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
0.1UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.06UNLIKELY
Fear
0.11UNLIKELY
Joy
0.6LIKELY
Sadness
0.54LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.76LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.03UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.58LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.98LIKELY
Extraversion
0.16UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.9LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.78LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Welcome and introduction
Good morning!
As you know, we finished up our James study last week.
I am excited today as we begin a new mini-series.
God has had it on my heart for quite a while for us to go through our distinctives again.
We go through these during new member training, but as far as I can remember, many of you haven’t heard them since we started this church.
I can say for myself, and I hope the same is true for you, as I have grown spiritually over the last few years, and these distinctives have much more meaning to me.
They hold more value in my life than they did before.
I would akin it to having been in a relationship for a long time, and at the beginning, you think you know the other person, but then years down the road, you realize how much more you know them than you did previously.
I agreed with our distinctives before, but now they not only define our church but my life as well.
As wrestle with them, I believe you may find the same to be true for yourself.
We are going to spend the next several weeks going through our six distinctives which are...
Mission
Motivation
Message
Methods
Ministry
Multiplication
We spent the last twenty-three weeks looking at what True Faith is and how it impacts our daily lives.
On the heels of that study and the idea that our faith will reveal itself, God wants us to refocus on who He has called us to be.
If we are unclear on who we are and what we are called to do, we will struggle in fulfilling God’s call.
If we only know what we are supposed to do but not why we will fail to understand the significance.
In the same way, if we understand the why but not the how we will fail to realize the goals that God has for us.
Last week I had two very significant meetings with QuikTrip.
We are completing a fueling center for them in West Monroe and they want us to build some more in Louisiana.
Petron is hesitant because this project hasn’t been the smoothest.
Our struggle isn’t with QT it is with the General Contractor.
A GC is responsible for the coordination of the entire job and hires subcontractors to do some of the work.
For this project, we are a sub.
This difficulty with the GC came up in our meeting with the head of construction for QT.
The example that our foreman gave was that he would ask a question about the plans and the GC would just say, “that’s just how we do it.”
Now, our foreman has been installing fuel systems for over twenty years.
He is very smart and is by far our best installer.
This guy knows his stuff.
As you can imagine, he felt quite disrespected with that answer.
Rather than giving our foreman the why, and just the how, it frustrated him.
He could plainly read the “how” from the plans.
He need to know the why so he could understand the overall scope of what the owner wanted.
I think we see the same kind of thing happen in our churches all the time.
People are asked or strong-armed into doing something, and they don’t understand either the why or how, yet they are supposed to accomplish the task they were assigned.
While it is our goal for this never to happen at TGP, the reality is that it sometimes does.
It happens for various reasons, but by going back through our distinctives, we can all get a refresher on who we are, why we do the things we do or don’t do, and how God has organized us to accomplish His goals.
Are y’all tracking with that?
Our goal in this short study is to understand how God has molded our church and our personal lives to accomplish His goals.
So, today we are going to start by talking about our Mission which is…
Leading people to know God.
Knowing God is our most important distinctive.
If our members don’t know God, the rest of the distinctives won’t matter to them.
I’ve mentioned this before, but all too often, some people regularly attend church and participate in its activities, yet they don’t know God.
What does it mean to “know” God?
We believe that God created man to enjoy a close, personal relationship with Him.
God did not create us to keep a bunch of rules and to focus on “right” living.
He created us to live with Him.
God desires you, not your best behavior.
Even when we do make mistakes, which the Bible calls sin, God still loves us.
Because God loved Adam and Eve, He still took care of them after they chose to disobey.
However, we still live with the consequences of our sins, but it does not change God’s view of us.
As we remember from the rest of the story, God removed them from the garden, and their relationship with God and the earth changed.
They were separated from God because of their sin, and the only way to fix that problem was for God to make us perfect once again.
The beginning of us knowing God begins with God saving us from our sins.
We know God by experience through salvation.
What is salvation?
When God created mankind, he created us to live in perfect union with himself and one another.
Unfortunately, Adam and Eve took the free will that God gave them and chose to disobey and run from God.
But God, because He loves us, took it upon Himself to fix the problem that we created.
All humans have the same problem, we don’t seek God.
We are all born with an inclination to sin.
Paul testifies to this point in Romans.
God created us to know Him in a personal, joyful relationship.
It is only through a relationship with God that we can enjoy life as it was intended.
But, because we do not seek God, He seeks us and prompts our hearts.
This is such incredible news!
Not only has God done all the work to save us from our disobedience and sin, but He also draws us to Himself!
We will talk about this more in a minute, but God uses us, His church, to draw people.
The danger we face when talking about our call to lead people to God is that we will feel like it is up to us to bring people into the fold.
We don’t have to go out and make this happen because it is God’s job to draw people in.
In fact, if we press a decision on someone, we are trying to do the Spirit’s job.
While we play a role in the process, we should never feel that the timing is up to us.
Trust God to finish the work He began.
He will draw them in.
Our job in the process is to know God for ourselves so that we can testify to His goodness and love.
We know God by experience through abiding.
If you and I just met and spent a few days together, could you, with integrity, be able to say to others that we know each other well?
Of course not!
We all know that it takes time and experience for us to know one another.
The same is true with God.
If God created us to enjoy a close, personal relationship with Himself, what would make us think that just a handful of experiences could accomplish that?
God wants us to know Him deeply, and that happens over time.
So how does a person come to know God deeply?
Where do they begin?
You are not the first to ask this question.
In fact, Jesus, when teaching His disciples about what it means to know and be loved by God, said this…
We begin to know God by obeying His commands.
Walking with Him daily, hearing His voice, and obeying what He says.
By listening to God and obeying what He says, we learn about who He is, and the natural response is to want to know Him more.
We are drawn to God as we experience Him.
Every time we experience God, we want more.
The people in our lives also see God’s activity, and that draws them to God as well.
As we live in obedience to God by loving one another, God reveals Himself to us and the world.
His love is made complete in us, and the world gets to see it.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9