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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Anger
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Fear
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Joy
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Analytical
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Openness
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Conscientiousness
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Extraversion
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Agreeableness
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Anger
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What can a Christian expect from God?
I don’t even remember what year it was.
I don’t remember what teacher it was, but I was in school and we were studying poetry.
I remember the teacher putting a portable record player on her desk.
Those record players were built for school children to use - a nuclear bomb couldn’t have destroyed them.
Our teacher took a vinyl 33 1/3 record out of the sleeve and she placed in on the turntable.
Before she set the needle in place, she told us we would be listening to Robert Frost reading his own poem, “The Road Less Traveled.”
I remember both Frost’s voice - sounded like he was a million years old and about to die.
And I remember his poem.
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
From a young man’s perspective Frost captured my angst.
Everyone asked, “What will you be when you grow up?”
I wondered “Who will I marry?”
“What college will I go to?”
“Should I get a job for a year or so and then go to college?”
“Should I learn a trade instead?”
I heard Frost through the ears of a young boy faced with major life decisions.
But I learned over time.
As I watched the joys and sorrows of life ebb and flow, I have learned that the big decisions aren’t really so big.
They are simply the culmination of hundreds of smaller choices that end up putting you where you are going to be.
That’s the way life works.
But, and this is pretty important, where you are is the result of your choices.
We all have examples of men and women who were born in extreme conditions that have risen above the fray to excel in ways no one would have dreamed.
We’ve also seen men and women born into the most privileged environments who have crashed and burned and left a life littered with regret.
How we live is our choice.
And what we choose determines what we can expect from the Lord.
Our scripture today is James 4:1-10.
Please open your Bibles and follow along as I read.
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and tell us what’s on your mind.
We promise to respond.
But right now, if you will, open your Bibles and follow along as we read the Word of the Lord from James chapter 4.
This is the Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Let’s dig in.
Does it seem like every time you turn around there is a fight?
Why do you think that is?
James 4:1 “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?
Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?”
What is a quarrel?
We tend to see it as a little spat - a momentary disagreement - it lasts for a minute and it’s done.
But a quarrel is more than that.
It’s a constant, underlying conflict - it is a deep dissatisfaction that makes us ready to fight.
Quarreling is anger on simmer.
Fighting is anger on boiled all over the stove.
And we see it everywhere, don’t we?
Why?
Why is everyone so dog-gone angry?
“Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?”
Now, let’s level set.
Now here’s the deal and it’s important to really grasp this - James is writing to Christians.
And everywhere he looks, he sees angry Christians.
Quarreling amongst themselves.
Fighting each other - tearing each other apart and killing churches.
What he says sounds a little confusing but when we think about it, it makes sense.
You see, once we are saved, we no longer have a sin nature.
See, before you were saved, you had a sin nature - you were a sinner - you were dead to God.
Colossians 2:13 explains it, “You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away.”
But see, now you are saved and your sin nature has been cut away and it has been replaced with a new nature.
We have a new heart, a new spirit and a new nature.
Which causes us to act in new ways.
But we live in the same body - and it wants what it wants.
And that’s why James says what he says.
The Christ in you wants Christ things.
The flesh in you wants flesh things.
And the battle can get very intense, and you know it.
And every Christian - every Christian is fighting that same battle to some degree every day.
And it causes us to be angry.
Because we want two things - and the two things hate each other.
And hate is not a very satisfying emotion.
James 4:2 “You desire and do not have, so you murder.
You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.
You do not have, because you do not ask.”
You all know murder here doesn’t mean you literally kill someone.
James has the same Sermon on the Mount in mind that you do.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said when we call our Christian brother worthless - that is tantamount to murder.
He’s created in the image of God.
There is no image of God that is worthless.
But we still call brothers and sisters worthless.
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