God Saves

Lead Vocalist (Joel)

Welcome & Announcements (Bubba)

Good morning family!

Ask guests to fill out connect card

____ announcements:

1) Announcement 1

What to do and how to respond

2) Announcement 2

What to do and how to respond

3) Announcement 3

What to do and how to respond

Now please take a moment of silence to prepare your heart for worship.

Call to Worship (Joshua 24:15)

Prayer of Praise (Brannan Holdren)

As For Me and My House

Come Thou Fount

Prayer of Confession (Jerry Brewton), Faithlessness

Assurance of Pardon (1 Cor. 6:11)

Our God Saves

Jesus Paid It All

Scripture Reading (2 Thess. 2:13-17)

You can find it on page 1176 in the black Bibles

Pastoral Prayer (Bubba)

Prayer for PBC—Help us not to lose the joy of our salvation

Prayer for kingdom partner—Howell, Joey & Callie (StoryRunners)

Prayer for US—U.S. Supreme court

Prayer for the world—Vietnam

Pray for the sermon

SERMON

START TIMER!!!

Imagine you’re embarking on a road trip to a place you’ve never been.

You’ve never seen the route, and you’re not entirely sure what to expect. At first, you rely on the map to guide you—every turn, every stop, and every detour is marked out clearly, providing you with the security you need. The map is essential because you don’t know the way.

But then, after making that same trip many times, you don’t need the map anymore. You’ve learned the roads, the landmarks, and the path. You know where the bumps are, where the scenic views are, and what to expect along the way. While you might still consult the map once in a while just to confirm, you don’t depend on it the same way.

The journey becomes far more enjoyable because you’re no longer worried about getting lost. You’re familiar with the territory. You know where you’ve been, and you know where you’re going.

Salvation is like a journey.

There are different landmarks along the way, including the moment when you first heard the gospel, the moment you truly gave your life to Jesus, and the moment when you’ll see Him face-to-face.

You don’t necessarily need to understand every landmark on the journey of salvation. What matters most is that you’ve trusted in Jesus as your Savior, and you know He’s leading you home.

And yet, the more you grow in your understanding of how God saves us, the more you can enjoy the journey. Knowing where we’ve been and where we’re headed makes it easier to persevere until the end.

It’s easier to stand firm amidst trials and temptations when you know where you’ve been and where you’re going.

Turn to 2 Thessalonians 2:13-17

As the Apostle Paul continues his letter to the young Christians in Thessalonica, he is very concerned that they persevere.

He wants them to continue on the journey of salvation until the very end.

And so, in order to help them persevere, Paul gives them something like a roadmap for salvation.

The Big idea I hope to communicate today is that From beginning to end, salvation is the work of God.

In this magnificent passage we’re going to consider Seven Steps on the Roadmap of Salvation.

You were chosen by the Father,

Called through the gospel,

Made alive by the Spirit,

You Responded with faith and repentance,

Were United with Christ,

You Persevere by obedient faith,

and you will be Preserved by God Himself.

If you’re in this room and you’re a Christian: I want to be clear: this roadmap is important. But it’s not what’s most important. What’s most important is your destination. Seeing Jesus! Understanding the mechanics of how salvation works is important, but far more important is seeing Jesus!

And if you’re not a Christian: You just need to know that this roadmap doesn’t apply to you. At least not yet. But if you turn from your sins and trust in Jesus today, these steps will be just as true for you as they are for the Christian who’s been following Jesus for 20 years.

Alright let’s begin with the first step on the journey of salvation…

1) You Were CHOSEN By the Father

I realize it is uncomfortable for some of you to wrestle with ideas like this, but you cannot get far in the Bible confronting them.

This idea that God chooses to save some, called the doctrine of election, is all over the Bible.

Including our text this morning...

2 Thessalonians 2:13a—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…

Paul thanks God the Father because He chose to include the Thessalonian Christians among the first generation of Christians.

Two thousand years later, Christians today are no longer the “firstfruits,” but we are no less chosen by God.

What’s even more staggering is the truth that God chose us in Him before the world existed!

Ephesians 1:4–5—… He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will

Before you breathed your first breath, before your great-great-grandparents walked the earth, before David, before Moses, before Noah, before Adam, God the Father chose to save you.

If that staggers your imagination, you’re beginning to understand how massive this is!

