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.
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Analytical
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Extraversion
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My Story
Finding God in nature.
A simple faith with no growth track fraught with hazards.
I ended up in paganism.
Finding God in church
Not always available and limited in scope.
Finding God in XA
Small group
Growing through the community, accountability, realizing that you are not alone in your struggle.
Devotions
More regular and customizable
Wholeheartedness/Practicing the Presence
Finding everywhere through noticing and intentionally slowing.
I say all of that to say that these were progressions in my walk with Jesus.
It takes time to make a pickle.
How to Make a Pickle
Has anyone here ever made a pickle before?
How about sauerkraut?
Grown any gardens or plants?
To mature something takes time.
To mature a pickle, you need your cucumbers to stay in a jar of brine and vinegar for at least 6 weeks.
As they sit their for an entire day, it seems that nothing is happening.
After a week, still not there.
If you take them out, there’s not much flavor of the briney vinegar, but as time goes on, the cucumber not only is surrounded by it, but it has absorbed so much of the vinegar, every bite will pucker your lips!
It is still a cucumber, but it has become more like pickle juice than a cucumber.
It looks like a cucumber till you take a bite, then you know whether or not it is a mature pickle.
God is forming us into His likeness in this way, as we soak in Him and His Word.
Mt 6:33
Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions.
Don’t worry about missing out.
You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
34 “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow.
God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.
I like that word steep.
Like tea.
I want to be a tea worth drinking, don’t you?
We want to steep till people hear Jesus when they hear us talking.
Gal 4:19
The New International Version (Chapter 4)
19 My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you,
The role of clergy is to help their church become more like Christ through sermons, teaching, discipleship, counsel, etc.
But how long would it take to make a pickle one or two hours a week?
This is simply not enough.
You can’t make a pickle an hour a week.
Instead of 6 weeks, it would take nearly 20 years!
The cucumber will just rot.
It needs to stay, remain, abide, soak, steep.
When God makes a squash, he takes 3 seasons.
When He makes a mature oak, He takes 100 years.
How long does it take to form a soul into looking like Jesus?
God has called us to maturity.
Heb 5:11-14
11 We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand.
12 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again.
You need milk, not solid food! 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness.
14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
You don’t get a good pickle by dipping a cucumber in vinegar.
It requires at least six weeks of soaking.
In the same way, you won’t become a mature Christian by simply going to church and attending small group.
At some point, you need to get off the bottle and start learning how to feed yourself.
And until you can feed yourself, you really can’t feed others.
So the first requirement of a small group leader is daily devotion to Jesus.
But what does that even mean, “daily devotion”?
I actually have issues with that term because God has actually called us to wholeheartedness which means we are to live life being present to Him.
God wants to be the watermark of our world.
Indeed, we are called to pray without ceasing, which is impossible if prayer is speaking.
But if prayer is communion with God, it refers to connection and intimacy.
Much of my prayer time with God is throughout the day, being present with the Spirit of God as I go about my tasks and interactions.
You see, we could talk about all the different kinds of prayer, Bible study, and soul searching, but the ultimate desire is uninterrupted union with God.
Soaking.
Pickles stay in the jar.
Sometimes we feel like reading the Bible.
Sometimes we don’t.
Sometimes we feel like praying.
Sometimes we don’t.
Sometimes we feel like journaling and examining our hearts.
Sometimes we don’t.
It doesn’t matter, so much, what disciplines that you do… stay in the jar.
The spiritual disciplines do not earn God’s favor, twist His arm so He will answer your requests, or make you more holy.
They foster growth by bringing your interior life and exposing it to God’s Word and Spirit.
Any change to us is from God and not the discipline.
The cucumber has to be permeable to receive the vinegar, but no matter how permeable, if it isn’t in the jar, it isn’t going to pickle.
We need to be both permeable and present.
These practices are called disciplines because they are to be practiced regularly.
How many of you would like to grow in your relationship to God?
You want to really delight in prayer and study and reflection?
You have the desire, but without discipline, it will never lead to delight.
Most people who advance in their relationship with God have set times that they discipline themselves to soak.
Every inner discipline is enhanced by silence and solitude.
You might say that solitude is a container for all of the other ones.
So if you don’t have a set aside time to be alone with God, uninterrupted, without noise or distraction or other people, that is the first thing that I would recommend.
All of the great Christian mystics who found great union with God spent extravagant amounts of time alone with Him, soaking in the jar.
The 3 concentric circles of the inner disciplines are Prayer, Scripture, , and Reflection.
Prayer refers to communion with God.
It is both listening and responding.
It is pouring out our hearts and allowing God to pour out His while we listen.
It is thinking, feeling, connecting, and enjoying God for who He is.
Scripture is our primary tool for growth.
It is our guide to how to approach God and informs our prayers, gives us great examples, warnings, instructions, wisdom, theology, etc.
It shows us who God is and is a love letter to us from Him. Reading it, devotionally, is a type of prayer.
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