Tom Fox has aided us on a number of occasions as a church by helpfully reminding us that the one task that wouldn’t be accomplished if there were no church is the Great Commission. That’s not to say that a number of tasks individual believers do in order to promote good and well-being around the world aren’t good. Indeed they are. Building hospitals, rebuilding areas that have suffered from natural disasters, and arguing for justice in a court of law are all great things. But the task of the church as a whole that we must never lose sight of is the Great Commission. We are called to make disciples of the nations. That is the church’s mission.
Now, we know that, don’t we? We know it the same way any sports team knows that its task is to win against the team they’re playing. The problem sometimes is figuring out exactly how we pull off what we know must be our mission. After all, there is a great difference in knowing that something should be done and understanding how one should can actually do it.
So, if we know that we as a church are to make disciples (i.e., that this is our mission) it seems that it would serve us well periodically to stop and ask exactly what goes in to achieving that task. Perhaps it’s good to revisit this question often, both so that we don’t lose sight of our mission and so that we are helped and strengthened in achieving it.
The great thing for us this morning is that 2 Thessalonians 2:13-17, I believe, is a great roadmap or instruction manual in aiding us for the task of making disciples. Now, to be fair, the text doesn’t read in terms of Paul laying out instructions concerning making disciples here. There’s no introduction to this section where Paul writes, “Now, here’s how you make disciples.” However, I do it is fair to see in these verses instructions for making disciples because what we do have in these verses is a picture of how Paul approaches the task with regard to the Thessalonians. We see what motivates him to give thanks, how he understands their conversion, what he sees as necessary in bringing them faithfully to the end, how he prays, etc. And I think each of these elements that Paul focuses on serves us in understanding how these things need to be incorporated into our own practice of making disciples. So, with that said, let me note a few things I believe 2 Thessalonians 2:13-17 teaches us in relation to fulfilling the task of making disciples of the nations. How do we make disciples? First:
Paul begins this section as he did at the start of the letter, noting, “We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers” (v. 13a). That alone would suggest that Paul sees the Lord’s sovereign work as foundational in the Thessalonians’ lives. After all, we thank the one we believe is deserving. So, if Paul thanks God for something regarding the Thessalonians, then Paul obviously sees God as responsible for what’s going on in regard to the Thessalonians.
However, we need not merely rely on the logic of Paul thanking God for the Thessalonians because Paul makes explicit what God did in relation to the Thessalonians. He notes, “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” (v. 13). Then, after that, he notes in verse 14 the Lord’s work of calling them to himself, writing, “To this he called you through our gospel.”
Therefore, if we are to summarize, it is the Lord who chose the Thessalonians, called the Thessalonians to himself, and then sanctifies the Thessalonians by his Spirit. Moreover, when Paul prays for the Thessalonian believers, he notes specifically that the Lord Jesus Christ himself and God the Father both “comfort our hearts and establish them in every good work and word” (vv. 16-17).
We can then see that all persons of the Trinity are at work here in the Thessalonians. They’ve been chosen by God to be saved, called by God, sanctified through the Spirit, and established in good works by the Father and the Son, Jesus Christ.
And we can show throughout the Scripture that these realities are not unique to the Thessalonians. If we are believers, it’s because we have been chosen by God and called by God to himself. Now, yes, it’s true that many are called through our preaching of the gospel, but there is a special call that has come to you if you have believed, a call that is effectual. It’s as if the beauty and glory of Christ has been revealed to you in such a way that your heart has been captured by how magnificent the Lord is, and you’ve come to him. And the Spirit it making you more and more conformed to the image of the Son as you walk in the works provided for you by the Father and the Son.
The fact that Paul points so thoroughly to the sovereign work of God in their salvation is why I say that a foundational element in discipleship is that we trust in the sovereign work of our God. That is, we trust him to call people through our preaching of the gospel. We trust him to move people’s hearts. We trust him to enable them to persevere.
You see, this is one reason why God reveals to us in the Scripture his sovereign work in our salvation. It’s not to discourage us in a way that we think, “Well, if God does this, we need not do anything.” That is an unbiblical thought. Rather, he reveals to us his sovereign work so that we might be encouraged in the task of the Great Commission.
I mean, think for a second what we’re up against. Bob Sparks preached for us on Wednesday night from Ephesians 2, arguing that outside of Christ we were all dead in our sins, following the course of the world, following Satan, and pursuing our own passions. What hope do we have against that? Isn’t that hopeless to go out and make disciples of mankind who can be described in that way?
But it isn’t hopeless because we know what our God has done and will do. He has chosen, will call, will sanctify, and will enable his people to walk in good works. Only because we know that can we have hope.
