Embrace Your Eternal Victory through Christ!

3rd Sunday of End Times, Saints Triumphant, 11/13/16
2 Thessalonians 2:13-3:5


Embrace Your Eternal Victory through Christ!
I. A victory from eternity
II. A victory through eternity


About ten days ago a certain Major League Baseball team won its first World Series Championship since 1908 and millions of people showed up 2 days later to celebrate the victory. It was euphoric. I’m sure many of the team’s fans are still celebrating. But the thrill of victory is fading fast. In another month or two it will have faded completely. That’s because victories don’t last long in our world. In fact, just hours after the championship game was complete, Las Vegas announced the odds of a repeat in 2017. All too soon the victor must take up the task of defending his or her title.

But there are times in our lives when we don’t mid how long or short our victories last. We just want to experience one. Perhaps you’ve been miserable lately and it’s due in large part to the fact that you’ve been hit with one loss after another, one disappointment on top of another, one more rejection in an unbroken string of rejections, or so it seems. You just want to taste and smell a victory of any kind. It seems as if life is one continuous struggle and you just aren’t coming out on top. Do you know what I’m talking about?

I’m sure we all do. That’s what makes this Sunday’s celebration so uplifting, so life-changing, so radically different. Today we’re celebrating the truth that countless saints—countless Christians—have reached their final destination—life with Jesus in the glory of heaven. They are saints triumphant! And by faith in Jesus that’s your destination, too. By faith in Jesus there’s no doubt about it. Eternal victory is yours! So, instead of sulking through life like sinful loser, embrace your eternal victory! Embrace your eternal victory through Christ!

Part I.

Whether or not the presidential candidate you voted for this past Tuesday won or not, you have to be amazed that the winner pulled it off! Not very many people saw this coming. Like the majority of Americans, I was fairly sure he wouldn’t win. But he was sure he would. He kept on telling his supporters, “We’re gonna win!” He had a strategy, he stuck with it, and it paid off with a victory.

Your God had a strategy for your eternal victory. He stuck with it, and it has paid off eternally for you.

That strategy began before time. In other words, it began from eternity in our human way of thinking. In this morning’s text from 2 Thessalonians, Paul states it like this, “But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul says that God chose you from the beginning. That’s his way of stating the Bible’s teaching that, in eternity—in other words, before time—God knew you by name as one of the members of his kingdom by faith in Jesus. Now that’s an amazing choice! Before you were so cute and lovable, before you had done anything that might please your God in the least, God chose you to be one of his own people, destined for eternal victory with him. Boggles your mind, doesn’t it? God has always known you by name as belonging to him!

And now, during your lifetime, God has called you to be his own. Paul; states, “He called you to this through our gospel.” That was the work of God the Holy Spirit. He used the gospel—the good news about Jesus as your Savior—to bring you to faith in Jesus, to make you a child of God. For so many of you that gospel was connected to the water of your baptism, where someone spoke the name of the triune God over you and brought you to faith in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit—a Christian faith.

And now that same Holy Spirit nurtures your faith. Do you realize your faith is never static? It’s either increasing or decreasing. Obviously, God’s strategy for you is for your faith in Jesus to grow. And one of the means he uses to accomplish this is the truth of his word. That’s why Paul encouraged the Thessalonians Christians, “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you.” No one’s faith in Jesus was ever strengthened by a false teaching. That’s because all false teachings are the lies of Satan, not the truth of God. So it’s imperative that we stand firm in God’s truth as it has been handed down to us.

And when we do that, then God’s strategic plan for us results in the glory to which Paul refers here in our text. He states, “That you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Where the glory of Jesus is, that’s where your eternal victory is. No one and nothing can oppose the glory of Jesus as the Son of God. In fact, it’s the height of foolishness. So, while hellish forces will try non-stop to oppose Christ and his Church on earth, they will never win. Ultimately Jesus wins and you win with him! From eternity God chose you to win with Jesus.