Some of you may be thinking “How can I know if I’m one of the chosen ones?”

We can be confident about this.

After all, the Apostle Paul is confident that the Thessalonian Christians have been chosen.

But you can’t be confident about this until you turn from your sins and trust in Jesus!

Charles Spurgeon—“Go to Jesus, just as you are, in all your guilt. Leave all curious inquiry about election alone. Go straight to Christ, and hide in His wounds, and you shall know your election. . . . Go and put your trust in Him, and His answer will be, "I have loved you with an everlasting love" . . . . There will be no doubt about His having chosen you when you have chosen Him.” [1]

Or, as another author said, “You take the first step, God will take the second step, and by the time you get to the third step, you will know that it was God who took the first step." [2]

Would you take that first step today, friend? If you don’t know how, stay tuned.

If you’re a Christian, you were chosen by God before time. But at some point in time…

2) You Were CALLED through the Gospel

We’re going to get out of order for just a moment, because I want you to understand the logical order to how salvation works.

At the end of verse 13, we’ll learn how the Spirit makes us alive so we can believe the truth.

But you cannot believe a truth you do not know.

You cannot respond to a call you haven’t heard.

So even though we’re not finished with verse 13, let’s look ahead to…

2 Thessalonians 2:14a—To this he called you through our gospel,…

I take the word “this” here to be pointing back to the word “saved” in verse 13.

So we could paraphrase the first half of this verse to say, “God has called you to be SAVED through our gospel.”

But what does that mean?

But often Christians use words like “saved” and we just assume everybody understands what we mean.

Let me try to explain what we mean...

What are we saved from? Who are we saved by? What are we saved for?

Believe it or not, the Bible gives us the same answer to all three questions.

We are saved from God. Because He is holy and we are not, we deserve His wrath. We have rebelled against Him by our sin, and the punishment for that rebellion is eternal suffering in a place called hell.

God is not Santa Clause. He’s not a sweet, doting grandpa in the sky. He’s holy and He will punish all who disobey Him! You need to be rescued from the wrath of God!

But the staggering thing is that God is not only the one we need to be saved from, He is also the one we are saved by!

We are saved by God. The Bible teaches us that God loved us so much He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to be born of a virgin, live a sinless life, die a sinner’s death on the cross as our substitute, and rise from the dead on the third day.

THAT message—the good news about what Jesus has done to rescue His people—is what the Bible calls the gospel!

Paul says the Thessalonians—and all Christians—are “called” to salvation through this message!

There is a sense in which the call to believe this gospel goes out to everybody.

If you’ve sat through one of our services—whether you’re a Christian or not—you have heard the gospel call. You have heard me or some other preacher stand up here, explain the gospel, and invite you to turn from your sins and trust in Jesus.

But the call being described in verse 14 is a bit different....

The CALL Paul describes here is effectual, meaning it actually produces something.

Imagine you’re fast asleep during my sermon. And I walk over to you and shout “WAKE UP!”

Unless you’re a really heavy sleeper—or dead!—that call would be effectual.

In calling you to wake you up, it would actually wake you up.

If you’re a Christian, there was a time when the gospel came to you effectually.

It probably wasn’t the first time you heard it. You might even have heard it hundreds of times before.

But this time was different. This time the power of God broke through and it actually woke you up!

Then what happened?

If you’re a Christian, after the gospel came to you effectually…

3) You Were MADE ALIVE by the Spirit

Alright, let’s get back to…

2 Thessalonians 2:13b—… God chose you … to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit …

We often use that word “sanctification” to refer to the process of Christian growth.

But, just like in English, the same word can have different meanings depending on the context.

“Sanctification” can also mean to “set apart,” and I think that’s the meaning Paul intends here.

I believe Paul is talking here about what theologians call REGENERATION.

Regeneration happens when the Holy Spirit sets you apart by bringing you from spiritual death to spiritual life.

This was prophesied long before the birth of Christ by the prophet Ezekiel.

Ezekiel 36:26–27—And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

All of us are born with hard, stony, hearts. We are dead in sin, and we deserve God’s judgment.

Our only hope is for God to perform heart surgery on us. To take out our dead hearts and give us a new heart.

And that happens through the work of the Holy Spirit.

We can see an analogy of how this works in the resurrection of Lazarus.

Lazarus was dead and buried for four days when Jesus told his family to roll away the stone from the tomb.