Now, imagine if I told you that I’m going to work miraculously in your life in such a way that if you were to go run a mile, I could enable you to run it in a minute and a half. How many of us would respond, “Well, if Lee’s going to do something amazing so that he’ll be the one empowering me to run that quickly, I should just sit on the couch”? None of us would, would we? We would all get out and run. Me sharing what I’ll empower you to do when you run would actually motivate you to run, wouldn’t it? This is why the Lord shares his sovereign work of salvation with us in the Bible. It’s not to discourage us in any way but to encourage us to set out on the task of making disciples, always remembering and resting in his sovereign work.
So, that’s the first element I want us to see from this text. We should rest in and trust in the sovereign work of the Lord. But we also take action. Next, we see that:
Paul mentions the preaching of the gospel once explicitly and alludes to it another time in our text. I think he alludes to it when he mentions that God chose them as the firstfruits (I think anticipating more Thessalonians ultimately believing) to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth (v. 13). When Paul says they believed in the truth, I think he means they’ve believed in the gospel.
Thus, he sets up a contrast with what we saw last week in verses 10-12. The unbelievers in verses 10-12 refuse to love the truth, aren’t saved, and are sent strong delusion so that they might continue to believe what is false and be condemned. The Thessalonians, on the other hand have been chosen and called by God so that they believe the truth (i.e., the gospel) and are saved.
But what Paul alludes to in verse 13 he makes explicit in verse 14. There, he writes, “To this (i.e., salvation) he called you through our gospel.” That is, the way that God called the Thessalonians to himself to be saved was through Paul’s (and his companions’) preaching of the gospel. When Paul preached the gospel, the Thessalonians who ended up believing heard the gospel (as did other Thessalonians who didn’t end up believing). But they heard something more than the call of Paul preaching the gospel. They heard the voice of the Lord calling his sheep to himself. They heard the effectual call of Christ through the gospel.
When Paul saw them respond it faith, it was evident that they’d heard the very call of the Lord himself. And when they heard the call of the Lord and responded in faith, it was evident that they had been chosen by God to be saved (as he says in v. 13). This is why Paul writes back in 1 Thessalonians 1:4-5, “We know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you [how does Paul know that?] because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.” Paul knew they were chosen because when they heard the gospel, they didn’t hear it as mere words or even foolishness, but they heard it as the power of God to salvation.
And every single individual who knows the Lord this morning can testify to the same thing. At some point, whether the first time or the fiftieth time you heard the gospel, it appeared to you glorious and true. You heard it as the very power of God to salvation and received it with full conviction that it was true and right. That was God’s calling you to himself. That was the good Shepherd calling his sheep to himself.
But, and this is key, the Lord calls his own to himself through our preaching of the gospel. That is what Paul noted both in 1 Thessalonians 1:4-5 and in our text this morning. “He called you through our gospel,” Paul writes.
Therefore, what this means is that you and I, as we preach the gospel, are God’s chosen means of calling people to himself for salvation. The means the Great Shepherd uses to call his sheep to himself from all over the world is our proclamation of the gospel. What a privilege it is for us to preach this gospel message, telling others of the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So, we trust in God’s sovereign work to call his people to himself, resting in that, and we preach the gospel. But we can say more. We also see that:
Our work doesn’t end once someone professes faith in the gospel we preach. That is a great and glorious thing. But notice that even though the Thessalonians had already professed faith in the gospel, Paul continued to persevere in faithful obedience to the truth. He writes in 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 our letter.”
Again, it is not enough that they received the proclamation of the gospel with full conviction and faith; they need to stand firm and continue to hold to it. That is, they need to persevere in faithful obedience. That’s what Paul is saying here. He wants them to continue to do and say and believe all that he taught them, whether they heard it from his mouth or from the letter he had written to them.
If making disciples, according to the Great Commission, involves us teaching them to obey everything Christ has commanded of them, then our work is not done until we die or the Lord returns. We have never finished the task of disciple-making in one’s life, especially not immediately upon hearing them profess faith in Christ.
Paul knew there were many things that could make shipwreck of their faith. The false teaching that some had told them, saying that Christ had already returned, was one thing that could destroy them. Had they believed this false teaching, decided there was no future hope, and walked away from Christ, it would have disastrous, eternal consequences. That’s what motivates Paul to write this letter and correct them. It’s what motivates Paul to exhort them to stand firm and continue to hold to the teaching he’d given them.
This is our task as well. There are many things in our lives that stand to make shipwreck of our faith. How will we respond to suffering, for example? Will it shake us to the point that we run from the Lord or to him?
