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
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Disgust
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Fear
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Joy
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Sadness
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Language Tone
Analytical
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Confident
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Tentative
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Social Tone
Openness
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Conscientiousness
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Extraversion
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Agreeableness
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Emotional Range
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Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
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Anger
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Family Ties
How often have you been in a situation where you’ve just met someone new and they ask, “So what do you do to keep yourself busy?”
In one short sentence, we are compelled to examine ourselves and ask, “what answer do I give?” I’ve had people tell me that they’re not comfortable meeting new people because this question will surely arise.
These type of questions have us asking ourselves the huge identity question, “Who am I?”
When you introduce yourself
Ancient and modern traditional cultures believed that strong feelings and self-interest should be suppressed for the sake of fulfilling their duties to their tribe, village and family.
Well three years later
Three years later, my family and me went to Samoa for the first time.
I knew that I was going to meet my half-brother Nonu.
My brother and I discussed it as teens and we just weren’t sure as to how it would turn out.
By the end of our six week stay in Samoa, my brother and I had a blast and we enjoyed Nonu’s company.
But we never discussed how we felt about the situation.
When I 21 years old I traveled to Melbourne and visited a Samoan church.
It is typical that when I met the elder folks, they would not ask about me, but they would ask who my parents are, and what village they come from.
I know very well how to answer this question and my answer will determine how they will treat me.
Christianity introduced a huge paradigm shift teaching that tribes, villages and family does not have absolute control.
And that emotions and feelings should be examined and put in allegiance with Christ.
My dad had bought a video camera way back then and I was responsible for most of the filming.
Upon returning home, I viewed the footage from the airport.
There I noticed Nonu constantly isolating himself.
I noticed Nonu in the background in the crowd, crying to himself in the corner and then again he looked confused as my family and me walked through the departures.
I never shared this observation with my family, but it was the first time I tried considering life from his point of view.
I suddenly realised that my mother would cry in painful prayers in her room.
I recalled how upset she would get when my brother and I would fight.
I realised that my anger was only part of a much smaller picture and it was the first stage of realising that my anger needed to go.
The modern mindset has reversed the ancient approach.
Our identity is now not discovered by outside determining factors (your role and duty in the community).
But it is discovered by exploring your desires and dreams on the inside.
Fast forward many years.
He moved to Sydney, my brother had a family and I was 21.
My parents and I drove from Brisbane to Sydney and we spent the long Easter weekend with Him.
This was the first time I got to sit down with him and share my thoughts and feelings about the situation.
When it was time to leave, I felt a different sense of warmth resonating between all of us.
My parents told me later on that mum had explained her side of the story to Nonu and that he had lived his whole life thinking that mum didn’t want him, it was far from the truth.
She thought about him everyday of her life.
Nonu sensed a freedom that day, and since that day.
We often try to get together on New Year’s to celebrate.
Our kids all love each other, and we’ve chosen to be family.
This understanding puts an onus on each one of us to value ourselves.
Our identity can only be discovered by fully expressing our desires and fulfilling our dreams regardless of what the community says.
We believe we must “be ourselves.”
To be a hero in today’s society, you must stand-up and stand-out by being true to yourself.
Despite what the community thinks.
There’s something terribly flawed about this thinking.
It suggests that we have some intrinsic ability to find “self” without outside influence.
The modern person is often advised to not care about what others think and just love yourself.
But this can end up in an infinite loop of vanity or self-pity.
We don’t have the ability to measure self-worth and it has to be bestowed upon us by outside factors.
Such as our family and our community.
How do I know what I want?
What if the college I want to go to risks my relationship here?
This suggestion assumes that we know how to determine these factors and because our deepest desires are nearly always in conflict.
It is unstable and incoherent.
The bible teaches that we are are inherently valuable (just because we’re human) and contingently valuable (because we are totally dependent on God) because we are made in His image.
()
shows us that following Jesus is about standing out, but it’s also about submitting to God and family.
tells us how to do this.
More opposition
Jesus wasn’t trying to provoke the Pharisees.
Jesus could have privately healed the man when the crowd had disappeared, however he uses this opportunity to publicly demonstrate that the Sabbath is a time for healing.
What is more important?
Their understanding of the rules, or restoring people?
For Jews in the time of Jesus, the Sabbath was more than just a matter of obedience to rules.
Sabbath observance was regarded as a way to honor the holiness of Yahweh (Ex.
20:8–11; Deut.
5:12–15).
It also marked the joyful entry into sacred time, the time of the beginning before human work.
The Sabbath “was a sanctuary in time.”
It was also regarded as a sign of Israel’s sanctification among all the nations.
Its observance made Israel distinct as a nation, bolstered Jewish identity over against others, and served as a bulwark against assimilation to pagan culture.31
For Jews in the Diaspora, keeping the Sabbath was a profession of faith, a national identity marker.
Are Seventh-day Adventists vulnerable to identifying family, based on a “national identity marker?”
Is that a good/bad thing?
The Massive Crowd
In we read about masses of people coming from Judea and Jerusalem, but in this text we see them coming from all over Israel!
The throng of people come because of what they have heard “he does”
The crowd in this passage exercise a pragmatic faith.
This ideology is most popular in our Western world.
If it works, then it must be good.
I keep the Sabbath, I find peace.
I don’t steal, people like me.
I don’t commit adultery and we have a lovely marriage.
Pragmatism is a huge reason for people finding faith in Jesus.
We all have a selfish reason to follow Jesus.
We want a more peaceful life.
We want heaven.
We’ve heard “he does” these things.
And because we’re individualistically focused.
This could be our primary purpose to come to Jesus.
The people mentioned in this passage are so desperate that they don’t want to wait for Jesus to touch them, but they throw themselves at him and on him.
It’s no wonder why Jesus needs to send out the twelve.
They have heard, but they don’t know what the disciples and the demons know.
Why am I here this morning?
- Making the Twelve
The scene shifts from the sea to the mountain.
And the crowd has now dwindled down to only a few.
And with this number Jesus calls those who he wanted, and twelve responded.
ἐποίησε δώδεκα—he appointed twelve.
This use of the verb comes under the head of making one something,—king or priest, for instance.
Only here, that to which they were appointed is expressed, not as an office, but as the purpose of the appointment.
This purpose is expressed under two heads, the first being association with himself, and the second, to act as his messengers in the work of proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and of healing the sick.
Apparently, the former was the only one fully carried out during our Lord’s life, the second becoming their work when they were made necessarily independent of him by his death.
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