Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.09UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.11UNLIKELY
Fear
0.13UNLIKELY
Joy
0.57LIKELY
Sadness
0.53LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.81LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.67LIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.91LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.77LIKELY
Extraversion
0.1UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.72LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.64LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Our theme for 2022 is “Begin Again”
This series is called, “Believe Again”
You may have already believed the gospel, but it is time to believe again.
We began with “Believe in Jesus”
Then we talked about believing in spiritual reality.
We talked about how an encounter with Jesus leads to transformation, living in both realities.
We talked about life - remember the great circle of life - God’s life in us and flowing through us?
Last week we talked about light and how light displaces darkness and exposes what is hidden.
Now we are going to talk about truth and freedom.
What can we know that will set us free?
This is not about knowing information - this as about knowing Jesus!
Knowing Jesus sets us free!
We are free to speak the truth.
We are free to live for a higher and greater purpose than ourselves.
And most of all, we are free from the bombardment of condemnation that comes from a world that is envious of our freedom.
Free to speak the truth
What is truth?
According to today’s postmodern society, truth can be whatever you want it to be.
I can have my truth and you can have your truth, as long as it works for you.
It is true that in the past, people have become very rigid about truth.
Yes, there are nuances to truth.
Yes, it is helpful and beneficial to look at the truth from different perspectives.
We have four gospels and they are not the same in every detail, but they are all true.
Truth is not all black and white - but it is not all grey either!
There are some things that are black and white and there are some things that are grey.
But most of life is best seen in vivid color that comes when you walk in the light of God’s truth.
Black and white thinking is a defense mechanism which is is typical of traumatized people who have a need to control the world around them by viewing everything in absolute terms.
Know where you come from.
So first of all, the statement that the Jews have never been slaves to anyone is obviously not true.
Hello!
They are at the feast of tabernacles.
Why did they live in tents in the wilderness?
What do you call the years of bondage in Egypt?
Was the exile in Babylon voluntary servitude?
How about the Roman occupation?
Are you just paying the Roman soldiers for their services?
There was a teaching at the time of Jesus which claimed that the Jews could never be slaves because they are God’s people.
It became like one of those “power of positive thinking” mantras.
Just keep telling yourself what you want to believe until you believe it.
It’s scripture, it must be true - just keep on confessing it!
I have no doubt that sometimes it even works - you can change your circumstances just bey being positive.
But sometimes it doesn’t work.
Sometimes we are just in denial, digging ourselves deeper into a hole.
Sometimes we are in a fantasy world, just making it up as we go.
God’s truth never denies past realities.
Most of you know that I spent years counseling people who were victims of trauma and the most horrible kinds of abuse.
Part of healing is coming to the place where the person is able to face the memory of what happened.
Sometimes we use visualization techniques like imagining Jesus coming to them or asking Jesus what happened.
As a matter of principle, we never try to change what happened or to ask them to visualize something that is not objectively true.
That would be deceptive.
We can visualize Jesus as present because we know that God is omnipresent.
Part of healing is being able too hold seeming contradictions in tension.
Yes, what happened to you is terrible, but God is still good.
Yes, life is hard and some people are cruel, but there is also goodness and beauty in life.
Yes, I was a slave to sin, and could still be if I chose to go back, but I now have the freedom and the power to make good choices.
Yes, your past is painful and difficult, but your future can be different.
Know what you are becoming.
So they realize that their past does not dictate their future.
They even claim to be children of God.
That’s good, right?!
They have the right idea, but they are missing the way to get there.
Sometimes people get hold of a truth and they think that by knowing it, or just saying it over and over again, they can make it their reality.
Just because you have the right answer doesn’t mean that you understand the question.
“Right answer!”
Jesus would say.
“But you still get it wrong, because the answer is standing in front of you and you don’t recognize me.”
Discovering the truth - and living into the truth - is a process.
Part of our process here at SCF is “restore”
Restore is being remade in God’s image.
It is taking the time to strip away layer after layer of false beliefs (lies) ways of thinking and relating which may have served us for a while, but are not consistent with who we are in Christ.
You only learn to know Jesus by following Jesus.
Don’t think it can all happen at once, just keep moving in the right direction.
Know which way you are going.
Is Jesus being too harsh here?
- “Your father is the devil!”
The devil fell because he wanted to be God.
He wanted to create His own reality.
“God decides what is real and true, why can’t I do that?”
“Uh, because God is God and you’re not!”
God is ultimately good and you’re just a reflection.
Turn away from the source of good and you become evil.
Making your own truth is creating a lie.
And truth is not truth if it is not entirely true.
What do you call a statement that is mostly true? - a lie.
Anything that is not light is darkness.
Anything that does not have life is dead.
There are only two possible directions.
If you are not pursing truth, you are living a lie.
If you are not walking into the light, you are living in darkness.
If you are not becoming more alive, you are slowly dying.
If you are not growing in relationship with Father God through Jesus Christ … then who is your daddy?
Free to live for something greater.
This chapter is beginning to sound like the television these days with the nasty smear campaign adds.
Who is spreading false rumors and who is actually telling the truth?
Jesus has some pretty harsh things to say, but he’s telling the truth and bringing their hypocrisy into the light.
The Jewish leaders fired back with some half-baked accusations.
Jesus has a following in Samaria, that must make him a Samaritan.
Some Samaritans were know to dabble in the magic arts, that must mean that Jesus’ miracles were demonic.
What do you do when the the truth and the lies all start to sound the same?
How do you sort it out?
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9