Sermon Tone Analysis

- “Peace be with you”

Called to Wholeness

Date: 24-11-19 847 Echuca

- Peace be with you

- the disciples are locked away in a house fearing for their lives & Jesus appears in their midst & says, “Peace be with you”

- The beginning of the letters of the apostle Paul begin similarly with…

—2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

- Peace is something that has been bestowed upon us by God

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- Last week, we looked at that statement of Paul’s in v.15 “God has called us to OR in peace”

- To be given God’s peace is to be made whole or to know completeness

- This is very interesting when we consider the meaning of “Shalom”, the Hebrew word for peace

- It can have various shades of meaning, but it carries the idea of being well, experiencing wholeness, completeness

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- I could say with great confidence that there are few people out there in the world who experience wholeness or completeness

- In spite of that classic line from Tom Cruise to his co-star wife in the movie, Jerry McGuire, “you complete me”

- On one level, yes, that is true about your spouse, but without Christ it cannot be true

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- If you want to see this use of Shalom in the OT, you can see it here

—25 So she went and came to the man of God to Mount Carmel.

When the man of God saw her at a distance, he said to Gehazi his servant, “Behold, there is the Shunammite.

26 “Please run now to meet her and say to her, ‘Is it well with you?

Is it well with your husband?

Is it well with the child?’ ” And she answered, “It is well.”

- Are you sick; has disaster come upon you

- Of course, you aren’t in a whole or complete state if you are ill

- There are so many people, today, who have what is called mental illness, depression, anxiety issues, emotional struggles – not to mention those people who are addicted to drugs

- Some of these issues stem from organic causes, but much, I think, stems from living in a “progressive”, secular society

- The only hope such a society provides is the hope of death & taxes – no wonder there is such inner turmoil in people

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- What we learn from our reading today is that the Christian has been given “peace” from God & are made whole, complete in Him

- The Christian contains within themselves, as a gift from God, the ability to have “peace” in all circumstances

- This is a truism &, I suggest, that if this is not a truism in the Christian, it is not because God hasn’t given it, but most likely, because the Christian hasn’t appropriated it

Q.

How to appropriate it?

This passage today will explain

1.

The Jewel of Contentment

Q.

What are the main drivers of discontentment in modern society?

- We could go over a lot of ground here, but let me raise some points

a) Expectations

- We are told, by the world, what a “successful” person looks like

- Obviously, wealth is a big one.

There are plenty of people who go for the lotto or casket tickets hoping to snag the prize which, to their mind, brings “happiness”

- Likewise, a career that is respected & honoured – someone who has a great paying job

- Often, that is only 1% of the population who reach those expectations

- But those expectations are the expectations of worldly wisdom

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- By the same token, women who refuse to pursue a career because they wish to devote time to their husband & their children while they are young are frowned upon & made to feel second rate by such a choice

- A choice to work can be for the family, but women who frown upon motherhood seem to be the ones represented by the feminist version

- The expectations of our society often come from the ego

b) Fulfilment

- Of course, if society’s expectations are not met, the corollary to that is a lack of fulfilment

- Disappointment, regret, dissatisfaction all stem from a perceived lack of fulfilment

- The question is, can we identify that what secular society says about expectations & fulfilment is just a whole lot of bunk!

- That’s a new word I invented – BUNK – a combination of baloney & junk

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- In this passage today, we are told about, what I’m calling, the jewel of contentment

- 3 times this teaching is repeated & so we better take notice

—17 Only, as the Lord has assigned to each one, as God has called each, in this manner let him walk...

—19 ...what matters is the keeping of the commandments of God.

—24 Brethren, each one is to remain with God in that condition in which he was called.

—24 Brethren, each one is to remain with God in that condition in which he was called.

—24 Brethren, each one is to remain with God in that condition in which he was called.

- The point here is that if you were called as a single person & you are able to glorify God as a single person, don’t panic about having to be married, because God will use you as the single person

- If you’re married to an unbeliever when God called you to Christ, stay married to the unbeliever

- If you’re two Christians & married, stay married if that is what you were when God called you to Christ

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- There are other situations in life that Paul raises here too

- The Jewish & Gentile person & the slave

c) Jew/Gentile

- Circumcision was the mark of whether you were accepted by God into His Covenant

- Now that Christ has come, we are under a NC which renders circumcision redundant

- God did away with the identity politics that separated Jews & Gentiles

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- Actually, when Paul says that if one was circumcised when called, he should not become uncircumcised, I thought that he surely must be speaking metaphorically

- But he’s not – there was a medical procedure whereby a circumcised person could be made to fool someone into thinking that he was uncircumcised

- Here in the book of Maccabees from about 150 BC – prior to Christ

- Jews were feeling the pressure of Alexander the Great’s policy of imposing Greek culture on everyone

- Some of the Jews caved in to this pressure & became uncircumcised, earning the scorn of the more faithful Jews

—15 They disguised their circumcision and abandoned the holy covenant; they allied themselves with the Gentiles and sold themselves to wrongdoing.

—15 They disguised their circumcision and abandoned the holy covenant; they allied themselves with the Gentiles and sold themselves to wrongdoing.

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- Under the NC, however, identity politics has no place

- God does not show favouritism but accepts everyone from whatever nationality he or she may be

- If you recall, the apostle Peter got himself into hot water after visiting the house of a Gentile (Cornelius)

- Even though the Jewish council were Christian, they had lived so long as Jews, they found it difficult to accept the truth that God, in Christ, welcomes all men & women to Himself

—2 And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those who were circumcised took issue with him, 3 saying, “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.” 4 But Peter began speaking and proceeded to explain to them in orderly sequence, saying,

- After explaining how God made the breakthrough with Peter’s own prejudice against Gentiles, we come to this point in their proceedings...

—17 “Therefore if God gave to them the same gift as He gave to us also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” 18 When they heard this, they quieted down and glorified God, saying, “Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life.”

- What a staggering moment & what a lot of humble hearts in those Jews – that is not the usual reaction you get from the Jews of this time

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- Likewise, the apostle Paul also maintains that social politics or identity politics are irrelevant with God

For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.

For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.

- We will get to the new creation shortly

- We will get to the new creation shortly

d) Slaves

- The other social malady which was felt by people were those who were slaves – probably a large number of the Corinthians were slaves

- To be owned by someone certainly gave you a lesser status than a free man

- But even here, the apostle says that if you were called by God to come to Christ while a slave, then don’t panic, God will & does use you as a slave

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- So much of our contentment is wrapped up in what social status we have in society

- The social mores in society can really make us feel terrible if we are not living up to those mores

- No wonder there is depression & the like

- But Paul adds some comments here to reverse this notion

—22 For he who was called in the Lord while a slave, is the Lord’s freedman; likewise he who was called while free, is Christ’s slave.

- If you belong to the world, you will think like the world, but if you belong to Christ, then you will think like Christ

- If you belong to the world, you will think like the world, but if you belong to Christ, then you will think like Christ

- In this letter, the apostle has spoken in depth about how the wisdom of the world is contrary to God’s ways