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
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Anger
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Introduction
Popeye’s stops selling chicken sandwiches.
Demand was too great.
I understand popularity.
People had to see for themselves.
What I don’t understand is why you would quit making the sandwich especially if it brings that many people to your store.
You already have the chicken - you just need buns.
That’s how a chicken sandwich works!
You and I know how a sandwich works, but do we know how salvation works?
Do we understand how God saves people?
Crucial for us to understand to be able to articulate our own story - what God has done in our lives.
Also crucial as we share the Gospel.
We need to know how salvation works.
In Paul’s conversion story we learn how salvation works.
In the NT, other than Jesus, there is no person as significant than the Apostle Paul.
Apart from the story of Peter and Cornelius, the rest of the Book of Acts focuses on Paul’s story of taking the Gospel to the nations.
13 letters in the NT were written by Paul.
He helps us to understand theological significance of death and resurrection of Jesus and how we live in response.
This is the powerful story of his conversion.
Four ways salvation works.
1. God pursues.
By the end of Acts, Paul leading a Gospel movement to ends of earth, but in , he is the least likely candidate to lead that movement.
vs. 1 - breathing threats and murder against disciples.
Later, when Paul gives his testimony in after being arrested in Jerusalem, He says he was a student of Gamaliel - the same Pharisee that told religious council to leave Peter and John alone.
() Paul didn’t take the advice of his teacher.
He wanted the Way (Christians) wiped off the map.
Paul not content to persecute the Way only in Jerusalem.
Granted authority by the high priest to travel to Damascus to arrest believers and bring them back to Jerusalem.
Damascus was 135 miles from Jerusalem - 6 day journey by foot.
Many Jews lived in Damascus - several synagogues - many Jesus followers fled there.
Paul knows he can arrest many there.
Paul in one word - zealous.
(If I’m zealous enough… God will…) Like every other Jew, Paul wanted a Messiah, but Jesus wasn’t it.
The Jesus movement infuriated him because people looking to Jesus instead of eagerly awaiting God to usher in His Kingdom through another.
This is what he lived for!
He’s so zealous he’s willing to kill.
He heard the words of Stephen - saw him executed - the Way was a threat.
Paul left Jerusalem to pursue the Way not realizing the One who is the Way was pursuing him.
On the road to Damascus, a blinding light (literally) (similar to what Ezekiel saw in Ez. 1:28) - the risen and ascended Lord.
(Reminds me of transfiguration.)
And, a heart-piercing voice - “Why are you persecuting me?” Saul confused.
Knows he is in the presence of the divine, but who exactly? “Jesus, who you are persecuting.
Rise up and go...”
His traveling companions heard the voice but didn’t see what Saul saw.
(vs.
7) He had seen the resurrected Lord.
Saul thought Jesus was dead, but he most certainly was not, and in that moment everything changed.
How does salvation work?
God pursues.
(Paul was pursuing a religious system but he wasn’t pursuing Jesus.)
You did not pursue Jesus either.
You were pursuing your own desires.
() But, Jesus came after you.
He initiates, and He initiates in so many ways.
Sometimes it’s uncomfortable grace.
Sometimes it’s through specific people.
Sometimes it’s a process.
(Look back and you can see the ways God pursued you.)
Sometimes it’s instantaneous.
(Know people who trusted Jesus at the first Gospel conversation or were reading the Bible themselves and were saved.)
Regardless of how God initiated a relationship with you, He initiated it because you weren’t going to.
You were dead!
He initiated it because He loves you.
()
Ill. - Fishing - love the pursuit - the thrill of the hunt, etc. God doesn’t pursue you because of the thrill but because of love.
2. God opens your eyes.
vs. 8 - Saul physically blinded by what he saw and like a child he was led to the home of Judas.
A fellow Jew?
A friend?
A second vision - Ananias - a disciple who the risen Lord chooses to take a message to Paul.
Imagine, sitting in your home.
The voice of the Lord - “I have a message for Saul of Tarsus I want you to deliver.”
Ananias: “Excuse me?
Do you know who that guy is? He’ll kill me!
Don’t you know what he did to your people in Jerusalem?
This is a suicide mission!”
The words of Jesus must have shocked Ananias.
“Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to stand before Gentiles… He will suffer for my name.”
Ananias goes.
His knees are knocking as he knocks on the door.
Judas answers, “I’m here to see Saul.
God sent me.”
Judas leads Ananias to Saul.
Saul had been there three days - fasting and praying.
The vision was so real - Paul trying to make sense of it.
Everything changing.
His heart is pounding in his chest.
He feels a lump in his throat, but in obedience to his Lord, he lays hands on Saul.
“Saul, the Jesus who appeared to you has sent me to you to regain your sight and be filled with His Spirit.”
Something like scales fell from his eyes.
He regained his sight - physically and spiritually - was baptized.
It may not have happened in your life in the way it happened in Saul’s, but it happened.
God opened your eyes.
You were blind.
The scales that covered your eyes were not physical scales but the scales of sin. - you lived your life following the prince of the power of the air - not the God of all creation.
You either suffered from:
Irreligious blindness.
You treated God like the enemy - you wanted nothing to do with Jesus or the church.
The church was full of hypocrites.
God was out to take away your fun.
He was your enemy, when in fact, what you had done was you made yourself an enemy of God.
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