We continue this morning in our studies of the book of 2 Thessalonians. And you will remember the Thessalonian church has been dealing with a strand of false teaching that has promoted the idea that the Lord Jesus Christ’s return had somehow already taken place in some abstract and spiritual sense. And understandably, that false teaching had been throwing the Thessalonian believers into some considerable distress. And so last week, as we considered chapter 2 verses 1 through 12, we saw Paul tackle that mistake head on. Christ, he said, will not return before two other events take place first. Number one, there will be a great apostasy, a turning away from the visible church and a great defection from orthodox Christian faith. And number two, the man of lawlessness, the son of destruction, the one the apostle John calls the anti-Christ, he will arise to be the chief among apostates and the leader of that great rebellion and defection from the truth. Importantly, Paul says, while these events still remain in the future, nevertheless, the spirit of lawlessness that will so characterize that coming apostasy, is already at work even in his day as well as in our own. People are already being deceived, and so he wants, he warns the Thessalonians to make sure they are not being deceived or led astray.
And having responded to that false teaching negatively, by telling them as he puts it in chapter 2 verse 2, “not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed,” now in chapter 2 verse 13 through chapter 3 verse 5, our passage this morning, he responds more positively by urging the Thessalonians to stand firm. “So then,” he says in 2:15, “So then, brothers, stand firm.” Or 2:17, he prays that the Lord Jesus Christ and God the Father would establish their hearts.” And in chapter 3 verse 3, he assures them that indeed the Lord will “establish and guard them against the evil one.” In chapter 3 verse 5, he prays the Lord would “direct their hearts into the steadfastness of Christ.” So you see the concern of the apostle Paul in these verses. He wants them to be secure, to stand rock solid in the truth, established and steadfast, even in the face of error and temptation and persecution.
And to help them do that, and to help us do that, the apostle Paul points us in four directions. First, in verses 13 and 14 of chapter 2, he says, “I want you to look back and remember the salvation of God.” Look back and remember the salvation of God. Then in 2:15, he says, “Look down into the Scriptures and stay in the Word of God.” So look back and remember the salvation of God; look down and stay in the Word of God. Then 2:16-17, it’s really 2:16 running through verse 2 of chapter 3, he says, “I want you to look up and pray for the blessing of God.” Look back and remember the salvation of God, look down and stay in the Word of God, and look up and pray for the blessing of God. And finally, verses 3 through 5 of chapter 3, “I want you to look forward and be confident in the provision of God.” Look back and remember the salvation of God, look down and stay in the Word of God, look up and pray for the help of God, and look forward and be confident in the provision of God.
That’s where we’re going this morning. Before we begin to unpack those themes together, let’s pause once more and ask for the Lord to help us. Let us all pray.
Our Father, we pray now for the illumination of the Holy Spirit. May He indeed take of what is Christ’s and make it known to us just as our Savior has promised. For we ask it in His name, amen.
Second Thessalonians chapter 2, beginning at the thirteenth verse. This is the Word of God:
“But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.
Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.
Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you, and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith. But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one. And we have confidence in the Lord about you, that you are doing and will do the things that we command. May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.”
Amen, and we praise Him that He has spoken in His holy, authoritative Word.
Look Back and Remember the Salvation of God
Let’s think first of all then about chapter 2 verses 13 and 14 where Paul invites us to look back and remember the salvation of God. Look back and remember the salvation of God. There is a song written by Roy Williamson of the folk band, “The Corries,” that has become sort of the unofficial national anthem of my homeland. The song is called “The Flower of Scotland” and it looks back to the heroic victory of Robert the Bruce over the armies of the English King Edward II, at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. It appeals to national pride, calling the Scottish people today to remember their forefathers who fought and died for Scottish independence from England, which is why, by the way, it’s often sung with particular gusto whenever the Scots play the English at rugby or soccer. That’s “real football”, between you and me! The song retells part of our national history in an attempt to rouse the Scots to renewed patriotism in the present, about looking back in order to effect a change here in the present.
