Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Introduction

Introduction

What is my favorite color?

What is my favorite dessert?

Do I dislike or like professional sports?

What is my favorite sport?

How many of you know I’m on a diet?

How many of you pray for Linda and her struggle with cancer?

How is it that you know those things?

Your awareness of the details of my life reveal a couple of things.

(1) I reveal and share my life with you.

(2) You pay attention to the details I share with you.

Due to my sharing and your listening, you have information that can be used to either bring me joy or sadness.

You can say certain things that will make me smile and other things that may weigh heavy on my heart.

I’ve been praying for you and Linda lately.

How has she been doing physically?

Hey, I’ve noticed you lost some weight.

I’m sure that’s been challenging.

Keep it up.

I was thinking about you and I made a chocolate cake with thick orange (colored not flavored) frosting . . .

and since you’re on a diet, I decided to eat it instead of tempt you with it 😊

As you are aware of my preferences, joys, hurts, and weaknesses, you have information with which to encourage or even discourage me.

What does all of this assume?

It assumes we have at least a nominal relationship and that our relationship is a positive relationship.

It would indicate that you care about me and what I think.

It would seem to indicate that you desire to bring me joy and not grief.

And for this to deepen and last, this treatment and these feelings would have to be mutual.

I would need to reciprocate that thoughtfulness, attentiveness, and kindness.

And it is to these relational realities we turn as we finish up our Proverbs study over the next two weeks.

Our final two studies in Proverbs revolve around the emotions discussed in Proverbs and more specifically how those emotions interact within our relationships.

In considering the emotions throughout Proverbs, we could quickly divide them up into two large categories.

(1) Desirable, pleasant emotions (joy, cheer, praise, delight, gladness, love, tranquility, pity, etc.) and (2) unpleasant or undesirable emotions (scorn, anger, wrath, rage, sorrow, heaviness, loathing, envy, hatred, fear, etc.)

As we study the many passages about emotions, we will come quickly to realize that our emotions are intertwined with our treatment of others.

Our poor treatment of others not only results in their anger or sorrow or hurt, but ours as well, and vice versa.

Our kind, appropriate and thoughtful treatment of others most often results in not only their joy and happiness but ours as well.

Not having time in this lesson to cover all sides, let’s set aside the negative, unpleasant emotions for now and focus our attention on the desirable emotions – specifically joy.

As we do we realize that our proper treatment of others brings joy to them and to us.

Purpose of message.

(1) Remind us of how our relationships with one another ought to look.

(2) Offer ways to deepen the relationships we have with one another.

Be Aware of One Another

Our first purpose is to remind us of how our relationships with one another ought to look.

To do this let’s look first at a couple of passages in the NT.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, ( ESV).

Paul offers us two commands in these three verses: count others as more significant than yourself and look to the interests of others.

(1) Count others more significant.

The ESV translates this as count as significant whereas the NAS translates it as regard.

We are to regard others as more significant than ourselves.

In the context of relationships, to count as more significant or regard someone else, means to consider their needs and desires as weightier than your own.

(2) In nearly synonymous fashion, we are as well to look not only to our own interests, but also to the interests of others.

The verse assumes that we are looking to our own interests, and it doesn’t condemn this reality.

What it charges us to push past is looking to only our own interests.

In connection with the first command, we are to consider and weigh our own needs, but this attention to our own needs must not keep us from looking to the needs of others.

As well, the first command emphasizes this in such a way as to indicate that we must weigh the needs of others as more important than our own needs.

Paul offers us two commands in these three verses: count others as more significant than yourself and look to the interests of others.

(1) Count others more significant.

The ESV translates this as count as significant whereas the NAS translates it as regard.

We are to regard others as more significant than ourselves.

In the context of relationships, to count as more significant or regard someone else, means to consider their needs and desires as weightier than your own.

(2) In nearly synonymous fashion, we are as well to look not only to our own interests, but also to the interests of others.

The verse assumes that we are looking to our own interests, and it doesn’t condemn this reality.

What it charges us to push past is looking to only our own interests.

In connection with the first command, we are to consider and weigh our own needs, but this attention to our own needs must not keep us from looking to the needs of others.

As well, the first command emphasizes this in such a way as to indicate that we must weigh the needs of others as more important than our own needs.

Paul offers a little more insight as to how our relationships with others ought to look as he writes in Romans.

Let love be genuine.

Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.

10 Love one another with brotherly affection.

Outdo one another in showing honor.

11 Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.

12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.

15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

16 Live in harmony with one another.

Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly.

Never be wise in your own sight.

( ESV).

These verses are packed with relational commands.

Let me just point out a few of them for our benefit.

(1) We are to love one another with brotherly affection.

While this word, translated love, in this verse shares a root with phileo love, it as well includes storge.

This beautiful word, used only here in the New Testament, carries the idea of “tenderly affectionate, very loving, (naturally) devoted, particularly to members of one’s family or in-group.”[1]

(2) The next phrase, in the NAS, sounds very similar to the passage in , “give preference to one another.”

The ESV translates it as “outdo one another in showing [one another] honor.”

It has a hint of competition in it.

We are to continually strive to pursue deference to one another.

Instead of each of us fighting for our own way, we are to be pushing for the preferences, needs, and desires of the other.

(3) And finally, “rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.”

As we briefly consider these two passages and this list of relational commands, what assumptions might we draw about our relationships for these commands to have any potential of being a reality?

(1) That I have a relationship with you.

If I have no substantive relationship with you, I can’t prefer you over myself.

I won’t have tender affection for you.

If I have no relationship it will be very challenging for me to do anything for you that will bring you joy.

(2) That I am aware of your interests.

(3) That our relationship involves emotion.

Having preference for one another, having tender affection for one another, outdoing one another in honor, rejoicing together, and weeping together, all demand that our relationship involve emotion.