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
0.15UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.11UNLIKELY
Fear
0.16UNLIKELY
Joy
0.56LIKELY
Sadness
0.54LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.71LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.85LIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.82LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.86LIKELY
Extraversion
0.16UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.92LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.58LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Nicodemus
John 3:1-21
Two week ago we talked about Jesus encountering his disciples.
How Peter and the others with him were faced with a choice— do they go back to normal living or do they leave everything and follow Jesus?
Main Idea: Encountering Jesus will cause us to Wrestle with our doubts.
Me:
Many times in my life I must confess that I have asked God to show Himself to me.
I have asked God to knock over a cup of water in front of me to prove to me that He was real.
God if you just knock over this water cup— give me a sign!!
I have begged for a sign— any sign— a real sign or just something that I know would get my attention.
Something that would move me from my doubts that I have about God to rock solid belief— I would never doubt again.
Because it is so much better to know that you are real then to have to live another day with doubting if you are real or if you care.
I already doubt if I am ever enough for those that I care so much for.
We:
I think that we all have doubt within us.
Everyone of you today probably came into this building with doubts of some sort.
It could be doubts like:
I’ve made to many mistakes in my life— I doubt anybody would want me.
I doubt nobody wants to hear my ideas.
I doubt that I have the right experience to get into the college I really want.
I doubt I have the right skills to get the job I dream about.
Not only do you doubt yourself but others doubt you as well.
People tell you what you can and can’t do.
And doubt just beings to build.
And those are just some basic doubts, we haven’t even talked about the doubts we carry around when it comes to God and our faith.
Is God real or not?
Did Jesus real come to earth and die for everyone’s sin?
Did God really create the earth and everything in it?
Did the flood happen?
Did God split the sea for Moses?
I know we wrestle with these questions and then some.
I know we have these doubts— because you know what doubt causes us to do?
it causes us to live in fear.
Because look if you were all in on the Gospel— you would live differently then you currently do.
You would be sharing and being a light to the community.
You would be telling your friends about Christ.
They would be joining you here.
We hesitate because we are deep down unsure.
We think God is real and we want to believe that Jesus lived, and died for us— but we hesitate leaning 100% in.
Because we have this doubt inside of us.
and We think— all I need is a sign.
We all want a sign— and when we don’t get one and we see war, unrest, and little children dying we move from pleading with God for a sign to God I don’t think you are real.
And we hesitate.
We doubt— and we wonder.
But heres the deal for today, I believe that Encountering Jesus will cause us to wrestle with our doubts.
It’s like when our doubts are stacked up against Christ them seem to just resolve.
Or they seem to be just too small.
They get thrown out the window.
They just seem like nothing once we encounter Christ.
And look we all wrestle with our faith.
I read a quote this week that said: “Faith that does not doubt is a dead faith.”
which is way more helpful then Ben Franklin when he talks about doubt.
Here is his quote: “When you doubt, don’t.”
Thanks Ben— go fly a kite or something— because you are a terrible encourager.
You see God doesn’t want you to doubt, but he welcomes your doubt.
He want to hear your doubts and he is not afraid of them.
I know when people come to me and start talking to me about doubts they have in their faith, I sometimes feel overwhelmed.
Like I don’t know all the answers and because I don’t know all the answers I doubt my ability to help others.
Doubt seems to always be there for many of us.
And we are going to be looking at an encounter that Jesus had with a guy names Nicodemus.
So if you have your Bibles flip open to John 3.
God:
We will eventually get to verse 16, you know John 3:16.
But you know that there are 15 verses prior to that and also 6 verses after that?
They are pretty important as well.
so let start diving into this.
Pretty straight forward.
Nicodemus was a pharisee.
The pharisees were not huge fans of Jesus— they kinda were the ones leading the chant of crucify him at the end of Jesus’ life.
So overall they were not huge fans of Jesus— so read on.
Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night.
Dark is significant— The fact that Nicodemus would approach Jesus at night.
It could mean he was afraid of what others might say.
I mean you do know that most crime and illegal activities are done at night right?
It is possible that this is why John who is writing this book is telling us.
But there is another reason he might have said this.
John could be using night as a symbol.
John has already used light and darkness language at the beginning of this book.
So what if John was using night as a symbol in contrast to Jesus.
What if night is a picture of a man who was in an uneasy state of unbelief or doubt.
And he finds himself coming to Jesus because he knew as well as the other Pharisees that something was different and significant about Jesus.
Look at how Nicodemus addresses Jesus.
Nicodemus calling Jesus Rabbi is also worth noting as Rabbi coming from Nicodemus would treat Jesus as a colleague.
Nicodemus understands that Jesus is speaking with the power of God but is not acknowledging that He is God.
Rather a good teacher with the power of God, like he was with Moses and Jeremiah
But here is where Nicodemus missed what was really happening with Jesus.
Jesus was not powered by God but he was God.
He is God.
And Jesus was doing signs.
Jesus is doing signs and miracles but Jesus did not entrust himself to them.
He knew that they only believed or listened to him because of the signs he was performing.
and so when Nicodemus comes up to him and says look we you know are a teacher from God, no one can do these things without God.
Nicodemus was relying on signs as belief however it is not sufficient.
Jesus understood the nature of genuine believing and knowing, and he recognized a facade or pseudoknowledge when we encountered it.
This is what Nicodemus had it was a shallow belief in Jesus.
But he was still curious and from this text I think that he was doubt and he was wrestling with his doubt.
Let’s see how Jesus responds.
Jesus was one to say some pretty strange things.
It always stuck me strangely that Jesus would respond to Nicodemus this way.
Because Nicodemus is not asking about being reborn.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9