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
0.17UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.14UNLIKELY
Fear
0.16UNLIKELY
Joy
0.53LIKELY
Sadness
0.52LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.44UNLIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.43UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.71LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.42UNLIKELY
Extraversion
0.11UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.34UNLIKELY
Emotional Range
0.47UNLIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
I wonder how much our culture values work today?
It seems like work good old fashioned hard work is something most people don't appreciate am i right?
we seem to prefer the comfort of our home over the value of work.
but tonight we are going to look at several passages that teach us about work and how we should think about it.
Proverbs
(ESV)
1.How We Handle Money
6 My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor,
have given your pledge for a stranger,
2 if you are snared in the words of your mouth,
caught in the words of your mouth,
What is “putting up security” or “giving your pledge” for someone else?
It is cosigning a loan.
It is putting yourself up as collateral.
It is underwriting someone else’s speculative risk.
It is getting into a partnership when your partner’s default can bring you down.
God is saying in verses 1 and 2, “If you’ve done this, you’re not in danger of becoming ensnared, you’re already ensnared.”
3 then do this, my son, and save yourself,
3 then do this, my son, and save yourself,
for you have come into the hand of your neighbor:
go, hasten, and plead urgently with your neighbor.
4 Give your eyes no sleep
and your eyelids no slumber;
5 save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter,
like a bird from the hand of the fowler.
6 Go to the ant, O sluggard;
consider her ways, and be wise.
What is a sluggard?
Think of the way syrup oozes slowly out of a bottle when it is cold.
That is the sluggard—sluggish and slow and hesitant when he should be decisive, active, forthright.
His life motto is, “Don’t rush me.”
The Bible says, “As a door turns on its hinges, so does a sluggard on his bed” (Proverbs 26:14).
He is lazy, constantly making the soft choice, losing one opportunity after another after another after another, day by day, moment by moment, until he lies there helpless in his wasted life.
Let’s all admit it—there is a sluggard deep inside each of us.
The sluggard reappears throughout the book of Proverbs.6
What does Proverbs say about the sluggard?
Three things.
First, the sluggard will not make up his mind.
There is a direct question in verse 9: “How long will you lie there?
When will you arise from your sleep?”
But that is too definite for the sluggard.
He has no answer.
He will not give an honest refusal, but he deceives himself by an endless sequence of little compromises.
Second, the sluggard will not finish things.
On the rare occasions when he finds the motivation to get going, it is too much for him, and the impulse dies: “The sluggard buries his hand in the dish; it wears him out to bring it back to his mouth” (Proverbs 26:15).
He does not stick with a task all the way through to a strong finish.
He is a shallow person.
Third, the sluggard will not face things as they are.
Rather than embrace the challenge of life, he dreams up excuses: “The sluggard says, ‘There is a lion outside!
I shall be killed in the streets!’ ” (Proverbs 22:13).
A lion down on Main Street?
I doubt it.
What’s really out there is a life, a job, a mission to fulfill for Christ.
What should the sluggard do?
Go to the ant and take notes.
How humiliating!
The sluggard would not mind learning from John Calvin, maybe.
The sluggard likes to debate and speculate and bandy highfalutin ideas around with his buddies.
But wisdom is saying, “Go watch an ant!”
I do not know anyone with a PhD in Antology.
We all want to study big important things.
And it is doubly humbling to go to ant school, because the Hebrew word for “ant” is in the feminine gender.
But we guys need this, because we are too often passive.
We are so accustomed to being wait-and-see, hang-back, and critical and guarded that we do not even feel the shame of it anymore.
A church filled with men energized, men working, men engaged, men with intensity, men of conviction and action—that is exactly what the world needs to see in us today.
But to display Christ that strongly, we need to humble ourselves and admit our need and accept God’s simple remedy.
It is so humbling that we, whom God created to rule over creation, need to go learn how to live from an ant.
What then can we learn from an ant?
Three things.
officer, or ruler,
First, inner motivation.
Verse 7: “Without having any chief, officer, or ruler …” There is no Boss Ant standing over the others with a whip.
Ants do not report in to anybody.
No one has ever seen a foot-dragging ant.
An ant has within herself all the motivation she needs to make something of her life, and she never lets up.
First, inner motivation.
Verse 7: “Without having any chief, officer, or ruler …” There is no Boss Ant standing over the others with a whip.
Ants do not report in to anybody.
No one has ever seen a foot-dragging ant.
An ant has within herself all the motivation she needs to make something of her life, and she never lets up.
Preaching the Word: Proverbs—Wisdom that Works Opportunity
First, inner motivation.
Verse 7: “Without having any chief, officer, or ruler …” There is no Boss Ant standing over the others with a whip.
Ants do not report in to anybody.
No one has ever seen a foot-dragging ant.
An ant has within herself all the motivation she needs to make something of her life, and she never lets up.
8 she prepares her bread in summer
and gathers her food in harvest.
Second, hard work.
Verse 8: “She prepares her bread in summer.”
Under that hot sun she scurries about and gets the job done.
You are at a Fourth of July picnic, you are relaxing, but the ants are carrying off the sugar one grain at a time, and they will be back for the Fritos.
I do not know if ants sweat, but if they do they do not care.
They do not complain.
They do not even wait.
They are not above hard work and in fact seem to love it!
Raymond C. Ortlund Jr., Preaching the Word: Proverbs—Wisdom That Works, ed.
R. Kent Hughes (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 101.
Third, future preparation.
Verse 8: “… and gathers her food in harvest.”
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9