What is Salvation?

We are in 2 Thessalonians today. Pastor Nate will close out the series next week, but this morning, the conversation is taking us to a place that I think is going to be really good for us overall. Because most of us have some church background. Not everyone, but most, and those backgrounds are very unique, very different, and I think this is one of those conversations that is just sort of assumed sometimes. Or at least generalized. And that is the question: What is salvation? What does it mean to be saved? Those are very Christian words, and if you’re not a Christian and someone asks are you saved, or have you been saved, you may wonder what in the world they are even talking about.

Last week, we were introduced to this in verse 9, where Paul talks about this man of lawlessness that’s coming. And he said this is based on Satan’s working, with every kind of miracle, both signs and wonders serving the lie, and with every wicked deception among those who are perishing  – here is where the conversation begins – They perish because they did not accept or welcome the love of the truth AND SO BE SAVED.

Now for some of you, you’re not going to enjoy the conversation today. You’re going to say, who cares. You’re just nitpicking words, and getting too far into the weeds. You just gotta have faith and leave it at that, instead of arguing over words and phrases. And for others of you this may be the conversation you’ve been waiting for for a long time. You’ve always wondered how exactly salvation works, and this will answer some questions you’ve had.

Either way, it’s our next set of verses, so here we go!

PRAYER

Now, go back to the beginning of chapter 2. What is the context here? What are we talking about? The coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him. Right? That’s the context of the conversation.

Then Paul addresses the falsehood that was being spread in Thessalonica that the Day of the Lord had already come. That’s verse 2. Someone is saying, Jesus has already returned, already judged the wicked, already been glorified and Paul says no, no, no.

Verse 3. Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way. That day won’t happen unless the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed. In the next couple of verses he unpacks the man of lawlessness, and in verse 8, that guy ends with the appearing of Jesus and is destroyed with the breath of his mouth. Love that.

But now, Paul starts verse 9 by talking about the first part. The apostasy. The falling away. The deception or the rebellion, where he says 9 The coming of the lawless one is based on Satan’s working, with every kind of miracle, both signs and wonders serving the lie…

So this is Paul saying how we get to the man of lawlessness. Satan is working with miracles and signs and wonders that all serve the lie. The target Satan is aiming at is deception that leads to perishing. 2 Corinthians 4:4 says that “the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” He will do whatever he can to deceive people into not seeing the glory of Christ.

There is a deceptive working of Satan at the end of the age, in the last days, that is aimed at keeping us blind to the glory of Christ! And as we saw last week, there are two outcomes for all of humanity: that of perishing or being saved. He says it here in verses 10-12: They perish because they did not accept the love of the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a strong delusion so that they will believe the lie, so that all will be condemned—those who did not believe the truth but delighted in unrighteousness.”

They perish because they did not accept the love of the truth and so be saved. Now, you may have grown up in a church that told you you had to accept Jesus as your Savior – that’s what it means to be saved. It’s it interesting that those words are not what Paul uses here. He doesn’t say they perish because they did not accept Jesus as Lord, and so be saved.

He says, they perish because they did not accept the love of the truth. They had no affection for the truth. This is embarrassing to even share, but when I was in 8th grade, we were at the school roller skating party and a girl asked me if I would skate with her. Literally all the other girls were skating with someone and, I’m not bragging about this, but she asked me to skate and I said no. I don’t remember her name, but if you’re watching this, I’m sorry. She was the only girl available and I said no. I just had zero interest in skating with her.

That’s the idea here for the people who are perishing. Even if the truth of Jesus was the only thing on the table in front of them, there is just no affection, no interest, no draw. Then verse 12 takes it a step further and says, for that reason – because the offer to love the truth was presented to them and they rejected it – for that reason, God sends them a strong delusion so that they not only fall for the lie, they delight in it. Not only are they not interested in the truth, they now see the lie as good. They now have an affection, a desire for the things that are not of God – things that are not in alignment with what is true.

That person is responsible for their choice, because they did not take the offer of the truth, but God is not sitting by passively and letting Satan run the deception. God also acts in their perishing by sending them a delusion that made them believe the lie and stand condemned. God is actively involved in both salvation and perishing.

So we have to understand that this thing of following the spirit of lawlessness – this thing of you live your own life, don’t correct how I live mine; this thing of I want to be praised and elevated and admired; this thing of God’s truth is great for you but not that big of a deal for me – we are not talking about error, here. This isn’t people just getting their beliefs wrong. When we find ourselves more delighted by sin than by the truth, it’s evil. And God is 100% just and fair to add his own judgment – the strong delusion – to condemn anyone who has more affection for sin than for the truth.

That’s the backdrop for the following verses.

But – while that is what’s true about the people who are perishing – we ought to thank God always for you, brothers and sisters loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God has chosen you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth. He called you to this through our gospel, so that you might obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

There is so much packed into that verse, it’s crazy. So let’s take these one at a time.

