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
0.17UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.55LIKELY
Fear
0.12UNLIKELY
Joy
0.55LIKELY
Sadness
0.51LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.67LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.34UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.76LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.92LIKELY
Extraversion
0.07UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.89LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.77LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Back in late 1920s Chicago had a problem.
The tentacles of that problem affected not only Chicago but infested much of the nation.
The problem had a name and that name was Al Capone.
Capone was a criminal.
He was a wicked man who literally ran the city of Chicago.
He owned most of the politicians and policemen.
The ones he couldn’t buy he threatened or had killed.
Capone and his mob ran prostitution rings throughout the city and sold bootleg liquor worth millions.
Then, one day, a young Treasury agent and eleven of his handpicked men decided it was time to declare war on Capone.
Does anybody know the name of this young twenty-six year old Treasury Agent?
(Elliot Ness).
Ness and his team ran continuous raids on Capone’s operations and cost the mobster millions in lost revenue.
As you can image, Capone wasn’t very happy with this and attempted numerous assassination attempts on Ness and finally succeeded in killing one of Ness’s closest friends.
But before Capone took out a contract on this Treasury Agent, he decided on a softer approach.
He sent a messenger to Elliot Ness with an envelope.
At the time, Ness was making $2,800 a year (this was back in 1929) and the envelope contained $2000.
The messenger made it clear that this could be a weekly salary for Ness if he would only look the other way and lay off Capone.
Ness put the money back in the envelope and sent it and the messenger back to Capone.
Then he called a press conference.
Ness told the assembled reporters all about Capone’s attempted bribe and of made it clear how much contempt he had for the man who had offered it.
The next day, the headlines read “Ness and his men are UNTOUCHABLE.”
And thus began the legend of Eliot Ness and his Untouchables.
In a day of corrupt officials and policemen who were on the take Ness and his Untouchables became heroes.
They were righteous men who could not be bought.
They were upright men of integrity who fought evil and corruption.
They were the men of legend.
God calls us to be people of integrity.
He calls us to live lives of righteousness, but we fail so many times.
A man went to see a psychiatrist.
He complained, “I’ve been doing some bad things, Doc, and my conscience is troubling me.”
The doctor asked, “And you want something that will strengthen your will power?”
The man replied, “Well, no, I was thinking of something that would weaken my conscience.”
Many people don’t want God’s righteousness.
They want something that will make them feel better about their own unrighteousness.
But God does something even better.
God sent his son to bring us righteousness.
Jesus is our righteousness.
Jesus took our sin and gave us his righteousness because he lived a perfect life.
Last week we looked at the baptisms that John was performing along the Jordan River.
John didn’t go to where the people were in order to draw a large crowd, it seems like he went to the middle of nowhere.
Yet he still drew a large crowd.
John’s message was simple and can be summed up in one word: repent.
The people were to acknowledge their sin before God and turn from it asking for God’s forgiveness.
That’s not usually a very popular message, but out in the middle of nowhere John drew a great crowd.
We’re told that people came from Jerusalem, from all over Judea, and all around the Jordan.
John’s message was simple, but it was powerful because it was the message of God for that time and place.
As a result, people came not only to hear, but they responded.
Something we need to understand about baptism is that Jews weren’t baptized.
Gentiles were baptized.
If Gentiles decided to worship God and start following the laws of God then they would be baptized as an initiation.
But Jews were already in by way of having been born a Jew.
They didn’t need to be baptized.
But they came to John and were being baptized for forgiveness as they repented of their sins.
Imagine someone going down to the Watauga River near the Twins Field and preaching that message.
Imagine too crowds of people flocking to hear him and be baptized.
I don’t know about you, but for me that would be hard to imagine.
If he had a little bread I can imagine a flock of ducks gathering around him.
But can you picture several hundred of people going to hear someone talk about confessing your sins?
Our society is so busy – even overly busy – that they don’t take time for much of anything they don’t feel like they have to do.
I have a hard time picturing too many people going to hear someone tell them how badly they’ve sinned and how they need to get right with God.
But that’s what they need to hear.
It’s what we need to hear.
John’s simple message was to repent and his reason was simple as well.
The people needed to get rid of the sin in their lives that came between them and God because the kingdom of heaven was at hand.
The kingdom of heaven would soon be upon them and they needed to prepare themselves by repenting of their sins.
And then, one day, out of the blue, John is surprised by a visitor, someone who has also come to be baptized.
Matthew 3:13-17 VIDEO
This is one of the spots in the video that I’m a little disappointed.
I wanted to see the Holy Spirit come down.
I wanted to hear the voice of God proclaim that Jesus is his son.
Instead, the video just says these things happen.
Imagine being there that day to see and hear what transpired.
We can understand why John would have hesitated when Jesus came to be baptized.
Remember the purpose for being baptized.
They were being baptized to repent of their sins (Jesus didn’t have any sins to repent of) and to prepare them for the coming of the Messiah (Jesus is the Messiah).
So just what is the purpose of Jesus being baptized?
John wonders and Jesus explains: to fulfill all righteousness.
The word righteousness is about having a right relationship.
In his baptism Jesus is demonstrating two relationships: first is his relationship with God.
If there were any doubts about that relationship they were quickly dispelled with the filling of the Holy Spirit and God verbally recognizing Jesus as his son he loves and with whom he is pleased.
The second relationship is with us.
In his baptism Jesus is relating himself with us.
In his sermon at the Men’s Fellowship last night Scott Fisher, who preaches at Borderview and is a big University of Florida fan, said that some people spend too much time rooting for Tennessee and Florida.
I thought that was a little funny.
I was sitting beside Michael Klaus, the preacher at First Christian.
He’s from Florida too, but he went to Florida State.
I can assure you he doesn’t spend too much time rooting for the Volunteers or the Gators.
I am also pretty certain that Scott and his son were the only Gator fans there, so no one else spends too much time rooting for the Gators either.
If you were to buy a used a car and it a University of Florida decal on it what would you do?
The first thing I’d want to do is get that decal off.
I wouldn’t want anyone to think I might like the Gators.
I wouldn’t want to associate myself with them.
But think about what Jesus does when he’s baptized.
He is associating himself with us – sinners deserving God’s judgment.
Jesus, who has committed no sins, associates himself with us.
Jesus came to fulfill all righteousness.
He came to demonstrate what a right relationship with God looks like.
But he also came to live a human life with all its difficulties, heartaches, and temptations so that he could relate to us.
The author of Hebrews writes:
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet he did not sin.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9