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
0.18UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.11UNLIKELY
Fear
0.15UNLIKELY
Joy
0.61LIKELY
Sadness
0.56LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.68LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.22UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.68LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.99LIKELY
Extraversion
0.15UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.89LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.82LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Introduction/Welcome
Good evening everyone, it’s so great to be here with you tonight.
My name is Faustino Munoz, and I am on staff here at Faith - Oakville as the Director of Student Ministry.
This is the 5th week of this Lenten series on The Lord’s Prayer.
That means that in the last few weeks of Left we have covered and heard Petitions 1 through 4. Tonight though, our focus is on verse 12 of Matthew6, the fifth petition, or the Pardon of the Lord’s Prayer.
Read
Tension
This petition is an interesting one.
Augustine, an early church father, looked at this portion of the Lord’s Prayer and he called it “the terrible petition.”
But what makes it so bad?
Why did Augustine think it was so terrible?
We’ll get to that tonight.
Let me tell you that for me, it is this very phrase of The Lord’s Prayer that can be a cause of contention at a church, especially if you don’t regularly worship there.
I know this from experience, because I have worshipped at many different churches, and when it comes time for us to say the Lord’s Prayer, it becomes a gamble.
It’s a gamble because different churches use different translations.
Multiple times have I been the one to say “and forgive us our debts” while the rest of the congregation uses the word trespasses.
Or I have prayed “Forgive us our trespasses” while the rest of the congregation said “debts!”
Because of this experience, the first few times of worshipping at a different church, whether it was with friends or family, there was always a sense of tension that welled up inside of me as we approached this prayer.
It was particularly tense when it wasn’t printed anywhere for me to read off of.
Then it truly was a gamble.
Nowadays though, I feel tension with this petition for a different reason.
I want to read this verse again for you, and I want you to really listen closely.
Read
Did you feel it?
Can you feel the tension in this petition?
I promise it’s there.
If you really think about it, and not just let the words roll in one ear and out the other.
As you read this, it is easy to wonder if Jesus is telling us here that the Father forgives us only on the basis of, and in proportion to, the way that we forgive others.
If that is true, then what we are doing here in this prayer is asking God to treat us exactly like we treat other people.
If you’re anything like me, which I suspect that you are…then that’s a real problem.
The problem is that to believe that goes against everything else that the Bible teaches us about how God works.
How He forgives us of our sins by Grace through Faith, for Jesus’ sake alone, regardless of our prayers or our actions.
You see, I also think that It makes us tense for another reason.
And not because it doesn’t say what we want it to say.
In fact, it says more than we want it to!
If we could rewrite this petition and had our way, I suspect that it would go something like this: “Forgive us our sins.”
It would go no further.
We would stop it right there because we don’t want to be held accountable!
We don’t want to be held accountable for our actions because to be held accountable means that we have to pay; and the sad thing is that our accounts are empty, and we can’t pay!
Spiritually Bankrupt
You see, in the original Greek Language
You see, in the original Greek Language, Jesus had selected debt as the picture of sin.
And we are all in debt because we have all sinned.
There are no if’s and’s or but’s about it.
Scripture doesn’t say “if you have sinned...” but rather says “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God...” ().
When we sin, we are breaking God’s law, and we have to pay.
We see this even today in our justice system.
If you break the law, you have to pay for your crimes.
Those crimes can be paid through time in prison or through community service.
Many crimes require the offender to pay restitution to compensate for their victim’s loss.
To make up for their crimes.
All of us have an obligation to God to pay off that debt that we have accumulated by our sinfulness.
The thing is that you and I must admit before God that we can’t pay the debt.
We all are spiritually bankrupt.
says “If you, O Lord, kept a record of sin, O Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.”
We are debtors, we cannot pay.
And not paying is not an option.
Now, when it comes to debt, some would say the answer is easy.
Some would say “well, if you’re in credit card debt, then you need to stop spending.”
That sounds all good and well but it’s just not practical.
It’s not practical because you are daily accumulating this debt against God.
We are sinful to our very core.
Those that think that they can simply stop sinning do nothing but deceive themselves.
Not only can we not stop sinning, but the tragedy is that we are good at it!
We are so good at racking up this debt!
We are so good at adding debt to our pile.
I have to say that when I picture debt, my mind jumps to food.
If you know me well, then you know that for me to think of food at a time like this is not even a little bit of a surprise.
I get myself into trouble sometimes when it comes to food, especially when I go out to restaurants.
See, I’ll open up the menu sometimes and I don’t look at the prices!
I order with my stomach, not my wallet.
And sometimes I want an appetizer, and a soda or drink (that of course is never free refills), and then it would be a shame to go all the way out to a restaurant and not even look at the dessert menu!
I order and order and order.
I order without thinking of the check that is coming at the end of the menu.
In fact, I would rather not think of what the check is going to ask me to pay at the end.
So, I choose to ignore it.
At least for as long as I can.
I imagine that you life your life much the same.
If not at the restaurant, then at least with regard to sin.
We sin without regard for what it will cost to pay it all off in the end!
And as the pile of ever-growing sin-debt continues to grow and grow, we must realize that trying to stop sinning is futile.
And even if we could stop, what about the existing debt?
We can never repay the debt that we already owe to God.
So, we pray for Him to forgive us our debts...
The Pardon
That’s important as we are talking about the Pardon of Sin.
Pardon is defined as “the action of forgiving or being forgiven for an error or offense.”
In order to be pardoned, we must first recognize that there is something to be pardoned for!
We have to wholeheartedly acknowledge that we have committed that error or offense and that we need to have that debt pardoned.
Pardons are not just handed out as if they are a giveaway on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
No, there has to be something to be pardoned for.
But then the tough part comes in “…as we have forgiven those who sin against us.”
As We Forgive
C.S. Lewis wrote, “Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.”
Forgiveness is not an easy thing.
When someone wrongs us, it’s so easy to want to exact revenge on those that wronged us.
We often want to make them squirm and earn their forgiveness.
We want to take our pound of flesh from them.
We want them to come crawling to us and really earn our forgiveness.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9