Sermon Tone Analysis
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\\ /2 Peter 1:12-15/
/ /
/12 //So I will always *remind you of these things*, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have.
13 I think it is right to *refresh your memory* as long as I live in the tent of this body, 14 because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me.
15 And I will make every effort to see that after my departure *you will always be able to remember these things*.*[1]*
/
There are certain foundational truths in our lives that are learned by memory alone.
How about those multiplication tables?
At a point they become automatic for us.
We don’t think to find the answer, it’s just there.
You don’t work to understand multiplication tables.
You merely commit them to memory.
I suppose a person could add but that becomes slow and cumbersome.
Multiplication is really a faster way to add.
Our ability to do this depends on our willingness to hearse and rehearse these tables until they are instant in our recall.
One of the difficulties that we encounter is that people are adverse to repetition.
They get bored.
They want something new.
And so they never really learn anything.
Sooner or later their lack of knowledge becomes evident and they find themselves incapable of solving life’s puzzles and problems.
Peter writes in our scripture today, *“I will always remind you even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have.”*
This morning we are doing just that.
We are arresting our routines to reinsert a reminder.
We are stopping to review, to rehearse something that we can never allow ourselves to forget.
We are doing this to honor our surviving veterans and those who died in our interests.
Certainly this is worthy of our attention today.
Also, in this process, we become better for it because it is a character building event when we look beyond ourselves to give thanks, to pay our respects and to give focused attention.
Character is the result of our willingness to live by a consistently by a code of some sort.
Character is developed as we make consistent choices to do what is right over what is desirable, convenient.
It is a commitment to honesty that will sometimes reveal my personal flaws and weaknesses.
A person of character will do what is right over what is easy.
They will live with the consequences of their decisions and actions rather than to try to be deceptive.
A person of character will live a much fuller existence on this planet than a successful person who has compromised themselves for gain, whether they are rich or poor, well known or unknown.
As we observe this day, we are not expecting that you could possibly connect with these folks at an emotional level.
I cannot possibly connect emotionally with the soldier who has fought on behalf of his or her country.
/16 //We did not follow *cleverly invented stories *when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but *we were eyewitnesses* of his majesty.
*[2]* 2 Peter 1:16 /
There is no possible substitute for the eyewitness account.
To see personally for yourself is ultimately impacting
Donnie tells me that in the military, they are beginning to speak something that they never have spoken before.
Our WW2 veterans are becoming harder to find.
Time is passing and those who had *first hand experience* are fewer and fewer.
John lost his dear wife Blanche this past year.
Blanche was a veteran as well.
No one who sits here today can possibly feel what these folks feel on Remembrance Day.
A lack of emotion does not reduce the significance of what we do here today.
In some ways it makes it that much more special because it is for us an exercise in character.
We become somehow better for what we do.
I can remember some of the early lessons that were consistently reinforced in my life.
They were those things that became a part of my internal fabric.
They became natural to me.
They were repeatedly reinforced by my parents and other significant adults.
The same sort of thing that Peter speaks of when he writes:
/“And I will make every effort to see that after my departure *you will always be able to remember these things.”*/
One was to say “please” and “thank-you”.
*/1.
/**/The Attitude of Gratitude/*
This is the expression of a character trait, the attitude of gratitude.
Every time that we mouth these words, we are internalizing this attitude.
We are expressing something, rehearsing something that gives us a better perspective on life.
Those words are automatic with me.
They taught me to be both polite and grateful.
At times they are mindless.
Regardless of how mindless they may be at times, they never lose their significance.
We all immediately notice their absence.
It’s hard to learn those words and miss their meaning.
I think that one of the most wonderful traits that a person can have engrained in their lives is this attitude of gratitude or thankfulness.
Please says, “I’d really like this and I know that I am not entitled to it.”
“Thank-you” expresses appreciation for what has been given and blesses the giver.
Normally we love to give to people who are truly appreciative and we avoid giving to people who are not appreciative.
The failure to appreciate what has been given takes away the motivation to bless another person.
A sense of entitlement is a terrible thing.
I have the right to this or that.
When a person is crying for their rights, they will forever fight for the bare minimum.
They will never inspire generosity from another.
Are you thankful today for your station in life?
Perhaps we all should be.
Perhaps we should be able to thank God and others for our circumstance even though it may not be all that you wish it was.
I trust that on this day, we realize that we enjoy a way of life that others have sacrificed their very existence for.
Many of our young soldiers never knew marriage.
They never had children.
They never lived long enough to know the aches and pains of old age.
When you think of it, it is indeed a privilege that many never have.
By comparison, I would think that those who died on foreign battlefields would have loved to live long enough to face adversity in peaceful existence.
I am thankful today to those who have sacrificed so that I could experience the pleasures and the pains in the panorama of daily life and existence.
The battlefield that took our veterans overseas claimed many of their young lives.
Those who sit with us today were as prepared to die as those who did.
In the prime of their lives with every vivid dream that their modern counterparts have, they laid their hopes on the line.
They had no clear vision of the future.
Some of them are grandparents and great grandparents.
They have lived to know family that they could never have imagined in those years.
I believe that it is fitting today to remind us of what we know.
Today is a day to be thankful to God and to these dear folks for their commitment to a generation of strangers.
*/2.
/**/The Expression of Respect/*
The next was the expression of respect.
One of the impressive things to me about our city is the way that we pay our respects.
As I have been involved in funerals I am always impacted when I see a policeman stop traffic at an intersection, get out of the car, stand at attention and salute as the procession passes.
Our city is a busy one and people are in a hurry but somewhere we have cultivated this practice and it speaks loudly of who we are as a people.
To stop what we are doing regardless of how much of a hurry we may be in and express respect like this.
I’ve never seen it before.
My father always told me that I should dismount my bicycle if a funeral procession was coming by and stand still and respectfully wait for it to pass.
I remember one day seeing the hearse coming and in my haste to get off the bicycle, I toppled into some bushes in the ditch.
I cut my arm badly but I remained concealed in the ditch until the road was clear.
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