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
0.13UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.1UNLIKELY
Fear
0.12UNLIKELY
Joy
0.58LIKELY
Sadness
0.52LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.67LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.48UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.83LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.88LIKELY
Extraversion
0.32UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.71LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.69LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Subject - A life of integrity?
Check yourself before you check the fruit.
This sermon that Jesus is speaking, teaching his disciples is really a different way of life.
He began by contrasting two different types of people.
The poor, the hungry, those who mourn, those who are persecuted, with those who are rich, those who are full, those who laugh, those who are flattered by worldly individuals.
One of these groups bears the marks of a follower of Jesus, the other is ruled by the world.
It calls into question a disciples relationship to means, things of this world.
How we interact, what importance we place upon them.
Do we value the material things of this world more than the God who created them and us?
The second section calls a follower of Jesus, a disciple, to evaluate their relationship with others.
How do we love our friends well, let alone our enemies?
Jesus then needles in a little more to address our motives within relationships.
Jesus tells us judge not, condemn not, forgive, give.
He uses a parable to further illustrate his points which is where we began last week.
Can a blind man lead a blind man?
As a disciple of Jesus, who are you following, and who is following you?
This morning Jesus needles in a little further to address the issue of integrity.
Specifically integrity in relationships
As an ethical term,
Integrity refers to uprightness in *character,
authenticity;
To have a set of moral principles and act according to them.
The difference with integrity as a Christian, is what determines those principles.
The world around us, views those principles as something that comes from within oneself, perhaps some influence from culture, bur primarily self made.
This is how the idea of, what’s true for you is not true for me comes into play.
As a Christian though, our principles, our values come from God’s intention for our existence.
We act according to personal convictions that are dictated by an understanding of God’s purposes for creation that we get through the instructions He has given us through His son, Jesus.
Through scripture, through God’s word.
God provides us with all we need
Subaru Video?
As Christians, we should have both a proactive and a reactive stance toward getting into trouble.
A proactive stance is what we do to avoid trouble.
So if you struggle with anger, you proactively take steps to avoid blowing up when stress hits.
A reactive stance, on the other hand, is what happens when you do sin.
So if you do blow up, you react by being apologetic and asking for forgiveness.
Both of these stances are crucial when it comes to dealing with sin in your life.
So stay on your guard proactively by watching out for where you’re prone to sin.
Also, develop a planned biblical response for when you do make a mistake that keeps your relationships with God and others fully intact!
The call as a Christian is to live with integrity for the glory of God.
As we pick up in 41 Jesus continues with what should strike us really as rather silly.
That is why I included the picture on the front of the bulletins this morning.
The absurdity of what Jesus is describing here is comical.
a small piece of straw, chaff, or wood, to denote someth.
quite insignificant, speck, splinter, chip
Have you ever had the wind blow and a little speck of dust get in your eye.
Have you ever gone to look in the mirror to try to find it?
You can’t, the speck is so small, you can’t even find it yourself.
That is what is in your brother’s eye.
Now compare that to what is in your own.
ESV translates the word log.
Others translate it a beam of wood, a plank.
Eugene Peterson in the message paraphrase puts it this way.
JB Phillips paraphrases it this way -
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and fail to notice the plank in your own?
This contrast is further brought out by other words used along with each one.
Why do you see.
This is the commonly used Greek word used to tell of the act of seeing things.
It is a verb observation.
I see a tree, I see a building, I see a mountain.
Then Jesus goes on to say but do not notice.
① notice, observe carefully
② to look at in a reflective manner, consider, contemplate
③ to think about carefully, envisage, think about, notice
Here you see plainly, the small imperfection of your brother, but do not take the time time to reflect on, contemplate, think about, or notice the your own imperfections.
Jesus instruction in this regard is clear.
The word hypocrite caries the meaning
actor, in the sense pretender, dissembler
It is not a long step from the classical Greek sense of “hypocrite” as an “actor” to our use of the word to indicate deliberate deceit, pretending to be what you are not.
Actors portray something that they are not, they seek to fool the audience into believing they are something they are not.
The better the actor, the higher we praise them.
This is not the case here.
Jesus is calling his disciples to a different life.
Don’t put on a show.
Don’t act like you have it all together with you fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
This is so radically different from everything we experience.
How often do we come to church on a Sunday morning acting like we have it all together, when in reality, our world is falling apart around us.
Jesus calls us to something greater.
Something more.
A true loving community.
Christian love is not blind.
God never says, “Ignore the faults of others.”
But he does say, “Take care of your own faults first.”
Look in the mirror!
Ask God to show you your own sins.
The words of Psalm 139:23-24 come to mind:
If we would pray that way and mean it, we would do a lot more confessing and a lot less judging.
The order in which we do things is crucial.
We are to judge ourselves first by asking God to show us our sins.
We sit and wait and pray for the Holy Spirit to show us our weaknesses, our faults, our mistakes, our bad attitudes, our foolish words,
our pride, our arrogance, our need to be in control, our need to run the world, our need to tell others what to do,
our desire to have our own way, our anger, our bitterness, our lack of mercy, our lack of love, our lack of compassion.
A successful businessman bought a yacht so he and his wife could retire in luxury.
His wife, however, was nervous considering her husband had absolutely zero experience sailing.
But after years of victories in boardrooms, the man was sure he could handle it.
So for weeks he practiced in the harbor before setting sail to the open sea.
Finally, the time came for them to embark.
As they set sail, the man tried to comfort his wife by saying, “Honey, trust me.
I know where every rock, reef, and sand bar is in this entire harbor.”
At that moment a huge hidden rock beneath the surface made a large crunching sound from stem to stern.
“There,” the man said sheepishly, “is one of them going by now.”
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9