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The Beloved
Thanksgiving 2019
Introduction
The Old Testament book of Lamentations is very unusual.
It is a series of funeral dirges from the prophet Jeremiah, as if for the national funeral service for ancient Israel.
It is written in the form of a series of acrostics.
There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet.
Chapters 1,2,4,5 each have 22 verses.
Each verse begins with the next letter of the alphabet.
Chapter 3 has 66 verses.
The first 3 verses begin with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the next 3 with the second, and so on.
In the midst of a depressing funeral dirge, lamenting the capture and destruction of Jerusalem by the Assyrians, as if lamenting the death of a dear friend, is this amazing text:
- 19 The thought of my suffering and homelessness
is bitter beyond words.
20 I will never forget this awful time,
as I grieve over my loss.
21 Yet I still dare to hope
when I remember this:
22 The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
His mercies never cease.
23 Great is his faithfulness;
his mercies begin afresh each morning.
24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance;
therefore, I will hope in him!”
In the middle of what seemed like hopelessness, Jeremiah remembers all that God had done for him and for Israel, and is thankful.
Have you ever been there?
In what seemed like the middle of hopelessness?
There are times we all feel the weight of the world on our shoulders.
Parents, you face this:
--You have the enormous responsibility of raising your children in the training and instruction of the Lord, sometimes on your own.
Never knowing how they might turn out; you worry for their future and their constant safety.
You struggle, not knowing if the way you are raising them is the best way.
Not to mention trying to get everything done in one day that seems like it will take a month.
--You struggle to balance work and family.
Your kids desperately need you around more, but you can’t tell your boss “no” when he says you need to work.
You constantly question your parenting methods and how much discipline is too much or not enough.
Married couples, you face this as well:
--On top of all that, you have to take charge of the smooth running of your home, after working countless hours at your job.
You must love each other, even when they are unlovely.
And it seems like you never get a day off and you’re tired and don’t know sometimes if you can make it another day.
It may seem like the love has gone out of your marriage.
Things aren’t as romantic anymore and you wonder if it’s worth it at all.
--You have to work all day, and then come home to help make sure your house isn’t in chaos.
There are dishes to clean, sheets to change, grass to mow.
Your job may be up for grabs, at best, and non-existent, at worst.
You worry that you might get caught up in the next scale-down program where you work.
You’re not sure if you can pay this month’s bills on your salary.
You know you shouldn’t be harsh and critical toward your spouse, but you’re stressed out from the long hours you put in to bring home that paycheck that never seems big enough.
Grandparents are not exempt:
--You would like to provide more for your family, but you’re on a fixed income now.
It seems like the price of healthcare is ever rising and you don’t know how much longer you can afford your medicine.
Who knows what will eventually happen with social security?
You want to help with your grandkids, but you don’t want to overstep your boundaries.
Maybe you’d like to see your grandkids more, but your relationship with your own kids isn’t what you’d like it to be and you mourn the distance between you.
Singles know stress too:
--You know that God has a plan for your life, but it seems like he’s taking forever to get it done.
You want to find the glory in being single, but you also don’t want to be alone the rest of your life.
So much of your life is dependent on the person you marry, so the pressure of getting it right is enormous.
And the longer you wait, you feel the weight of each tick of the clock.
Students get it:
--You balance multiple classes at a time, trying to absorb the onslaught of new information in all of them.
You study and you stress, with it seeming like your entire future is based on the grade of a single test.
On top of that is the dystopian, “Lord of the Flies” social experiment that is always happening in the hallways.
Am I popular?
Are these people really my friends?
Can I just be myself without being rejected?
So, with all of that a reality, we are called to be thankful every day of our lives.
Thankful for what?
The stress, pain, hurt, loss?
In the middle of what seems like hopelessness, we are able to be thankful.
- See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!
That verse has served as a source of hope and encouragement in times of hopelessness for countless people.
May it be so again today.
Friends, you are God’s beloved.
You are everything to him.
When he thinks about you, a smile comes to his face.
If God had a phone, he’d have an entire folder of pictures of you on it.
He’s proud to have you as a son or daughter.
And no matter what you’ve done wrong in your life, God is not mad at you.
He loves you.
Nothing bad you’ve ever done will make him love you any less; nothing good you could ever do will make him love you more than he already does right now in this very moment.
TS – for the next few minutes I want us to come to a deeper understanding of this truth: we are God’s beloved.
He delights in us.
The prophet Zechariah says that God loves us so much that he sings over us.
Embracing this truth of being God’s beloved makes some significant changes in our lives:
1. IT MAKES US CONFIDENT
(NIV) – And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.
Song of Songs says, “I am my Beloved’s and He is mine…and his banner over me is love.”
That banner is one of protection.
His love protects us, making us confident.
There is an old movie called The Bear.
It is the story of a little cub that is alone because his mother dies.
But in a strange twist, this orphan cub is adopted by a giant male Kodiak bear.
This giant is always watching over the cub.
He protects him from a mountain lion that tries to eat him.
Everything the bear does, the cub imitates: fishing in the river, scratching his back on a tree.
One day, they get separated.
The cub is alone when the mountain lion, who never really went away, sees his chance to attack.
They come face to face.
The cub stands on his back legs and growls his wimpy little cry.
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