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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Social Tendencies
Anger
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Have you ever seen someone make a mistake, and then not own up to it?
They’ve done something wrong, and they won’t admit that they did something wrong.
It’s tough because I’m not comfortable with it.
They won’t admit that they are wrong.
Instead, they make excuses for their sin.
They justify their sin.
They often say it’s not their fault, but it was the situation’s fault.
Or they were put in a lose-lose situation.
I’m a baseball fan, and a couple weeks ago this happened with the New York Yankees.
It was game 2 of the American League Division Series, between the New York Yankees and the Cleveland Indians.
It’s bottom of the 6th inning, and the Yankees are winning 8-3.
Theres a man on 2nd and 3rd and 2 outs.
A new batter steps up to the plate.
And with 1 ball and 2 strikes, the Yankees pitcher throw high and inside to the left handed batter - that means it almost hits him.
The batter check swings, holds his swing back, and it looked like the ball bounced right off of him.
This means he’s hit by the pitch or so it seems and he’s awarded first base.
This means he’s hit by the pitch or so it seems.
Upon review, it looked like the ball didn’t actually hit the batter, but hit the bottom of his bat.
And since the catcher caught the ball, it’s not a foul ball, it should be strike 3.
That should mean inning over, and the Yankees are one step closer to winning the game.
All that needs to be done to clear this up, is for the Yankees manager to challenge the play.
If he challenges it, it means it will be reviewed on video, and the correct call can be made.
The Yankees wait the 30 seconds they are given to challenge a play, but they don’t do it.
Since they refuse, that means, the call stands, the batter goes to first, and now it’s bases loaded 2 outs, bottom of the 6th inning.
Now it’s bases loaded, 2 outs, bottom of the 6th inning.
Next batter steps up to the plate and does what you always dream of doing, he hits a grand slam in the playoffs.
That grand slam made the score 8-7.
The Indians ended up tying the game in the 8th inning.
And then winning the game in the 13th inning.
It was a great game.
The Yankees lost.
But really, they should have won.
And for the rest of the series, the Yankees’ manager was criticized, because he clearly blew the call, and ultimately lost the game for his team.
After the game was over he was approached and asked why he didn’t challenge it.
He made up different excuses, but never owned up to his mistake.
He justified his decision, when all he really needed to say was, “I messed up.”
It’s so frustrating to watch someone not admit to a mistake.
They justify their actions.
They give excuses.
It’s not just the manager of the Yankees who does this, it’s not just other people, we do it too.
Which makes today a difficult text to preach.
I really wrestled how to preach this passage.
I wasn’t too sure how to do it.
In fact, to be honest, I wasn’t even content with the point of the passage.
Mostly, because it’s a series of sins, that can all be justified.
They can all be explained away.
One person messes up, only to put the next person in a difficult situation.
That person sins, but is able to say he did it because the previous person made him do it.
What makes this hard to preach?
Because I can’t help but empathize with the second person.
It’s hard to condemn a person who started off with the world against him.
It’s hard to preach, because I’ve used that excuse before.
So as I go through this text, it’s going to be uncomfortable.
It’s going to be personal.
And you, like me, might not like some of the conclusions.
The first point of this sermon is justified sin is still a sin.
To help us understand this, let’s look at .
Let’s look at this together now.
Read .
This is a passage that the ethicist would say is in the grey area.
There are some who are afraid of saying something is always wrong, or always right.
This is called relativism.
It’s a character of post-modernism.
Those who are this way, say there is no black or white.
They say we can’t say something is always right or wrong.
Instead they say much of what we do is in the grey.
It’s debatable.
It’s neither good nor bad.
This passage has a series of events, that we can’t help but mourn over.
We will briefly look at each situation.
As we do, ask yourself how you feel about each stage?
Think to yourself, was the main actor right or wrong?
I’m going to tell you right now, there’s not a whole lot of right in this passage.
Which is going to be hard to swallow, especially considering, the moral dilemmas placed on each person.
If you were in their shoes, you might have done the same thing, which makes it hard to say they’re wrong.
Where chapter 15 was a chapter of great victory, chapter 16 is a chapter of great defeat.
In chapter 15, Abraham was a man of faith.
In chapter 16, he’s a man of flesh.
When we first met Abraham, back at the end of Genesis 11, he was about 75 years old.
He was promised by God to become the father of a great nation, to possess a great land, and to become a great blessing to the world.
By now though, it’s 10 years later, and Abraham is 85.
I’ve never met too many 85 year olds who are just entering parenthood.
So it’s turning into an impossibility.
Where chapter 15 was a chapter of great victory, chapter 16 is a chapter of great defeat.
In chapter 15, Abraham was a man of faith.
He believed God.
He was credited with righteousness.
In chapter 16, he’s a man of the flesh.
Instead of trusting God to fulfill the promises, he takes matters into his own hands.
So we come to our first justified sin of the text.
Sarah had an Egyptian servant.
Her name was Hagar.
She was probably given to them during their brief stay while in Egypt, when Abraham sold Sarah to Pharaoh for his safety.
Sarah, says that God has prevented her from having children.
Again, God has made it very clear that there would be a child.
And that this child would be the biological son of Abraham.
Sarah’s idea is that Abraham should take Hagar as his wife, and try to have a child through her.
This is where we begin to justify things, and question, “Is this really wrong?”
Before you think, “Well, technically, that’s still a child of Abraham.”
Sarah’s not looking for some loop hole in God’s promise.
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