The family protested. The body was already beginning to decompose and the smell would’ve been awful.

But Jesus insisted, so the family rolled away the stone.

Then Jesus called Lazarus. He said “Lazarus, come out.”

But Lazarus can’t obey. He’s dead!

Unless, along with the invitation to come, Jesus gave Lazarus the power to come.

Unless Jesus made Lazarus alive!

In the same way, you and I cannot respond to the gospel call unless the Holy Spirit makes us alive so we can.

That’s exactly what happened to you if you’re a Christian.

You heard the gospel in power, then the Holy Spirit made you alive on the inside.

Then what happened?

If you’re a Christian, after the Spirit made you alive…

4) You RESPONDED with Faith & Repentance

I want you to notice that we’re here at number four out of seven steps of salvation, and this is the first step where you and I do anything.

God the Father chose us before the foundation of the world.

God the Son came to this world, died on the cross, then rose from the dead. That’s the good news of the gospel.

God the Spirit makes us alive so we can respond to that good news.

Each person of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Spirit—is actively working to save sinners before any of us do anything!

No wonder the Bible repeatedly says that “salvation belongs to the Lord!”

But this does not mean that everybody automatically receives salvation. The Bible is clear we must RESPOND to the work God has done to save us.

2 Thessalonians 2:13c—… God chose you … to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.

That word “belief” means a bit more than the way we use the word today.

You might encourage a fellow fan to just believe your team can win the championship.

But when the Bible uses the word “believe” it’s more than an optimistic hopeful attitude.

It means to TRUST someone or something.

And it’s a word repeatedly used to describe the way we respond to the Good News.

John 3:16—For God so loved the world, that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

Acts 16:31—And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”

Romans 1:16—For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

If you want to be saved from hell, you must believe.

And notice, you actually need to believe something specific. You must believe in the gospel—that God is holy, you are sinful, Jesus took your place by dying on the cross and rising from the dead.

But the Bible is also clear that we must respond by repenting.

That word “repent” simply means to TURN AWAY from someone or something.

Like a soldier doing an about-face. You’re facing one direction and you turn around.

When the Bible uses the word “repent” it’s more than feeling bad about your sin.

To repent is to turn away from your sin.

And it’s a word repeatedly used to describe the way we respond to the Good News.

Luke 13:3—No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

Acts 3:19—Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out.

2 Peter 3:9—The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

It seems best to understand faith and repentance, not as two separate things, but as two sides of the same coin.

We trust the gospel with a repentant faith.

We turn from of our sins with a believing repentance.

When Jesus began His ministry He clearly mentions both repentance and faith as essential responses to the gospel.

Mark 1:15—…The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.

Imagine a little boy on the edge of the pool. His dad is in the water, holding out his arms to catch his son. The little boy must do two things to reach his father. He must turn away from the safety of the concrete where he currently stands, and he must trust that his father will catch him if he jumps.

That’s what it’s like to repent and believe. We turn away from the apparent safety of a life lived for self. And we turn to Jesus in faith that He really did live a sinless life, really did die a sinner’s death, and really did rise from the dead.

Have you done that, friend? If you haven’t, we invite you to turn from your sins and trust in Jesus today.

If you have done that, don’t be proud. You were only able to repent and believe because the Holy Spirit made you alive first.

Which comes first, a baby’s birth or a baby’s cry? The birth comes first, and then the baby cries out. [3]

In the same way, your new birth comes first—the Spirit makes you alive—and then you cry out to Jesus in repentance and faith.

Don’t brag about being a Christian any more than you’d brag about being born!

But if you have done that, something amazing happened the moment you turned from your sins.

After you respond to the good news…

5) You Were UNITED with Christ

2 Thessalonians 2:14—To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The New Testament is clear that Jesus will return in glory.

In His first coming, Jesus came in humility, as a baby in a manger.

At His second coming, Jesus will come in glory, as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

But notice Paul says God’s people are going to share in that glory!

How are we supposed to obtain the glory of Jesus?

The answer is found in the fact that we are UNITED WITH CHRIST.

When a baseball player hits a walk-off grand slam, the victory it credited to the entire team, even those who never touched the plate.

When a point guard drains a game-winning three-pointer, the entire team wins. Even the players who stayed on the bench.

Why? Because the team is united. The victory of one player affects the entire team.

