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Welcoming
If you are here for the first time today, or you’ve visited several times already, I want to say, welcome.
I’m glad you’re here.
This year we’re focusing on growing our skills as a welcoming church.
I’d like to ask our regular attendees a question:
How do you relate to this space and the people in it?
Do you have a pew that you have to sit in to feel comfortable?
How adaptable are you to change?
Every new person who joins our family, even if only for a day, has to negotiate the behavioral and spacial norms that many of us have settled into.
And sometimes, we don’t behave nicely when our space is invaded by someone new.
If we are to be a welcoming church, then we need to treat our space with adaptability.
I’m grateful I’ve never heard of anyone in this church chastising someone for sitting in “their seat”.
If I ever do hear that, I will have some stern words with you.
That attitude is completely opposed to the love and acceptance of Jesus.
He would be the first to say, “here take my seat.”
But even if we would never say "hey, that’s my seat!”, do we create barriers to other people participating with us in worship by how we arrange ourselves?
We’ve had a lot of illness in our congregation in the past couple of months so we’ve had some extra seats lately.
But on a typical Sabbath last year we had 85 to 90 people in our sanctuary.
When someone comes when we’ve already started singing, it can be a bit awkward to find a place to sit.
Not because there isn’t room, but because you have to pass through the church to find a place to sit.
The first seats we fill up are often the seats in the back.
What would change about our behavior if we walked into the sanctuary with this question on our minds, “how can I be welcoming to a visiting family?”
Would we take up a tiny bit less space in our pew, or maybe sit more towards the front?
Or maybe scoot to the center so people can easily find seats at the edges?
I know it’s uncomfortable to sit farther forward if you are used to sitting in the back.
Change is not easy, but being a welcoming church family isn’t something we do because its easy.
We do it because Jesus calls us to welcome people in His name and with His love.
I’m not asking you to move, or even change your behavior.
I have seen self-sacrifice and deference towards others in this congregation.
What I am asking is for you to ask that question, “how can I be welcoming to a visiting family?”
let’s be intentional about being a community where people feel warmly welcomed when they walk through our doors.
Intro
From the moment we open our eyes in the morning until we drift off to sleep our days are filled with choices.
What we wear, eat, do, believe… where we go... how we behave.
Our lives, our reputations, our relationships and health and careers and values are all shaped by the choices we make.
The choice to lie or tell the truth.
To be cruel or kind.
To cheat or be honest.
To seek vengeance, or offer forgiveness.
To do the popular thing or the right thing.
To ignore God or acknowledge Him.
Choices determine the person we are and will become.
The most important choice you will ever make will be made here today as we examine the story of the most consequential choice that was ever made by a human.
Prayer
We’re studying the first chapters of the book of Genesis in a series called Beginnings, and we’re uncovering foundational treasures about God and His powerful truths for living.
We started in this series with the creation of Adam and explored our identity and dignity.
Then we explored the sacred union between a man and a woman that God designed to be a reflection of His divine love, and a tool in shaping and forming holiness in our lives.
Until now, everything has been good, very good.
There is beauty, harmony, love, justice, and direct communion with God.
Adam and Eve were created innocent and pure, but not beyond the possibility of doing wrong.
They were “free moral agents, capable of appreciating the wisdom and goodness of His [God’s] character and the justice of His requirements, and with full liberty to yield or to withhold obedience.”
(Patriarchs and Prophets, 48)
God could have made humanity like cows or monkeys or cats — without moral conscience, without the capacity to know and choose right from wrong, and without the capacity for deep and intimate relationship with God.
He could have made us like elephants, without the ability to contemplate justice, honesty, goodness, and peace.
Like a bear that hibernates or a butterfly that migrates.
But instead He chose to make humans in his image, with the ability to love Him and be loved by Him.
He made us good, honest and noble with no bias towards evil, but able to choose.
And He fully, completely, lovingly informed us of the path of joy and peace.
God set before Adam and Eve the serious matter of obedience and allowed them to make a decision.
As Bible scholar, Arthur Ferch says:
The guidelines given by their divine Father were few, succinct, and clear.
The command — as every other divine instruction — arose from love, and through it one could hear the love of the speaker.
Like a caring parent, the Lord wanted His children to enjoy happiness, life and joy, but He left the choice between life and death to them.”
(In the Beginning, 41)
There was nothing arbitrary or self-serving about God’s boundary markers.
They were all meant for the good and harmony of all creation.
But early in their lives Adam and Eve made a choice that broke their relationship with God and unleashed untold sorrow, misery, hatred and death.
Their choice devastated their family for every generation since then.
Sara Groves sings a song called Generations in which she says,
I can taste the fruit of Eve
I'm aware of sickness, death and disease
The results of her choices are vast
Eve was the first but she wasn't the last
And if I were honest with myself
Had I been standing at that tree
My mouth and my hands would be covered with fruit
Things I shouldn't know and things I shouldn't see
Remind me of this with every decision
Generations will reap what I sow
I can pass on a curse or a blessing
To those I will never know
If only Eve had known…
Oh, but she did.
Eve had been told.
She knew the story of the rebellion and fall of Lucifer in heaven.
She knew about his lust to ruin their lives.
But now, from the base of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, she watched the deceivers tool, the beautiful dragon move gracefully among the branches.
The serpent misrepresented God and distorted His instructions.
As the Old Testament scholar Derek Kidner says, “it smuggles in the assumption that God’s word is subject to our judgment.”
Did God really say that?
And even if that’s what God said, don’t you know you can’t take those words literally?
We all have our own interpretation of what He really means by what He said.
You have one idea, and I have another.
The serpent tempted Eve to doubt God’s word.
You’ve face that challenge, from coworkers, classmates — sophisticated people.
Don’t be detoured: follow His word, obey His word.
It’s a lamp that guides and protects.
Know it by your own study.
Know by experience that His commands work for good and His promises are true.
Eve was tempted todoubt God’s word and she was tempted to be dissatisfied with God’s will.
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