Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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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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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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ATTN
One man said of his neighbor who was a notorious grouch: “The spreads good cheer wherever he DOESN’T go.”
May Tuohy, a seventy-year-old known for her general grouchiness, called the police about her neighbor who was sunbathing in the nude.
“I don’t see anything,” said the police officer, looking out her window.
“Of course not,” said the woman.
“You have to stand on this chair.”
I’m sure you daily deal with some “Eli’s” and some “May’s” of your own.
Some people are just partypoopers.
They are killjoys.
They take your elation and delight in sucking the energy and happiness right out of it.
They are joy killers.
And it’s not just people, there are also circumstances and other things in your life which, if you are not careful, will also kill your joy.
For instance, here are some ways you can tell if you’re having a “joy killing day.”
These are the top ten ways to tell if you’re having a bad day.
Number 10 - Your horn sticks on the freeway behind 32 Hell's Angels
Number 9 - You call suicide prevention and they put you on hold.
Number 8 - Your birthday cake collapses from the weight of the candles.
Number 7 - Your 4-year-old tells you that it's almost impossible to flush a grapefruit down the toilet.
Number 6 - It costs more to fill up your car than it did to buy it.
Number 5 - You wake up to the soothing sound of running water...and remember that you just bought a waterbed.
Number 4 - You compliment the boss' wife on her unusual perfume and she isn't wearing any.
Number 3 - Your doctor tells you that you are allergic to chocolate chip cookies.
Number 2 - You discover that your 12-year-old's idea of humor is putting crazy glue in your Preparation H.
Number 1 - Everyone is laughing but you.
Well there’s one thing these joy-killing people and joy-killing circumstances have in common: They can’t really touch the kind of joy we’ve been talking about in this series on joy.
The reason is because these joykillers only affect your temporary, circumstantial happiness, not your deep down spiritual joy.
But that’s not to say that your deep-down spiritual joy doesn’t have some enemies.
In truth, it does.
Your spiritual joy and confidence faces some enemies as well.
I want to talk to you about a few of these “joy-killers” over the next few weeks.
Let’s start with one that will always take you down.
If you struggle with this joy-killer, chances are there aren’t too many moments in your life when you have a great deal of confidence in God.
Which “joykiller” am I speaking of?
It’s the joy killer we know as ‘GUILT.”
NEED
Now guilt will do some crazy things to you.
In the first place, anyone who claims to be a Christian, but struggles with guilt will never have much assurance of their salvation.
If they have a tender heart, in fact, you will often find them at the altar.
It isn’t usually some great new commitment that they are making to Christ.
No, it is their constant guilt that they just can’t seem to get rid of.
And guilt may manifest itself in other ways.
For instance, anger.
I often talk to one partner in a marriage who will tell me something like this: “I don’t know what’s gotten in to my husband.
All we do is fuss.
I can’t even look at him without him flying off the handle.”
When I hear that, I often begin to suspect that another woman has entered the picture.
His anger at his wife is simply a matter of guilt.
He feels so bad about what he is doing that he has to invent a wrong on her part so that he can be angry at her.
And then, a person who is struggling with guilt may even act out.
It is no secret that the sexually abused often become, themselves, sexually promiscuous.
Now I’m sure there are a lot of reasons for this, but I believe one of them has to do with trying to assuage their guilt.
BACKGROUND
Now I know that guilt will destroy joy because I have observed what it did to one of the most joyful men in the Bible.
Read through the Psalms and you will find the height of praise and worship.
It was David the Psalmist who danced so mightily with joy before the Lord when they brought the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem that he embarrassed his wife.
When she confronted him about it, do you remember what he said.
In essence he said, “You ain’t seen nothing yet!”
He was a joyfilled man.
But, there were times when his joy left him.
One of those times was when he committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband.
The overwhelming guilt of his sin ate at him.
He said in Psalm 32: my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long.
For day and night Your dhand was heavy upon me; My vitality was turned into the drought of summer.
Guilt had come and killed his joy and I am sure that there were days that David wondered if he’d ever be happy again.
But I have good news this morning, his joy did return.
How?
Well, he took care of his guilt.
No, he didn’t pay thousands of dollars to a psychologist to seek to deny his guilt.
He actually got rid of his guilt, and then he penned our text for today to tell us how he did that.
Read Psalm 51 with me: (READ TEXT)
David tells us here how we can get rid of guilt.
It is through real repentance.
In fact he describes here the three steps that are involved in this process of repentance.
The first step is this.
DIV 1 - AWARENESS BRINGS CONVICTION
Have you noticed how most people don’t really feel that badly about their sin?
That is, they don’t feel very badly until they get caught.
Senators and Congressmen can sext their constituents on their cellphones with a certain impunity of conscience until they are called on the carpet by the news media.
Then the tears begin.
This is quite different from genuine biblical conviction, and, make no mistake about it: Repentance that brings joy requires real conviction.
That conviction begins with an awareness of sin.
In 51:3 David says, For I acknowledge my transgresions and my sin is always before me.
This again reminds us of Ps 32.
Eugene Peterson renders 32:3-4 like this, When I kept it all inside my bones turned to powder, my words became daylong groans.
The pressure never let up; all the juices of my life dried up.
David is aware of his sin and he knows it’s bad.
He has willfully rebelled (that’s what the word “transgression” means, by the way: Willful rebellion).
He knew it was sin to lust after Bathsheba.
He knew it was willful rejection of God to summon her to his bedchamber and have sex with her.
He knew it was premeditated murder to try to cover up his infidelity with the murder of her husband.
He was aware of his sin and lay like a heavy burden on his heart.
Then he finally confesses it to God and he says, my sin is ALWAYS before me.
Conviction begins with an awareness of sin.
And then, that awareness of sin must lead to an awareness of self.
If I am to truly repent and return to legitimate joy, I have to be honest about who I am.
David does that in 51:5.
He says, Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.
Now David gets honest about who he is because he knows that’s what God desires.
In fact, in v6 he goes on to say, Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts.
He admits that dead-level honesty is what God wants, but he goes on to admit something even more amazing.
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