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
0.09UNLIKELY
Fear
0.14UNLIKELY
Joy
0.62LIKELY
Sadness
0.5UNLIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.59LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.45UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.72LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.96LIKELY
Extraversion
0.18UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.84LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.72LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Last week, we began a message series about how we can have the good life.
Let’s read the theme verse for this series together.
If we are going to live the good life, we need to know how.
We need to realize that living the good life may not be what we think and what is commonly marketed to us.
Open your Bibles to
In this passage of Scripture, John used the term “the world”.
If we don’t understand what John is saying when he used this term, we could come out with some really poor theology.
Like a pastor who had been advised by his doctor to lose 30 pounds or risk serious health consequences.
The good pastor took his new diet seriously, even changing his driving route to the church building to avoid his favorite bakery.
One morning, however, he arrived for Bible study carrying a gigantic devil’s food cake.
The class chuckled and chided him, but the pastor’s smile remained.
“This is a very special cake,” he explained.
“I accidentally drove by the bakery this morning and there in the window were a host of goodies.
I felt this was no accident, so I prayed, ‘Lord, if you want me to have one of those delicious cakes, let me have a parking place directly in front of the bakery.’
And sure enough,” he continued, “the eighth time around the block, there it was!”
We want to be sure we understand what John meant when he wrote about the “world” because in other places John used the word and he meant people.
For example,
In , John does not mean people.
He is talking about the temptations that flow out of the world’s values and systems.
If the world is viewed as people, then we are to love the world because God loves the world.
If the world is viewed as an evil set of systems and values, it is not to be loved.
Living the good life is loving God, not the world.
You cannot love the world and God at the same time.
The two are completely incompatible.
There are three Greek words which could be translated as “love”.
The one that John uses is “agape” love or what is commonly called “self-sacrificing love”.
In other words, don’t sacrifice anything in pursuit of the world agenda.
Before we go farther, we need to understand that this command to “not love the world” is not about becoming isolationists.
Some believers have misinterpreted what John said and have thought that in order to guard themselves from the world and temptations, they must be isolated from the world.
However, John is not talking about isolation.
He is talking about insulation.
We are to insulate ourselves from falling to temptations which flow out of the world’s values and systems.
When Jesus prayed for us in , he didn’t pray that his followers would isolate themselves from the world.
He didn’t pray that they would start communes and convents with the purpose of keeping the world out.
Look at what he prayed.
John 17:
John 17:
He didn’t pray that they would be removed from the world, but rather he prayed for protection from the evil one.
We need to insulate ourselves from the world through the study of the Scriptures, through prayer, and through fasting.
As we practice spiritual disciplines in our lives, we insulate ourselves from the temptations of the evil one.
As John developed his thoughts under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he gives us three of the world’s temptations that we are going to have to learn to deal with properly.
You will be tempted by the lusts of the flesh.
You will be tempted by the lusts of the flesh.
William Barclay said that the lusts of the flesh is “to live a life dominated by the senses.”
It is about addictions and physical desire.
It is living life for physical pleasure.
This could be about sex.
This could be about food.
This could be about exercise.
This could be about hobbies.
This could be about video games.
This could be about anything which dominates our lives; anything that pulls me away from what I should be doing for the kingdom of God.
The good life is about avoiding the lusts of the eyes.
You will be tempted by the lusts of the eyes.
We are a visual based society.
Images and videos are powerful and can cause us to be covetous and desire something we don’t have.
The lust of the eyes can cause us to become discontented with what we have been blessed with in our lives.
Think of the popularity of platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube.
On Instagram, you can be an influencer who puts products and services in front of people and causes them to want it.
You see what other people have or what other people are doing and you think, “I want that.
I want to do that.
They look like they are always having fun.
I want that too.”
You become dissatisfied and depressed with your life because you have been tempted by the lusts of the eyes.
The good life is about avoiding the lusts of the eyes.
The good life is about avoiding the pride of life.
You will be tempted with the pride of life.
This about being “me centric”.
Someone is sharing an experience they have with you, but instead of being happy for them, you feel the need to one-up them.
This is about anything that leads to arrogance and boasting.
You want everyone to look at you are what you have done.
This is where it gets interesting for me.
I am not sure that John had this in mind when he wrote about these three areas of temptation for believers, but these three areas perfectly correspond with two other stories of temptation in the Scriptures.
The first one is found in the book of Genesis.
Likely, you are familiar with the story.
Adam and Eve were placed in Eden’s Garden by God to manage his creation.
They were told not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
They could eat of any of the other trees, even the Tree of Life, but they were forbidden from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
We don’t know how much time passed, but one day Satan appeared in the Garden in the form of a snake.
He tempted Eve to eat of the forbidden tree.
Genesis 3:
The tree was good for food, which is the lust of the flesh.
The tree was delightful to look at, which is the lust of the eyes.
The tree was desirable for obtaining wisdom, which is the pride of life.
She ate.
Adam ate and the rest is history.
Adam and Eve had the good life, but they lost it when they succumbed to the temptation.
There is another story.
This one in the New Testament.
Jesus was baptized by John the Baptizer.
After his baptism, he was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit for the purpose of being tempted.
He fasted for 40 days and 40 nights.
Then, after being physically weakened, the evil one came to tempt him.
Matthew 4:
Satan tempted Jesus with the lust of the flesh, but Jesus resisted fulfilling his physical need through illegitimate means.
Matthew 4:
Satan, twisting God’s own word, tempted Jesus with the pride of life.
<show picture of the pinnacle of the temple>
Here is a picture of the pinnacle of the temple.
Had Jesus thrown himself off the temple mount and had angels rescue him, he would have been instantly famous.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9