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
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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
Tones
Emotion
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Anger
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Intro – The prosecuting attorney asked his first witness, an elderly woman, “Mrs.
Jones, do you know me?” “Yes, I do, Mr. Williams.
I’ve known you since you were a boy and you’re a big disappointment.
You lie, cheat on your wife, gossip, and think you’re a big shot when you’re just a two-bit paper-pusher.
Yes, I know you.”
Stunned, he asked, “Well, Mrs.
Jones, do you know the defense attorney?”
She replied, “Yes, I’ve known Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster, too.
He’s lazy, bigoted, drinks too much, has the worst law practice in the state and has cheated on his wife with 3 different women, one of them being your wife.
Yes, I know him.”
With that, the judge called both attorneys to the bench and said in a very quiet voice, “If either of you idiots asks her if she knows me, I’ll send you to the electric chair.”
*I.
The Good That’s Bad* -- Appearances are deceiving, aren’t they?
We have seen saw Simon’s outward good covered a black, rebellious heart.
Good is bad when it is not good enough.
Simon’s good was really bad.
It led him to judge Jesus.
But Jesus did not come to be judged; He came to be believed.
Today we’ll learn from Jesus’ perspective that good and bad have a lot in common.
Simon was a man of class distinctions.
He and his Pharisee friends were at the top of the heap, the crème de la crème, the standard.
At rock bottom was the woman – a notorious sinner who appalled Simon by her very presence, let alone by her outrageous display of affection for this country bumpkin itinerate preacher.
Simon’s world divided into neat little categories – him on top, the woman on the bottom.
Jesus turns that world upside down.
Simon judges if Jesus were a prophet He’d reject this sinful woman.
His first surprise is when Jesus’ knows his inner thoughts.
But Jesus is just beginning.
Lu 7:40, “And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” [Wops!
Caution flags up!]
And he answered, “Say it, Teacher.”
41 “A certain moneylender had two debtors.
One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.
42 When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both.
Now which of them will love him more?” [Simon’s caught.
You can sense his reluctance] 43 Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.”
And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.”
Simon thought he was judging Jesus – but in a few brief words, Jesus has turned the tables completely.
“You have judged rightly, Simon.
You get “A” for the day.”
Then Jesus gives His devastating application of this parable.
By this powerful parable, Jesus has established His authority.
This short illustration turned Simon’s worldview on its ear by showing that good and bad – far from being the great discriminators that Simon made them to be all in his favor – actually have a lot in common.
Both fall short of the glory of God.
Neither reaches the perfection demanded by a holy Master.
Jesus has replaced Simon’s pyramid scheme with a view of reality that puts Simon and the woman on an equal footing.
What do good and bad have in common?
*II.
What Good and Bad Have in Common (Jesus)*
*A.
A Common Debt*
There two debtors.
One owes 500 denarii, the other 50.
One owes 10 times as much as the other – but the point is – both are in debt.
The debt represents sin’s debt, of course.
To Simon the woman was a “500 sinner” while Simon was only a “50 sinner.”
For sake of argument, Jesus concurs: “Okay, Simon, let’s assume that you are a far better than this prostitute.
She’s dirty.
She’s defiled.
She’s wallowed in sin while you’ve been circumspect.
Let’s say she’s 10 times worse than you.
The important point is – you’re both in debt!”
The “high-class” moralist and the “low-class” have this is common.
They have a debt.
What she did outwardly Simon only contemplated inwardly – but God looks on the heart, and they have in common an unpayable debt.
God says, “For the wages of sin is death”?
Amount doesn’t matter.
Sin is our common denominator.
Thought you’d left that behind with your last math class?
Remember the concept, right?
You have to add 2/3 plus ¾, but you can’t do that without finding a common denominator.
You have to convert to 12ths before you know that 2/3 plus ¾ = 8/12 plus 9/12 = 17/12 = 1-5/12.
That one’s easy, but it turns out that no matter what fractions you have, how unlike they looked, you could always find a common denominator.
Always.
One fraction might be very large and the other very small, but they had a common denominator.
That’s what Jesus is pointing out in this parable.
Every person who ever lived has this in common with every other person – we owe God.
It may be a lot; it may be a little; but we are all in debt.
The Bible says in I John 1:8, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
The common denominator.
Sin dogs every heart and clings like lint to every life.
Jer 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick (literally, terminally ill); who can understand it?”
David said in Psa 51: 5) “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.”
We have a common debt.
Imagine I go to the local bank: “Do you have any debtors from our church?
No names, but anyone owe you?”
He says, “Yes, two.”
“How much do they owe?” “Well, one owes $100,000.”
I’d say, “Well, you are right.
He is a debtor for sure.
How about the other?”
“Well, the other owes $10 for lunch last week?”
“Ten dollars!? You call him a debtor?
In comparison to $100,000, what’s $10?”
But you know bankers.
He’s a debtor no matter amt.
The Bible says, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way” (Isa 53:6).
Not some.
All.
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23).
One man came up to a preacher after the sermon and said, “I can’t swallow what you had to say about depravity.”
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