Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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encanto.
It’s the story of a family endowed with special gift and powers that are to be used to build up the family and the community.
Hmmmm…sounds familiar.
But over time the magical house where they live begins to crack.
And some of their powers begin to wain.
The one person who tried to warn them, was shunned and ostracized, but they don’t talk about him any more.
Over time the cracks get bigger as their relationships get more strained.
And rather than admit that their are problems, they hide them and cover them up.
And silence anyone who draws attention to the flaws.
For anyone who has seen the movie, it’s probably a oversimplification of the plot.
But I couldn’t help see how this story could be talking about a church.
A group of people who are endowed with spiritual gifts meant to build up the church and the community.
But lack of transparency in our relationships begins to crack the walls of the church until it’s destroyed.
In the end, the house in encanto is destroyed, but they realize that it was never about the house.
It was about the relationships.
And they learn to be more transparent the entire family and community get’s stronger.
It’s a powerful story with great application for the church today.
Authentic relationships require vulnerability (last week) and tranparency.
Transition to the Text: Turn with me in your Bibles to James 5. James was the half-brother of Jesus, the son of Mary and Joseph.
He didn’t believe in Jesus until after Jesus rose from the dead.
He became a strong pillar in the early church and in spite of the fact that the apostles were still alive, James likely was the first pastor and leader of the Jerusalem Church.
After a few years, Christianity became the target of intense persecution by Jews and Romans alike.
So much so that many of those early Christians were forced to flee Jerusalem to places like Antioch.
So James wrote the first book of the New Testament, a letter to those dispersed.
His goal was to get them to stand strong in the face of persecution.
And a major theme is the need to be transparent about their faith.
And with that we have the call for prayer.
They need to be praying for one another.
But you can’t pray about what you don’t know about.
Transparency leads to community,
Introduce:
Authentic Principle: The first step is admitting you have a problem.
Read:
James 5:13–20 (ESV)
13 Is anyone among you suffering?
Let him pray.
Is anyone cheerful?
Let him sing praise.
14 Is anyone among you sick?
Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.
15 And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up.
And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.
The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.
18 Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.
19 My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, 20 let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
Transformational Principle:
1.
Share your burdens with the church so they can pray for you.
(James 5:13-15)
Explanation: James talks about the beauty of transparency in all of our good times as well as our bad times.
God calls us to be transparent in our suffering.
So that others can bare our burdens.
He calls us to be transparent in our joy so others can rejoice with us.
As the apostle paul says,
and elsewhere
One burden that we can all probably relate to is the idea that when we are sick, with COVID or Cancer, be transparent and ask for prayer.
This comes with a promise, “the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up.”
Christians are healed one way or another.
Either their illness is cures of they pass into eternity into the loving arms of their savior.
But so often we keep things to ourself that we should share with others.
We fail to ask for prayer.
And the church can doesn’t have an opportunity to pray.
Illustration: Transparency is a funny thing.
On one hand, we living in an age where we have very little privacy.
We will post everything on Social media from when and where we go on vacation.
What we have for breakfast, lunch dinner and just because.
We post pictures of our kids.
Or funny memes or tic tocs.
But even though we are posting more about ourselves than ever before, we’re probably the least transparent that we’ve ever been.
We selectively choose what to reveal and what not to.
Rather than be fully transparent, we are selectively transparent when we aren’t outright lying about who we actually are.
Application: We are called by God to be transparent not just for ourselves.
The truth is that there are other people in your life who may be going through the same things as you.
And through your transparency, you may help someone else see that they aren’t alone.
In this way, we truly do bare one another’s burdens.
2. Confess your sins to one another so that you can be forgiven.
(James 5:16
Explanation: This is a tough one for many of us.
We think of confession as something “Roman Catholic” were you go sit in a confessional and tell your sins to a priest.
And then he tells you that he absolves you of your sins.
While they might point to this passage, that’s not what they have in mind here.
Actually it doesn’t mention a priest or a pastor.
It says, confess your sins to one another.
One another in a powerful 2 words that speaks to the community of faith.
There are a lot of “one another” passages that point to the importance of community.
But true and authentic community requires transparency in places that might make us feel uncomfortable.
We aren’t just confessing our sins to those we’ve harmed.
That would fall under last week’s sermon.
But we confess our sins so that in James’ words, “we might pray for one another.”
And notice that it’s not forgiveness that is gained, but healing.
Sin is something that we must be healed of.
We often think of sin as something we commit, and in part that’s true, but sin is a condition.
We’re not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners.
By confessing our sins to one another, we should be looking for accountability.
Illustration: Many look at sin as something that if they do isn’t as bad as what someone else does.
We elevate murder as worse than gossip.
Or adultery as worse than gluttony.
There are degrees lying we find acceptable.
And don’t even get me started the language that we use to tear down others online.
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