Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Last week we talked about being judgmental and critical with others.

Several of you came to me after hearing that message to tell me your stories of old hurts and damaged relationships that you have experienced personally.

Some of you told stories of hurts you felt as others condemned you.

Others told stories of having harbored critical and condemning thoughts about others.

My pastor’s heart breaks for some of the emotional wounds that some of you have carried around with you for years.

As I prayed for each of you and your families this week, God put a check in my spirit about just continuing with our sermon series by moving forward without addressing this issue first.

I was up quite early one day this week as my mind was preparing for a lecture I was scheduled to give for pastors here in the valley.

Thank you to those of you that showed up.

It was a blessing to have a few friendly faces there as I spoke.

At any rate, I left the house at 5:30 one morning and walked up to the park to get a few miles in before I settled into work on writing… I know… unique concept, right?

I’m not normally associated with either a 5:30 wake up or “getting a few miles in.”

I like to listen to other pastors preach when I am walking, so I was listening to J.D. Greear, the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

He’s a good preacher.

I recommend that you find his podcast.

I happened to catch the end of a sermon series that he was preaching, called Repairing Relationships.

As I heard an illustration in his sermon, I knew that God was challenging me to do something quite different this week.

When I am preparing for the sermons I preach, I always look at what others have to say about the passage.

I read through commentaries.

I read through sermons.

I extract ideas and illustrations at times.

But I never preach another pastor’s sermon outright, and I don’t usually like to preach topical sermons like this.

Today I’m going to work from Pastor Greear’s sermon notes.

I never preach another pastor’s sermon outright, and I don’t usually like to preach topical sermons like this.

Today I’m going to work from J.D.’s sermon notes.

Why am I doing this?

I think God has a word for us in dealing with conflicts, disagreements, and personal woundedness.

Now you won’t get J.D.’s sermon verbatim.

I hope that’s okay with you all today.

As I said, this is what I believe that God has for us today.

And my prayer for you is that it will be helpful and healing to the relationships that you have in your lives.

We’ll go back to the Sermon on the Mount next week.

Let’s go to the Lord in prayer this morning...

Father God in heaven, we come before you today worshiping your Holy name.

By the way, we’ll be going back to next week.

God we lift up our relationships before you today.

We ask that you help us to handle our relationships properly and in a way that is righteous and blameless before you.

Father please forgive us for the sins that we have commited before you and before others.

Please allow us to repair and restore those relations that you lead us to today.

God, I ask that you prepare our hearts to hear your message this morning.

God, I ask that you prepare our hearts to hear your message this morning.

Father give me clarity of mind, precision of speech, and a heart for your people here this morning.

In the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, I ask these things, Amen.

We all have broken relationships in our lives:

we have had friends who have changed or moved away or faded away

We have

we have been in jobs with mean and nasty coworkers or bosses

we have been in business relationships where we have been betrayed or had to walk away for ethical reasons

we have been fired from jobs

we have left churches because of conflict

we have had people avoid us or talk behind our backs

we have family conflicts

we have people who are judgmental or critical toward us

possibly

we endure weak marriages where we feel unwanted and unloved

we go through divorce and lose the person we consider our soulmate for life

The point is, we all have had conflicts in our lives.

Many times we are the walking wounded.

Like soldiers returning from the front lines, battered and bruised by our poor interpersonal relationships.

How can we change that?

This is serious business.

Some of you are enduring toxic relationships right now.

Maybe you put up with it or maybe you’re desperate to leave, but you can’t.

Maybe you’d never think of leaving, but you’ve been emotionally cut off.

Everybody in this room has some painful memory that has to do with a broken relationship of some sort.

Some of you have worked through the pain of losing that relationship.

Others of you have not.

Solomon, the wise king of the Old Testament has some incredible God-given wisdom to share with us about relationships, why they dissolve, and how to repair them when they break down.We are blessed to have some of this wisdom (which came from God) recorded in the Proverbs.

We are blessed to have some of King Solomon’s wisdom (which came from God) recorded in the Proverbs.

Rules for Repairing Relationships

React Slowly

Resist Superiority

Release Liability

Respond Graciously

Remember Mercy

Rules for Repairing Relationships

1. React Slowly -

I. Dealing With Conflict

We all face conflict from time to time.

Most of time our emotions are gut wrenching emotions that are like flood waters overflowing the spillway of a dam.

And our emotions also have the ability destroy us and destroy others around us.

A. React Slowly -

These emotions that we have almost seem to be able to turn on and off at the push of a button.

Have you ever said something like “they really push my buttons!”

We can all be like that from time to time: reactionary to what’s happening in our lives.

Others of us hold our emotions in, like that spillway holding back the water.

This is one kind of person to watch out for.

We can only hold back our emotions for a period of time, then they all come flooding out at once.

Psychologists call this a “passive aggressive personality.”

The problem with holding back or stuffing our emotions is that they are all packed in tight, like the explosives in a stick of dynamite.

When they finally come out, they come out explosively and wreak much more damage then just the reactionary emotions.

These are natural reactions.

But the Bible gives us a different option, a more healthy option...

React

Hold it in then explode when we can no longer take any more

Pro 15:

There is a classic Hebrew compare and contrast structure here… The “heart of the righteous” and the “heart of the fool” are commonly paired in Jewish wisdom literature.

The wicked mouth pours out evil things.

Boy was I on the receiving end of that last week.

There’s no telling what the evil and wicked mouth will say and the lies that will be told.