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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Intro
Opening Story/Illustration:
Transition to the Text: Over the coming weeks we are going to be looking at the Sermon on the mount.
A few weeks ago we said that Jesus has called us to be an alternative community.
The Sermon on the Mount is a picture of what that community is called to look like.
The sermon if full of commands and it takes the original commandments from the Old Testament and makes them harder to live out!
For instance:
Don’t murder - Don’t be angry and want to kill in your heart
Don’t commit adultery - Don’t even look lustfully
Love your neighbor - Love your enemy
Jesus is serious about us applying these things to our lives because he ends the sermon with a little story about two men who build houses.
Jesus ends by saying, don’t just listen to what I’m saying - Put it into practice!
But this leaves us with a problem.
How?
How are we supposed to pull this off?
The commands of Jesus are difficult.
How are we to apply them?
This leads us to our text tonight.
Right after Jesus is done teaching.
He’s coming down the mountain and Matthew gives us this story that I can’t help but think he put her for a reason.
3. Text:
4. Transition to Points: Let’s take a look at this tonight.
Before we can fully obey the commands of Jesus, we must know the heart of Jesus.
Points
This man had leprosy
Jesus had just been teaching on the mountian
He’s coming down the mountain, back into the “real” world.
The first person he encounters is a leper
This leper should not have been in the crowd
Leprosy in scripture really refers in general to “skin disease.”
The protocol for skin disease is detailed in
The diseased person is pronounced clean or unclean by the priest.
The diseased person is pronounced clean or unclean by the priest.
The diseased person must live alone outside the camp, wear torn clothes, keep his or her hair messed up, cover his or her upper lip and cry out, “unclean, unclean.”
In scripture leprosy is never healed but it is cleansed.
This is a picture of sin -
We are all broken and dirty and in need of cleansing, but there is no one to make us clean.
Jesus Makes the man Clean
Jesus was both willing and able
Jesus was both willing and able
Isn’t it good to know that Jesus is not only able, but willing!
He would now be able to participate in community again
Jesus made possible his return to life!
We are broken and dirty, but Jesus makes possible our return to life in the community of God!
I think that Matthew included this here, in this point in the text for a reason.
How are we, broken, pitiful, sinful, dirty - Able to do what Jesus has asked of us in Chapters 5-7?
How are we to hear his words and obey it?
Before we can fully obey the commands of Jesus, we must know the heart of Jesus.
He Makes us clean!
It’s because of What Jesus has done for us that we can now fully participate in His life and community!
Before we can fully obey the commands of Jesus, we must know the heart of Jesus.
We are all sick with incurable disease of Sin
Jesus wants to reach out and touch our hearts and make us whole
This is where obedience starts - With a heart that’s touched by Jesus
There is no way we can achieve or live out the Sermon on the mount on our own.
Jesus wants to touch our hearts - He is willing and able to touch our lives and enable us to live out this new community!
I think that Matthew, inspired by the Holy Spirit, put this passage here so that we could be reminded that before we do things for Jesus, we need to be healed by Jesus.
Discussion
I see all the time people compare Jesus’ teachings with buddha or some other great teacher and they often use the Sermon on the mount as their go-to for this.
Why is just seeing the sermon on the mount as some Good ethical code the wrong way to look at it?
What are some problems that occur when we try to put following the rules before a transformed heart?
We either end up in despair - Because we can’t achieve it, or
We end up self-righteous
What about those who just want Jesus to cleanse them, but don’t want to really live out the sermon on the mount?
What do we say to those people?
What do you think the significance is that this is the first encounter Jesus has as he comes down the mountain from teaching?
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