And in many ways that’s precisely what the apostle Paul is doing here in chapter 2 verses 13 and 14. He tells the Thessalonians that he is filled with gratitude to God for them and then he tells them why. He rehearses for them all the ways that God has worked in them when they came to Christ. And he does it – notice this in verse 15 – so that he can then say to them, “So then,” or “Therefore,” or “Now in light of all of that, all that God has done, brothers, stand firm.” So you see what he’s doing? He’s looking back. He’s inviting them, he’s inviting us to look back at the saving work of God in our past in order to galvanize us and help us stand firm here now in the present.
And notice what he says about the past work of God’s redemption. In verse 13, first of all, he grounds our salvation – do you see this – in divine election. He grounds our salvation in divine election. “We give thanks to God for you,” he says, “because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved.” The Thessalonians were the first in the region to respond to Paul’s ministry. They were the firstfruits of a larger Gospel harvest. But Paul takes no personal credit for that rich harvest. No, he understands the reason they have been saved lies not really in Paul’s work for them but in God’s sovereign choice of them. As Paul puts it to the Ephesians in Ephesians 1 at verse 4, “God chose us in Christ from before the foundation of the world.” Our salvation is not rooted in the work of a preacher or a Christian friend who shared the Gospel with us, no matter how instrumental they happened to be in our coming to faith. Much less does our salvation have its deepest roots in our own choice and personal decision to trust in Jesus, although make no mistake, no one can be saved who does not choose and decide to place their trust in Christ. No, here Paul reminds us, doesn’t he, that the deepest root of your salvation lies in the mysterious wonder of the divine election. That in eternity, back before anyone told you about Jesus, back before you ever thought to choose Him, back before you or I or anyone else for that matter could even draw breath, God chose us out of the mass of fallen humanity to be His beloved children. We owe everything, everything to the electing purpose of our sovereign God, apart from whose free choice we never would have chosen Him.
And then look again at verse 13. God has done more than choose us. We were chosen to be saved, says Paul, “through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.” Now probably “sanctification” here is not a reference to that progressive, moral change of our thoughts and words and deeds that God produces in us by His Word and Spirit throughout the course of our lives. Rather, here Paul is referring to a definitive, once and for all act of consecration, of being set apart by God for Him and His purpose and His use that happens when we are converted. You will notice in verse 13 that sanctification by the Spirit is coordinate with belief in the truth. Those two things go together. The Spirit sets us apart unto God, sets us apart from the world in the moment that we trust in Christ.
And that link, by the way, between sanctification and believing the truth is one we must insist on, I think, with particular force and urgency in these days. When a person believes in Jesus for the first time, when they are really converted, they are not simply adding Jesus to their otherwise unchanged lives. Coming to faith in Christ isn’t like signing up for a new gym membership. You know how that goes. You sign up for the gym with great intentions of going every day and changing your routine and everything is going to be different from here on out! And about three weeks later, you’ve forgotten all about it, you’re too busy, you’ll go tomorrow, and nothing has really changed.
That’s not how it is when you really come to Christ. You’re not saved by accessorizing your life with a bit of religion now and then. When you believe the truth savingly, in that moment you are sanctified by the Holy Spirit. You are set apart for God by God, consecrated to Him and nothing can be the same again. Now your sin will turn increasingly sour in your heart and life and nothing will please you so much as pleasing your God and Redeemer.
Then notice the next element in God’s saving work as Paul describes it and rehearses it for the Thessalonians. Look at verse 14. To this end, “He called you through our gospel.” That call is not simply an outward invitation to be accepted or rejected, to be taken or left. It is, rather, a sovereign summons. It is a creative fiat, much like those divine commands at the dawn of history where God said into the primeval chaos and darkness, “Let there be light,” and merely by His holy Word there was light. When God calls us in the preaching of the Gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit, the lights go on and He brings us Lazarus-like from the tomb, from death into life. “He speaks,” as Wesley put it, “and listening to His voice new life the dead receive.” It is the effectual call of God that accomplishes what it commands. And that call came to them in the preaching of the Gospel. You’ve heard the Gospel and it’s washed over you. You’ve slept through the preaching of the Gospel. But then one day you are here in church and that same message you’ve heard again and again and again becomes electricity. It becomes life. It becomes an urgent summons and there is a compulsion behind it you cannot resist. You do not want to resist! You gladly embrace and you come freely running to Christ. That’s what happened, Paul reminds them, when they heard the Gospel about Jesus Christ.
