Sermon Tone Analysis

Do you generally read to the end of a letter that is written to you?

That probably depends.

If the letter is from someone looking for money you may not even read the first line before pitching it into the garbage.

However, if the letter is from someone important to you, you will read every last word.

Sometimes the best stuff is in the p.s. at the end.

You might read, p.s. “I’ve enclosed a check for you.”

Or “p.s.

I love you”.

Or, “p.s.

I’ll be arriving tomorrow.”

Sometimes with a book we read to the end because we want to know how the story ends.

At other times we will feel the author has finished making his point well before he finished writing the book, so we skim or skip the last chapters.

Sometimes with a textbook we are required to read so many pages and we start to lose interest.

We end up not so much reading, as just turning, the pages.

How we read the end of the various books and letters of the Bible is determined by whether we see theses books as a letter from someone we love or as an assignment we have been given to complete.

We have invested 14 weeks in our study of this letter of Paul to the Thessalonians.

There is a tendency (even on my part) to be so eager to finish the study that we hurry through the final words of the book.

To do so is to miss some significant information.

23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through.

May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

24 The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.

25 Brothers, pray for us.

26 Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss.

27 I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers.

28 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

Immediately we are confronted with a word that is uncommon to our normal vocabulary.

It is the word “sanctify”.

The word means, “to be set apart”.

It is a word that comes from the word holy.

When something was “sanctified” it was devoted to God’s service.

Paul here is praying for God to make us like those who are “set apart”.

If you will, he is praying that God would help us to be more like Jesus.

In theological terms this process of becoming “set apart” for God is called sanctification.

It is what Paul may have been thinking about when he wrote these words in Romans 8:29 “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”

It is easy to get hung up on that word “predestined” and miss what it is that God has predestined us to be.

He desires that be conformed to the likeness of his son and to be a part of God’s family.

So, here’s the question: How does this happen?

I see at least three principles on what it means to grow up to be like Jesus.

Honor Christ Fully in All We Do and Are

Paul said,

May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through.

May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul wants us to be “set apart” through and through.

He wants us to belong to God in our spirit, soul and body.

Some people have made a big deal out of the fact that Paul here talks about the “spirit, soul, and body”.

They believe this tells us that there are really three parts to man.

However, if you search the Scriptures this is the only time in the Bible where these three words are used.

In Mark 12:30 Jesus talks about loving God with all of our “heart, soul, mind, and strength.”

In most cases the Bible talks about “body” and “soul” or “flesh” and “spirit”.

Don’t read so much into Paul’s words that you miss his point.

His point is that a person like Jesus honors Christ in every part of his life.

This is an important message for a couple of reasons.

First, it counters the tendency to compartmentalize faith.

In other words, we are Christian when we are at church and we are godless when we are at work or at play.

We are Christian when we are with one group of people and non-Christian with another group of people.

I hope this sounds ridiculous to you.

Unfortunately, people are increasingly seeing no incongruity to such actions.

They say, “faith is faith” and “fun is fun”.

The Bible consistently points to the fact that if Jesus is not Lord OF all, He is not Lord AT all.

Second, it contradicts the notion that salvation is a one time affair.

On occasion we seem to give the impression that the Christian faith involves saying a prayer, performing some act, or having some experience.

Trusting Christ is about a whole new orientation and passion for life.

It is an ongoing and continual process.

Faith is not simply an agreement we make with God (“You died for me, I receive that provision”).

Saving faith is entering into a relationship with God.

C.S. Lewis relates, “When I was a child, I often had a toothache, and I knew that if I went to my mother, she would give me something which would deaden the pain for that night and let me get to sleep.

But I did not go to my mother--at least not till the pain became very bad.

And the reason I did not go was this: I did not doubt she would give me the aspirin; but I knew she would also do something else.

I knew she would take me to the dentist the next morning.

I could not get what I wanted out of her without getting something more, which I did not want.

I wanted immediate relief from my pain; but I could not get it without having my teeth set permanently right.

And I knew those dentists; I knew they would start fiddling about with all sorts of other teeth which had not yet begun to ache.”

Our Lord is like the dentists.

Dozens of people go to him to be cured of some particular problem.

He will cure the problem, but he will not stop there.

God is not content to simply remove the pain, He wants to deal with the true problem – your heart.

The Bible talks about our holiness (or sanctification) in three different senses.

First, there is Positional Sanctification.

Hebrews 10:10 tells us, “we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all”.

It speaks of holiness in the past tense.

In this dimension of our sanctification, when Christ’s sacrifice was applied to our lives, God declared us holy.

It was like a Judge declaring us “Not Guilty”.

The issue is settled.

The debt is paid.

Perhaps another way of looking at it is like a coach telling a player he is on the team.

He will dress for the games.

He will receive a ring if the team wins a championship.

He will be in the team photo.

Perhaps this image is best of all: You injury your knee badly.

Perhaps it even needs to be surgically replaced.

You talk to the surgeon after the operation and you are told, “everything went well.

The damage is repaired.”

In this sense you are already healed.

Second, there is Perfect (or future) Sanctification.

The Bible also talks about a day when we will be made perfect.

When we die we will be freed from the sinful nature.

Our desires will be adjusted.

Our struggles will be conquered.

Our hearts will be pure.

Most of us will admit that we haven’t arrived at this point being made holy yet.