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.
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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
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Anger
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We have a tendency when we hear a Bible truth to think of other people.
Sometimes we think, This would be really good for my spouse (or friend or coworker or…) to hear.
But today’s sermon applies to every single person.
All of us have times in our lives when we have been wronged, so all of us have times when we need to forgive.
Forgiving another person can be hard.
Sometimes it seems impossible.
But if we are going to live a life without ongoing conflict and not be eaten up by bitterness, we have to learn to forgive.
This is why in our text God admonishes us to “forgive one another.”
To forgive is “to pardon or show undeserved favor to the person who has wronged you.”
Someone once said, “Forgiveness is me giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me.”
Today, we consider the importance of living a life that is reconciled—with God and with one another.
And we learn that forgiveness is a vital component of this life.
Our lives are too short to live with unresolved bitterness.
Consider a few effects of an unforgiving heart:
Bringing anger and bitterness into other relationships and new experiences
Loss of joy in the present
Depression or anxiety
Lack of meaning or purpose in life
Loss of valuable and enriching connectedness with others
Some people carry hurt and unforgiveness all the way to the grave.
The story is told of an elderly lady who never married.
She requested that at her funeral there be no male pallbearers.
In her handwritten note she said, “They wouldn’t take me out while I was living, I don’t want them to take me out when I’m dead.”
The only alternative to the bondage of bitterness is to practice forgiveness.
I. Our Need to Receive Forgiveness
Learning to forgive begins with recognizing that we are all in need of forgiveness ourselves.
Haven’t we all done wrong to someone before and had need for forgiveness?
A. Personally
Each of us needs to receive forgiveness because we all transgress.
Sometimes we hold on to the hidden sin of bitterness.
Verse 31 speaks of putting away “all bitterness.”
Sometimes we hold on to our hurt but hide the bitterness we feel.
At these times, bitterness becomes a stronghold in our lives—an area in which Satan can bring destruction.
Christian counselor Jay Adams wrote, “Anger may be handled wrongly in either one of two ways: blowing up or clamming up.”
We do not only need forgiveness for hidden sins but also forgiveness for hateful sins.
Have we not sometimes been the ones who spoke angry, hurtful words to others?
Verse 31 of our text lists several manifestations of the anger we show others:
Wrath refers to “passion, heat or fierce rage.”
Anger suggests “blowing up, violent emotion.”
Benjamin Franklin said, “Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.”
Clamour is “a loud, noisy complaint.”
You might think of someone who takes to social media to air their grievances against others.
Evil speaking refers to “slander.”
Whether it is a hidden bitterness in our hearts or a hateful anger toward others, we are all guilty and are all in need of forgiveness.
A woman one day was summoned for jury duty.
She said to the judge, “Your Honor, I can’t serve on a jury.
I don’t believe in capital punishment.”
The judge said, “Ma’am, this isn’t a capital charge so that doesn’t matter.
This is a case where a husband emptied out the wife’s savings account of $14,000 to take a three-day weekend with his girlfriend in Atlantic City.”
The woman said, “Okay, I’ll serve.
And I could be wrong about capital punishment.”
A. Personally
B. Spiritually
But it is not just forgiveness from one another that we need.
More than personal forgiveness, we need spiritual forgiveness.
We don’t only need to be reconciled to one another; we also need to be reconciled to God.
Our sins—not just the sins listed here in Ephesians 4, but any way in which we have broken God’s law—have separated us from God.
To be reconciled is “to be called back to union or friendship.”
It is “to be brought into friendship from a state of disagreement or enmity.”
We are reconciled to God when we acknowledge our sin and receive His forgiveness.
If you have already trusted Christ as your Saviour, thank Him for the joy of being reconciled to Him.
And realize that it is now your privilege to share the good news of how to be reconciled to God with others.
I. Our Need to Receive Forgiveness
II.
Our Need To Give Forgiveness
All of us want to receive forgiveness, but we’re not always as willing to give forgiveness.
A woman was bitten by a rabid dog, and it looked like she was going to die from rabies.
The doctor told her to put her final affairs in order.
The woman took a pen and paper and began writing furiously.
In fact, she wrote and wrote and wrote.
Finally, the doctor said, “That sure is a long will you’re making.”
She snorted, “Will, nothing!
I’m making a list of all the people I’m going to bite!”
It is our nature to want to get even with others when they wrong us.
But God calls us to a better way—forgiveness.
Why should we forgive?
A. We Are Called to Forgive
We need to forgive others because God has commanded us to do so.
The word forgiving in verse 32 means “to give grace, or to pardon.”
We are either scorekeepers or grace givers.
We either remember the wrong that others do to us, holding it against them for the future, or we extend grace to them when they wrong us.
God tells us to trust Him to be the judge.
Vengeance belongs to God, and He can settle the score much better than we can.
Forgiveness sets us on the path to liberty.
When you forgive, you set two people free—one of them is you.
But if you hold on to feelings of bitterness, you become the captive of those very emotions.
The apostle Peter once asked Jesus how often he should forgive someone who wronged him.
CHART
Given that the Jewish tradition was to forgive three times, Peter must have thought that his offer to forgive seven times was going above and beyond.
But Jesus replied that he ought not just to forgive seven times but “seventy times seven”—infinitely.
Jesus was telling Peter, “Forget keeping score; just forgive.”
A. We Are Called to Forgive
B. We Are Healed by Forgiveness
We need to forgive not only because it is commanded, but also because of the good it brings us.
Forgiving heals us from past hurt and frees us from the bondage of bitterness.
Think about Joseph in the Old Testament.
His father Jacob favored him and gave him a coat of many colors.
The favoritism provoked jealousy in his brothers, and they literally sold him into slavery and faked his death to keep their father from knowing what they had done.
Over the next thirteen years, Joseph suffered greatly because of their betrayal, but he chose the path of forgiveness as he trusted God to fulfill His will.
God’s grace was upon Joseph, and he eventually rose to power in Egypt.
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