And then notice the final element in the panorama of God’s redemption that Paul paints for us there in verse 14. He did all this, he says, “so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Isn’t the sweep of that breathtaking? Paul sees salvation’s deepest roots back in the eternal election of God, before the dawn of creation, in verse 13. And now in verse 14, he sees salvation’s final fruition in the eternal glory of Christ, in the new heavens and in the new earth that is yet to come. We will obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is our destiny. And so in just two verses, Paul comprehends the whole work of God in rescuing us from our sin, beginning in election, proceeding through conversion and consecration and arriving at last in guaranteed, final glorification. And all of this, he says, “God has done for you freely by His amazing grace.”
And we would be remiss not to notice before we moved on how richly Trinitarian this whole description of God’s saving work has been. Did you see that? The Father chose us to be saved in the first part of verse 13. The Spirit sanctifies us in the second part of verse 13. And all this is done that we may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ in verse 14. Each person of the blessed Trinity at work for you and in you and upon you for your salvation. I remember some years back on vacation with my family visiting Canyonlands National Park near Moab in Utah, and we’re driving on these high mesas, and I’m looking around thinking, “Well I guess this is pretty enough.” And then you follow a sign for a viewpoint and suddenly the land falls away and the horizon opens up and there is this breathtaking view.
That’s what this is. Here is the whole landscape of your redemption. The work of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit summed up in a single breath, as it were. Just two verses all spread out for you to see. No wonder Paul gives thanks. It’s stunning, isn’t it? Perhaps we need to rehearse to ourselves the sweep of God’s saving grace in our lives, especially when we find bitterness and thanklessness and ingratitude for life’s hard knocks, welling up to consume our minds and sour our hearts. If you’re going to stand firm today, Paul says, if you’re going to stay the course today, you must not lose sight of the work of God in His marvelous grace in your life yesterday and in all the days since He brought you to Jesus. Look back and remember the salvation of God.
Look Down and Stay in the Word of God
Then secondly, if we’re going to stand firm, Paul says we need to look down and stay in the Word of God. Look back and remember the salvation of God. Now, look down and stay in the Word of God. Look again at verse 15. “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by letter.” If we’re going to stand firm and if we’re going to remember what God has done, well then we need to look down and stay in the Word of God. Paul planted the Thessalonian church. He taught them face to face and then he wrote them the letter of 1 Thessalonians to encourage them and to ensure that they had access in black and white to vital truth to which he urged them to cling. And now he reminds them here of the traditions that he taught them verbally and in writing. And he says they are never to be departed from.
The word “tradition” there does not refer to the mere accumulation in a community of cherished custom and long habit over time. That’s what we mean by tradition. And there’s nothing wrong with tradition. Someone once said that “tradition is the living faith of the dead and traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.” I think that’s rather helpful. “Tradition is the living faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.” But Paul isn’t referring to either kind of tradition – tradition or traditionalism – here when he talks about the tradition the Thessalonians have received he means the body of authoritative, apostolic teaching that he has bequeathed to them whether face to face orally or in writing in His epistles. We have access to the apostolic tradition today entirely through the pages of the New Testament. As the catechism puts it, apostolic tradition, the New Testament scriptures, the Bible is “the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy God.” It is the very Word of God.
And there is no way to interpret the work of God’s grace within us accurately, nor is there any way to discern the will of God for us going forward from this moment accurately apart from the constant and careful study of the apostolic Word. Or to put it simply, you cannot have a healthy, growing Christian life and a closed Bible at the same time. You cannot have a healthy, growing Christian life and a closed Bible at the same time. You will not stand firm in the world unless you hold fast to the Word. So stand firm by looking back and remembering the salvation of God and by looking down and staying in the Word of God.
