Now before coming to our text
here, Paul declared some things that have come to pass before
Christ returns. He speaks there about a great
falling away, talks about how God will loose Satan for a season,
and he'll send sinners strong delusion who receive not the
love of the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness and he said,
He'll condemn them. He said they believe not the
truth but have pleasure in unrighteousness. And the majority of that is what
he just described, sitting in the temple of God as if they
are God and saying that their righteousness is of something
they've done. And that's rejoicing in unrighteousness. But then we come to a contrast
here, and that contrast is a conjunction that God's people rejoice in.
He says, but, but, verse 13, but we're bound to give thanks
always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord. Why are we giving thanks always
to God for brethren who are beloved of the Lord? We have a lot to
give thanks for. Why do we give thanks only to
God? Why are we obligated, bound to
give thanks to God? Well, we thank God for his electing
grace. He says, because God hath from
the beginning chosen you to salvation. And we thank God for his sanctifying
grace. He said he's chosen you to salvation
through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth.
And then we thank God for his glorifying grace. He says, where
unto to the belief of the truth, he called you by our gospel. And when he called you by the
gospel, he brought you to the obtaining of the glory of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Before the foundation of the
world, before he made anything, God the Father gave his son the
glory of being the blessing of these blessings. When he says
there that you obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, I'm
gonna work my way to that, but what he's saying there is that
before this world began, the glory he's speaking about is
the glory the Father gave to his son. When he chose him to
be the mediator, he made him to be the blessing of all these
blessings. Christ is preeminent in these
blessings. He is the blessing of these blessings. Christ is God's elect. He's God's
elect. He's salvation. He's salvation. He's sanctification. Christ is
the truth. And Christ is the gospel we preach. He gives us this gospel. He gives
us this word, this glory. He makes us know this glory.
He gives us the word that God the Father gave him when he chose
his son to be the mediator. And he gives us that glory so
that we see and know that he is the blessing, the great blessing
of these blessings. It's the glory the father gave
his son as mediator to save his people. And this is what's amazing. The father, the love with which
God the father loved Christ before the world was made, the love
with which he loved the Lord Jesus Christ is the same love
where with he loves his people. Same love. And so because he
loved Christ and he would have him glorified and he would save
his people, he didn't leave anything in our hands. He left nothing
in our hands. He gave it all to Christ. And
when Christ gives us the gospel, he gives us the glory. He gives
us the light. He gives us the understanding.
of the glory the Father gave Him before this world was, so
that we understand. He said in John 17, 22, the glory
which thou gavest me, I have given them. We're gonna see something
about what that is. So first of all, let's look at
Christ in each of these blessings. We're bound to thank God always. We have one to thank. We thank
God always for his electing grace. Election is of God the Father. It says God hath. God hath. The choice is God's. God hath. God's sovereign, that means he
can do what he will with whom he will. It's all of God's, his
choice. God hath, and he hath from the
beginning, that means from eternity, that means from everlasting,
that means before the children did any good or evil, before
we did any good or evil, what was his purpose in doing it from
the beginning? He said in Romans 9.11, he told
Rebecca, He gave us a picture of this with Rebecca and she
had twins in her womb. They were the same in every way.
Same father, same mother, same time of conception, everything
about them was the same, in the same womb. And the Lord said,
the children being not yet born, neither having done any good
or evil, that was us, from the beginning God showed before we
did any good or evil. Why? Why did God do the choosing
then? that the purpose of God, according
to election, might stand not of works, but of him that calleth.
The purpose of God in choosing before the beginning, before
the foundation of the world in eternity, before he made anything,
is so that we know salvation is of God that calls. It's not
because of anything in us. He chose you to salvation. You've been chosen to salvation.
He chose Christ As the son, he's eternal. He's the second person
in the Trinity, but he chose him to be the Christ. He chose
him to be the mediator. And at the same time, in one
simultaneous act of love and grace, he chose his people in
his son. Christ as the last Adam is called
the everlasting father. That means without beginning,
without end, just everlasting. If he's the everlasting father,
that means he everlastingly had children. And as so, we've been
in Christ by the Father's choice from everlasting. He everlastingly,
eternally chose his people in Christ. And why did he do it?
