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Father's Day 2022: Engage & Bless
Good morning!
I want to add in my Father's Day greetings to all you dads out there.
I hope you have a fantastic time celebrating today.
This is a special day for me... of all the roles I have in life: as a son, brother, husband, friend, pastor - one of my favorite titles is Dad.
(Family Photos)
● The first picture you see on the screen is of my wife Andrea and I with our daughter Elisabeth, who was born in 1997 and passed away in early 2000.
It's hard to believe that this summer marks 25 years of me being a dad.
● Also up on the screen is a picture from last month when our daughter Grace graduated from CSS.
I am super proud of Grace and our younger daughter Kate and the young women that they are becoming.
(pause)
● One of the other things I am known for around here... is being the purveyor of many Dad jokes.
In the 5 years I've been on staff, I think I've preached on all but one Father's Day... so much so, that people have started to ask me what dad jokes I am going to tell in my next Father's Day message.
● I'm sad to announce, I don't have any new material to share this year, because I have started to keep all my dad jokes in my dad-a-base.
(Photo)
Father's Day can be a really fun and positive day, but it can also be a difficult day (or a mixture of a day) for many people.
Whatever your background, or however you might be thinking/feeling coming into today...
I believe our time this morning is going to be a help to us all.
Here's why:
Days like today provide an opportunity for us to assess our relationships...
not only our relationships with others, but also our relationship with God.
Taking this a level deeper: there is a strong correlation between our
horizontal relationships with one another and our vertical relationship with God.
How you experience key relationships in your life often influences how you see God... whether it's your connection with your parents, another family member, or some other significant figure in your life.
We tend to project on God the experience of our earthly relationships, both in a positive & negative sense.
Story: being an elementary school kid; dad farming, mom working nights
● Summer time... parents would give us chores to do during the day
● Internalized: if I do a really good job = dad and mom are happy;
if I don't do a good job, dad and mom will be mad.
● Realized as an adult, how often those dynamics have shown up in my relationship with God.
Whatever is wonky about that has as much to do with my own brokenness as it does with anything my parents did/didn't do.
But do you get my point?
It's so common to project onto God the experience of our earthly relationships.
So we can see how this dynamic plays out from that angle... this morning,
I want to spend some time exploring the other direction: considering how our vertical relationship with God can shape our horizontal relationships with others.
● There is tremendous power to be tapped there.
Here's what I believe:
As we experience the ways God takes initiative and works for our good, we can learn to engage and bless those around us.
And - as we grow in relationship with God, it can fuel our connections with others to become more and more healthy.
● In some ways... that is a straightforward idea, but that doesn't mean it is easy.
It can actually be very difficult to put this into practice.
But I think that will feel more accessible by the end of our time today.
I have been reading the book of 1st John recently... let's begin with one of my favorite verses from that: 1 John 3:1...would you read this aloud with me?
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!
And that is what we are!
We often think about love as a feeling.
But, we also know it's more than that: love is actions and behaviors.
Along those lines, in today's message, every time you see the word love, I want you to translate that: Love being active engagement and intentional blessing (Repeat)
This is the vision behind the leather coasters we are giving away to dads this morning.
The coasters have an imprint on them, which says Engage and Bless (photo).
Our hope is that this gift will be a simple reminder on how you can put love into action each day.
● These gifts are just for dads today
● But this morning's message is for us all.
Let's dive in.
We are going to spend some time in two Bible passages today.
Starting with 1 John 4:9-16.
You can find that on page 834.
PRAY This is how God showed his love among us (love = active engagement and intentional blessing) He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.
14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God.
16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
What a great passage.
In just a few verses, we get a glimpse of the way God moves towards us, and we are challenged to love others in the same fashion.
I love how the English Standard Version translates the final verse: 1 John 4:16
We have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.
(repeat)
● Let's use that as a springboard for this first section of the message:
1. Coming to know and believe God's love is a process.
We don't grasp it overnight, and we often have to overcome some barriers along the way.
Here are two Common Struggles
● (First) We think God is passive
● (Second) We can be unsure if God has our best in mind
Again, for so many people, these struggles are rooted in our experiences with other people.
Maybe you had a father that was absent physically or relationally distant.
And so you can think of God in the same way... thinking God's up there and you're down here... and basically you are on your own to figure out life.
Or maybe it's more the second struggle for you, where you've experienced the impact of people not having your best in mind.
That could have happened through a major offense like abuse... all the way to feeling dismissed because someone was more interested in their phone than in interacting with you.
(pause)
Thankfully, as we interact with God, we can actually discover (or rediscover) trust.
(Learning to trust) As we experience real love from God, it can reshape how we relate to others.
Here's a few ways I've seen this get worked out.
First, We can trust that God is actively working for our good.
Did you notice in 1 John 4 how many active verbs there were?
Love is active, love is intentional... and that is how God relates to us.
Verse 9 - God showed his love; God sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice.
He sent Jesus to be the Savior of the world.
Verse 13 - God gave us his Holy Spirit.
God is not passive.
He is actively working for your good.
And when verse 16 talks about "coming to know God's love" that's not merely an intellectual thing.
It's knowledge through experience.
And, just like any relationship... your relationship with God is developed both through a volume and the quality of time.
The more quality time you spend
with God, the more that you can "come to know and believe" that he is actively working for your good.
Here is a little exercise you can do this week: Take the famous verse Rom 8:28...
We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
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