Look Up and Pray for the Blessing of God
Then thirdly, Paul says stand firm by looking up and praying for the blessing of God. You’ll notice Paul offers a prayer benediction in verses 16 and 17. Do you see that? And then in the opening verses of chapter 3, he calls for the Thessalonians to pray for him and for his ministry. And then in chapter 3 verse 5, he returns to another prayer benediction. The prayer in chapter 2:16-17 acknowledges that the eternal comfort and good hope through grace that has erupted into our lives when we became Christians all came from the Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father. And then Paul prays that Christ and the Father would once again “comfort and establish our hearts in every good work and word.”
Now just think about this for a moment. Paul has just exhorted the Thessalonians to stand firm. It’s their work and he wants them to stand firm. And then having exhorted them to do it, he immediately turns to pray that God the Father and the Lord Jesus would establish them. And that might at first appear to us something of a tension or perhaps even a contradiction. Which is it? Is it their job to stand firm or God’s job to keep them and establish them and make them stand firm? But we mustn’t choose one or the other. We mustn’t choose between activism or prayerfulness. We mustn’t think, “Some people pray about it, but I get on and do it.” Paul calls them to action. “You need to stand firm,” he says, as if standing firm was their work, because it is their work! And then he falls on his knees and pleads with God, knowing that if we are to work out our salvation, God must work in us to will and to work for His good pleasure. Pray and work. Work and pray. One without the other is lifeless and impotent and empty of all eternal worth.
How many of us have been busy in the work of the church without pausing to cry to the King and Head of the Church to make that work fruitful and to receive it as our offering of gratitude and praise to Him? And how many of us have prayed and prayed and prayed without it ever entering our minds that God might be calling us to get up and do the very thing we’ve been asking Him to send somebody else to do? Pray and work. Work and pray.
That same prayerful spirit continues on, doesn’t it, in the opening verses of chapter 3. Doesn’t it? “Finally, brothers,” Paul says, “pray for us that the Word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you, and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith.” Do take note, by the way, of the order of Paul’s priorities as he’s asking for prayer for his own ministry. He prays for deliverance from persecution, certainly, but he asks first of all for the advance of the ministry of the Word. That’s the right balance, isn’t it? We ought never to seek conflict. Pray that we might be spared hostility and opposition as we share the Gospel across the street and around the world. Yes, but if the Lord blesses His Word, we must know that from time to time opposition will inevitably come.
And so to be sure, Paul asks for prayer to be spared the predations of the enemies of the Gospel, but he asks for prayer above all, first and most urgently, that the Gospel might have its way no matter what. Did you notice how he puts it? I love the language of this prayer. “Would you pray,” he says, “that just as I have rehearsed all that God has done in you, Thessalonians, would you pray that He would do it again in others?” If you pray here for the preaching of the Word in this place, and you never pray another prayer but this one, I will be eternally in your debt. This is what every preacher longs to see, verse 1, that “the Word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored.” “Lord, let Your Word run like a swift river breaking the banks, overflowing every obstacle, sweeping everything before it, let Your Word speed ahead like an athlete outpacing all the competition to claim the prize of human hearts redeemed by grace.” Would you pray like that, please, for the ministry of the Word here at First Presbyterian Church? This is where the power that makes preaching fruitful really lies, you know. Not in the oratory of the preacher, but in the prayers of the people of God. “O God, let the Word of the Lord run swiftly! Let it speed ahead! Let nothing hinder it! Let all resistance be overcome! Let every objection be silenced until the Word is honored and glorified in every listening heart!”
