The Call of God through the Gospel: 2 Thess Lesson 9

CTW – Romans 16:25-27

2 Thessalonians 2:14-15

The Call of God through the Gospel

 Let’s open our Bibles this morning once again to 2 Thessalonians 2. Let’s stand together as we read this treasure of truth we call the Word of God. Read 2 Thess. 2.

 Today we will stay on the downhill side of the adversative particle of verse 13. You should remember that last week we stood on the word “but,” that powerful and important little particle. We did that because we need to be sure regarding which side of that particle we stand. Every person who has ever lived is either on the side with those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth, and upon whom God sends a deluding influence so they will believe what is false, who do not believe the truth but take pleasure in wickedness. Or, we are on the side of those for whom we should always give thanks because we are brethren, beloved of God, because God has chosen us from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. Nothing is as important as knowing where we stand.

 We did explain verse 13 last week because it stands in such stark contrast to the previous verses, so really today our focus is going to be mostly on verses 14-15. As we look at these two verses it will be necessary to step back into verse 13 a little. We must step back into verse 13 because verse 14 points us back to it directly. Verse 14 says, “It was for this He called you through our gospel.” The first question we ask is, “To what does ‘this’ refer?” The answer is clear. “This” is what was spoken of previously. “This” refers to the “salvation through sanctification and faith in the truth.” There really are no other options of anything to which “this” can refer.

 The Scriptures teach the connection between God’s choosing from the beginning and His calling to salvation. We see that in these verses. Verse 13 says, “God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation…” In verse 14 the word “He” refers to God. God chose those who were destined for salvation from the beginning. He calls them through the gospel. We will come back to what is meant by “called” in a moment. But for now I want to clarify what “this” is.

 “This” is, as I said, “salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.” Last week I explained what is meant by “sanctification by the Spirit.” Briefly, it means that in salvation we are set apart unto God, and we are progressively being conformed to the likeness of Jesus Christ. This also means that in salvation we are given the gift of faith in the truth.

 We were chosen from the beginning by God for salvation that obviously includes sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. Paul defines, in some measure in verse 13, what salvation is and what salvation does. We have been called to a salvation that will manifest itself in our sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. If we claim to be saved, but our salvation lacks the evidence of sanctification, we have a problem. Have you ever dealt with someone who claims to be saved, but their lives give little or no evidence of the transforming work of the Spirit? Have you ever talked to someone who claims to be saved, but they do not have faith in the truth? They will dismiss the word of God, discredit the Scriptures, disparage in some way the holy, inspired, infallible, totally sufficient word of God. They lack faith in the truth, and their lives will correspondingly lack evidence of transformation.

 Paul’s point in verse 13 is clear. God has called us to a salvation that involves and includes both sanctification through the Spirit and faith in the truth. If we make a claim to salvation that does not include both these elements, we do not possess a genuine saving faith. We may not all be at the same level of sanctification, and we may not all be at the same level of faith in the truth, but salvation involves and includes both.

 Now look closely at verse 14. “It was for this He called you through our gospel.” “Our gospel” refers to the gospel message preached by the Apostle Paul. We are going to talk about that to a much greater degree. But let’s make this observation first. If God called the Thessalonians to a salvation that included sanctification through the Spirit and faith in the truth, then Paul’s gospel must have included the biblical doctrines of sanctification and faith. It is safe to say that Paul’s gospel would have to have been a much more comprehensive message than what is popular today. I am sure it would have been so much more thorough than A-admit you’re a sinner, B- believe in Jesus, and C-confess. Pray this prayer and ask Jesus into your heart.

Paul’s gospel was the complete message of God’s choice, God’s calling, God’s saving, or justifying, God’s sanctifying, and God’s glorifying. Paul spelled all that out clearly in Romans 8 29-30. “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”

It is important to walk through this thoroughly. Let’s talk next about what it means to be “called.” The Greek word is “kaleo.” It is used here in the active voice. God is the subject of the sentence. “He” refers to God. God “called.” The active voice means that the subject is responsible for the action of the verb. God called you. For salvation through sanctification through the Spirit and faith in the truth God called you.

The word “called” is a common word in the New Testament and has several nuance meanings. It can refer to the call of someone or something so it will come, as when a shepherd calls the sheep and they hear his voice. It can mean a summons. Donna got a summons to jury duty this week. She has been called to serve. It can mean an invitation, as to a banquet or a wedding. It can even mean to call, or give a name to someone. I am called “Brad” or pastor, or a wide variety of other things, depending upon who is doing the calling.

 The Greek scholar, Spiros Zodhaites writes this of the use of this word in this passage. “In the epistles, particularly Paul’s, there is found a more definite meaning of the word ‘kaleo’ as the call of God to the blessings of salvation. It is here intimately associated with the eternal purpose of God in human redemption…In the epistles, the ‘called’ are frequently synonymous with ‘the chosen’…Thus the choosing is included in the calling. With Paul and also Peter, the calling is more than an invitation. It is an invitation responded to and accepted.” This is also referred to as the effectual call to salvation.