This past week, I was able to sit with Mike Oliver in the hospital, prior to him hearing what his diagnosis is. He mentioned that it could be a couple of types of cancer that would most likely be less than treatable. And then he expressed to me his trust in the Lord, the peace he knew because of God’s sovereign goodness, and on and on. I was greatly encouraged by our dear brother. But I also know that he will need us to walk alongside him through these days and encourage him. He’ll need us to hold up those truths from the Scripture on days when it’s hard for him to remember them and focus on them. He’ll need us to say to him as Paul said to the Thessalonians, “Stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught.” And we’ll need to be reminded ourselves as we go through lives. This is simply a requirement of making disciples. We must continually exhort and encourage one another to persevere in the truth. Disciple-making is nothing short of a community project where each person in the community is willing to love his neighbor as himself.
But our encouragement must not be merely exhortations. Rather, we can also note that:
Paul does this a couple of ways in our text. I skipped over one phrase in verse 14, the last part, where Paul says, “So that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” That is, Paul reminds them that the Lord’s choosing them, calling them, sanctifying them, and enabling them to do good works has an eternal end in sight. One day they’ll obtain the glory of Christ. That is, one day we’ll be glorified, having a body that is no longer subject to death and decay, having hearts and minds that are no longer subject to sin and Satan’s lies. One day we’ll be like our Lord in righteousness as we see him as he is (1 John 3:2). Paul holds up the end of their salvation before them: glory.
And that’s what he’s doing in verses 16-17 as well. When Paul says that the Lord Jesus Christ and God our father gave us “eternal comfort and good hope through grace,” this is a reference to our glorious eternal hope. The reason it is “eternal” comfort is because we’re going to know the Lord’s blessings for eternity. And the reason it’s a “good” hope is because it’s not wishful thinking but a hope that is certain. We hope for what the Lord has promised: being glorified and dwelling with our Lord as his people forever.
Consistently in the Bible we are told to look to our eternal hope in order to press on in persevering faithful obedience in the present. Paul mentions that the suffering of this world is not worth comparing to the glory to be revealed to us in Romans 8:18 so that he might encourage us to press on in faithful obedience amidst suffering. Even our Lord, we are told, endured the cross for the joy that was set before him (Heb. 12:2). And so, we are encouraged to press on and stand firm and hold fast, by remembering what awaits us.
This means that we must strengthen others with the reminder of our eternal hope, the coming glory. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 that if there is no hope beyond this life, then we can simply seek to eat and drink (or whatever else might bring us pleasure) because tomorrow we die. But by knowing that there is hope beyond this life, we can be strengthened to lay down our lives, sacrifice our good, and give ourselves sacrificially and wholeheartedly for the sake of Christ in this life, knowing that he will raise us up in the end. We must hold eternity before one another.
So, we rest and trust in the Lord’s sovereignty, preach the gospel, exhort one another to persevering faithfulness, and hold the glory of eternity before one another. And finally:
Paul noted at the beginning of this section the ways the Lord had shown the Thessalonian believers his grace, but he’s not content there. He ends by asking the Lord to continue to lavish his grace on them. Verses 16-17 are a benediction when is a request to the Lord to bless his people. It is a prayer for God’s grace toward his own. And here Paul asks that the Lord who loved us and grace us eternal comfort and good hope through grace might “comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word” (v. 17).
Notice that Paul first mentions all that God has already done for us. He’s loved them and given them eternal comfort and good hope through grace. Typically, we tend to want to ask less of someone if they’ve done something for us already. Well, since he’s already chosen to help me with my yard work already, then I probably shouldn’t ask him to help me fix my car, we reason. But it is the opposite with the Lord.
What we are to recognize as we take inventory of the rich grace the Lord has shown us is that he delights in pouring out his grace on us. Thus, we can say, “Lord, since you’ve shown your delight in blessing this one by sending your Son to die for them, bringing them to yourself, loving them so deeply, etc., then it is obvious that you delight in showing rich grace toward this one. Therefore, would you …” That’s how our minds should work, and it’s why we should pray for those whom the Lord’s people. This is a crucial element in making disciples.
Prayer is so constant in Paul’s letters that it’s impossible to miss the importance of prayer in Paul’s life and ministry. And it must be the same in ours. James compares us to Elijah, who prayed that it wouldn’t rain, and it didn’t for three years, not to draw a contrast between prophet and us but to say that our nature is just like his. James wanted us to see that our prayers are a powerful means of the Lord’s grace in our lives. And Paul is modeling that belief in his own practice.
Therefore, let us be a people who spend time praying for one another, praying that the Lord might grant his people the grace to obey all that he has commanded.
How do we make disciples? Paul has given us a good model in these verses. We trust in the Lord’s sovereignty, preach the gospel, exhort to faithful obedience, hold eternity before one another, and pray for the Lord’s continued grace. And in all these things, we constantly hold up the gospel before ourselves and others so that we may not lose sight of what God has done for us in Christ and give him thanks for that – for sending his Son to live, die, and be raised for us. And that is what we will do now as we come to the table this morning. Amen.