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
0.6LIKELY
Disgust
0.12UNLIKELY
Fear
0.14UNLIKELY
Joy
0.54LIKELY
Sadness
0.51LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.54LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.31UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.66LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.94LIKELY
Extraversion
0.04UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.69LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.83LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Pray
Introduction
As many of you know, we are working through the fruit of the Spirit in our evening service.
We’ve looked at love, joy and peace.
Today we are now onto our 4th fruit of the Spirit, which is Patience.
Patience is a virtue, possess it if you can.
Always in a woman, seldom in a man.
Have you heard that rhyme before?
How would you rate yourself?
Would you say you are a patient person?
For me, it depends what definition of patience it is...
Because I think I am, for the most part, a patient person.
I don’t lose my temper.
I don’t lose the rag and get all hot headed.
Which sounds admirable, and it would be if I stopped there…but where my weakness come out to play is when I’m expecting something to happen and the deadline has passed.
THEN I am impatient.
So for example, if I order something online, and it’s due today and today comes and goes, and tomorrow comes and goes, and it’s still not here… then I get agitated.
And it’s stupid, but it’s how my mind works.
Strange thing is that up until the deadline, I’m patient, because I know it takes as long as it takes…but once that time has passed, then I start to get wound up.
I also found it happening when I changed computers.
I mentioned a few weeks ago that I changed from a PC to a Mac a few years ago.
When I had my PC, certain tasks took as long as they would take.
And I was patient while the computer was doing what it had to do, because that’s how long it took.
Then I switched to the Mac and I realised that the same tasks DIDN’T need to take 5 minutes to complete - they could be done in 5 seconds.
And life was great…until those times when I have to use a PC for some reason…and I realise that the tasks that take 5 seconds on my mac take a lifetime on the PC…and the patience disappears.
So there are two related-yet-different definitions of patience...
When you’re happy to wait for something to happen.
Or
When you’re able to endure…to tolerate something.
And in our culture, where everything is instant, we almost expect everything to be instantaneous.
I remember, growing up and watching a series on TV, I had to wait each week for the next episode.
Today, with Netflix, we don’t have to wait at all.
We have every episode available to watch RIGHT NOW…and in many cases, not only do we have every episode, we have every series available to watch RIGHT NOW.
Or think of cameras.
When I was younger, I had to take my film to the photo labs to be developed.
And it took about a week before I got the photos back.
And then things got a bit more high tech and you could get your photos in AN HOUR.
How amazing was that?
Today, we can reminisce instantly.
We can take a photo, turn the camera around and say, ‘Aw, look how young we looked’.
Because today we see our photos the moment we take them.
And I could go on all night - but what this is doing to some people in society - possibly the young people - is teaching them that they don’t need to be patient because the can get whatever they want in an instant.
But that is only one side of patience.
The biblical view of patience is more nuanced.
Pause
The Greek word for patience in our passage in Galatians is makrothumia.
Which literally means long anger.
In other words, someone who is patient is someone who takes a long time to get angry.
The opposite of short-tempered.
That’s the patience that comes from the Holy Spirit.
And the best place to look at this in the bible is in the other passage we read which is Matthew 18...
And I think this is a brilliant picture of how the disciples got it wrong on so many occsisions.
Peter comes to Jesus and asks him how many times should we forgive someone who sins against us....and he suggests 7.
Now, the Rabbinic tradition taught people that you forgive people for 3 sins but you stop at the 4th.
This comes from passages in Amos where God says..
So the 4th sin was when people would not relent and that’s where they were told to stop.
Now, imagine Peter, taking that amount, doubling it, and one for good measure, and coming to Jesus, almost smugly, ‘Hey Jesus, how many times should we forgive a brother that sins against me?
As many as 7 times?
Now, we don’t know if he was smug here, but Peter certainly wanted to show that he was going over and beyond what was expected.
But for Jesus, that wasn’t enough.
7 times?
No no no, Peter…seventy times 7…or 77 times, depending on the translation.
The number is irrelevant.
The point is that there is NO LIMIT to the number of times we forgive someone.
And when it comes to patience, that’s really a test of our patience…to endure someone sinning against you again and again and again, and having to forgive them again and again and again.
It almost seems unnatural.
Here’s a thought…it IS unnatural…which is why this type of patience comes from God himself, since it’s a fruit of the Spirit.
This is not a human patience here - this is a supernatural patience that only God gives.
And it’s an example that God sets for us to follow.
And it’s in the parable that Jesus told.
Let me retell the parable in numbers and currency that we will help us to see the differences here...
So it starts off with a king, who wants to settle debts.
So he gathers his servants together to have them pay up their debts to the king.
There was one servant who owed 4.5 billion pounds…and I’m not exaggerating.
ONE talent - just ONE talent - was worth about 15 years wages.
Taking a wage of around £30,000 and multiplying it by 15 gives £450,000.
Then multiplying that by ten thousand gives 4.5 billion pounds.
Now, how that man ever got into that debt, we will never know.
The point is that 4.5 billion pounds of debt is an amount of money that nobody would be able to pay back.
That’s an impossible amount to pay back.
And of course, the servant couldn’t pay this debt back.
So the king was within his rights to sell the servant, his wife and children and try to recoup some of the debt.
That was the King’s prerogative and he was within his rights to do that.
But the servant begged and pleaded with him…Have patience and I will pay back this 4.5 billion pounds.
How he would do that, I have NO IDEA.
And I think the king KNEW that he would never be able to pay this debt back.
But out of pity the king cancelled every single penny of the debt.
What a gracious king that was.
He didn’t have to do that, but he was merciful.
Then, that same servant went out, debt free, and saw one of his colleagues who owed him £8,200.
Now, where do I get that figure from?
Well, 100 denarii was a very small amount.
It was 100 days wages.
So let’s take that average wage of £30,000 and divide it by 365.
It gives £82 pounds per day.
Multiply that by 100 and the debt was around £8,200.
Not a terribly big debt.
One that could be paid back over time, and NOWHERE NEAR the debt of the other servant.
In fact, the other servant’s debt was 548,780 times more than this.
But this servant couldn’t pay back his small debt.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9