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
0.11UNLIKELY
Fear
0.12UNLIKELY
Joy
0.59LIKELY
Sadness
0.55LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.62LIKELY
Confident
0.01UNLIKELY
Tentative
0UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.93LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.84LIKELY
Extraversion
0.08UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.82LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.74LIKELY

Tone of specific sentences

Tones
Emotion
Anger
Disgust
Fear
Joy
Sadness
Language
Analytical
Confident
Tentative
Social Tendencies
Openness
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Emotional Range
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
I and the Father are one.”
[1]
The verses of our text have frequently served as a soft pillow for a weary head.
Early in my life as a follower of the Master, I struggled with the thought that God could accept me.
I had lived a hard life in my early years, gaining the unenviable reputation as a hard-living man.
When I came to faith, I was conscious of my past choices and the will of God.
Frankly, I was overwhelmed by the grace of God; I was unable to comprehend the mercy that was extended to me.
I struggled so much that I questioned whether I had truly believed.
Surely, I thought, God could not have accepted me.
I reasoned I had made a mistake.
Gradually, the Master’s gracious words of acceptance conquered my doubts and raised my gaze from my sin to His majestic grace.
Multiple passages in the Word comforted me and quieted my fears.
I read the words which the Master spoke to some who sought to kill Him on one occasion.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.
He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” [JOHN 5:24].
I was particularly consoled by the tense of the words.
He who hears His word and believes Him who sent Jesus now has eternal life—it is a present reality.
Moreover, that one will not be brought into judgement.
The reason is that he has already passed from death and into life.
I read the comforting promise, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned” [JOHN 3:18].
And I noted that this promise is iterated soon after the first pronouncement when God promises, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life” [JOHN 3:36].
Were the words spoken by the Master somehow insufficient to comfort my frightened soul, I also discovered the promise written in the Apostle’s encyclical.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.
In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
“In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.
In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory” [EPHESIANS 1:3-14].
I was greatly relieved by the promise Paul penned when writing the Roman Christians.
“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” [ROMANS 10:9, 10].
You know quite well that he concludes by quoting Joel.
“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” [ROMANS 10:13].
However, time-after-time my mind would return to the words of our text for this day.
The Master spoke so powerfully when He was challenged by the religious leadership of the day.
You will recall that it was during the Feast of Dedication during the winter of his final year.
Jesus was walking in the Temple, in the colonnade of Solomon when the Jews gathered around Him. “How long will you keep us in suspense?
If you are the Christ, tell us plainly,” they challenged.
The Master stripped the pretence from their query.
“I told you, and you do not believe.”
How His words must have stung these pious frauds.
Jesus said, “The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep” [JOHN 10:24-26].
Then, the Master spoke the words of our text.
Listen to them once again.
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
I and the Father are one” [JOHN 10:27-30].
RESPONSE — “My sheep hear my voice … and they follow Me.”
This truth of itself is comforting to the child of God! Jesus had spoken the truth, and those who were not His sheep could not understand what He was saying.
Nothing has changed in the ensuing two millennia; Jesus speaks today through His Word, and the lost can’t understand what He says.
This is the basis for the Apostle’s stern pronouncement in the First Letter to the Christians of Corinth.
“The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.
‘For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’
But we have the mind of Christ” [1 CORINTHIANS 2:14-16].
When you came to faith, the Spirit of God took up residence in your life.
As one who is born from above, the Spirit of God lives in you.
You may recall Jesus’ promise concerning the Spirit.
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.
You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you” [JOHN 14:15-17].
Because you are a believer in the Living Christ, because you have been born from above, His Spirit prompts you to hear what He says through His Word.
You are disposed by the presence of the Spirit of Christ to be obedient to all that He commands.
If you are merely religious, treating service before the Master as a matter of duty without concern for what the Word of God says or without concern to obey His teaching, it is evidence that there is no relationship.
This truth is emphasised again when John writes in his first missive, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.
But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us” [1 JOHN 2:19].
John was referring to those who claimed to follow Christ, though they had no relationship to Him.
He called them antichrists!
He would continue by noting that those belonging to Christ listen to Him, heeding His commands and testing the message delivered by those claiming to speak for the Master.
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.
By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.
This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.
Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them.
We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us.
By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error” [1 JOHN 4:1-6].
As much as false teaching irritates me, I am convinced on the basis of this passage that the Spirit of God is at work among His people protecting them from error.
Nevertheless, the people of God are charged to consider the message they receive from those professing to be preachers of the Word.
Though I am concerned for the spiritual welfare of the flock, I confess that I am as greatly disturbed by the impact of errant teaching on the casual attendee or religious individual who is not saved!
If the one proclaiming himself a divine spokesman delivers an errant message, the eternal well-being of all who listen is jeopardised, but it is assured that some will be confirmed in their lost condition!
If the only time Jesus spoke of His flock listening to His voice was found in our text, it would be enough to console the child of God.
However, the Master is developing a theme and His words recorded in the text iterate what He had already said concerning His own sheep.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber.
But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
To him the gatekeeper opens.
The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice” [JOHN 10:1-4].
This affirmation anticipated what the Master would say soon afterward.
“I am the good shepherd.
The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.
He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
I am the good shepherd.
I know my own and my own know me” [JOHN 10:11-14].
The truth I want you to seize from these first words of our text is that when the Master speaks, His sheep hear His voice; His flock responds to His voice!
You will know those who are redeemed by their relationship to the Great Shepherd.
They run from a stranger; and even when the stranger sounds plausible, they are leery.
The one who is born from above is disposed to obey what the Master commands.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9