What was the moving cause that made him do it? If it wasn't
anything in us, and it wasn't. It was grace. But what moved
him to give us that grace? He said, Jacob, have I loved. That was the moving call. Jacob
have I loved. He loved Christ. He loved Christ. He loved his son preeminently,
and he loves his people in his son. He loves his people. That's security, brethren. That's
security. God saves those he loves, and
he loves us as he loves Christ. That's, we sing amazing love.
We just sing the deep, deep love of Jesus. That's amazing love.
He loves us as he loves his son. So the glory of election that
God gave his son from eternity, this glory we're gonna obtain
through the gospel and the light and the understanding and the
knowledge of what God gave to him, it's the glory of being our savior. of being
the one who does the saving. He chose Christ. He chose us
unto salvation because he chose Christ to do the saving. He chose
Christ to do the saving. He says over in Isaiah 42.1,
behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth. Christ is God's elect. He chose him. He's the preeminent
one and because because he sent him to do the saving. Our salvation
is sure because he said, he shall not fail nor be discouraged till
he has set judgment in the earth. And the Gentiles will wait for
his gospel, will wait for his law. He shall not fail. What a blessing to thank God
for. People hate the doctrine of election because they want
some part of that. They want there to be something
in them that caused God to choose them. But we thank God for election. He said, we're bound to give
thanks to God always for you, brethren, because why? You're
beloved of the Lord. He chose you in Christ unto salvation. It's sovereign. It's unconditional. It's irreversible election. The
gifts and calling of God are without repentance since he called
us in Christ freely. from just a heart of love, brethren. That means when we fell in Adam,
we were preserved in Christ. And there's no sin, past, present,
or future that can cause this to be reversed. He chose you
freely. He loved you freely. That's what
he said in Hosea, I'll love them freely. And I justify them freely. And he saves us freely. Because
he gave it all into the hand of Christ. That's why we say,
That's why Paul wrote in Ephesians 1.3, blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank God, our Father. Blessed be Him, praise Him, glorify
Him. Why? Because He blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. How did He
do it? When He chose us in the blessing of that blessing, according
as He chose us in Christ. Because He chose Christ and chose
us in Christ and sent Him to do the saving, He blessed us
with all these blessings. He's the blessing of the blessing.
Christ be my first elect, he said, then chose our souls in
Christ our head before he gave the mountains birth or laid foundations
for the earth. At this moment, There's not one
child of God in glory with Christ who's rejoicing in his will or
his works or any personal merit in him. Not a one of them are.
You know why? They've all heard Christ say,
come you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared
for you from before the foundation of the world. That's what he
did when he chose us in Christ. He shall not fail. He chose us
unto salvation in the elect who is our salvation, Christ Jesus. Now look at this next thing we
thank God for. We're bound to thank God always
for sanctifying grace and belief of the truth. He said, God has
chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the spirit
and belief of the truth whereunto he called you by our gospel.
Now what is sanctification? What is sanctification? There's
a bunch of theological definitions, but I don't want to get into
that. It's to be separated and made
holy. Christ is our sanctification.
He's our sanctification. Christ is sanctification. Christ is the truth. He's the
righteousness. He's sanctification and righteousness. He's the sanctification, and
he's the truth he brings us to believe. He's the gospel we preach. We preach Christ and Him crucified.
I'm trying to declare nothing but Christ to you. He's the one
that is the gospel we preach, and He calls you. He said in
John 17, 17. Let's go over there. I want you to hold your place
in John 17, because I'm going to come back there. He prayed the Father. He said,
sanctify them, verse 17, sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word
is truth. And he says in verse 19, for
their sakes I sanctify myself that they also might be sanctified
through the truth. See, he is the truth. He is the
truth. How did he sanctify himself?
