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
0.06UNLIKELY
Fear
0.14UNLIKELY
Joy
0.62LIKELY
Sadness
0.57LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.72LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.6LIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.47UNLIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.98LIKELY
Extraversion
0.08UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.84LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.79LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Going Through the Motions
Getting Ready
Joshua 3:1-7
Do you ever feel like you are in a rut?
Do you ever feel like all that you’re doing is going through the motions?
Everything just seems routine and there is no real excitement anymore.
Maybe you feel like this at school, at home, with your friends, in your marriage, your job, or even at church.
You just do it because that’s what you do.
Does it feel like that you are just going around in circles?
Does it feel like you aren’t making any forward progress?
It’s almost like you are playing the game of life and you get one of the cards that says go back five spaces.
It’s like we just can’t seem to get out of the place we are.
I know that my job feels like that all I am doing is going through the motions anymore.
I go up the same streets, up to the same houses, to the same mailboxes, with what seems like the same mail day after day.
Most days, I’m just sort of on auto-pilot.
I’m going through the motions.
Life can get that way.
We find ourselves in routines.
Tuesday is going to be pretty much the same as Monday.
We’ll get up at the same time.
Go through the same morning rituals before we get on with the day.
I want you to think back to the account of the Exodus.
After the Israelites were liberated from Egypt and given the Law, they were disobedient to God and he did not allow them to enter the Promised Land for forty years.
They wandered in the desert, in the wilderness for forty years.
And God provided them with Manna.
Every day except the Sabbath God would provide his manna for them to eat, to sustain themselves while they were in the desert.
They wandered for forty years and God was trying to teach them a lesson.
He wanted them to understand that they could count on him, that they could depend on him for their daily needs.
Six days a week they would get up and they would gather manna.
He was providing their daily bread.
But, can you imagine only having one choice for your meal every day for forty years?
What’s for breakfast?
Manna.
What’s for lunch?
Manna.
What’s for dinner?
Manna.
Do we have any snacks?
Yeah, we have manna, manna, and more manna.
You want to talk about being in a rut, about going through the motions.
They were stuck in the desert with only one item on the menu.
I know some people that it would be okay for them as long as it was an item of their choice.
They could live with no variety.
They would be perfectly content.
I know I wouldn’t be.
The Israelites weren’t.
But they were there because of their own disobedience and God wasn’t going to let them starve.
Over the next few Sundays were going to look at what it takes to get out of a rut, to help us quit going through the motions.
I hope that we can learn how to quit going the motions not only in our lives but how we can quit going through the motions in spiritual lives and as a church.
We are going to spend that time in Joshua chapters 3 and 4.
I need to set the scene before we start in chapter 3. The people, the Israelites, are in sight of the Promised Land.
Moses, the man who had led the people out of bondage in Egypt had died and Joshua had been chosen by God to finally lead the people into the Promised Land.
God repeatedly told Joshua to be strong and courageous because He was with him.
Joshua had sent the spies into Jericho and they were hidden by Rahab.
When they came back they told Joshua that the Lord had surely given the whole land to them because all the people were melting in fear of them.
They had one obstacle left before they began to take the cities that God had given them, the Jordan River.
That is where we are going to pick up the story, but before we do, let’s pray.
Pray!
The first thing that I want you to see, the first thing that we need to do in order to move forward:
Accept a Godly Leader
Before Moses had died, he had told the people that Joshua would lead them after he was gone.
They even agreed to follow him.
At the end of chapter one, they agreed to follow Joshua:
It sounds good doesn’t it?
We will do what you tell us do.
We will go wherever you tell us to.
We’ll follow you like we did Moses.
Only make sure that God was with you like he was with Moses.
They even put a condition on their following.
It is actually a good condition.
They want a leader they can follow, one they can trust, but more importantly they want a leader that they know that God is with him.
The church needs to make sure that when they choose leaders that they know that God is with them and is guiding them.
In Joshua 3:7, God tells Joshua,
7 The Lord said to Joshua, “Today I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you.
God will let his people know when they have a godly leader that they should follow.
There should be no doubt that he is sent from God.
We need godly leaders in the church.
Whether that is the pastor, the deacons, the Sunday School teachers, those people need to be committed to God, they need to be chosen by God, and they need to be obedient to God.
But we also need to have godly leaders outside of the church.
We need them in our schools, our homes, our families, our workplaces, and our marriages.
If we are ever going to get of a rut, if we are ever going to quit going through the motions, we need to accept godly leaders.
Maybe today God is calling you to step up and be a leader.
Maybe God has placed it on your heart to become a leader in this church.
Is he calling you teach Sunday School, to take up more of a role in this church, to help move it forward and be obedient to the command of Jesus to make disciples.
Maybe God is putting it in your heart to step up to the plate in your school, your home, your family, your workplace, or your marriage and be a leader – to be a godly leader.
We don’t just need godly leadership in this building.
We complain that they are taking God out of our schools; we complain that this country is leaving God by the side of the road.
And we let it happen.
We just stood by and watched.
Maybe it’s time to do something about it.
But we never will without godly leaders.
And if we are willing to accept godly leaders, we better:
Be ready to follow
What does verse 3 tell us?
3 and commanded the people, “As soon as you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God being carried by the Levitical priests, then you shall set out from your place and follow it.
When you see the Ark of the Covenant moving, you need to get up and go after it.
What was the ark?
Was it a boat like Noah’s?
It was a wooden box covered in gold and do you know what was inside it?
No, it wasn’t just sand like in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9