 God chose us from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. He called us to the salvation he qualifies in verse 13 through Paul’s gospel. Paul says here that it is “our gospel” but Paul frequently refers to the gospel he preached as “my gospel.” Romans 2:16 says that there is coming a day, “according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.” The gospel Paul preached included the message that there is coming a day when God will judge the secrets of men. Listen, if we consider that reality – that God will judge the secrets of men – and that He is a holy and righteous Judge, we will quickly understand our need for the message of the Cross.

 Paul called it “my gospel” in the passage I read for our Call to Worship this morning in Romans 16:25. He calls it “my gospel” in 2 Tim. 2:8. However, it is also called the gospel of God, the gospel of Christ, the gospel of the glory of Christ, and the gospel of peace. 

 How critical was the gospel which was preached by Paul? Was there room for any deviation from Paul’s gospel? In Galatians 1:8, in a letter written as a defense against perversions of the gospel, Paul wrote, “Even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than we have preached, let him be accursed.” There was no room for any deviation from the gospel which he preached. His gospel was the message God used to call sinners to salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.

 No one did more to define and defend the gospel than the Apostle Paul. No one did more to spread the gospel through the Roman Empire than did the Apostle Paul. Every epistle Paul wrote was essential to the defining and/or defending the gospel. This is illustrated no place better than the book of Romans. The book of Romans is a carefully ordered discussion of the doctrines of the gospel. It covers the universality of sin and the extent of man’s depravity. It defines justification by faith, sanctification, eternal security, election, reprobation, and God’s plan for Israel. It tells us what the life of the Christian looks like.

 Make no mistake. It was Paul’s gospel through which the Thessalonians were called to the salvation for which they had been chosen from the beginning. Any other gospel is to be considered a false gospel. Satan loves to destroy the gospel message by creating perversions. Satan creates reasonable facsimiles that are designed to lead people away from the true gospel. Most of these perversions we easily recognize. Satan’s most common adulteration of the gospel is salvation through human achievement. This false gospel proposes that man can be saved through human effort. This is the chief characteristic of every religion on the planet other than biblical Christianity.

 Another distortion is salvation through human goodness. Ask most people if they consider themselves a good person and the most common answer, regardless of the mess their lives are in because of sin, is that they are a good person. They expect to be permitted into heaven on the basis of their goodness as a human being.

 A very popular perversion is the gospel of prosperity. It promises not salvation from sin, but deliverance from poverty, sickness, and suffering, if only one has enough faith to believe that these things are so.

 One of the most popular and most subtle distortions of the gospel is what I call the gospel according to Toby Keith. I watched an interview with him before his death and he admitted having little to do with organized religion. He stood squarely and exclusively on John 3:16. He told the lady doing the interview that Jesus said, “If I believe I have eternal life.” “I believe,” he said. He didn’t even add the requirement some add by saying that you need to say a prayer and ask Jesus into your heart. That is a popular message in the church today. I see Franklin Graham sharing that on television. The message of the gospel is just barely there, in minimal terms, followed by an invitation to pray this prayer and ask Jesus into your heart. 

 I cannot say that no one is ever saved by praying that prayer. I can say that you can’t find that approach recorded in the Bible. It is not the gospel according to Jesus, or the Apostles, and certainly not of Paul. Paul’s gospel was the message used of God to call sinners to salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. In these terms Paul defines for us what salvation accomplishes. Far too often, those distortions I just described fall far short of producing the evidence of salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.

 Moving on, Paul tells us that we were called through his gospel, “that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” We are called through Paul’s gospel for salvation so that we may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. The true gospel makes that clear. The false gospel tells us that we are called to salvation so we can have our best life now. The false gospel tells us that Jesus is the answer to all our problems. The false gospel tells us we have been saved so we can have whatever our hearts desire.

 I’ll pass on my best life now. I’m opting for the glory of my Lord Jesus Christ. Did you every notice how God’s purposes are much more far reaching than mans? False gospels focus on the here and now. God’s gospel, presented by Paul, focuses on what truly matters. My life now is better than any life without Christ, but the best is yet to come. We gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 We have been called to salvation that we may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. In chapter 1 of Ephesians, Paul prays that the eyes of their hearts would be enlightened, so that they will know the hope of His calling, and the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. Paul does not pray that you will know how to have your best life now, or how to be healthy, wealthy, and successful in this life. He prays that we will know the hope of God’s calling, and the riches of the glory of the inheritance we have in Christ.

 In John 17 Jesus prayed for us to gain His glory. In verse 22 Jesus prayed, “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one.”  Just a little bit later Jesus said in the same prayer in verse 24, “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which you have given Me.” God’s salvation, for which we were chosen from the beginning, and for which we are called through the gospel, gains for us the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

 Romans 8:17 tells us that if we are the children of God, we are “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.” We gain the glory of Christ. Verse 29 of Romans 8 concludes with the certainty that those whom God has predestined, and called, and justified, these He also glorified. We gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:10 saying, “For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.” In 1 Peter 5:10 Peter also reminds us that the God of all grace has called us to His eternal glory in Christ.