Brothers and sisters, loved by the Lord. If salvation was a house, God’s love is the rock solid foundation that everything is built on from the ground up.

God’s love is the foundation for salvation! He doesn’t owe us anything. We have all fallen short of his glory, and he would be perfectly fair to sentence us all to perishing. We’ve all participated in the sin of Adam and Eve’s rebellion. Ephesians 2:4–5 “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!” John 3:16 “For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” He doesn’t want anyone to perish in the delusion.

But the reality is that many have perished already, and many more will perish. God loved the world, so much so that he sent Jesus to die for it – but not everyone believes. Not everyone takes the offer of loving the truth. So what does that say about the love of God? We can say it’s true, God loves the whole world. God even loves his enemies, in terms of growing their gardens and giving them enjoyment of things he made – in one sense God loves the whole world. But as we just read in Ephesians 2, because of his great love he “Made us alive with Christ.” He doesn’t do that for everyone. He has a general love for everyone, but he has a choosing love when it comes to salvation.

We ought to thank God for you all the time…because from the beginning, God has chosen you for salvation. Dear Thessalonians, Paul writes, the reason I’m fired up and thanking God for you today is because from the beginning – before the world was even brought into existence – God had chosen to save you! Before you had done even one thing right, he chose you. That’s how you know your own goodness didn’t contribute to your salvation – you didn’t do anything yet. And before you had done a single thing wrong, but knowing what you would do, he still chose you! Ephesians 1:3–6 “Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ. For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him. He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One.” 2 Timothy 1:9 “He has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.”

How does he know that God has chosen the Thessalonians? Go all the way back to 1 Thessalonians 1:4–6 “For we know, again: brothers and sisters loved by God, that he has chosen you because our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, in the Holy Spirit, and with full assurance…and you yourselves became imitators of us and of the Lord when, in spite of severe persecution, you welcomed the message with joy from the Holy Spirit.” We know that he has chosen you, because he poured out the Holy Spirit on you! We see evidence that the Holy Spirit is growing you, making you holy, you used to be this way, now you’re this way. You don’t just say you are Christians – we’ve seen the evidence of the Holy Spirit in your life!

Remember Acts 16? Paul wanted to preach in Asia, and the Holy Spirit said no. He wanted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus said no. Finally Paul has a dream where a man from Macedonia was pleading with Paul to come and help us. So Paul wakes up, they pack their bags, and end up in Thessalonica! And Paul is like, oh yeah, put the pieces together – this is the work of God!

There are so many in the world who are going to fall for the satanic deception of worshiping everything but Jesus, but by God’s grace and mercy, he has loved you, little persecuted church of Thessalonica, and chosen to save you! What incredible grace! What mercy! How thankful this little group of believers ought to be, right? They have been loved and chosen to not perish, but have everlasting life!

But God does not say that to everyone – not even everyone in Thessalonica. This is one of those doctrines that is hidden in the mysteries of God, why he doesn’t choose to save everyone. I can’t answer that for you. What I know is that God is infinitely wise, infinitely just, infinitely holy and righteous and merciful no matter what he does. He cannot be unloving. He cannot be unjust. He cannot be unmerciful.

If sin makes us dead, like Ephesians 2 says, we have no option but to “trace our salvation back beyond our ‘decision’ or ‘commitment’ to the gracious initiative of God, and say ‘God chose us … God called us …’ (Stott, 176). Yes, I have decided to follow Jesus, not turning back, but only because God was already at work to bring me from death to life before I ever opened my eyes or my heart to him.

Our next sermon series will be called “Promises and Patriarchs”, and we’ll spend 3-4 months studying the book of Genesis – starting with Abraham… who was chosen! Out of all the people on earth, His family would be the chosen people on earth. The royal priesthood. The holy nation. All the other nations would perish apart from the promises of God, unless they worshiped the God of Israel. In Deuteronomy God made it clear why he chose Israel: ‘The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the LORD loved you …’.

You weren’t the biggest nation. You weren’t the toughest. God didn’t look down the road and see that you would eventually love him. In fact, 1 Corinthians says God chose what is foolish and weak and insignificant so that no one can boast in his presence. And he says in the next verse, “it is from HIM THAT YOU ARE IN CHRIST JESUS.” His infinite and eternal love overflows into choosing whom he will save, so that he and only he gets the glory for our becoming righteous, for our being made holy, for our being redeemed. We can’t take credit for any of it, even though he invites us to participate in this with him.

And there are two ways he invites us to participate in this. Look at verse 13: THROUGH sanctification by the Spirit, and THROUGH belief in the truth.

THROUGH sanctification by the Spirit. Other places in scripture tell us that at the moment of salvation, we are justified. Immediately you are legally made right with God. We are also forgiven. Immediately, your record of sin that stood against you is wiped out. Drenched in the blood of Christ. It’s removed from your record. But at that point, a process begins. A process called sanctification, where day by day he is using any and all circumstances to purify us and make us holy. This is the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit making us holy. Setting us apart. Washing us. Regenerating us. Making us the new person that walks in the victory of Christ. So part of salvation is the work of God.

