Sermon Tone Analysis

INTRODUCTION:

Interest:

One of our missionaries in Germany, Jeff Brown, closed out his email update yesterday with the following story:

We want to close with a note about an old friend from a supporting church.

When we presented our work at First Baptist, Sterling Hts., MI, in 1987, our Janet, then a little girl got poison ivy, then an infection, including fever.

A kind doctor attended to her, free of charge.

Glenn and Irene Killius especially took an interest in our sick girl.

Glenn was likewise interested in our work, because he was in Germany in WWII, having survived the destruction of his bomber in 1944.

From time to time in our travels, we would get to meet together.

Glenn and Irene kept up with us by mail, by e-mail, and by facebook through the years.

When Irene passed away, Glenn continued to write.

He went to be with the Lord in 2018.

Jeff went on to express his appreciation for Glenn and so many others who sacrificed to preserve, not only our freedoms in America, but also provided the opportunity for him and others to take the Gospel back into Germany through the Allied victory of World War II.

He concluded with a picture of his visit to Glenn’s graveside this summer.

Involvement:

What is especially clear in Jeff’s letter is the deep personal bond that he had to Glenn.

And yet, if you add up the total amount of time that they spent together during Glenn’s life, it would not have been that long.

How can we explain such deep bond that can form so quickly between people?

Context:

This morning we are going to complete the second chapter of 1 Thessalonians in this series looking at the Gospel life cycle.

Paul, as you know by now, wrote this letter back to the members of the church in Thessalonica after having been driven out of town by enemies of the gospel.

As soon as he could he had sent Timothy, the youngest member of his missionary group, back to check on the church because he knew that the violent opposition that had driven him, Silas, and Timothy from the city would be redirected toward these new believers.

He knew that it was a spiritual battle rather than a personal battle.

Therefore, it would not end with the three of them being chased out of town.

As long as there was a gospel presence in the city, the battle would continue.

Remember, prior to the arrival of the missionary band the Thessalonians had never heard the gospel message; they didn’t know about Jesus, the Son of God, who died for their sins.

The message of Jesus arrived with these three missionaries.

That means that all of the members of this young church were people who had very recently accepted Jesus as their Savior; they were new converts to Christianity.

Paul had been worried that the persecution might cause them to walk away from the gospel.

Yet, rather than that happening, Timothy had returned from his trip and reported that they were growing in their faith and reproducing their gospel life in others throughout the region.

This was great news.

The gospel message was secure in the lives of these young believers.

The gospel messengers were growing and continuing their sacred duty of communicating it to others.

The believers were persevering in the midst of persecution.

Paul has great reason to rejoice.

So in this chapter, rather than having to deal with any defection from the gospel, Paul has been reminding them of the manner in which he and the other men had brought the gospel to them and encouraging them to continue the gospel life cycle through growing and reproducing their faith.

Preview:

Paul is filled with great joy.

In the short time that he had been with the Thessalonians their hearts were knit together.

But it was not the suffering that had bound them so tightly together; it was the gospel.

It was not the common experience of suffering that united Paul to this young church; it was the transforming spiritual work of the gospel in all of their lives.

They were united by what I have entitled this sermon: the gospel bond.

This gospel bond has generated lasting joy for Paul and the other missionaries, Silas and Timothy, by connecting them to the transforming work that is occurring in these young believers.

This morning we will only look at four short verses but they are exciting verses, fun verses.

They are verses that focus our attention upon the joy that comes through the personal bonds formed through the gospel.

Illustration

I expect that we have all had occasions to be connected to someone through a common experience.

I remember a couple of years ago when we took a cruise vacation riding a bus with some strangers for a day of excursions to a cave and waterfall.

On the way out from the ship the bus was pretty quiet overall…most of the noise came from the back row where we were sitting with the Fiebigs because we were people who knew each other.

By contrast, though, on the way back to the ship in the afternoon, there was a lot of conversation.

The four of us were also talking to others on the bus and not just each other because we all now had something in common.

Everyone on the bus had enjoyed the same experiences that day; we had enjoyed the cave and the waterfall together.

Well, the gospel has the ability to unite us with people in a way that nothing else we experience in life ever can.

It is powerful in a way that surpasses every other common experience in life.

This is what makes the verses we are going to look at today so exciting.

The main idea that we should take away from these passage this morning is that The personal bonds formed with others through the gospel create lasting joy.

Lasting joy.

That is what the personal bonds formed with others through the gospel create.

The personal bonds formed with others through the gospel create lasting joy.

Let’s go ahead and read our verses…<read>.

Lasting joy is what we should expect to result from the personal bonds formed with others through the gospel.

When I look at the verses we just read I see this idea emerging as the overall expectation that we should have.

I also, though, see steps that we should take to ensure that we experience this lasting joy; steps we should take that will allow us to form lasting bonds with others through the gospel.

Transition from introduction to body:

The personal bonds formed with others through the gospel create lasting joy.

The first step that we should take to generate these lasting bonds is found in verse 17,…

BODY:

I. Step 1: Invest spiritually in people while you can, v. 17

Invest spiritually in people while you can.

As we have been observing throughout the entire study of this letter, Paul and the others had only been able to spend a short time with the Thessalonians before they had to leave town.

Yet, clearly a deep personal bond had formed between them.

How can we account for such a bond forming in such a short time?

Well, it is from this first step; Paul and Silas and Timothy had invested spiritually in the people in Thessalonica while they could.

Let’s pull verse 17 back up so we can see exactly what Paul wrote…<reread>

Notice, Paul once again uses the word “brethren” to address them.

If you skim back through the chapter you will see that Paul has addressed them several times this way.

He is emphasizing that while he may have not been with them very long they had nonetheless taken a place in his heart to where he now views them as family.

This is a heartfelt word.

This is why he is able to assure them that even though he is not with them physically, he is most certainly tied to them spiritually.

And for that reason, he is eager to see them again.

He longs to be with them.

Application

You know, looking at this verse describing Paul’s experience with the Thessalonian believers should cause us to think a couple of things.

First of all, we should expect that people will come and go in our lives.

We will have people continually circulating into our lives for a period of time and then providentially being removed.

This should not cause us to put up walls around ourselves and not invest in people because we anticipate that they will be gone soon.

Rather, it means that we need to invest spiritually in them while we can, never knowing how long that opportunity will remain.

Think about the history of this church.

While this church has never been a large mega-church, over its 50+ years there have been a very large number of people who have been part of it for a time.

During that time those people attended Sunday school, learning biblical truth; they sat under the preaching of various pastors, again learning biblical truth.

There were meetings for prayer, times of coffee spent discussing family situations, meals shared and days spent together; connections which went much deeper than having children on the same soccer team because they were spiritual connections.

People in this church invested in the lives of others who came through these doors while they were here and now we truly have people serving God all over the world who were at one time part of this local church body.

We have families restored, lives transformed, and gospel being proclaimed; all because of the spiritual investment made in their lives while they were part of this church family.

Sure, they came and went, but the investment that was made continues to bear fruit, bringing joy to many who are still here through the spiritual bonds that were formed.

So yes, we can expect that people will come and go in our lives, but we should also recognize from the verse we have on the screen behind me that the spiritual connections made will remain—the personal bonds will last.

The feelings that develop for people do not stop when we are physically separated from those in whom we have invested spiritually.

Illustration

Allow me to use Ruth Boyce as an example, our oldest founding member.

I looked up her FaceBook account yesterday so that I would have the number correct.

Ruth has 641 FaceBook friends.