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.
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/" So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him.
Jesus said to them, “*My Father is always at his work* to this very day, and I, too, am working.”
For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.
For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.
Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these.
For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.
Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father.
He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.
“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.
I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.
For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.
And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.
“Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.
By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.
“If I testify about myself, my testimony is not valid.
There is another who testifies in my favor, and I know that his testimony about me is valid.*
“You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth*.
Not that I accept human testimony; but I mention it that you may be saved.
John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light.
“I have testimony weightier than that of John.
For *the very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me*.
And the* Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me.
*You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent.
You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life.
*These are the Scriptures that testify about me*, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
“I do not accept praise from men, but I know you.
I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts.
I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him.
How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God? “But do not think I will accuse you before the Father.
*Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set*.
If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.
But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?”" (John 5:16-47, NIV) /
/*[1]*// /
It’s the New Year again and we have either made resolutions and are working to get and stay on track for the coming year or we have decided against it.
Regardless of what you are doing or not doing most of us can recognize the need for change.
Unless you look back on the past year and are totally content with what you accomplished, your general outlook on life, the manner in which you relate to people and of course the mistakes that you made.
While you may not process change easily, it is a certainty that there will be no meaningful betterment in the days ahead unless you introduce change of some sort to you life.
The scripture lesson today – we have watched it together portrays Christ as a “change-maker”.
He responded to the needs of a long term paralytic and it wrote him into the “bad books” of those religious leaders who were unwilling to accept change and this growth.
Without change there can be no growth.
Christ was the introduction of a new era in relationship between God and man.
It would be far beyond their imaginations and would bring them something that they had never known but their attachment to the familiar, to business as usual blinded them.
It looked like a very “spiritual” objection, the defense of the scriptural principle of a “Sabbath” observance.
He still introduces change today.
If you are to experience something different this year, how will it come?
For some the only answer is to try harder.
But that’s just another trip around Robin Hood’s Resolution Barn.
We’ve all tried hard before and discovered that we don’t have what it takes to do it perfectly and to stick to it for the long haul.
Our prayer is that God will give us eyes to see and ears to hear beyond the blindness and deafness of familiarity and our own traditions.
*1.
*There was an obvious disconnect here for those who persecuted Christ.
/" So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him . .
.”/
There’s nothing wrong with /meaningful/ tradition.
The church is always one generation short of extinction; and if we don’t pass on to our children and grandchildren what God has done for us and our fathers, the church will die of apathy and ignorance.
“Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord” (Ps.
34:11, NIV).
It’s when tradition gradually becomes /traditionalism/ that we get into trouble.
Theologian Jaroslav Pelikan said, “Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.”[2]
From research and personal experience I've come to the conclusion that in every church 16 percent of the members will never change.
The tragedy is I see young pastors every day leaving the ministry because of that 16 percent.
It's as if they're butting their heads against a brick wall.
What they should be doing is concentrating on the 84 percent who are ripe for change.
That's where the real ministry of the local church takes place.
-- Howard Hendricks, Leadership, Vol. 5, no.
2.
In their minds they were defending something sacred.
The notion of the Sabbath and it’s keeping.
And the notion of heresy – error that would come from someone who claimed a relationship with God that they could not permit.
While they looked for the coming Messiah, they could not possibly admit that this was indeed the one.
I’m not sure what they were thinking – would they find the Messiah wandering around waiting to be discovered and then revered?
Would they seek him out or would He come to them?
Could God come to a people who had fallen into a blind relationship with His words that subverted His purposes.
/“You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life.
*These are the Scriptures that testify about me*, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”/
All of us have those areas that we guard quite closely.
Our spiritual pet peeves.
We can’t quite point to chapter and verse but we’re sure it’s in there somewhere.
If we could find a place to write our convictions into the Word we would.
And we try so hard that at times it discredits the Word that we love.
You see to add to it is as heretical as it is to subtract from it and God will judge the liberal and the legalist for the same crime.
Distorting the Word.
Intolerable in God’s economy.
I have used this quote from George Verwer and A.W. Tozer before but it deserves re-using often because it is great truth.
There is another problem that we need to be aware of.
Some Christians find it very tempting to be so very certain about what is right that they start laying down the law.
Often it is difficult to be both firm and loving.
A.W. Tozer put it this way:
"It requires great care and a true knowledge of ourselves to distinguish a spiritual burden from a religious irritation.
Often acts done in a spirit of religious irritation have consequences far beyond what we could have guessed.
It is more important that we maintain a right spirit toward the others than that we bring them to our way of thinking even if our way is right.
Satan cares very little whether we go astray after false doctrine or merely turn sour.
Either way he wins."
Do you know what Tozer means by "sour Christians"?
Often they have a good grasp of doctrine and a clear analysis of the situation, but seem to lack gentleness and peace.
Any follower of religion can have a religious irritation: . . .
It is very easy to right in the wrong way.
There are those certain perspectives that we hold too closely.
If they were written in denominational statements as general rules of conduct for others we might have trouble with them.
But our own “pet peeves” our religious irritations would never be in that same category.
Often we judge others according to the way that they position themselves to our convictions.
If they share them then they are godly and if they don’t then they are suspect.
If I am restrictive with my own children I automatically assume that others should be the same with their children, . . .
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