He has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit, and THROUGH Belief in the truth. This is our work. We’re going to study the book of James this summer, and you’ll see him say, don’t just hear the Word of God, don’t just listen to preaching, don’t just read your Bible – DO IT. Believe it! Walk in it. If the Holy Spirit convicts you of your language, and says, Rodney, you gotta stop swearing. Again the book of James will talk about this, but your mouth, your tongue, your words are given to you by God for a purpose. And if you have salt water coming out of a freshwater spring, you’re gonna cause some loss of life in the flower beds. To believe the truth is to do whatever it takes to repent of that, and use your language to honor God and walk in holiness. If you read those words in James, the Spirit convicts you – yeah, man, I really gotta clean up my words, but you never actually do it – you just keep saying whatever you said before… that’s not believing the truth! That’s ignoring the Spirit’s sanctification in you. There is no such thing as a nominal Christian. There is no such thing as a Christian who is sort of riding the fence for now. There’s no such thing as a Christian who has no interest in the word of God, the people of God, or the things of God. How can I say that? Because there is no such thing as a Christian who not being sanctified by the Holy Spirit, no such thing as a Christian who doesn’t believe the truth!

So, Paul says we ought to thank God because you are loved by God, you’re chosen by him for salvation, a salvation that comes through God’s work in you, and your believing the truth. How did this salvation come about? Verse 14 says you are called to this, this salvation – you are called to this how? THROUGH the gospel! The kingdom of God is only entered through the gospel, the good news of Jesus. So if you’re sitting here thinking, well, if God just chooses who he wants to save and there’s nothing we can do about it, you’re skipping over verse 14. He calls people to himself through other humans sharing the gospel. Yes, every now and again, especially in Muslim countries, sometimes Jesus appears in visions. But that’s the exception. He could do that for all of us, but he doesn’t. Instead, he entrusts the Church with the message of the gospel, and says, GO INTO ALL THE WORLD, make disciples, baptize them, and teach them how to follow me. Why? Because that’s how more people will be saved!

So if it bothers you that God chooses people, preach the gospel to the lost! That’s how he saves them!

And then here is the finisher. Why does God save anyone? Why does he want the gospel to be taught and shared and preached all over the world? Look at verse 14: SO THAT you might obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ! I chapter 1 he said what that glory is: It’s his showing up from heaven with his powerful angels. His glorious strength will be on display, and he will be glorified and marveled at by everyone who believes! God’s whole purpose in loving us at all, in choosing to save anyone, his whole purpose in sanctifying us to make us holy, calling us to himself, the whole purpose of sending Jesus to earth with good news for us to believe is so that we would be able to receive and share and delight in and enjoy the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, verse 16, who has loved us and given us eternal encouragement and good hope by grace; who encourages our hearts and strengthens us in every good work, and in every good word.

Okay, let's just zoom out for a second and take in the big picture—it's actually pretty epic. Paul basically says: "God picked you out way back in the beginning to be saved… and then He called you through the gospel so you could end up sharing in Christ's glory." This guy Paul doesn't mess around with small thinking! His view stretches from forever-ago eternity all the way to forever-from-now eternity. God chose us before time even started, then in real life He called us—got us to hear the gospel, believe it, get changed by the Spirit—all so we could one day share in Jesus' glory forever. In one single sentence, Paul’s mind races from "the beginning" to "the glory." When you’re gripped by that kind of truth, there's just no space left for freaking out about whether Christians will "make it" or fall away. Let the devil throw his worst at the weakest believer. Let the Antichrist show up and everything go sideways. None of that can touch the rock-solid, eternal plan of God. Our situations and our own shaky selves might be all over the place, but God's purpose? Totally steady. That’s why Paul can just casually drop in 2 Thessalonians 3:3 and say, "Yeah… the Lord is faithful. He’s gonna strengthen you and guard you." Boom. Game over for fear. …’ (Stott, 176-177).

Isn’t that incredible!?! For these Thessalonians, who are experiencing difficult persecution and affliction, walking through times of uncertainty as false teachers weasel their way in, as doubts and fears about death and the coming of Jesus circulate, they can stand firm in this faith that is from eternity past to eternity future.

So what is our role:

V 15: Stand firm

V15: Hold to the apostles’ teaching – what they said or wrote

V3:1: Pray that the word would spread rapidly and be received

V3:2: Pray for spiritual protection

V3:4: Continue to do/obey what scripture commands.

V3:5: May the Lord direct our hearts to God’s love!

The Lord is faithful. He will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.

SOURCES

John R. W. Stott, The Message of Thessalonians: The Gospel & the End of Time, The Bible Speaks Today, (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994)