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
0.09UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.07UNLIKELY
Fear
0.54LIKELY
Joy
0.59LIKELY
Sadness
0.57LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.55LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.76LIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.5UNLIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.87LIKELY
Extraversion
0.09UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.94LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.4UNLIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Intro: The Spiritual Disciplines
Over the past month or so, I’ve been personally convicted to live out more intentionally the things that Jesus teaches us.
Through scripture, Jesus teaches us things, and then he expects us to do them, to put them into action.
And at this point, some of you are probably thinking “Oh great, John is about to tell me more things that I have to do.”
And you’re right.
As Christians we have this tendency to do one of two things: we read the bible, we read what Jesus taught, and we come to the conclusion of “I must do all of these things so that Jesus will love me.”
Or, we come to the conclusion of “Oh, Jesus loves me, and he’s forgiven me, so now I don’t have to do anything.”
And neither of those responses are correct.
I often find myself on one end or the other depending on what’s going on in my life.
But, I’ve been reflecting on where Paul writes:
And in this verse, two things are very clear:
God is working in Us
We are to be working
So what this means is that the work that God is doing in us needs to be live out in our daily lives.
And so practically, this means that what we learn in bible study, sermons, etc. the things we learn need to be put into action.
If God is working in us then we have his strength to live out his teachings.
So, over the next 6 months or so, we’re going to be looking at the spiritual disciplines.
Discipline can be a frightening word, at least for me, so I sometimes refer to them as spiritual practices.
But, we’re all capable of being disciplined.
We’re disciplined with our studies, or at least we should be, we’re disciplined with the things that are important to us.
We’re intentional with what we see as valuable.
And so, we have to do a checkup with ourselves and really look and see if we value our relationship with God.
And sometimes I ask myself this, and I have to say no.
I don’t value it because there’s nothing in my life that points to that.
I lack spiritual discipline.
And so, each month we’ll look at one of the spiritual disciplines, and we’ll practice it.
And as we go along, we’ll slowly add another discipline, giving us time to ease our way in.
And my prayer is that these will start to take root in our lives.
Because the spiritual disciplines are the tools that we use to train to be more like Jesus.
The goal of our relationship with Jesus is to be more like him.
Following him leads us to be more like him.
And through the power of the Holy Spirit, the practices or disciplines we’re going to look at will help us to follow Jesus and be more like him.
A couple of key things before we start
What they are not
Spiritual disciplines are not a measure of our spirituality
My hope is that all of us start practicing these, but if you don’t or if you’re inconsistent, God is not looking down on you.
God’s love for us doesn’t change based on us our spirituality.
He doesn’t say “Hmmm, John didn’t pray today.
He loses some of my love for tomorrow.”
Being disciplined or not being disciplined is not an indicator of our spiritual well-being.
The true indicator is our growth in our ability to love God and love people.
And the disciplines train us to do that.
Spiritual disciplines are not a way for us to earn favor with God
Like I just said, God’s love for us doesn’t change based on our practice of spiritual discipline.
But we also don’t get extra credit with God.
Sometimes our thinking is if I pray more, or read scripture more, or live other people more, then God will bless me more or love me more, or give me more credit.
That’s not the point of these exercises.
If you’re following Jesus, then you already have full and abundant life.
The spiritual disciplines are simply a means of growing into that life.
They lead us into a deeper life with God.
So, that’s a brief explanation of what spiritual disciplines are.
Tonight I want to talk about prayer and then I want us to practice praying.
Intro: Prayer
Prayer has always been hard for me.
Over the past year, I’ve gotten more into a habit of praying, but even now, it’s still kind of hard for me.
For most of my walk with God, prayer hasn’t been something at the front of my mind or what I think about when I think about my relationship with Jesus.
For me, it’s been something I know I’m supposed to do, and so it’s always felt like an obligation.
And so I’d usually did it only because I knew I was supposed to.
And so, I’d lay in bed, or sit at my desk, close my eyes, and then my mind would just go blank.
Or I’d start thinking about all kinds of things that I didn’t think were related to prayer.
I had no idea what to do, so I’d fumble through a few sentences, and then say amen and end it.
All that to say, prayer can be intimidating and frustrating, especially when we don’t know it’s purpose or when we don’t have a method of praying.
And what I think our biggest problem is is that we associate prayer with desperation.
When we’ve done everything we can with our talents or gifts or resources, when we’ve done all we can do through our own strength, and it doesn’t work, then we pray.
It’s usually our last resort.
There’s nothing wrong with praying out of desperation.
Many people come to the Lord through prayers of desperation, but if we only pray in desperate times, we’re not really engaging in the kind of prayer that Jesus wants us to be in.
Prayer is how we talk with God, and it furthers our relationship with him.
If I only call my parents when I need help, then I don’t really have a relationship with them beyond that.
And the same is with God.
If we only pray to him out of desperation, we aren’t really in a relationship with him.
And I think we do this because we don’t think prayer can really change anything.
We pray out of desperation, we pray as a last resort, because that’s what it is for us.
We don’t really believe in it, but in that last ditch effort, it’s all we have left so we do it.
But the bible speaks of prayer differently.
What the biblical account shows us is that prayer changes thing.
When Abraham prayed and asked God not to destroy Sodom, he was insistent.
In a sense, he was haggling with God.
He was persistent with his request.
And God listened.
God listened to what Abraham said.
Abraham didn’t pray just once and then say “If it be your will.”
He pleaded with God to spare Lot and his family.
I think that we’re afraid to do this.
We’re afraid to plead with God.
We’re afraid to be persistent.
At least I am.
But prayer, powerful, changing prayer, is persistent and it’s raw.
It’s not full of theological statements and fancy rhetoric, it’s raw, emotional and authentic.
In prayer, we have a freedom to approach God and speak to him anything that’s on our minds and hearts.
But, prayer doesn’t just happen for us.
The disciples, who watched Jesus pray all the time, they struggled to truly pray.
So they ask Jesus to teach him and he does.
So, prayer is a learned behavior.
No one is an expert at it and no one ever masters it.
When we look at Jesus, we see that he hungered for prayer.
It fed his soul.
He got up early and spent time in prayer.
His response to everything in his life was to pray.
And the disciples saw this and wanted it too.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9