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
0.12UNLIKELY
Fear
0.13UNLIKELY
Joy
0.55LIKELY
Sadness
0.5UNLIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.79LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.25UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.87LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.71LIKELY
Extraversion
0.09UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.76LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.68LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Prayer
Last week, we examined the testimony of God being the grounds for our confession.
We saw how the confession of Jesus being the Son of God and belief in His name was the only way to find life.
God’s testimony was the way we have confirmation that we really are believing the right things.
In a world of darkness, and deception, the only comfort is found in assurance.
Assurance that you have eternal life, that your prayers are heard, you have spiritual protection, and you belong to God.
Today we are going to examine four different kinds of assurance for the believer.
The first kind of assurance is…
Assurance of Eternal Life
John concludes his letter by reminding us why he wrote to begin with.
The purpose for this letter is that believers would know that they have eternal life.
John is not nearly as concerned in this letter with unbelievers coming to faith as much as he is concerned that believers would know and be convinced that they possess eternal life.
In the gospel of John 20:31, John writes.
He wrote his gospel for unbelievers, so that they may believe that Jesus is the Christ.
And that they would have life in His name by believing the truth.
So his gospel’s purpose could be summarized as…
That you may hear, and by hearing may believe
But John’s purpose in this letter is not the same thing as his gospel.
His purpose is that believers may KNOW that they have eternal life.
By putting together the purpose statement from John 20:31 and 1 John 5:13.
By believing may have life,and by living you may know
It can be said that John has written so that the reader may hear, hearing may believe, believing may life, and living may know.
Doctrine is NOT only to convert people.
Doctrine also has the duty of confirming within those who already believe the truth.
Heres the thing: there are many Christians who have remnants of unbelief.
There are many Christians who are weak in their faith.
Having $11 in My Account
I remember when I was a junior in college.
Those were rough days, they were rough because I had no money.
I remember checking my bank account and the balance being $11.
I had to drive to school and back and I was low on gas.
The whole time knowing that if I had to get gas, I wouldn’t have the money to do so.
And what’s sad is that many Christian’s live their life in this same manner.
Going around and wondering when they will be declined.
Going around and wondering when God is going to reject them.
The Christian life is NOT meant to be lived with this kind of a poverty mentality.
This is NOT that way that John desires us to live.
People have often cited that it is extremely arrogant that a person may know that they have eternal life.
“You presume upon God to assume that you can know you have eternal life.”
“How dare you think you can actually know you have eternal life!”
It is not presumptuous to know that you have eternal life.
To be presumptuous is to “failing to observe the limits of what is permitted”
But the presumptuous person actually comes from doubting the word that God has spoken about him.
To presume upon God is to NOT Trust what He has said in His word.
John goes on and gives the second reason for assurance...
Assurance of Prayer’s Heard
John has already said something similar in 1 John 3:21.
But here, the confidence is the result of a believer assurance before God.
Prayers Heard
“Can You Hear Me?”
John reminds his readers of the confidence that we have before God.
A boldness of approaching God.
The logic would be, “If we will be eternally rescued, then God will hear our prayers in the present”
The only condition is the fact the person remain “in Him”
Jesus has promised us that when we abide in Him, we can ask anything in His name.
Often when we consider prayer, we think if we pray with more unction or force, God hears us more clearly.
But that’s not what this text says, it says...
God does not hear you for your prayers sake.
He doesn’t even hear you for your name’s sake.
He doesn’t even hear you because you have been a good little boy or girl.
“You are to consider that God does not hear you for your prayers’ sake, but for His name’s sake and His Son’s sake, and because you are His child.
The mother does not neglect to hear and relieve her child when the child cries, but she is tender, not because the child cries more loudly, but because the child cries, and the weaker the child is, the more pity she shows.”
Thomas Goodwin
What Goodwin says there is that a child is not heard because he cries louder.
He is heard because of the name by which he prays in.
When we ask anything according to God’s will, He hears us.
“The faith we produce may be weak, yet because its object is Christ, therefore it justifies.
So it is in prayer; it prevails, not because of the performance itself, but because of the name in which it is made, even Christ’s name.
Therefore, as a weak faith justifies, so a weak prayer prevails as well as a strong one, and both for the same reason, for faith attributes all to God, and so does prayer.
”
Thomas Goodwin
Praying the Will of God
“Confidence in Prayer”
What does John mean by “the will of God”?
The Will of God is NOT a Mystery
When John says, “the will of God”, he does not have in mind something that is unclear.
He does not have in mind a mystery.
He does not have in mind something strange or mystical.
When we treat God’s will as a mystery to be discovered, we pray in very haphazard ways.
We pray very worldly prayers.
Fix this, fix that, change this, change that.
All along saying, “It could be God’s will.”
He has in mind the REVEALED will of God.
Jesus even commands that we pray with God’s will on the forefront of our minds.
But though it is made clear, it often is not clear what that looks like in every situation.
We walk in the revealed will of God, and trust God with the hidden things.
Even Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, knew what His Father’s will was.
He knew it, yet He asked for the cup to pass from Him.
He knew it, yet He yielded Himself to it.
Jesus knew what He came for, but yet he still prayed for the Father’s will to be done.
Even Paul in another place tells the believers.
1 Thessalonians 4:3 (ESV)
For this is the will of God, your sanctification:
When we treat God’s will like a mystery, we inevitably downplay what God has clearly revealed in His Word.
We know God’s purposes, because He has told us.
We even know God’s ultimate plans, because He has said.
So our prayers should be in line with this.
And I wonder, more than prayers for physical things, what life would look like for Christian church if we began praying in step with this.
And listen to what John says to the person who does pray in line with it.
He Hears His Children
“Whatever!”
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9