He's holy, he didn't, He came forth holy, harmless, undefiled,
separate from sinners, so that He's able to lay down His life
in the room instead of His people, so that He's able to go to the
cross and bear our sin and purge our sin, and so that when Christ
died, all these God chose in Him. When Christ died, our old
man of sin was crucified in Him. Put to death, justice was poured
out, justice was satisfied, judgment was settled. It's done. When
He died, you who He chose were in Him and you really died in
Him. Your old man of sin is already,
the judgment has already taken place for you way back there
at the cross. and you were buried. Your old man was put out of sight
before God, where it matters, before the law of God. And when He came out of the grave,
we came out of the grave and we sat down with Him at God's
right hand and as Paul said, set your affection on things
above where Christ is at God's right hand. He's our life. We're
seated there with Him in glory. He's our life. And so, that's
the truth. He's the truth, He's the righteousness,
He's the holiness, He's the truth. And because He separated Himself
from sinners and walked this earth and under the law and went
to the cross and accomplished everything the Father sent Him
to accomplish, He's the truth through which God sanctifies
us. His blood makes His people righteous
before the law and He's our sanctification by His blood. Go over to Hebrews
10. And look here, he's our sanctification
through his blood. He says in Hebrews 10 in verse
seven, then said Christ, Hebrews 10 verse seven, then said I,
that's cried, then said Christ, lo, I come to do thy will, O
God. Look at verse 10. By the witch
will, we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once for all time. Verse 14, for by one offering,
he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Look at
Hebrews 13 and look at verse 12. He says, wherefore Jesus
also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood suffered
without the gate. He was setting us apart, He was
making us holy. And back in Hebrews 2 and verse
11, He says, both He that sanctifyeth, He's the sanctifier, He that
sanctifyeth, and they who are sanctified are all of one, for
which cause He's not ashamed to call them brethren. So to
bring us to be sanctified by the truth, to bring us to believe
Christ the truth in our experience of God's grace so that we see
him as our sanctification and as the truth, as our righteousness.
How are we gonna be brought to look out of ourselves to him
and believe he's our sanctification and he's our righteousness? How
are we gonna be brought there? We come into this world wanting
it to be of our hand. We come into this world wanting
it to be of us. Two things we do by nature, we
want to ignore our sin and we want to boast about our righteousness. And both of them are the same
thing, just sin. How are we going to be made to
rejoice that Christ is our holiness and Christ is our righteousness?
Through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth.
So Christ is going to have to be formed in us. Christ is going
to have to come in spirit. Go to Galatians 4.6, you remember
this? And I've been thinking about
this ever since Sunday. I tried to write an article on
it, but I don't know where if I did much with it. But look
here, Galatians 4.6, because your son's chosen, redeemed,
God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts,
crying, Abba, Father. That's the spirit of Christ crying,
Abba, Father. That's not you crying Abiphar,
that's Him. What did Christ mean when He said, without me you
can do nothing? What does that mean? We can't
do anything without Him. We can't cry to God without Him. We can't believe without Him.
See, look back at Galatians 2. And verse 20, this is what Paul
was saying, I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live,
yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. In the life which I now
live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who
loved me and gave himself for me. You know who the new man
is in you? It's Christ. It's the Spirit
of Christ in you. And look over, look at Romans
8. Look over here at Romans 8. He does bring us to cry out.
He says there in Romans 8.15, you've not received the spirit
of bondage again to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption
whereby we cry, Abba, Father. But look down now at verse 26. The spirit also helps our infirmities,
for we know not what we should pray for as we ought. But now
watch this. The Spirit himself maketh intercession
for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. When you can't pray,
when you can't pray as you should, when you're just so without any
strength to even pray and don't know what you should pray, not
only does Christ intercede for us at God's right hand, the Spirit
of Christ intercedes for us within us. This is beyond me. This is beyond me. I'm not trying
to tell you something I can understand. I'll tell you something that
God says and I believe it because He says it. The Spirit of Christ
Himself makes intercession for us. Those groanings where you
just think it's just you groaning because of your trouble and you
have these fleeting thoughts of the Lord. but you're just
so weak in your flesh that you can't even, when you start trying
to pray, your thoughts are all over the place and all over the
trouble. That groaning, that, I don't even know if it's whether
we make a sound or not, if it's just the spirit interceding for
it. But he does this, and look at
this, look at this. Verse 27, and he that searcheth
the hearts, God who searches the heart, he knows What's the
mind of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ? Remember Paul
said over there in 1 Corinthians 2, we have the mind of Christ.
This is how we know Christ. This is how we know the things
that are freely given to us by God. We have the mind of Christ.
Christ, our sanctification, has entered in in spirit and created
a new man and we know him. We have the mind of Christ. And
when the Spirit of Christ intercedes within us, He knows the mind
of the Spirit. He knows what he's praying. I don't think we know how helpless
we are, brethren. We're helpless. We're helpless. But we're not helpless with Christ. He said, We can do all things
through Christ that strengthens us. He's our strength. He said,
without me, you can do nothing, but with him, all things are
possible. He's the one that's saving us,
brethren. Well, what I'm trying to tell
you is, now look back at Romans eight and look back up there
at verse nine. This is the good news. You're not in the flesh,
but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of God dwell in you. That's sanctification right there.