Look Forward and Be Confident in the Provision of God
Stand firm by looking back and remembering the salvation of God, and by looking down and staying in the Word of God, and by looking up and praying, pleading for the blessing of God. And then finally, look forward and be confident in the provision of God. Look at chapter 3 verses 2 through 4. Paul says, “Not all have faith, to be sure. There are many who reject the Gospel and oppose our ministry.” But here’s where Paul’s confidence lies. Do you see it? Here’s where he wants the Thessalonians to find their confidence as Christians. Here’s where he wants us to find our confidence as we face the future. “Not all have faith, but the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.” We need to get a hold of this truth, don’t we? The faithfulness of the Lord is our security. When an unbelieving world and the opposition of the devil begin to assail us, He will establish you and guard you. That’s the anchor of faith in the storm of doubt and fear and spiritual insecurity. “I’m weak. I’m sinful. I’m prone to wander, Lord I feel it; prone to leave the God I love. I look at myself and I see all of my vulnerabilities, all my weaknesses, all my inadequacies.” “Ah, yes,” says Paul, “but look at Jesus Christ! He is faithful! He will establish you and guard you. He will! Yes, you are weak, but He is mighty. Yes, you are inconstant and irregular and inadequate, but Jesus is able to save to the uttermost all who come to God by Him.” You do a terrible disservice to Jesus, you do a terrible disservice to Jesus when you allow yourself to believe that your sin is stronger than your Savior. He is faithful. He will establish you. He will guard you. He is your safe haven. He is your high tower into which the righteous may run and are saved. He is your hiding place. He is! He will provide for you. He will keep you. He will cleanse you. He will forgive you. “He will,” Paul says.
That’s why he ends with this lovely note of confidence. Do you see it in verse 5? “We have this confidence in the Lord about you, that you are doing and will do the things we command. May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ.” Paul’s confidence in their future obedience isn’t because he’s learned a thing or two about the Thessalonians’ temperament and character and he’s impressed with their brilliance or their willpower or their self-control. Is it? No, Paul’s confidence for their future is that the Lord is the one who will direct their hearts into the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ. That’s how they are going to face the future. That’s how we will look forward with confidence and continue on in obedience when everything around us tries to derail us and trip us up and divert us from a path of faithfulness. You do it resting on the grace of God to direct your heart into the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ.
There’s a delightful ambiguity. As we close, I want you to notice it there in that final expression – “the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ.” Does it mean the love that God Himself has for us and the steadfastness that belongs to Jesus who endured all the horrors of His sufferings on earth? Or does it mean the love of God that we show to Him, the love that we have love to God, that we have steadfastness given to us from Christ? Scholars go back and forth and back and forth and it’s not really clear which it is. I wonder if the ambiguity isn’t in fact purposeful because both sides of that point of view are vital and true. You will never show love to God, you will never begin to emulate the steadfastness of Jesus Christ until your heart is freshly directed back again to see how deeply you are loved with an everlasting love and to see what Christ has endured to make you His.
Now how will God answer that prayer? “May He direct your hearts into the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ.” He will do it at the one place where both are most fully on display. He will take you back to Calvary, won’t He? There He loved you and gave His Son for you. How will He who gave up Jesus Christ for you not also along with Him graciously give you all things? And there at Calvary, at the foot of the cross, looking at the nail-pierced hands, seeing the darkness that covered the sky, knowing that all sense of the fellowship of the Father was torn from the consciousness of our Savior, seeing His endurance, His steadfastness, that He might redeem you, aren’t you enabled and moved to renew your commitment to live for Him? Doesn’t your heart melt at the wonder of God’s love? And doesn’t such love call forth from you love to Him anew? Get back to the cross. Come back to Calvary and, “See from His head, His hands, His side, sorrow and love flow mingled down. Did e’er such love or sorrow meet, or thorns compose so rich a crown?” Fill your gaze with your crucified Redeemer. See the wonder of God’s love for you. See the steadfastness of Christ and discover the provision of God that will enable you to go on in renewed obedience and faithfulness to Him, loving Him, steadfast and immovable, standing firm for His praise and His glory.
May God help us all to do so. Let us pray.
Our Father, we bless You for Your holy, inerrant Word. Write its truth on all our hearts. Change us into the likeness of Christ, those of us who have trusted Him, and break our rebellion and bend our hearts and liberate our wills and draw us to faith in Christ those of us who have yet resisted Him, that Jesus may have all the praise and all the glory. Amen.