinity is represented in the passage we read today? God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are all working together to execute their good and glorious plan to save sinners and bring them into eternal glory! What a wonderful reality. Which brings us to our final opportunity to rejoice in God’s electing and sustaining grace from this text…

Their prayer is a beautiful reminder of the God who loves us and has given us eternal comfort and good hope through his grace. It is an invitation to rest in his comfort and encouragement. It is a reminder that He is ultimately the One who establishes/strengthens our hearts to stand firm in our faith until the day of Christ.

This is not a new truth for them to share with this church. It is how they ended the first letter too:

He will surely do it. What a good word to end on this morning. May your hearts be comforted and established in every good work and word because he who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

We are going to close out our services by worshiping the Lord through the celebration of communion or the Lord’s table. Communion is an opportunity for Christians to be unified as we come together to remember all that the Lord has done for us through his death, burial, and resurrection. This is an opportunity for Christians to remember that we have embraced the promised hope of Christ for the forgiveness of our sins and salvation of our souls!

We will celebrate by partaking of both the bread and the cup as a symbol and reminder of Jesus’ body broken in our place and his blood shed for the forgiveness of our sins. Communion is an opportunity to remember how great a price was paid so that we could be saved from our sin. It is a sobering, yet joyful celebration for Christians. Sobering that the Son of God would give himself for us as a ransom. Joyful that he did, and the result is a living hope that cannot be taken from us! Jesus is victorious; therefore, we have the hope of heaven with Him!

At this time, I’d like to invite the ushers forward with the elements.

Before we pass them, I want to share the biblical requirements for joining in this celebration.

This celebration was given by Jesus to his followers. We invite anyone who has trusted in Jesus Christ alone for salvation to join us in this celebration today. If your faith is not in Jesus Christ alone, then we would encourage you to let the elements pass by you and simply consider what you’ve heard so far during the service this morning and reflect on what is keeping you from trusting him.

The second requirement we see in Scripture is a call to examine ourselves. This is the idea of making sure that you’ve confessed any known sins and sought to turn away from it. It would not be wise to partake of the table if you have sin in your life for which you are not repentant. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 11 that taking the table while living in sin is eating and drinking judgment on yourself. I would ask you not to do that, for your sake and the sake of God’s glory. Instead, I would encourage you to use this time to confess that sin and make a plan to address it right away. If you know you need to be reconciled to someone else in this church, please take care of that during this time. The table is time to protect the unity of the church.

The ushers are going to pass the elements now as we have a time of silent reflection and prayer to prepare for the table. Please use this time to reflect on all that we’ve talked about today and to prepare yourself to take communion by confessing and repenting of any known sin. After the elements have been passed, I’ll lead us in prayer and taking communion together.

Ushers pass elements

Silent prayer. Corporate prayer.

Take bread.

Take cup

Hallelujah, thank you, Jesus!