Forget these theological definitions. That's sanctification. You're
not in the flesh. You're in the Spirit if the Spirit
of God is in you. Now, if any man have not the
Spirit of Christ, he's none of Him. And if Christ be in you,
the body's dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life. The Spirit
is life. That's the life in us, is the
Spirit. The Spirit's life because of
righteousness. And if he's in you, the same
one that raised up Lord Jesus from the dead, he that raised
up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies
by his spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we're
debtors not to the flesh to live after the flesh, because if you
live after the flesh, you'll die. But if you through the spirit,
without me, you can do nothing. Without me, you can do nothing.
So through the spirit, through the spirit, We mortify the deeds
of the body, and we live. And this isn't to bring us into
bondage. Look down at verse 15. You've
not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you've received
the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. It's not bondage. He's not gonna
let you be brought back into bondage. He's gonna keep you
knowing what he's done for you. Now, let me hurry along, because
I want you to get what I'm saying. There's a holy man a new holy
man, a new nature, Christ in you, so that you're partakers
with the divine nature. This is what it means to be one
with Christ. He's crying out when you can't
cry out. He's interceding when you can't
intercede. And he's interceding at God's
right hand. He's the life in you, the life
at God's right hand. You can't tell where Christ ends
and you begin. That's how one we are. righteous
and in true righteousness and true holiness, He is. And when
He says the Holy Ghost bears witness of this to us, when He
says that in Hebrews 10, He tells you that where remission of your
sins is, there's no more offering for sin. And so when He tells
you that, You have boldness, now listen, to enter the holiest,
the presence of God, by the blood of Jesus. There's sanctification
and justification all in the blood of Christ. You can enter
the holiest by the blood of Jesus. Why? Because you have a true
heart now. A real heart, a true heart. And
you have your heart sprinkled from an evil conscience. An evil
conscience that makes you do vain works. and your body's been
washed with pure water. That's sanctification. That's
to be made holy. That's reason to thank God. Christ
is our sanctification. He's the truth. He's the righteousness. So we're holy by His blood, we're
righteous by His blood, and we're holy with Him within us. And
that's how we're made to look out of us to Him and say, He's
my holiness, He's my sanctification, and He's my righteousness. He's
everything. He's everything. It's sanctification
of the Spirit. Where to? He called you by our
gospel to the belief of the truth. It's all of Him. Now lastly,
and this is where I want to try to bring this all together and
show you what I've been getting at. When He's given you the gospel
and made you believe the gospel, really believe the gospel, he
makes you to obtain the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
says there in verse 14, where unto he called you by our gospel
to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now
he's not talking about the glory of his Godhead here, but he's
talking about he gives us the glory that the father gave to
him before the world was made. It's talking about the gospel.
When He gives you the gospel, when He makes you understand
what the Father gave Him before the world began, what the Father
made Him to be before the world began, that's His glory. And
He gives you that. He gives you that light, that
glory, so you understand and see and know and enter into what
He is to you. Go to John 17 and I'll show you.
John 17, verse 22. He says here, this is Christ
praying to the Father as our high priest, and he says in verse
22, and the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them. Talking about his believing people.
The glory which thou has given me, I've given them. Now look
back up at verse 8. He says, Look at verse seven,
he says, now they have known that all things whatsoever thou
hast given me are of thee. You've given me to be the elect
you chose, you've given me to be their salvation, you've given
me to be their sanctifier and their sanctification, you've
given me, and now they know all these things you've given me. Whatsoever thou hast given me
are of thee. Look, how do we know that? For I've given unto
them the words which thou gavest me. I've given them the word,
the words of eternal life. I've given them the gospel. And
they've received them and have known surely that I came out
from thee and they've believed that thou didst send me. This
is how you brought to believe him. Now look at verse 14. I've given them Thy word. And what's the result? The world
hath hated them because they're not of the world, even as I'm
not of the world. I've given them your word. That's
what it means when you've obtained the glory. He's made you to see,
to know through the gospel. He's given you the gospel and
made you know what he gave, what the father gave to him before
the world was made so that you believe God really sent him.
