Introduction
The theme this year was Stand Fast. Each speaker considered a passage in which the church is exhorted to stand fast for a total of 10 messages on the theme. The preaching was edifying and very applicable. The topic assigned to me was Stand Fast in Doctrinefrom 2 Thess. 2:15.
2 Thessalonians is possibly the fastest follow up letter in the New Testament coming perhaps just weeks after 1 Thessalonians. Paul was concerned that the church in Thessalonica, which was still in its infancy, was falling for false teaching concerning the return of Christ, 2:1-2. False teachers had either come into the church or risen in the church and were teaching that Christ had already returned, 2:3-4.
Paul explains that when Jesus returns there will be no doubt that he did so. He reminds them that he had already taught them concerning the return of the Lord (2:5) and repeats once again the biblical teaching on the return of Christ.
The church in every age struggles with holding fast to the apostolic teaching. It is tempting to embrace something that might be less controversial. Satan knows that we are just like anybody else and would prefer being liked by people than standing for what is righteous. So, Paul exhorts us to hold fast to what has been handed down to us by the apostles.
I. Two Commands: Stand Firm and Hold Fast, 2:15.
A. Stand firm or fast is a definite Pauline concept – overwhelmingly used by him.
1. The idea is to stand as if you had been staked to the spot you are standing on.
2. The type of standing that Paul is exhort the church to do is the type that does not give ground.
1 Cor. 16:13 – Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong.
General Thomas Jackson standing and the Union forces.
3. The stand firm of 2:15 is the opposite of be shaken in 2:3.
B. The church is not only to stand firm, but to hold fast.
1. To hold fast = seize, take, keep, lay hands on.
2. It implies the presence of force, strength, and straining oneself in order to do this.
3. The one holding fast is griping the thing he is holding fast to as if his life depended on it because it does!
II. The What – Stand Firm and Hold Fast to the Traditions They Heard and Received from the Apostles, 2:15.
A. The apostolic tradition came to them as they listened to the apostles and read what the apostles wrote to them.
1. This tradition is preserved to us in the New Testament and by implication in the Old Testament, since the NT is a continuation of the OT.
2. Instead of listening to speculations regarding the return of Christ, Paul wants them to hold on the Word of life that they received from him.
1 Thess. 2:13 – For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe.
B. Paul's exhortation for the church is this: set your feet firmly on the doctrine you received in the Bible and hold on to it as if your life depended on it because it does.
Eph. 4:14 – [Christ gave teachers to the church to equip the church so] that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting….
III. Why Stand Firm and Hold Fast?
A. The therefore in the beginning of 2:15 helps us answer the why question.
B. God chose them to be saved and called them to gain/obtain the glory of Christ, 2:13-14.
1. Salvation here is used in the broadest sense – the whole ordo salutis.
2. We see that in the gaining the glory of Christ, that is, becoming like him at his return.
C. We stand firm and hold fast because, as the redeemed of the Lord, there is nothing else we can do – look at the contrast between the redeemed and the false teachers, 10.
Phil 2:12-13 – Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
2 Cor. 5:14-15 – For the love of Christ compelsus, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.
IV. How Do We Stand Firm and Hold Fast?
A. We stand firm and hold fast by the sanctification of the Spirit and faith in the truth.
1. In other words, we stand and hold by the grace of God communicated to us by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
2. God calls us to faith by the Gospel and we are sanctified by faith in the Gospel, and we glorified by faith in the Gospel.
B. Our glorification at the return of the Lord Jesus Christ depends on our standing and holding.
C. But our standing and holding is accomplished by the grace of God so that at the end it is all of God.
Phil 2:12-13 – Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
D. An illustration of the type of grip we are to have on the apostolic tradition.
In late August 1987, pilot Henry Dempsey was flying his 15-passenger Beechcraft 99 turboprop from Lewiston Maine to Boston. At 4,000 feet he heard a noise in the back of the plain where the rear stairs are. He turned the controls over to his co-pilot and walked back. The plain hit turbulence knocked him against the door and it fell open.
Dempsey was sucked part way out, fell face down on the steps, and grabbed for something—anything that might save his life. He caught a railing and held on.
The co-pilot thought he had fallen out and diverted the flight to a nearby airport. When he landed, they found him with his face 12 inches off the runway and with his hands so tight around the rails that his fingers had to be pried open.
1. What I want you to see from this story is that the life and death grip with which Henry Dempsey held on to the stair railing at the back of that Beechcraft turboprop is the kind of grip we should have on the teachings of the apostle Paul handed down to us in the New Testament.
2. The wind and the suction and the gravity and the noise that swirled around him and tried to pull him to his destruction was less dangerous than the mystery of lawlessness that is swirling around you today and which will someday become even stronger.
3. And the stakes are greater, because the mystery of lawlessness and unbelief is sucking us not to physical death in the Atlantic Ocean, but to eternal destruction in hell.
V. Application: Let Me Suggest Six Apostolic Traditions from This Passage for Us to Stand on and Hold Fast To.
A. The love of God, 13 à beloved by the Lord.
1. This is God's electing and saving love.
Eph. 2:4-5 – But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)….
2. Stand firm and hold fast to the knowledge that you are particularly, effectually, irresistibly, unbreakably, and eternally loved by God.
3. Karl Barth is not one of our heroes, but there is a story about him that provides a good illustration for this point.
Once a young student asked Barth if he could sum up what was most important about his life's work and theology in just a few words. Barth just thought for a moment and then smiled, "Yes, in the words of a song my mother used to sing me, 'Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.'"
B. Election, 13 à God chose you for salvation and he will preserve you from apostasy through your standing and holding.
Mt. 24:31 – And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
C. Salvation leading to glorification, 13-14.
1. We were saved in order to receive the glory of Christ.
2. Paul often views salvation as the whole process from regeneration to glorification.
3. You are destined for glory!
4. Whatever struggles, whatever afflictions you are going through, glory is your final destination.
2 Cor. 4:17 – For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory….
D. Sanctification by the Spirit, 13.
1. You stand and hold by the power of the Spirit.
2. When you wonder whether you can hold fast, tell yourself that it is the Spirit who is holding through you, Phil 2:12-13.
3. When we realize that sanctification is the work of the Spirit as we believe in the Gospel, we are actually freed to overcome sin and to hold fast.
WSC 35 – What is sanctification? Sanctification is the work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.
E. God's call, 13.
1. God effectually called you to be his.
2. There is nothing that can remove you from his hand.
Phil 1:6 – … being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ….
F. The Gospel, 13.
1. You are attacked from every direction.
2. There are so many pressures.
3. It is so tempting to give up, to let go.
4. But of all the apostolic traditions, the one that we hold on to the tightest, the one we keep on returning to is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
a. It is the power of God unto salvation.
b. It is the message that God in Christ in reconciling man to himself.
c. It is the good news that our sins are forgiven.
Conclusion
So press on! Stand firm! Hold fast! Lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of you – eternal glory.
http://olympiabp.blogspot.com/2016/08/stand-fast-in-doctrine-2-thess-213-25.html
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