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
0.11UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.05UNLIKELY
Fear
0.06UNLIKELY
Joy
0.63LIKELY
Sadness
0.13UNLIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.25UNLIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.4UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.79LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.87LIKELY
Extraversion
0.35UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.69LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.72LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
We’ve made it to our last sermon in this mini series called Walk as Light.
We’ve seen Paul call us in this text to walk as children of Light.
We’ve been exploring exactly what Paul means.
What he means is that Christians have a new identity in Christ.
We are no longer darkness, but light.
He wants us to live consistently when our new character in Christ.
He calls our behavior our walk.
We’ve looked at three reasons from this text why that is so important and what that practically looks like.
I. Our walk becomes Christ’s witness (vv.
7-10)
People see Christ when they look at our lives.
The world doesn’t read the Bible, but it does read Christians.
II.
Our walk exposes the enemy’s wickedness (vv.
11-16)
The only real hope the world has is Christ.
It’s our job to shine the light of his truth on sin.
That way the world can see its sin and the mercy to Christ, turn to Christ and find salvation.
III.
Our walk display’s Christ’s wisdom (vv.
15-21)
Eph.
5:15
Last week saw in v.17-18 that people who walk wisely know how to use their time well (v.16) and they understand that God’s will for their life is holiness.
They use holiness as the standard to make every decision.
We are going to look at the last characteristic of those walk wisely this morning and thus display Christ’s wisdom
C.
They live under the influence of the Holy Spirit.
(vv.
18-21)
The first thing that we must realize here that God wants our faith to impact our behavior and not simply our intellect.
This whole section of Ephesians is about your lifestyle reflecting your identity.
And to walk wisely, we are told to “be filled with the Spirit.”
(v.18)
What that tells me is that the Holy Spirit didn’t simply come to shape your beliefs and theology, but he also came he to shape your decisions and your behaviors.
+Baptists have a little reputation of being afraid of the Holy Spirit.
More than once we have been described as the “frozen chosen.”
The reason is that we have not wanted to fall prey to the clear abuses of the Holy Spirit that was witnessed in some more charasmatic churches.
I’ve seen Benny Hinn knock rows of people down with just the wave of his arm.
We could go on and on from the great Awakening in John Edwards’s day up to now.
This is not a message on the abuse of the Holy Spirit.
But, I do want out our tendency for abuse.
We tend to take God’s truth and the work of the Holy Spirit and shine it at our head and not at our feet.
*Let’s say it’s 3:00a.m. and one of your children cries out from another room.
They’ve had a bad dream.
You want to get into their room quickly to comfort them.
The house is pitch black, but you don’t want to wake up your spouse by turning the house lights on.
So, you pick up your phone laying beside your bed and flip the flashlight on.
But, on the way to the room, your stump your little toe on the foot of the bed, run into the a chair misplaced in the kitchen, and trip over the tennis shoes left in the living room.
All because, instead of shining the light at your feet, you were shining it at your head.
We’ve pointed the Holy Spirit’s light only at o
It’s easy in the name of avoiding the Holy Spirit abuse to shine his light only at our head and made him only about right doctrine.
Let me give you a life principle:
Life Principle:“A Christian’s beliefs will never impact anyone until that Christian’s life does.”
The wisdom of the Holy Spirit is not only seen in what we believe, but in how we walk.
“A Christian’s beliefs will never impact anyone until that Christian’s life does.”
1.
For the Holy Spirit to direct your life, he has be the greatest influencer of it.
(v.18)
Paul calls us to ask, “What or who is controlling your life.”
He starts by using an illustration that everyone will understand, being under the influence of alcohol.
Everyone in that day and our day understands the affects of alcohol.
Back then water wasn’t all that trustworthy to drink all the time, so that grew grapes and made grapejuice.
Let grapejuice set in a container in the heat for a few days you get fermintation and wine.
People that drink too much wine get drunk or as we might say it, intoxicated.
Wine takes control of the mind.
It ruins the your judgment.
That makes you say things you wouldn’t normally say, go places you may not normally go, and do things that you wouldn’t normally do in your right mind.
The RSV (Rushing Simple Version) of that verse is “If you don’t think wine will make you look like a fool, you are a fool.”
This would be a real good place to stop and preach a sermon on the dangers of alcohol.
I won’t give you a sermon here, but I will give you something to think about.
Look at .
This is my favorite Scripture concerning alcohol in the Bible.
This is King Lemuel’s momma talking to her son who is a young king.
And, she says that there are two things that he needs to stay away from as a young man.
Too things that are going to be a great temptation, but will destroy his life.
Guess what they are?
Wild women and alcohol.
Prov.
31
Proverbs 20
How many great men have had their lives destroyed by a seductive women?
His momma is telling him that the king is too important to have his life destroyed that way.
But that is not all that will destroy.
How many great men have had their lives destroyed by a seductive women?
His momma is telling him that the king is too important to have his life destroyed that way.
But, that is not all that will destroy a life.
In other words, if you drink alcohol and that affects your decision making and your actions, it will affect other people that you are responsible for.
You might say, “But pastor, I’m not a king.”
You are a Daddy, or a Momma, or a husband or a wife.
Or, you are going to be one.
Everyone in here has someone that you are responsible for and your bad decisions will hurt them.
I’m not saying it’s a sin to drink alcohol.
Neither is the king’s mother, I’m just saying that it is simply not worth the danger of the harm it has the capacity to bring.
There’s a lot more to say about that, but I don’t have the time to do it here.
So when you are drunk, alcohol influences you decisions and your actions for harm.
But when you are filled with the Spirit, it influences you decisions and your actions for your good.
He makes you wise.
So “filling of the Spirit” means directed, influenced, and ultimately governed by the Holy Spirit.
There are some aspects of this word that you should be aware of.
a.
We are commanded to be filled.
This is an imperative.
He’s not giving us an option here.
b.
We are commanded to have the filling done to us by the Spirit.
This is a passive verb.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9