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
0.05UNLIKELY
Fear
0.13UNLIKELY
Joy
0.63LIKELY
Sadness
0.53LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.74LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.58LIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.75LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.85LIKELY
Extraversion
0.33UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.79LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.7LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Our Father informs our access.
When you approach anyone, whether you know it or not (and most of the time we don’t know it), you make implicit assumptions about the basis on which you’re approaching that person.
When you approach anyone for an exchange, anyone for an interaction, anyone for a give and take, you have to have some basis on which you’re approaching that person.
Intuitively, the basis determines the level of the exchange.
Jesus Christ is showing us here that fundamentally there are only two basic ways you go to God.
When we think about this, these are the same two basic ways we deal with each other.
What are those two ways?
Most relationship can be categorized as business or blood.
In a business relationship, the basis is “I have something for you.”
In a family relationship, the basis is “What I am to you.”
In a business relationship, the basis is performance.
You perform for me; I perform for you.
In a family relationship, the basis is a commitment.
There are two different ways you can live in somebody’s house.
You can live in somebody’s house as a boarder or as blood.
A business relationship is a conditional one.
A family relationship is unconditional.
The business relationship is based on what you have … performance.
A family relationship is based on what I am.
One is conditional; one is unconditional.
One has to do with your doing; one has to do with your being.
The business relationship says “if you perform you’ll be accepted”.
The family relationship says “since you’re accepted you should perform”.
Jesus says, “You can either approach God on a business or blood basis.”
The words of Jesus prior to the Lord’s prayer teach us how to know if our approach is business or blood.
Business prayers or pagan prayers are filled with many empty phrases.
The word for many at the end of
is a word that mean anxious.
How do you know whether your prayers are pagan or Christian?
How do you response when your prayers are not answered?
Pagan respond with anger or anxiety.
Anger says; “I’ve upheld my part now give me what I requested.”
Anxiety say; “I’ve not upheld my part therefore I’m getting what I deserve.”
Either response proves that your relationship with God is the business/boarder kind.
At a fundamental level your relationship with God is a business one.
It’s based on your performance and his.
You have your duties; he has his duties.
Don’t you see the difference?
A religious person says, “God, come into my life.
Be my landlord.
I’ll do my part and you do yours.”
A Christian is someone who says, “God, come into my life.
Be my Father.
I am not worthy of your favor, but Jesus Christ has lived the life I should have lived and died the death I should have died, and as a result, on the basis of what he has done, be my Father.”
Babbling is a word that means empty, cold, impersonal, mechanical.
We’re not talking about eloquence here or articulation.
Is your prayer life anxious, cold, impersonal, mechanical, or warm, confident, loving, and personal?
Is your relationship with God that of a boarder or that of blood?
Do you see why this is so absolutely critical?
Jesus does not start the Lord’s Prayer, “Our King,” though he is.
He doesn’t start the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Creator,” though he is.
In fact, he doesn’t even start the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Friend.”
Do you know why?
Because even friendship is a hybrid of business and family.
When you get to a friend, even friendship is based to a great degree on your performance.
“Our Father,” those two little words control your relationship with God.
Jesus use of “Our Father” is emphasizing the essences of what it means to be a Christian.
Jesus teaches us the process of salvation; “you must be born again”.
Paul teaches us the position of salvation; “you have been adopted”.
We are born again because we are in need of a new nature.
We are adopted because we are in need of a new name.
We are brought in through the new birth.
We are kept through adoption.
We have access through adoption.
Adoption is not the result of the child’s efforts.
The child, in many cases, doesn’t even seek this, doesn’t even know what’s going on hardly.
Adoption is an act of the father.
The minute you adopt a child, the essential change is not one of behavior or nature; it’s a status change.
It’s a legal change.
What does that mean?
It means the father legally adopts the child and says, “Now you are no longer someone whom I send home if you misbehave.
You’re here whether you misbehave or not.”
When you adopt somebody, do you know what you’re doing?
You’re legally saying, “I promise to regard you with all of the commitment and all of the love and the acceptance I would my natural child.”
When you’re adopted, the Father says, “I love you, and I accept you, and I’m as committed to you as I am committed to my own Son, because you are now my sons and daughters.”
Do you understand that?
You must saturate yourself with the fact that you have been legally adopted by God’s act, not by your act; that he is as committed to you as he is to his own natural Son.”
Our Father instructs our attitude.
Prayer is about asking not acquisition.
Jesus knows what we need therefore prayer must not be about acquisition.
I know what you Bible readers are thinking.
Doesn’t James say
If Jesus teaches us that prayer is about asking not acquisition and James tells us that we have not acquired because we have not asked.
God has ordained the end; “I know what you need” and he has ordained the means “you must ask to acquire”.
Acquisition is the response of our asking not the reason for our asking.
Asking Our Father for what he knows we need stirs our affection for Him.
It was your Lord who put an end to long-windedness, so that you would not pray as if you wanted to teach God by your many words.
Piety, not verbosity, is in order when you pray, since He knows your needs.
Now someone perhaps will say: ‘But if He knows our needs, why should we sate our requests even in a few words?
Why should we pray at all?
Since He knows, let Him give what He deems necessary for us.’
Even so, He wants you to pray so that He may confer His gifts on one who really desires them and will not regard them lightly.
- Saint Augustine
Our Father knows that pagan prayers pursue possessions while the prayers of His people are a pursuit to possess Him.
True prayer is not asking the Father for what we want but asking Him what He wants.
Prayers primary purpose is not to get from Our Father but to get more of Our Father.
Prayer’s aim is not acquisition it’s dependence.
Prayer deepens our dependence.
At the end of verse seven Jesus uses the phrase “many words” to speak of anxiety.
Anxious prayers are devoid of dependence.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9