Sermon Tone Analysis

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We’re continuing to talk about Holy Things this week by looking at living a holy life.

We already talked about living by the Spirit and living according to the impossible standard of the law over the past couple weeks.

So, the question begs, at least in my mind, If God is calling us to such a great level of holiness, how do I get there?

And what if I fail?

How do I get holy?

And what if I fail along the way?

Those are the questions of the text we’re looking at today and surprisingly, I believe the answer to both questions is tied up together, because God uses our failures to make us holy.

Without failure, we would have no route to actual holiness before God.

Notice what the author of Hebrews says,

Hebrews 12:11 (CSB) — No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful.

Later on, however, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Similarly, Solomon wrote,

Proverbs 20:30 (CSB) — Lashes and wounds purge away evil, and beatings cleanse the innermost parts.

God uses painful circumstances, even our failures, to cleanse us, purify us, produce fruits of righteousness in us, and train us in holiness.

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It could be said that our lives consist of a series of failures, and that our failures train us to live holy lives like Jesus Christ.

Moving to our text for today, it is evident that the Apostle Paul saw this process of failure and refining as a critical element in the experience of salvation of a Christian.

He wrote,

2 Thessalonians 2:13–14 (CSB) — From the beginning God has chosen you for salvation through sanctification [becoming holy] 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.

For the Apostle Paul, there are 4 forces at work in the salvation of sinful humans.

Those are: God’s choice, the Gospel call, Belief or faith, and Sanctification, which is a word used in the Bible to describe the lifelong process of becoming holy.

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So, first, Paul says that…

From the beginning God chose you for salvation.

In other words, before creation even began, God knew that the humans He would create would rebel against Him and that He would have to be personally responsible to save them from His own wrath and restore them into His good favor.

And God made a plan to do so.

That plan, made before the dawn of time, is salvation through Jesus Christ.

Jesus was the plan to save sinners that God laid out in the beginning and Jesus is the plan He is carrying forward to this very day.

Salvation is according to God’s sovereign choice, and…

Salvation also occurs through belief in the truth.

This is so important because people always want to know, What if someone is a really good person and believes in God, but they don’t know Jesus; are they saved?

Or what about Jewish people?

They claim to follow the one true God, they just don’t believe in Jesus?

If they’re faithful to God, shouldn’t they be saved?

And that answer, as far as the Apostle Paul is concerned is flat out no, because, if you don’t believe the truth of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, then your faithfulness is to the wrong person or thing.

You are saved by your faith in Jesus Christ, so if you don’t believe in Jesus, then you are faithful to someone or something else, and that’s the classic idolatry the resulted in the destruction of the nations all over the Old Testament.

Worshipping the god Baal is not the same thing as worshipping the LORD God.

You have to believe the truth.

And then salvation occurs, because of…

The Gospel.

The word Gospel means message and it refers to the message of Jesus, that He died and rose to new life, then ascended to the right hand of the Father where He rules over His People, His Kingdom, His church, as King.

Now, the Gospel is the call to salvation, but it is not the agent of salvation.

Jesus is the agent of salvation.

He did everything that you might experience salvation.

You do nothing, but believe the truth.

Then, when you believe, the Spirit of God begins to work in you to sanctify you or to make you holy.

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Now, all of seem to point forward to a moment of salvation.

God chose you in Christ before creation.

The Gospel was proclaimed to you and you believed the truth.

So, the Spirit of God came to live in you and to make you holy, to sanctify you.

But, that moment is just the tipping point of the process of salvation, because Paul also says that…

Salvation occurs through sanctification by God’s Spirit.

Don’t get too hung up on that word, sanctification.

Again, it is a word that describes God’s process of making you holy.

And again, God’s process of making you holy is to use your failures to refine you.

Notice, if becoming holy is a life-long process, then your salvation is not yet complete.

You are still moving towards the ultimate moment of salvation.

And I like this idea that salvation is a process moving forward from a catalytic moment when you believe.

I think we put far more emphasis on a moment of salvation than the Apostle Paul or any other New Testament writer does.

Paul clearly stated that our salvation comes through our transformation in holiness when he said, “God has chosen you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit.”

There is something about the life you live and the molding and shaping that the Spirit of God performs on you according to your failures that culminates in your salvation at the end of your life.

That God makes you holy through your failures is a critical element in the salvation of the Christian.

Without it, there is no holiness.

And that’s what we are waiting for, the day when we are fully holy and we go to be with Jesus for eternity.

So, becoming holy needs to be on your radar and likewise, then, you have to learn how to deal with your failures.

Not all of you deal with your failures well.

In fact, most people don’t.

Maybe you’re a quitter.

You fail at something and you just give up.

Other people never try for fear of failure.

And especially when it comes to moral issues, this next one is so common.

Many times you fail, you fall into sin, but you do one of two things.

Either you 1) give in to the sin entirely, or 2) you avoid any situation that might give you opportunity to sin.

Some of you, no doubt, have pet sins.

These are sins that you’ve given up fighting.

You’ve just determined they are going to be a part of your life and you have no desire to fight it.

Others of you are ashamed that you are disposed to certain behaviors, but instead of seeking real change to you heart and your mind, you are just hiding from the sin.

The reality is, for all of us there is work to be done.

When you fail, I’m going to suggest that you embrace that failure, you own up to the failure, you confess the failure, you reflect on the failure, you pray about the failure, and especially when that failure is a clear issue of sin, you go to the scriptures to seek out God’s heart regarding your failures.

Don’t be ashamed of failures, but allow your failures to mold and shape you into the image of Christ.

We need to do that because we are all being made holy through our failures.

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But, I want you to be equipped so that when you get knocked down, when you fail, you can get back up again.

Today, I’m going to present to you 3 treasures of the Kingdom of God that help us to get back up again when we fall and that sustain us so that we will not fall so easily the next time.

The first treasure Paul mentions in our passage is the…

The Traditions of the Apostles

Some translations say teaching of the apostles, which makes the passage take a little different meaning, although related.

But, traditions encapsulates Paul’s sentiment better.

For Paul the traditions or even, the practices of the church serve to equip us to deal with failure.

He wrote,

2 Thessalonians 2:15 (CSB) — So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold to the traditions you were taught, whether by what we said or what we wrote.

In other words, since God has chosen you for salvation and is using your failures to make you holy, stand firm by holding to the traditions you were taught.

[The Traditions of the Apostles]

There is a danger when you read the Bible of simply implanting yourself into the text and this passage is a good example of that.

If you take this to mean that you are supposed to stand firm by keeping the traditions of the pastor you grew up with, you are missing the point of this passage.

Paul is referring to the traditions that he taught the Thessalonian church.