Something similar happens to everyone who turns from their sins and trusts in Jesus.

Because Jesus is our representative, what happens to Him happens to us.

Because Jesus died in our place, we too have died to the old self.

Because Jesus rose from the dead, we too have risen to a new life in Christ.

As Paul says in...

Romans 6:5—For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.

Because Jesus was righteous, we too are declared righteous when we believe in Him.

Because Jesus is the Son of God, we too are adopted as sons and daughters through faith in Him.

Because the Father loves the Son, we too are loved by the Father.

And because Jesus will be glorified at His return, we too will obtain the glory of Jesus!

What happens to Jesus happens to His people.

So because you are united with Christ…

6) You PERSEVERE by Obedient Faith

2 Thessalonians 2:15—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.

We should stand firm, we should persevere because we have been...

chosen by the Father,

called through the gospel,

made alive by the Spirit…

so we could…

respond with repentance and faith,

and because we’ve been...

united with Christ!

The motivation for our perseverance doesn’t only look forward to the golden shore that awaits us, it also looks backwards to the cross and everything God has done to rescue us.

When Paul says to “hold to the traditions” don’t think about dusty, outdated religious practices like hymnals, altar calls, or choir robes.

The word literally refers to teaching that has been handed down from one generation to the next.

So Paul is telling the Thessalonian believers—and us!—to cling to the truth we’ve been taught!

This is the stage that every Christian in this room finds ourselves in.

Our job, then, is to cling to the truth of God’s Word.

Not to try to find fresh new ideas, but to cling to the ancient paths.

To lash ourselves to the mast of God’s Word until Jesus returns.

How are you doing, Christian?

And notice as well, that this is something we’re called to do together. Paul’s words are not directed to the individual lone ranger Christian out on an island somewhere, but to a community of believers gathered together in a local church. TOGETHER we persevere until the end!

But the ultimate power that guarantees our perseverance isn’t our own strength. It is the power of God.

Notice finally that…

7) You Will Be PRESERVED by God Himself

2 Thessalonians 2:16–17—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.

Notice it is God Himself who establishes our hearts until the end.

It is not your strength that preserves you, Christian. It is the power of God!

And every soul who is chosen by God will be carried all the way through to the very end.

As Paul writes in...

Romans 8:29–30—For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified.

From beginning to end, salvation is the work of God.

I hope understanding this road map has been an encouragement to you today.

But you need to remember that, even though understanding this roadmap is important, it’s not essential. What’s essential is actually turning from your sins and trusting in Jesus!

Imagine the thief on the cross walking up to the pearly gates.

Saint Peter isn’t going to ask him to explain how he was chosen by the Father.

He’s not going to have to explain the effectual calling.

Nobody’s going to ask him about regeneration, or union with Christ, or the perseverance of the saints.

He’s going to be asked one question: have you turned from your sins and trusted in Jesus?

Have you?

Prayer of Thanksgiving

In just a moment we’re going to sing a song, and after that we’re going to take the Lord’s Supper together.

Let me remind, you the Lord’s Supper is a special meal for Christians to remember the body and blood of Jesus.

If you are not a follower of Jesus, we invite you to repent and believe in Him today!

If you have not made your faith public by following Jesus in believer’s baptism, we invite you to talk with us about that today.

Pastor Jason is in the lobby ready and waiting to talk with anyone about any of these things. You can make your way to him in a moment when we stand to sing.

If you’ve not repented of your sin and followed Jesus in baptism as a believer we would ask you not to take communion with us in a few moments.

That’s not because we think we’re better than you or anything like that.

But because we want you to receive Jesus Himself, not merely the symbol that reminds us of Jesus.

Because we believe the Bible teaches baptism is the first step of obedience as a follower of Jesus, we shouldn’t take later steps until after we’ve taken that first step.

So if that’s you this morning, you’re welcome to remain in your seat when your row is dismissed to take communion in a few minutes.

Or, if you prefer, you’re free to leave the service when we stand in just a moment.

If you choose to leave, nobody is going to be staring at you or judging you because there will also be a bunch of parents getting up to collect their kids from the nursery while we’re singing so that all our volunteers can join us for communion.

Now let’s stand and sing together...

There Is a Fountain

LORD’S SUPPER

Doxology

Benediction (Galatians 1:3-4)