Sermon Tone Analysis
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2010-02-18 (am) 1 Thess.
4:1-12 Lived-out Hope
The video shown during the offering shows the struggle that happened in the Garden of Eden.
Adam and Eve, who walked with God, danced with him, were led astray by Satan.
But God promised them that he would come and destroy the evil one.
Years later, God came and destroyed the evil one.
In the wilderness, Jesus didn’t fall for Satan’s temptations.
In another Garden, he didn’t fall into the temptation to give up.
On the cross he defeated Satan, he broke the curse, he set us free.
You are here this morning because God wants you to know who you are.
God created you.
He created you to be in a relationship with him.
If you don’t know God, if you don’t have a friendship with him yet, he’s made it possible to happen.
Like the girl at the beginning of the video, Christ has come to you.
He’s here this morning.
He’s reaching out.
He’s ready to walk with you.
He’s everything you need.
Your greatest joy, your greatest delight, your greatest satisfaction will be found in him and him alone.
But maybe you’re sitting there and you’re feeling, like, me?
He wants me? I’m no one, I’m insignificant.
I’m worth about as much as navel lint.
But because you are created in God’s image, you are worth a lot! God knows all about you.
He created you.
And he has made a way for you.
The people of Thessalonica, a port city in Greece believed in Jesus.
They realised that what the Bible says is true.
They realised that there was more to life that what they were experiencing.
They realised that there was a higher power and that the gods they worshipped, their idols, their statues, their Olympians didn’t match up.
No matter how many gold medals their heroes won, they still didn’t satisfy.
But with God in Christ it is different.
They experienced the power of truth right away.
They staked their lives on it.
They faced all kinds of pressure.
Peer pressure, economic pressure, shunning, bullying, you name it, it went their way.
All because they believed in Jesus, and that radically changed their lives.
When you believe in Jesus, a change happens.
You get transformed.
There are lots of ways to describe what happens.
It is like going from death to life, from being blind to being able to see.
I’ll never forget the first day I got glasses.
I just did not realise how bad my eyesight was.
When I put them on, it was amazing.
I could look at a tree far away and instead of seeing a green blob, I could see individual leaves!
\\ When you believe in Jesus, you start to see things more clearly.
You see who you are—someone who doesn’t live up to a very high standard at all.
And you see who God is—the perfect standard.
And you see the potential God has now placed within you.
Instead of living any way you want, basing your decisions on your own wisdom, you see the way things really are.
You see that God has a plan for people, that if they followed the plan, they would get the most out of life, the most enjoyment and pleasure, happiness and satisfaction.
In Kelowna Flightcraft, an aircraft maintenance company I worked at, they had a manual for a Beechcraft airplane.
This manual was stored in a typical three ring binder, but someone had written on the spine, the following words: Beechcraft Bible.
That binder contained precious information for keeping the Beechcraft airplane running and flying.
Think about it, if the manual were no good, then the planes would crash.
But the manual was so good that they called it not the Beechcraft book, but the Beechcraft Bible.
To the person working on the airplane, there was no better manual around.
We live in a world full of manuals, full of ideas of how to maximise our time here on earth.
Right now, there are tons of ideas for RRSP’s, for doing this, doing that, how to get through high school, what to do with your free time, everything.
And, of course, you don’t have to limit yourself to what you can read in a book, or find online.
Your friends will also have all kinds of ideas for you.
But God has a plan for people.
A plan for their joy and delight, a plan for his glory.
This book, the Bible, teaches us everything we need to know about having life and living it to the fullest.
Despite all the conflict and trouble faced by the Thessalonians, they didn’t waver because they realised the truth.
In Christ their deepest desires are met.
That young woman in the video realised it too.
But she let the stuff of this world, the temptations to distract her from Christ.
First one little thing, a boyfriend, then the pursuit of money, then smoking and drugs, then self image, then cutting, then suicide.
All the best things the world offers, though enticing at first, though promising joy and fulfilment and happiness, the end result is death.
But Christ offers true life.
Jesus lived in our shoes.
He knows all about pressure, temptation, desires.
But he was perfect.
He resisted the temporary for the eternal.
And he offers that to us as well.
The Thessalonians saw it, believed it, and received it.
They were transformed by Christ, so that their desires became less worldly and more Godly.
Their desires became less about instant gratification and more about eternal satisfaction.
They willingly gave up present pleasure for future fun.
And they discovered that in God’s way is freedom.
In living God’s way is peace, joy, happiness and satisfaction.
That’s what the young woman realised when she turned to Christ.
But did you notice something?
It wasn’t easy for her to get back, was it?
The temptations of this world hung on, they beat upon her, they tried to prevent her from going the right way.
Paul encourages the Thessalonians and he encourages us to keep walking in the light, keep your glasses on!
Be holy!
Don’t let yourself be defile, but be holy.
The word sanctified means made holy.
You see, in a sense, we are made holy already by Jesus’ death and resurrection.
But if we’re honest with ourselves, we know that we ain’t perfect.
We are still in the process of becoming more and more holy.
And there are ways to help this along.
Paul, the author of this letter, mentions two: avoid sexual immorality, and not wronging your brother or taking advantage of him.
Sexual immorality has always been a struggle.
Having studied history, I don’t think our society is any worse than any previous society.
I think that as it was in the past, right now the whole idea of sexual immorality, or any morality for that matter has been reduced to a person’s personal preference.
The thinking is, if I’m not hurting anyone, no big deal.
But the truth is, with sexual immorality in particular, you are hurting others, and you’re hurting yourself.
How are two consenting people hurting others?
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