Sermon Tone Analysis

WHAT? What are we talking about today?

ACTIVITY | Do You Know Your Leaders?

Welcome back to our series, Guiding Light, where we're talking about where we can find guidance when we feel a little lost . . .

like maybe from a trustworthy adult?

INSTRUCTIONS: Have every adult leader, worship band member, or volunteer that's participating write two true facts on two different pieces of paper, and then have the leaders line up in front of the group.

Share all the statements and have students try to decide which truths align with which leaders.

You might want to have students share why they believe each fact would be true for each leader.

Give some guidance if students' guesses are way off.

Wait until all truths have been assigned to reveal which ones are correct.

Sometimes it's easy to know what's true and false.

If you know some of these leaders well, it was probably a little easier for you to know what was true about them.

But for everyone else, it was probably difficult to know what was true without a little guidance.

It can be hard to figure out what is true and what's false, especially when what's false sounds so believable.

That's not just true in this game — it's true in life too.

DISCUSSION | Lying in Plain Sight

Turn to your neighbor and answer this question: What's the most obvious or ridiculous lie you've ever believed?

INSTRUCTIONS: Give students a few moments to discuss with someone sitting nearby.

After 60 seconds, ask a few students to share their answers.

Lies can be easy to spot when they sound ridiculous.

But what if the lies are really subtle and small?

What if it's not an outright lie, but a misunderstanding, or a mistake, or bad information that keeps getting passed around?

With so many places to get information, how do we know what's even true?

Is it true if we see it on the news, Instagram, or TikTok?

What if we hear it from a friend, or even our parents?

What if a pastor or adult we trust says it?

What if it's something we believe even if we can't remember anyone ever explicitly teaching it to us? Daily we're bombarded with messages that tell us who we are, what's important, what to believe, or even what God is like.

But sometimes it's hard to separate misunderstandings or lies from what's true.

Sometimes people will try to convince us that what we know to be true is actually false.

Sometimes we'll be the ones who've believed a lie and need to be guided toward the truth.

And most of the time, it's a little bit of both.

SO WHAT?

Why does it matter to God and to us?

VIDEO | A Clip from Star Wars: The Last Jedi

We've been watching a few clips from Star Wars about what happened when Rey, a young Jedi, first discovered the force — a mysterious power that fills their universe and can be used for either good or evil.

While Rey tries to learn how to use the force for good, Kylo Ren has chosen the dark side and wants Rey to join him.

He tries to recruit Rey by lying to her about her family and her very identity.

INSTRUCTIONS: As a teaching tool, play a short clip (0:50-1:50) from Star Wars: The Last Jedi, where Kylo Ren tries to recruit Rey.

Of course, there's no mysterious "force" in this universe, but here's what our universe and Rey's have in common: when we believe lies and base our lives on things that aren't true, it can lead us down destructive paths.

Pic of Teddy’s Place Home

STORY | Talk about a time you believed something untrue about God or yourself.

When I was 16, our family moved from this tiny house in Old Hickory, TN to a huge house in Mt.

Juliet, TN.

This home had a 4 car garage, full basement, and huge driveway- almost big enough for full court bball.

The neighbors across the street had a son a few years older than me.

He would always see me outside hooping and decided to come over one night for some 1v1.

I thought this dude was a nerd and not any good at all.

And I thought I could beat just about anyone.

I WAS WRONG.

We played until like midnight, but this nerdy dude beat me.

I couldn’t believe it.

He was super chill about it and didn’t rub it in, but he did feed me some humble pie that night.

Sometimes we all believe lies and untruths and need help seeing the light.

We can feel lost trying to figure out what's true, but God promises to never leave us alone when we feel lost.

Title Slide

SCRIPTURE | John 15:26-27

Like we discovered last week, God gives us a "guiding light" to help us find our way when we're lost, and that light is a Person called the Holy Spirit.

When Jesus was here on earth, he talked often about how he would one day give his disciples the gift of God's Spirit.

Last week, we saw Jesus refer to the Holy Spirit as our "Advocate," but today I want to show you another title Jesus gives God's Spirit.

We can find Jesus talking about the Spirit often in the Gospel of John.

The Gospels are the four books in the Bible that tell us what Jesus did and said while he was on earth.

In them, we see that Jesus was constantly explaining things to his disciples (and sometimes re-explaining them a few times).

In John chapter 15, Jesus is in the middle of talking to his disciples about why so many people hate him.

Jesus tells them people hate him because they don't understand the truth about who he is — and they don't like it when Jesus tells the truth about them either.

Then he says this . . .

INSTRUCTIONS: Read John 15:26-27.

Remember, the Holy Spirit hadn't come yet!

That was only going to happen after Jesus left earth and the Holy Spirit would come to take Jesus' place.

But do you see what's interesting here?

Jesus called the Holy Spirit "the Spirit of truth."

Jesus said the Holy Spirit would testify (or tell the truth) about who Jesus is.

Then Jesus told his followers to do the same.

They too should tell others the truth about who Jesus is.

SCRIPTURE | John 16:12-15

Here, Jesus says that when the time was right, the Holy Spirit would . . .

Guide us toward truth.

Speak on God's behalf.

Pass on truth from Jesus to us.

So one of the most important jobs of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, is to show us what is true about God — and about ourselves too.

SCRIPTURE | Acts 2:1-12

Then Peter explains that they ain’t getting drunk, but they are fulfilling the prophecy from the Bible book of Joel, which says that the Holy Spirit would be poured out on people from every nation, and that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Then he tells the people that Jesus is Lord and the Savior of all, and He calls them to turn from their sins, be baptized, and turn to Jesus Christ.

And about 3,000 people were saved that day!

Title Slide

Later, after Jesus rose from the dead and returned to heaven, Jesus' followers were still waiting for their promised Holy Spirit to come to them.

They weren't sure exactly what to expect when the Holy Spirit arrived, but I'm certain they weren't expecting it to go down the way it did.

First, God's people were given a miraculous gift.

They were suddenly, unexplainably, able to share the truth of Jesus in a way that allowed everyone present to hear that message in their own language.

Next, Peter stood up and began to preach an incredible sermon.

As far as we know, he had never done that before!

The message Peter communicated was so compelling that people couldn't ignore it.

When they heard the truth about Jesus, they saw the truth about themselves too — that they were sinners in need of a Savior.

3,000 people chose to follow Jesus that day.

It's not because Peter preached the best sermon of his life.

It's because the Spirit of truth had finally arrived and had begun changing everything.

This wasn't the end of the Holy Spirit's miraculous work.

It was only the beginning.

Throughout the New Testament of the Bible, you can read more stories of people receiving gifts through God's Spirit — gifts that helped them communicate the truth of God more effectively.

Even today, we can see the Holy Spirit continuing to work in miraculous ways.

Even if you've never seen fire fall out of the sky like the disciples did on Pentecost, if you've ever seen someone's eyes open to the truth of who God is, you've seen the miraculous work of the Spirit of truth.

See, this isn't just a story about something amazing that happened a long time ago.