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.
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Prayer
A long time ago, in an Italian city, a beautiful tower was built which was admired by everyone passing through.
A little further down the road, in a neighbouring city, another tower was built of similar beauty.
The two towers were equally well known.
The people of the second city, envious and filled with pride, planned to destroy the neighbouring tower so it wouldn't take attention away from their own.
One dark night, they came to the tower, with picks and shovels, and began to quietly undermine its foundations.
The next morning, the tower was leaning slightly, but nobody seemed to notice.
The same happened for the following few days, until a little girl who was passing by pointed up at the tower and said: "I think that the tower is going to fall down."
And everyone around looked closely, and could see that she was right.
The fact that it was leaning now made it even more famous, and this taught a fine lesson to the envious people of the neighbouring city.
Being jealous types as they were, they now tried to copy the lean of the tower, but they couldn't do it, and their own tower ended up collapsing, leaving the city not only without a tower, but also without a city hall.
Envy is something that we all deal with…no doubt.
Something we probably deal with more than we think....
And today - Solomon is going to tackle this thing called - ENVY...
Let’s see what he says
If you remember last week - we finished the sermon by talking about - The Joy of the Lord
And what we saw was that The Joy of the Lord is not only...
the fuel of God-Honoring Obedience...
BUT
It’s also the result of God-Honoring obedience....!**
*And so we saw that The Joy of the Lord PRODUCES the Joy of the Lord...
the Joy of the Lord LEADS to the Joy of the Lord
And that of course is a good thing!
But there’s a FLIP SIDE to this...
There’s also a RECIPROCATING bad side to this...
ENVY operates in the same way...
ENVY - produces - or leads to - ENVY
NOW - you might be thinking - OK, what’s wrong with envy?
ENVY is the same as coveteousness - in the sense that COVETEOUSNESS is to desire something in a way that you shouldn’t...
A part of ENVY is a - discontented resentment....
And God said this...
The call from God here is that His people NOT COVET (desire, crave) things that do not belong to them...
And when we DIG deep enough into this thing called “ENVY” or COVETEOUSNESS”, we see that ENVY is this - -
SLIDE: ENVY: Love of Self
ENVY
v4 speaks to this
Solomon here is saying -
All of man’s work....all of his skill...
When we watch athletes…we see how hard they work to get where they are...
We hear of how crazy..
Lebron James’ workouts are...
Jerry Rice
Jarvis Landry
These guys are famous for working harder than everyone else...
And AS they work…the MORE they work…the more SKILL they attain...
And Solomon says - THAT skill comes from ENVY of neighbor!
And so - in THEIR cases - Lebron James LOOKED to - who? Michael Jordan...
*I can speak for myself
When i was in college…We had scouts around (i played with quite a few guys who ended up playing professionally)
during the summers…I would be sitting on a bench....working out...
And I remember saying to myself (as I was getting ready from another set)...
“Someone else is working harder than me”....repeat
My mind - in a sense - was on my - NEIGHBOR
We always had guys coming to Cleveland State from big High Schools
these guys hit like .600 in high School
And they’re coming to play Shortstop at Cleveland State...
What was MY mindset!????
When it came time to get on the field - NO - You gotta run me off the field!
And THAT ain’t happening!
When you boil is all down - our work....our skill - it all flows from ENVY...
EACH of us - striving after WHAT WE DON’T HAVE!!
And ENVY itself - LISTEN - respects - no one!
Has this ALWAYS been so?
Ahab - King of Samaria - had a palace…BUT WANTED this man’s vineyard...
A Palace wasn’t enough…And what did it lead to?
DEATH!
This is ENVY...
Does this sound familiar?
Remember DAVID...
David had many wives…many concubines…YET - what?
He stole another man’s wife!
And had that man - killed!
In each of these cases, and in all the others - we see that ENVY is the LOVE of SELF...
When we ELEVATE our own interests ABOVE the interest of others...
we then STEP outside of God’s will...
And if ENVY is the LOVE of self - we can see in Scripture how it must then WAR against Christianity...
Paul had died to himself...
It was NO LONGER he who lived…but Christ who lived in him...
This flies in the face of - it OPPOSES ENVY!
And since it DOES - Since ENVY wars against Christianity…because it’s the LOVE OF SELF...
We can actually see that...
SLIDE: ENVY: Feeds on Christian Character
ENVY
When we think about what ENVY is - in that it’s a LOVE OF SELF...
we realize that...
SLIDE: ENVY: Denies God’s True Character
ENVY
If I look to my neighbor…and I see his house, his boat, his car, his job, his wife, his LIFE....
And i think - MAN - I Wish i had that!!!
When we DO that - we’re SAYING something about God!
We’re QUESTIONING His control over our lives…and His goodness!
Do you see - When doubts start to flood our minds..
When our eyes begin to GLANCE around at what everyone else has...
And we begin to CRAVE those things...
Do you see what God wants us to MEDITATE on?
God says - LOOK TO THE CROSS!
When you’re HEART begins to DESIRE other people’s POSSESSIONS...
LOOK TO THE CROSS!
God says - I’ve GIVEN YOU the most precious gift EVER - in my SON...
So TRUST that I will give you what’s BEST FOR you!
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