God chose him. God sent him to be the salvation. All the things that he makes
you to see and he makes you obtain the glory so that you know and
you believe and you rejoice, not just in the doctrine of election,
you rejoice that Christ is the one God chose. He's the elect
God chose. And because he chose me in him,
he's my salvation. He sent him. It's election unto
salvation. He sent him and he gonna save
me because he chose him to do it and sent him to do the saving.
That's the glory He gives you. The Father sent Christ to be
my sanctifier by Christ's blood, by the Spirit, and He gives us
the glory to know that He's our sanctification. He did it by
His blood. He sanctified us. and He justified
us by His blood. He's our holiness, He's our sanctifier,
and He's the sanctifier within. And not only has He created this
new man so that we know His glory, one day He's coming and He's
gonna take us home with Him and wholly conform us to Him in body,
soul, and spirit, and we're gonna know Him as we're known and be
perfectly conformed to Him. He gave Him the glory of being
the truth. He gave His Son the glory of
being the truth. And He gave us this glory to
know He's the truth and to rest in Him as righteousness. The
truth, the right, mercy and truth are met together. He is our righteousness. Now here's the sum of it, listen.
The Father gave Christ the glory of making us one in Christ. And when He gives you this glory,
He gives you this gospel, He makes you to know now, He brings
you into what Paul called the unity of the faith, inseparably
one with Christ and with the Father in Christ, and with our
brethren in Christ. We're one in Him, one in Him. Listen, John 17, 22, the glory
which thou gave me, I've given them. that they may be one even
as we are one. Now listen to that, that they
may be one even as we are one, even as the Father and the Son
are one. When he gives you this gospel
and he sanctified you and saved you and brought you to the truth
and made you to see his glory, that's how one we are with him,
even as him and the Father are one. Look, I in them, There he
is, our sanctification, he's in us. And the Father is in him,
that they may be made perfect in one. That's sanctification
right there, that's holiness right there, that's righteousness,
that's everything. And look, and that my redeemed
all over the world may know that thou hast sent me. This is the
only way you're gonna believe he really came from the Father
and has, ooh, listen to this, has loved them as thou hast loved
me. There's no separation between
us and Christ. Everything the father has for
his son, for our mediator, our last Adam, because he's our head,
we're the body, and as he loves him, he loves us. That's amazing. That's amazing. And he loved us before, verse
24, he said, before the foundation of the world. And that, now look,
we just have a foretaste of this right now. Just a foretaste of
it. Sometimes you can see it more
clearly than other times, because he just opens it up to you, but
it's a foretaste right now. But one day, one day, We're gonna
have it in the full splendor. And here's why, verse 24, John
17, 24, because he says, Father, I will that they also whom thou
has given me be with me where I am that they may behold my
glory which thou has given me. For thou has, you love me before
the foundation of the world. I said at the beginning, the
reason he chose Christ was he loved him. And you know why he
chose us in him? Jacob have I loved. He said,
you love them as you've loved me. Before the foundation of
the world, that's what set it all going in motion, was God
loved us like he loved Christ. That's perfect, brethren. So
back in our text, 2 Thessalonians 2, so here's where Paul ends
up. You see the world in chaos, you
see the world Looks like Satan's been loosed for a little season.
Christ says, enter into the stronghold till the indignation be overpassed.
Don't you get involved with the pot shards, striving with the
pot shards. Just enter into Christ and rest. Here's what he says,
look. Therefore, brethren, because he loved us in Christ, nothing's
gonna separate us from the love of God in Christ, nothing. Nobody,
no thing. So he says, therefore, brethren,
stand fast and hold the traditions which you've been taught, whether
by word or epistle. Don't move from the gospel of
Christ. And watch this. How am I gonna
do that? Now, our Lord Jesus Christ himself, our Lord Jesus
Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved
us and has given us this everlasting consolation, this good hope through
grace, comfort your heart. That's how you're gonna be comforted.
The Lord Jesus himself, with God our Father in him, enters
in and he'll comfort your heart with this gospel. And he'll establish
you. He'll establish you. He said,
without me, you can do nothing. I'll establish you, he said,
in every good word and work. That's what he's gonna do. That's
what he's gonna do. And no doubt about it, brethren.
No doubt about it. That's a good hope right there.
That's comfort, and I pray you comfort us with it. Amen.