That’s a victory you don’t have to defend. It’s simply a victory for you to embrace. Embrace your eternal victory through Christ—a victory from eternity.

Do you worry about things? If so, what kind of things? If you’re honest, you’ll admit that you worry about almost everything in your life—your children, your parents, your health, your job, your retirement. Finances, vehicles, homes, politics, world events. We worry when we travel and we worry when we stay home. Worry interrupts our sleep and distracts us when we work. And while we worry, we loosen our embrace on the eternal victory that is ours through Jesus. Our worries are an affront to the God who had an eternal victory strategy for your life. In fact, our worries accuse God of his failure to plan and execute the plan. They charge God with thoughtlessness and forgetfulness when it comes to our lives. Our worries tell our Lord, “You don’t seem to have the power to solve my problems. I guess I’ll have to take care of things myself.” But listen again to your Lord, “From the beginning God chose you.” What’s so remarkable about that choice is that he knew how much your worries and all your other sins would be an insult to his eternal love for you, but he chose you anyway. And then he sent his Son who always trusted him and never worried for a moment about anything. That Son covered himself with your sins and mine when he went to the cross and died for them and everyone’s sins. And then he rose again in glory to assure you that he had won eternal glory for you. Eternal victory! It’s yours no matter what. Drop all your worries and embrace your eternal victory through Christ!

Part II.

We’ve taken a look back at our eternal victory. Now let’s turn 180 degrees and look ahead.

Looking ahead can be a little unsettling, to say the least. What lies ahead for you in the next year? You can make plans for your life, but can you really be sure that a single one of them will be realized? And then there are the unplanned occurrences, the things you never would have expected—unforeseen, crippling expenses, an untimely death in the family, that lump somewhere on your body, a lump that wasn’t there before. As we look ahead there are uncertainties all over the landscape of our lives.

And then you try to look past your personal life to see what might lie ahead for our country and our world and it gets worse. What new attacks on Christianity will we have to weather? What kind of world are we handing over to our children? If this is what we face now, what will they face 20 or 30 years from now? Will their faith survive the onslaught of evil?

Take heart, dear Christian! Listen to the word of your almighty Lord Jesus through the Apostle Paul. “Pray that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men, for not everyone has faith. But the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one.” The world of Paul’s day was just as wicked as our own. The most powerful government in the world at that time would soon make Christianity illegal. No doubt many Christians wondered how Christianity would survive. But the Lord Jesus was still in control and he laughs when world powers align themselves with Satan to oppose him, because Jesus ultimately wins. He delivered the Church then; he will deliver us now.

As we face the difficult days ahead, we have our Lord’s assurance that he will strengthen us through his word and sacrament. He promises to keep us in the faith as we make faithful use of his word and sacrament. The very same word that Jesus used to defeat Satan is the word that he has implanted in our hearts. Make use of it!

And then be confident that everything will result in glory for you. Jesus won that glory for you by his life, death and resurrection. When he returns on the Last Day, he himself will usher you into that glory. Countless saints in heaven live in triumphant glory now. God has plans for you to join them. In fact, he guarantees it. So embrace it! Embrace your eternal victory through Jesus—a victory through eternity.

Each day we suffer losses of so many kinds that we come to expect them. We tell ourselves to be ready for them, but it doesn’t make experiencing them any easier. And when they keep hitting us, it’s easy to let discouragement overtake us. That’s another sign that we’ve released our hold on our eternal victory through Christ. Jesus told us that we will have trouble in this world, but to take heart because he has overcome it. That victory happened when he appeared to have lost his battle with sin and Satan on Calvary’s cross, but his victory was never in doubt. He proved it by his resurrection. His resurrection is our guarantee of eternal victory no matter what losses this life throws our way. As you suffer those losses, don’t let go of your eternal victory. By faith in your victorious Savior, embrace it! Envision yourself among the saints triumphant! Your Savior will make it so. Amen.