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
0.09UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.08UNLIKELY
Fear
0.09UNLIKELY
Joy
0.55LIKELY
Sadness
0.55LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.7LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.33UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.93LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.75LIKELY
Extraversion
0.13UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.48UNLIKELY
Emotional Range
0.76LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
In our christian experience there is always a danger of falling into one ditch or the other.
On the one side of the road, there is the ditch of legalism.
In this error humans place extra burdens upon others that God’s word has not directed.
On the one side of the road, there is the ditch of legalism.
In this error humans place extra burdens upon others that God’s word has not directed.
On the to other side of the road, there lies the error or licentiousness.
The teaches that God loves us and forgives us and we should not worry at all about human behavior.
If you take a select portion of verses, quoted out of context you can prove both ideas from the word of God.
But if you take the entire scriptures you will see that neither stand up to the light of truth.
This is the first sermon in a series about the cost of discipleship.
What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus?
What we find in the scriptures is that being a follower of Jesus is both hard work and an easy and light blessing.
Let’s look at a few verses:
According to this passage, what should the Christian journey be like?
It should be
easy
light
natural
it is for those
who are tired of working
This is true.
Now, lets hold this in contention with another Bible verse.
What does this teach us about the life of discipleship?
hard
not peaceful
creates conflict
whoever does not
have this journey
is not a true follower.
At first glance, these two passages seem completely contradictory.
On the one hand, the life a Christian is easy and light.
On the other hand, the Christian journey is devoid of peace!
Which one is it!!!
It becomes even more confusing when we Christian leaders want to emphasize one particular aspect of the Christian journey and they quote only one type of verses.
Our church is quickly polarizing into different groups.
There are people who call themselves progressives or liberals in their theology.
They might even call themselves post-moderns.
On many topics they are actually right.
The danger is overemphasis of certain particular points on the one side and the under-emphasis of points on the other side.
Then we have the conservative/ historical Adventists who are making a similar mistake at the other end.
Liberals are at risk of preaching cheap grace.
Conservatives are at risk of preaching legalism.
Neither is right.
There is something called the ellipses of truth.
Consider with me a few different shapes.
Circle
The circles have one focus.
The outer perimeter is equal distance from the focus.
The circles
Ellipse
An Ellipse has two foci.
It is like a circle but with two center points.
They are not at odds with each other.
It is like a circle but with two center points.
Parabola
Take for example a headlight.
By moving a headlight into the focus of the parabola it becomes much brighter.
The light becomes focused more at a central location.
Light of Jesus
Jesus is the light.
And he needs to be magnified in our life.
Often times, in theological matters, the light of true is more like a ellipse than a circle.
There are two great foci, that a first seem contradictory to each other, but actually blend perfectly when you understand the whole truth.
The Ellipse of Truth
Both ideas about following Christ are true.
Following Christ is liberating.
It sets us free from all manmade dogmas.
It releases us from the oppression of legalism that humanity has brought upon us.
On the other hand, that does not mean that the Christian journey is always peaches and roses.
When we choose to follow God, it will cut across our own selfishness and the selfishness of those around us.
Following Christ will naturally create conflict at times.
Though the truth liberates us from legalism it does not lead us to licentiousness.
True liberty is found obedience.
says:
Obedience is not legalism:
We are all called to follow Jesus today.
What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus?
What does that mean for you and me practically today?
Cheap Grace vs. Costly Grace
The one area where see great confusion in the church is upon the topic of Grace.
There is a book called the Cost of Discipleship with this sermon series is loosely based upon.
It was written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
I encourage you to pick it up and read it because it will go into far more detail than I will be able to in this sermon series.
He talks about this difference between cheap grace and costly grace.
What is cheap grace?
Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner.
sinner.
Cheap grace is the mentality that God will forgive me so I don’t need to have contrition for sin or even a desire to be delivered from it.
Cheap grace teaches a half truth.
More than likely, it was a reactionary idea to another false teach of a half truth from the other side.
Some have taught a type of legalism, in which, you practically earn your salvation.
To combat this theology somebody comes to emphasize, correctly so, the idea that grace is a free gift.
At times, this has lead to an overemphasis to the point that grace has become cheap grace.
At times people quote
They say, our unrighteousness if never good enough.
Stop trying to earn your salvation.
This is true!, Our righteousness is never going to be good enough to save ourselves.
But then people go further, by saying, just stop trying to be like God.
This, I believe is erroneous.
It tends to give the impression that we can ever be righteous.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9