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
0.14UNLIKELY
Joy
0.57LIKELY
Sadness
0.57LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.66LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.46UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.65LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.91LIKELY
Extraversion
0.15UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.71LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.58LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
The phrase is: Can’t see the forest for the trees.
There are certain people who are detailed.
They get so focused on the details that they forget the big picture.
As we study 1 Corinthians 5:1-13, I discussed the big picture first: How we as a community are supposed to respond to blatant unrepentant sin among us.
We discussed that God desires our holiness, so we as a community should mourn, judge and purge the sin among us.
That is the forest.
Today, we are going to talk about the trees.
Instead of discussing the community, we are going to discuss individuals.
We in America are big on individual responsibility.
That is a result of freedom and a result of the pioneering spirit.
How are we to react to the sin among us?
Let’s read our passage again.
Pray
We are going to dive into the middle verses, the ones that talk about leaven.
Paul is bringing in an illustration from his Jewish heritage.
Every year, they would celebrate the feast of the Passover, commemorating when God saved them from the Egyptians, specifically the 10th plague.
The death angel would go throughout the land and kill all first borns of humans and animals.
The Israelites were to kill a lamb and smear the blood on their doorposts.
Anyone who was inside that marked house would be saved from death.
Day of Passover and the following Feast of Unleavened Bread celebrated that time.
Two important things happened, which Paul mentions in these verses.
During the Feast of Unleavened Bread, everyone removed all the old leaven from their homes.
This was practical, because the old leaven was a smelly, moldy mess that would probably start killing them.
They would eat unleavened bread for the week, and create new starter that they would use throughout the next year.
As we talked about last week, leaven is used to symbolize sin.
We are to remove it so it doesn’t take over.
Paul also mentions the Passover lamb that was killed every year.
Jesus is our Passover Lamb, killed so that we would not have to die.
His blood is smeared over us.
Now, every Israelite had a choice on the fateful night in Israel to kill the lamb and smear the blood.
Those that did not do it, were not saved from the death that was promised.
In the same way, we all have a choice whether to accept Christ’s death for us.
Those that make a choice to believe on him will be saved, his death is on our account.
We are saved.
We must each make the choice for ourselves.
In the Spirit of the Passover festival and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Paul says that we are to celebrate it everyday by how we live.
We are to get rid of the sin in our midst and live with sincerity and truth.
What does that look like.
Well, our individual response to sin is to be disgusted at our old leaven and at his old leaven.
First, we are to be disgusted at our old leaven
Be disgusted at our old leaven
Paul says that we are to keep the Festival with the unleavened bread of sincerity.
In other words, we are to live in a way that is free from hypocrisy and deceit.
Sincerity is when we live the way we say that we are.
I am not going to assume that everyone who attends church is a follower of Jesus Christ.
We all attend for different reasons and there are some who come because there is a stirring in their heart or their spouse’s heart, and they are not quite there yet to jump on board.
Everyone must come to a point in their life, where they make a decision to trust Jesus Christ for the salvation of their souls.
When we make that decision, as Paul says:
And as John says:
When we do that, believing and receiving, our life has changed and we are called to live according to that change, to follow Jesus with our life.
When we say that we are a follower of Jesus Christ, yet are living sinfully, we are being a hypocrite.
We are not being sincere.
We need to wake up, be disgusted with our old leaven and seize that sincerity.
There are three steps to take:
We confess
First, we confess.
Two weeks ago, on Father’s Day, we talked about the blameless man.
The blameless man is not sinless, because there is no one who is sinless.
The blameless man cannot have anything held against him.
There is no gotcha moment.
I just recently cleaned out my garage after way too long of things piling up.
I had parts that I had saved for things that I haven’t owned for years.
So, I finally decided to get rid of them.
The blameless person doesn’t store up sins in the garage of his life.
He is regularly cleaning it out.
He throws open the door to his life and lets the light in.
This is the process of confession.
We don’t like confession.
We don’t like people seeing that we are messed up broken, desperately in need of Jesus’ grace.
But, we are followers of Jesus Christ.
John calls him the light, and writes:
No one wants to bring their evil deeds to light.
But, Jesus is the light.
He knows everything.
He saw our sin.
Every single part of it.
So, if he knows our sin and he died for our sin, earning forgiveness and justification, promising an eternity with him.
And we have an assurance of all this.
Why are we so concerned about what other people think?
Well, it’s because, even though their actions are temporary, they can still hurt us right now.
And people can do some really hurtful things.
Also, our actions could be pretty nasty.
And they could bring some serious consequences.
We might be afraid of those consequences.
However, if we are a follower of Jesus Christ, the Light of the World, we will not walk in darkness.
We will not be a hypocrite, but in sincerity, we will state who we really are.
And God promises to bless those who follow him in this truth.
So, let’s get it over with.
Turn to your neighbor and say “I’m a sinner.”
Were they shocked?
No.
We all know that we are sinners.
The hangup is inside us.
Normally, when we confess, we are met with grace and love, though most definitely with consequences.
We need those consequences.
But that comes later in this sermon.
Who do we confess to?
We confess to those we have hurt and we confess to those who we need to hold us accountable.
We don’t have to stand in front of the whole church and bring out the laundry list of our sins, unless the Holy Spirit is convicting you to do that.
We are a family, and we want to pray for each other.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9