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
0.11UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.1UNLIKELY
Fear
0.09UNLIKELY
Joy
0.63LIKELY
Sadness
0.65LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.8LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.41UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.9LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.95LIKELY
Extraversion
0.19UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.58LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.73LIKELY

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
Open the Series
The Golden Rule
Who doesn’t know the Golden Rule?
I doubt there is a person in this room who can’t recite it or the gist of it.
For the most part, if you gave people time to think about it, I think most people could figure it out.
Watering Down the Golden Rule - Be Nice
I was going to play this really cute video of kids talking about the golden rule.
It was a little too long and a little too cute.
The reason I wanted to bring it up was because it sent two messages about the golden rule.
The first was the golden rule is universally found in every religious tradition and every culture.
There is some truth to that, but that can also be misleading.
One can think it is a quality inherent to humanity.
Yet, it doesn’t take much to see that although the golden rule may be universally believed as good, it is not a natural human behavior.
When was the last time you saw toddlers living out the golden rule.
And, in our adulthood, we don’t seem to get much better.
The second issue I had was the that we often boil down the golden rule to basically being nice.
If you ask , people will basically say it means, “Be nice to others.”
I don’t know about you, but I am not sure being nice to other people is all that inspiring.
It’s a greeting card that has little real-world practical value.
Telling people to be nice does not solve our worlds.
[Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure]
The Radical and Revolutionary Golden Rule
I would argue that this key truth from God’s Word has lost its power to change lives and its radical uniqueness because it has been watered down so much.
It has become such a cliche, that we don’t actually consider what it means to us.
From Every Angle
Over the next 8 weeks, we are going to be diving deep into understanding and applying this truth.
Now, you may be wondering how in the world you can preach 8 sermons on basically the same passage.
Well, I have thought that myself.
Yet, Wayne, Brandon, and I have been working on making each message unique and enlightening of this truth from an angle you may not have considered before.
First Use
Today, we are going to the first place it is mentioned in Scripture, the book of know, exciting right.
If you don’t get that joke, you have never read Leviticus.
Truthfully, it has been my desire to do a series through Leviticus at some point for the simple reason that it is a much neglected book.
It is also one of the books where people most often stall out in their attempt to read through the entire Bible.
Explaining Leviticus
Just some basic info about it is that it is one of the first five books of the Bible, called the Torah.
It reads like a legal textbook, because it kind of is.
Defining God’s people
Actually, it is of huge importance to God’s people.
Before this book, God’s people were descendants of Abraham.
Yet, what the law did was show God’s people how to behave like God’s people.
To be one of God’s people was no longer a product of your ancestry, it was now a way of living.
Before Leviticus, God’s people were a family or a tribe, now they could become a nation.
So in the book of Leviticus, you get page after page of detailed laws and procedures.
Jesus before Jesus
And for those reasons, it is also one of the last places people would think to find the golden rule.
Most people think it was Jesus who established the golden rule, and, to be fair, Jesus does highlight it, but by finding it in the book of Leviticus, we see that God wanted His people to know it well before Jesus came along.
We see the Golden Rule is something that has reflected God’s character from the very beginning.
Where do you stand on rules?
Where do you stand on rules?
Where do you stand on rules?
In my family alone, we have rule followers and then we have more exception makers.
I won’t say who is who, but I am sure that your families aren’t too different.
The Two Sides
Some people like rules.
They want to know where the lines are so that they don’t stray outside of them.
They like the order rules bring.
They like the clarity rules bring, rather than leaving things up to individual interpretations.
[Look for head nods]
Then there are those who aren’t fond of rules, choosing rather to pursuit a general spirit of goodness.
They feel rules are too cold; they would rather feel what the right course of action should be rather than be told what it is.
Both can be good
The truth is that both can be good people.
I don’t think you can argue that it is better to be one over the other.
However, people on each side of the debate think their way is best.
So I find it interesting that the Golden Rule, which is generally seen as more of a feeling or spirit or intent rather than a hard and fast rule is found in a book of hard and fast rules.
I am
Overview of Leviticus
If you flip through Leviticus (starting in chapter 11), you see these chapter headings addressing various regulations on certain subjects.
Things like how to treat someone with infectious disease, what animals are permissible to sacrifice or eat.
You see rules proper and improper relationships, ordinances for religious holidays and festivals.
You get my point.
Yet, in the middle of all these regulations, you get chapter 19, which is a little different.
Be Holy!
The chapter starts with what I would call the overarching command.... be holy!
Levitucs
This verse sets the bar for God’s desire and expectation of us.
If you were wondering what the point of all these rules, regulations, and commands was, it is the pursuit of holiness.
The reason holiness is expected is because of our relationship with God.
You are to be holy because I am holy.
Look at how the Lord phrases it.
You shall be hold, for I the Lord your God am holy.
In that brief little statement, God states who that He is our God and we are His people.
The pursuit of holiness has everything to do with who we are (our identity) in relationship to God, not our egos or about being better than others.
Overview of Leviticus 19
The chapter then starts to go into breaking down that broad command down into specifics.
Leviticus 19
You see clear allusions to the Ten Commandments in those verses.
Verses 5-8 touch on sacrificial law
Verses 9-18 address social and legal laws
Verse 19 touches on practical laws about industry
Verses 20-22 talks about sexual relationships
Verses 23-25 go back to wise industry, this time agricultural
You see where I am going with this.
Chapter 19 touches on the variety of laws that all have to do with the first command to be holy.
And throughout the passage, we are reminded that the justification for every law is the fact that the He is the Lord.
An All Encompassing Holiness
We see that holiness is not simply about not having bad thoughts.
Holiness isn’t even always about being moral (at least as we understand it).
The pursuit of holiness is the desire to reflect the character and image of God in all things.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9