 This brings us to verse 15. “So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us.” This is the response to the great doctrines of grace Paul has just outlined. The brethren, who are beloved by God, whom God has chosen from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth, who were called through the gospel to gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, these are the same brethren who are to stand firm and hold to the traditions which they had been taught. 

This is the duty that accompanies the doctrine. We are called to stand firm and hold to the truth. Is this not perfectly consistent with the way Paul instructs? In the vast majority of the letters he wrote to the churches this was his pattern. We have in succinct form in verses 13-15 the same thing we have in outline form of the book of Romans and Ephesians, for example. Paul often divides his letters into these two main sections. He teaches doctrine, then, he presents the duty that accompanies the doctrine. Romans 1-11 teach the doctrines of salvation. Romans 12-16 describe the walk which results in the life of the one who embraces the doctrine. Ephesians 1-3 are full of doctrine, and chapters 4-6 focus on the duty.

Paul has just presented the doctrines of grace in verses 13-14. Everything in verse 13-14 focuses on what God has done in saving us. There isn’t much there that describes anything we do that produces the salvation of God. These verses are a strong defense of the teaching that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and that man does nothing to earn the gift of salvation. If we embrace what the Bible teaches about human depravity, and that nothing in man has either the desire or the capacity to seek God, and that God awakens those who are spiritually dead, and makes them alive through regeneration by the Spirit, and that this is all God’s doing from start to finish, and that man does nothing to deserve this, then I believe we have a biblical view of salvation by grace alone.

But those who criticize this doctrine say that it is faulty because it requires nothing of man. All we do is believe, and even the faith we exercise we have received as a gift from God, so man is completely passive in the work of salvation. Nothing is required, the critics say. This is not the case at all. Paul makes it clear in verse 15 that there are responsibilities for those who are saved. There are duties to which we devote ourselves. 

Turn a few pages over to Titus 3. Let’s look at verses 5-7. God saves us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:5-7)

Those who like to focus on the doctrine of salvation by grace alone through faith alone stop reading at the end of verse 7. But Paul did not stop writing. He also wrote verse 8. Those who have believed in God will be careful to engage in good deeds which are good and profitable for men. Paul tells us the same thing in our text. He writes, “So then, brethren…” Because of your salvation, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught.

The Greek word translated “stand firm” is “steko.” It means to be constant, to persevere, to remain steadfast in faith and duty. Paul used the same word at the end of 1 Cor. 15. In verse 58 he wrote, “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.” In the next chapter of 1 Cor. in 16:13 he writes again, “Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.” He wrote to the Philippians in 4:1 telling them to “stand firm in the Lord.”

Paul also writes in our text, “stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us.” The word “hold” is “krateo” in the Greek. It means to grasp and hold fast. To hold to the traditions means to embrace the truth and to hold it fast in our minds and to observe the truth we have been taught. This requires effort on our part. Too often we get accustomed to hearing the truth taught, and we let it hit us at the time, but we don’t put much effort into hanging on to it and making sure it is impacting our lives in the future.

This is what had happened to the Thessalonians. Back in verse 5 he reminded them that there were many things he had taught them while he was with them. He was now having to write to them again to reinforce what he had already told them. So he admonishes and exhorts them to hold on to the truth. In the next chapter he is going to tell them to keep away from the brother who leads an unruly life that is not according to the traditions they were taught. We must hold on to the truth. We must encourage one another to hold on to the truth. We must be willing to keep away from those who do not walk according to the truth.

We must strive to be like the Romans of whom Paul wrote in Romans 6:17, “But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed.” To hold to the truth is to become obedient from the heart to the truth we are taught.

To stand firm means that we stand firm in the victory achieved for us by Jesus Christ. Standing firm and holding to the traditions means we are standing firm and holding to the truth of God’s word. This will keep us from being like those described in Ephesians 4:14 who are tossed here and there by every wind of doctrine and the trickery of men and the craftiness of deceitful scheming. To stand firm and hold to the traditions means we will not be doubtful. James 1:6 warns of being double-minded and unstable in all our ways. We stand firm against the false doctrines, worldly fables, and things which are of no profit or spiritual benefit. We stand firm in the truth and hold to the traditions of Scripture so that we stand firm against the latest fads, trends, and popular philosophies that would take us away from the Bible and a biblical gospel.

My duty as the pastor of this church is to continue to teach you, from the letters Paul wrote to the churches, and other parts of Scripture, the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. My goal is to build you up in the most holy faith. My intention is to present every man complete in Christ. I want each and every person who is a part of Grace Bible Church to know they are described in verses 13-15, not the verses which come before them.

I do give thanks always to God for you brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. It was for this He called you through the gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which we teach from the holy, inspired, inerrant, perfectly sufficient word of God.

Let’s pray.