Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

A farmers son, who was about to begin his studies at medical school said, "Dad, when I get to be a doctor, I think I'll specialize in obstetrics."

The old man shook his head and responded, "Likely you'll be just wasting your time son.

Chances are, soon as you begin making money at it, somebody else'll find a cure for it."

Ignorance can be the basis for a lot of humor.

A pastor was once visiting an elderly woman in a nursing home, and as he talked to her he noticed a dish of peanuts on the stand by her bed.

As he talked, he helped himself to the peanuts.

After a while he noticed he had eaten a good share of them and he apologized.

The old woman said it was all right because she didn't like peanuts anyway.

The pastor was surprised and asked, "Why then do you have them sitting here on your stand?"

She replied, "I just like to suck the chocolate off them."

Ignorance can be bliss, but revelation can be gross.

Ignorance can be funny, but it is no fun when people risk their own health and that of others out of ignorance.

Ignorance is probably the number one enemy of health in this world.

Medical missions has been a major part of the churches mission to the world because pagan darkness leads people into so many practices that destroy them body, mind, and soul.

The Christian world has compassion for the whole man, and so with the light of the Gospel goes the light of the knowledge to bring good health.

In our advance Western culture we have overcome most of the problems of pagan ignorance, but ignorance is still alive and well.

Back in 1928 women were working for the US Radium Corporation painting radium on various articles like luminous clock dials.

They were instructed to moisten the brush in their mouth.

They became ill, and one even reported that her hair glowed in the dark.

Their health was damaged by ignorance, and we all know of the modern problem with asbestos and chemicals of all kinds.

There is no way to know just how devastating human ignorance is to the health of human lives.

What we don't know is hurting us all the time.

But what we do know is helping us constantly to overcome the ignorance that hurts us, and experience the health God intends for us to have.

Feeling good is a good feeling and a feeling that God's Word says is good.

Here in the shortest book of the New Testament, with only 219 Greek words, and one of these words is health.

It is the same word Dr. Luke uses in Luke 5:31 where he quotes Jesus saying, "These that are whole need not a physician."

To be whole is to be healthy, and when you are healthy you don't need the doctor.

The implication is that when you are not whole or healthy you do need the doctor.

Jesus, therefore, puts His stamp of approval on the ambivalent feelings we have toward doctors.

The poet put it-

When I am well and feeling fine,

And not a pain or ache is mine,

I brand the Doc the King of ills,

And laugh at all his sugar pills.

There is no merit, I contend,

In any dose you recommend.

Your punk advise is but a joke,

Designed to keep the people broke.

But when I'm sick and full of aches,

And get the shivers and the shakes,

Or when my stomach starts to rock,

I call upon my friend the Doc.

I praise him then and think him great,

And take his doses by the crate,

Until I'm fully cured--and then-

I tell him he is a joke again.

We are glad they are there, but we hope and pray we don't need them, , for not needing them means we are feeling fine, and this is the way we should want to feel.

It is the way John wants his friend Gaius to feel, and in wanting that he shows us-

THE CHRISTIAN ATTITUDE TOWARDS HEALTH.

It is an attitude of admiration.

It is the ideal state of life, and is the state in which God created Adam and Eve, and the state of the risen and glorified humanity of Jesus.

It is the state of perfect health that is the goal of God for man.

It is perfectly natural then that John would pray for his friend to enjoy good health.

That is the one goal of life that all men have in common.

Feeling fine is a fine feeling, and nobody doesn't like feeling fine.

Adam was made so healthy that even after the fall he lived to the age of 930.

His son Seth lived to 912, and five generations later Methuselah lived to 969 and Noah to 950.

Then came a sudden change, for Noah's son Shem lived only to 600 and his grandson only to 438.

Two generations later it was down to 239, and by the time of David people lived under 100 years old, where it has been for 3000 years.

It took centuries of human folly, sin, and pollution to destroy the health of man's body.

It is one of God's greatest gifts.

Ben Johnson wrote, "Oh health!

Health!

The blessing of the rich!

The riches of the poor!

Who can buy thee at too dear a rate since there is no enjoying the world without thee."

God's will is that we be healthy, for health is essential, not only for fun, play, and all the pleasures of life that God desires us to enjoy, but it is also essential for our service to Him.

Jesus by His many miracles of healing demonstrated that sickness is an enemy, and that health is our friend.

John shows a concern for his friends health right from the start.

It was a common way to greet people in the ancient world, and it still is today.

We meet people all the time and ask them, "How are you?"

We do not want a medical report, but it is still an expression that shows an interest in how people feel.

Hello is the same thing.

It comes from the old Saxon word from which we get words like hale and whole which are terms for health.

Hello then is an abbreviation for how are you.

So all through history it has been a friends role to be concerned about health.

Jesus did not exalt health to the level of life's highest goal.

There were plenty of healthy Pharisees and Saducees.

Nine of the ten lepers He healed did not even come back to thank Him.

They did not get the best Jesus had to give by receiving their health back.

Health was far from the ultimate value of life.

Locke was wrong when he said, "A sound mind in a sound body, is a short but full description of a happy state in this world."

He left out the third leg of the tripod which was number one with Jesus, and that is a healthy relationship to God.

Jesus had compassion on those who had sick bodies and minds.

He healed them as a demonstration of God's power and love, but his goal was always that men see that the kingdom of God had come, and to get into a right relationship to God.

Healing was a sign of God's love.

It was a step in the right direction, but healing and health were only temporal values, and unless they led to repentance, and to surrender to God, they fell short of the goal of an eternal relationship with the heavenly Father.

Good health only lasts a lifetime, but one's relationship to God is forever.

Health is good but not the best thing there is.

Sickness is bad, but it cannot rob man of the best.

One can lose health and still have an eternal relationship with the Father.

The ideal, of course, is to get it all together and enjoy wholeness on all levels of body, mind, and soul.

Those who achieve the third level of soundness of soul, because of their trust in Jesus as Savior, will achieve the other two for all eternity.

But those who strive only for level one and two and neglect the third, will have their health only for a short while, but lose total health forever.

John is happy that Gaius is in good health even as all goes well with his soul, and he goes on to delight in his soul health, which is demonstrated by his walking in truth and being faithful in love.

Paul also stresses the relative value of bodily care as compared to the absolute value of soul care.

He recognizes the good is less than the best.

In I Tim.

4:8 he writes, "For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come."