Sermon Tone Analysis

When I started writing this sermon, I had a plan about the verses I wanted to cover.

In fact, I had planned back in April (6 months ago) the text I was going to preach this morning.

And then, as plans tend to do, they changed.

By Tuesday of this week, I was all confused.

Well, more confused than normal...

I’m actually unsure how to divide these verses; suffice it to say over this week and next, we’ll cover 1 Thessalonians 2:17 through the end of Chapter 3.

I can see you’re all on the edge of your seats about how that’s going to happen.

Starting in 1 Thessalonians 2:17, Paul is expressing how deep his longing is to be with the church in Thessalonica.

He speaks to them with family affection, with eagerness to be with them in person again.

In a sentence, Paul longs for life together with the church.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer puts it:

The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer.

Longingly, the imprisoned apostle Paul calls his “dearly beloved son in the faith,” Timothy, to come to him in prison in the last days of his life; he would see him again and have him near.

Paul has not forgotten the tears Timothy shed when last they parted (2 Timothy 1:4).

Remembering the congregation in Thessalonica, Paul prays, “night and day most earnestly that we might see your face” (1 Thessalonians 3:10).

The aged John knows that his joy will not be full until he can come to his own people and speak face to face instead of writing in ink (2 John 12).

Life together with the church is the goal, the desire, the hope, the prayer.

With his life at risk, Paul still deeply desires to be with the church; it’s that important to him.

Do we believe life together with the church is important?

What are we willing to risk in order to gather?

What commitment do we have to our church family?

“When I was little we used to play church,” writes Anne Ortlund.

“We’d get chairs into rows, fight about who’d be preacher, vigorously lead the hymn singing, and generally have a great carnal time.

The aggressive kids naturally wanted to be up front, directing or preaching.

The quieter ones were content to sit and be entertained by the up-fronters.

Occasionally we’d get mesmerized by a true sensationalistic crowd-swayer—like the girl who said, “Boo!

I’m the Holy Ghost!”

But in general, if the up-fronters were pretty good, they could hold their audience quite a while.

If they weren’t so good, eventually the kids would drift off to play something else—like jump rope or jacks.

That generation has now grown up, but most of them haven’t changed too much.

Every Sunday they still play church.

They still line up in rows for entertainment.

If it’s pretty good, their church may grow.

If it’s not that great, eventually they’ll drift off to play something else—like yachting or wife swapping.”

-Anne Ortlund, Up with Worship

“Every Sunday they still play church.”

Ouch.

Too often, we devolve into playing church.

We plaster on a smile, dress up real nice, pretend we didn’t spend the morning yelling at the kids and the dog, and show up to the building where the church gathers to do what we did last week (that is, if there’s nothing more interesting going on that day).

Playing church isn’t the idea; life together with the church is.

Life together with the church is the goal, the desire, the hope, the prayer.

Notice the family and emotional language Paul uses: brothers and sisters, orphaned, intense longing, we made every effort to see you, when we could stand it no longer, you always have pleasant memories of us and long to see us, we also long to see you, how can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have because of you.

Life together is the goal, the desire, the hope, the prayer.

This is what Paul desires.

Life Together as Family

Already in this letter, Paul has used metaphors for his relationship to the Christians in Thessalonica.

He’s said he cares for them as a mother cares for her children.

As a father deals with his own children, he has encouraged and comforted and urged the Thessalonians to live lives worthy of God.

Several times, and again here in verse 17, he calls them brothers and sisters.

Your Bible might just say brothers or brethren, but please realize that includes men and women both.

Brothers and sisters is the most accurate and complete rendering.

It’s familial term.

Paul is speaking to family—his brothers and sisters in Christ.

Don’t miss that.

Don’t gloss over it.

Anytime you read “brothers” or “brothers and sisters”, take time to reflect upon what it means.

We don’t know much about Paul’s extended family, whether or not he had biological siblings.

But we know Paul has innumerable brothers and sisters in Christ.

In 1971, the black and white students in Alexandria, Virginia were integrated into one school named T.C. Williams High School.

The players struggled with racial tensions of that era (tensions that still plague us today).

Tempers are hot within the team, until they go away to football camp and become family.

Their coach, Herman Boone (played by Denzel in the movie retelling), requires each player to room with and learn something about one of their teammates of a different race.

In no time, in magic movie world, they’re singing together in the locker room and at lunch times.

Near the end of the film, Gary (a white leader on the team) is injured and is in the hospital.

Julius (one of the black leaders on the team) comes to see him.

Gary’s mom tells Julius, “He only wants to see you.”

When Julius enters Gary’s room, the nurse tries to stop him and says, “Only kin is allowed in here.”

Gary responds, “Alice, are you blind?

Don’t you see the family resemblance?

That’s my brother.”

If football can bring people together, how much more the gospel?!?

We have to remember that Paul and the Thessalonians were different in just about every way that matters—race, religion, ethnicity, geography, language, culture, favorite baseball team.

Different in every way imaginable.

But the gospel—the Good News about Jesus Christ—changes that.

About the divide between Jew and Gentile, Paul always focuses on what Jesus has done.

He writes the the church in Ephesus:

Ephesians 2:14-16 “For he himself [Jesus Himself] is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations.

His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.”

The gospel works; it takes people, very different from one another, and makes them family.

Those who might hate one another before the gospel grips their hearts, before the Spirit changes stone to flesh; those who were once hostile enemies become, in Christ, a spiritual family.

They become church.

And that’s a bond deeper than biology, a tie stronger than blood or DNA or race or personality or preference.

And so, in God’s gospel economy, Paul and the Thessalonians—once worlds apart, separated by every single earthly metric—become members of the same family, the Church.

In God’s gospel economy, the Lord God takes people like us and unites us with people very different from us, making us one body, the Church.

Since Paul couldn’t be with his family in Thessalonica, he sent Timothy to them.

“We sent Timothy, who is our brother,” Paul writes, because they’re family and family cares for each other.

We need each other.

Life together as family is what God had in mind for Paul, Silas, and Timothy and the Thessalonians.

Life together as family is what God has in mind for us.

We we are unable to experience life together, we find out quickly that:

Separation is Painful

Paul has employed the metaphors of father and mother in relation to the Thessalonians.

Now he says he and his friends have been orphaned from them.

Torn away from the Thessalonians, as parents from children, as a child being orphaned.

That’s a strong word—orphaned.

Paul used the strongest word he could think of to describe the pain of being taken from his family, of not being able to return to his brothers and sisters.

For Paul, having to leave his brothers and sisters, having to leave his family brings about a deep feeling of loss.

Something is not right; part of himself is missing.

It’s a struggle for him.

Paul feels the pain of separation but believes that their separation will be short-lived—for a short time, Paul writes.