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
0.08UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.05UNLIKELY
Fear
0.04UNLIKELY
Joy
0.69LIKELY
Sadness
0.48UNLIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.68LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.5LIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.84LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.58LIKELY
Extraversion
0.26UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.84LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.46UNLIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Introduction:
Love has various meanings in various contexts.
I love my wife, I love our Church and I love Pizza.
I love my wife with a lifelong, commitment until death.
For better for worse; for richer for poorer; in sickness and in health until one of us dies.
I love this church and Lord-willing we will worship, grow and serve together for many years.
But there will come a time, hopefully not for 20 years, when I will be physically or mentally unable to shepherd you as a church of Jesus Christ deserves.
Many of you have very fond affection for some people who used to worship and serve here but for various reasons are sharing in the community of another congregation, yet we still love them as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Within the church family we commit to each other to work through our struggles, to learn from each other and to seek God’s best in and through our fellowship.
I love pizza.
Whether it is Chicago-deep dish from Giordano’s or Lou Malnati’s or it is the homemade pizza I prepare with a crust thinner than Casey’s flatbread.
But there are some pizzas that will never even make their way to my lips.
Put pesto or artichokes on the pie and I will choose the salad instead.
As we talk about God’s love today, it is imperative that we remember His love is not in competition with, but is enhanced by, His other attributes.
In the last 2 months we’ve seen God as Eternally triune, Creator, Communicator, Merciful, Reigning, Ruling, Making and Keeping Promises, and Coming near to us in the Person of Jesus Christ.
Today we zero in on a word that probably has 100 different understandings in this room alone.
Let us look at God’s Word to see how He reveals His love to us.
Transition: Last week we saw that God offers and requires a new birth that requires us to look to Jesus in a similar way to how Moses lifted the serpent in the Wilderness.
Then we read John’s reflections on the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus…
God’s Love is Absurd (Jn 3:16a)
God so loved the world…
Explanation
1.
We think we are worthy of love.
Imagine a teenage girl holding a daisy and slowly removing the petals “He loves me, he loves me not”.
In her mind is she thinking “I’m the smartest, funniest, prettiest girl in the class so he ought to love me?
Is she thinking, “I’m the slowest, most self-absorbed, hateful and homely girl in the class, but maybe he’ll love me anyway?
Is she thinking, “Does he see me so that my good qualities outnumber my trouble areas?”
Is she thinking, “Does he think I’m better than Betty Sue?”
· We have the idea that “love is blind” so that when we speak of love we are only thinking about my and his or her good attributes, but eventually those irksome qualities show themselves.
A young man fell in love with an opera singer who had a beautiful voice.
After a whirlwind romance and a hurry-up ceremony, they were off on their honeymoon together.
She began to prepare for their first night together, As he watched, his chin dropped to his chest.
She plucked out her glass eye, pulled off her wig, ripped off her false eyelashes, yanked out her dentures, unstrapped her artificial leg , and smiled at him as she slipped off her glasses that hid her hearing aid.
Stunned and horrified, he gasped, “sing woman, sing, SING!”
–Chuck Swindoll, “Strike the Original Match”
2. How many of us either sent or received that hand-written note that read “Do you like me? Check yes or no” What we are really asking is “Am I desireable?
Am I loveable?”
3. Now God comes along in John 3:16: “God so loved the world.”
What is God saying to the world?
Is He declaring the loveable-ness of the world?
“The word “world” in John’s Gospel typically refers not to a big place with a lot of people in it but to a dark place with a lot of bad people in it.”[i]
· Remember, Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus who came at night (in darkness) in a condition that would not see the kingdom of God (unless he is born again).
Verses 19-20 clarify John’s estimation of the world that God loves.
4. It is as if God is saying, “Yes, you have glass eye, wear a wig, require dentures and an artificial leg but I love you.
Not because you’re loveable, but because I am that kind of God.”
Transition: This side of Genesis 3 the Bible always speaks of God’s love for us as extravagant and undeserved
God’s Love is Actionable (Jn 3:16b)
…that he gave his one and only Son.
Explanation
1. John (the evangelist) goes out of his way to describe how perfect the love is between Father, Son & Spirit.
(see ch. 17).
2. God chooses to love us.
God chooses to love this lost and self-destructing “world” in a yearning, inviting way.
I’m always amazed when I consider the difficult choice that loved ones make when giving permission in the hospital for organ donation.
It is hard enough when we do it in the Driver’s License office (where it remains somewhat abstract).
But when it becomes real is when the Doctor asks can we disconnect the ventilator and begin the harvest of organs.
This is hard enough, but then when one considers living donation that puts the donor at considerable risk.
And I don’t know a single parent who would voluntarily terminate his or her own child’s life for the benefit of another, an enemy.
3. Jesus’ whole life was Love in action.
a. Jesus was known as “a friend of sinners” (Mt 11:19 & Lk 7:34).
In the very next chapter (Jn 4) Jesus will spend time conversing at a well in Samaria with a woman of questionable morals.
b.
Jesus noticed the hard lives that people were living and he gently invites them…
c.
Jesus takes time to welcome the children that others think are a bother (Mt 19:14)
d.
MT 23:37 is an inspiring conclusion to a rough chapter.
In the first 90% of the chapter Jesus confronts hypocrisy and lawlessness with harsh direct language, then the chapter concludes with
e.
Even as Jesus was bleeding and suffocating on the cross he cried out
Transition: The Triune God loves us when we are rebels.
The Second Person of the Trinity shows actionable love throughout His life and John continues by telling us…
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9