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
0.14UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.11UNLIKELY
Fear
0.13UNLIKELY
Joy
0.6LIKELY
Sadness
0.56LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.44UNLIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.48UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.65LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.78LIKELY
Extraversion
0.27UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.89LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.59LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
What to do about setbacks Success even in the setbacks
There are always going to be setbacks in our lives.
What can we do about them?
How do we treat them.
Where is God when there is a setback?
Today we are going to talk about that in light of Paul’s mission his traveling to Corinth, which is a city not quite 50 miles from Athens.
We talked about Paul’s trip to Athens and how it may not have been the glaring success he may have wanted it to be but there were converts that are named but a large church didn’t come from it.
ESV
1 After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. 2 And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome.
And he went to see them, 3 and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade.
4 And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks.
Paul set out to do his mission/ He was just coming off of Athens where a few people became xns
It must have been discouraging for Paul; to experience this—we’ll call it a setback—from Athens where he has the words of life for people.
And there were people who trusted in Christ, but it was only a handful of people.
Was Athens a failure?
No, people came to Christ but very few people.
And has he walked those 50 miles from Athens to Corinth he had to be thinking.
What went wrong?
How come there weren’t many converts?
What could I do differently?
You see, Paul was a brilliant man.
He was so smart God used him in so many incredible ways but it seems like Paul was discouraged as he went to this town.
He brilliantly spoke to the people of Athens and used the unknown God analogy and they really didn’t catch on.
They didn’t come to the Lord in droves and this might have discouraged He knows the truth about Jesus and this group of people don’t want to hear it.
He is giving them the truth that he knows deep down in his soul and people aren’t really jumping on board.
It has to be frustrating.
And now as he goes into Corinth Paul is kind of jumping out of the firepan into the fire.
Corinth was an important town.
It was the capital of one of the Roman provinces and like many other towns idol worship ran rampant.
Paul wanted to deliver the truth to towns like this.
I think again that is is interesting that many modern day Christians have a problem going to the “bad” places in the world.
We don’t want to go to the heathen places because there are heathens there.
We ignore the places and the people that need Christ the most so that we can be comfortable.
The Lord is working on me regarding this.
We are called to be the light of the world.
And I like being the light in the church but honestly, I can have a hard time being the light in the world that so desperately needs Jesus.
It’s hard to see an individual light when you are in a room full of light.
The light shows when you are in dark places.
Of course you need to be careful.
You don’t go to the dark places by yourself, that is when you get into trouble.
But we are supposed to be the light of the world.
Paul was taking the light of Jesus to the world around him and he was entering into all sorts of hellish places.
Corinth was one of those places where people worshiped other Gods through perversion and sexual acts.
And if he was going to go there it meant that Paul can’t live in a bubble all by himself does it?
But he is discouraged.
Discouragement is a huge problem for people.
Can you identify?
Have you ever been discouraged?
Are you discouraged right now?
This is a problem, because discouragement can keep you from living the life that God has for you.
The Lord did three things to give new strength and courage to Paul while he was at Corinth.
He gave him the gift of new friends,
He gave him a vision to recall him to be a visionary,
Finally, God gave him a specific, perfectly timed intervention.
When we are discouraged, we can be sure that God speaks to us.
Doesn’t always feel like it, but God does.
And God can speak to us in different ways.
We are going to talk about three of those ways this morning but make no mistake, God speaks to us in all kinds of different ways.
This morning we wil be talking about three of them because that is how God spoke to Paul in this situation.
One way that God spoke to Paul and to us is
through Christian friends, through a renewed vision and through timely circumstances.
When we are discouraged God gives us the gift of friends.
For Paul..
Paul meets some other Christians in Aquila and Priscilla.
We are told that this couple are hospitable to Paul and they are believers.
So important to surround yourself with other believers.
Not exclusively, but to have a network of people around you that will encourage you, to stretch you, and to hold you accountable.
There is a safety that exists in groups of people that have Christ in common.
This couple worked with Paul and they had a great relationship together.
You will see in later letters from Paul the love that he had for this couple.
We are better together.
Its why discipleship is so important.
It is crucial to have other Christian friends.
I want to repeat that.
It is crucial to have other Christian friends because we are stronger alongside one another.
We should have friends who aren’t Christians too, but not exclusively.
You don’t want only non christian friends
1500 Illustrations for Biblical Preaching Friends, Influence Of
A farmer, troubled by a flock of crows in his corn field, loaded his shotgun and crawled unseen along the fence-row, determined to get a shot at the crows.
Now the farmer had a very “sociable” parrot who made friends with everybody.
Seeing the flock of crows, the parrot flew over and joined them (just being sociable, you know).
The farmer saw the crows but didn’t see the parrot.
He took careful aim and BANG!
The farmer crawled over the fence to pick up the fallen crows, and lo, there was his parrot—badly ruffled, with a broken wing, but still alive.
Tenderly, the farmer carried the parrot home, where his children met him.
Seeing that their pet was injured, they tearfully asked, “What happened, Papa?” Before he could answer, the parrot spoke up: “Bad company!”535
If the only people you hang out with are not believers then you can be the worst that you can be and still be the best in THAT crowd.
If you only hang out with people that don’t believe the way you do then you don’t have to be a very good Christian but still feel good about yourself because at least you are better than them.
That is dangerous.
We need Christ followers in our lives to encourage us, we need Christ followers in our lives to lift us up and for us to lift them up.
We need serious Christ followers in our lives so that we will be held accountable.
Someone who we answer to when we do something wrong that will keep us from doing wrong.
Every Christian needs that.
College folks.
Find a campus ministry to go to.
It’s so important.
Find other guys or girls find other girls who are serious about their faith and spend time with them.
High school students.
You do the same.
Find people who follow Jesus and spend time with them.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9