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
0.09UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.1UNLIKELY
Fear
0.09UNLIKELY
Joy
0.65LIKELY
Sadness
0.55LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.46UNLIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.19UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.87LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.79LIKELY
Extraversion
0.44UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.98LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.64LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Jesus Gives Beauty for Ashes
The Gift Exchange
Jesus Gives Beauty for Ashes
The evangelist Winkey Pratney made me aware of the Christian themes of Disney’s favorite, Cinderella.
The story begins with Ella, a happy little girl enjoying her life with her mom and dad in the country.
Their days are filled with love, joy, and happiness.
However, tragedy strikes in the form of sickness and her mother is taken away.
Now her father is left to raise her.
Some years pass and her father remarries.
Ella gains a step-mother and two vile step sisters.
Tragedy strikes again and her father goes on a trip to never return.
Ella becomes a servant girl in the home and is moved from her comfortable bedroom to the cold attic.
In an attempt to get warm, Cinderella sleeps close to the fireplace and awakes with soot covering her face.
Her step-sisters rename her Cinderella.
However, even with all of this she remains true to a promise to her mother to always be kind and have courage.
You know the rest of the story – a Prince is looking for a bride.
He falls in love with a beautiful woman at the ball (Cinderella), but loses her.
He searches and searches until finally he redeems his bride, but she is a servant girl covered in ashes and soot.
Now listen to this – at the end, as she nervously enters the room, she asks him, “Will you accept me just as I am?”
He responds “yes” with a loving embrace.
The Gift Exchange
In today’s message I want to look at the exchange of our ashes for His beauty.
What does a life look like under the favor of God?
Our Gift: The Ashes of Life
I’d like to use the character of Mary as an example of all of us this morning.
Mary was highly favored and blessed, but for much of her life you wouldn’t know it.
When we usually think of Mary we think about a cute young innocent woman/girl who happens to be the winning candidate to be the mother of King Jesus.
But when we really look at Mary as a person in situations that she didn’t ask for, I think we can often find ourselves.
An Unexplained Baby Bump
Mary wasn’t married at conception and likely wasn’t married for much of the pregnancy.
By the time she had received the announcement from Gabriel and stayed the 1st trimester with her cousin, Elizabeth, she would have been noticeably pregnant.
A Source of Gossip
As mentioned, Mary’s pregnancy was scandalous to everyone who knew her.
Was her account of the situation even plausible?
There was no historical context to make her even believable.
30 years later, the community still tried to insult Jesus and his mother.
You are doing the works of your own father.”
You are doing the works of your own father.”
“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested.
“The only Father we have is God himself.”
“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested.
“The only Father we have is God himself.”
No Life of Luxury for Mary
When the time came for Jesus to be born, Mary and Joseph were not accepted into the penthouses of Bethlehem.
They were only offered the simplest solution to a roof over their heads – a stable.
Must have been a contradiction for Mary.
Here she is with a miraculous baby.
Shouldn’t the pregnancy be easy and the birth a breeze?
If the birthplace wasn’t luxurious, couldn’t it at least be comfortable and clean?
Living as a Fugitive
Shortly after the Magi shared with King Herod that there was another king in his realm, King Herod issued a decree that all the male children under 3 would be killed.
Mary and Joseph gathered Jesus and what they could take with them and fled to Egypt.
Life as a refugee…
Single Parenting
Mary was widowed shortly after Jesus was 12. Now a single mother of 7, what was she to do?
“Isn’t this the carpenter’s son?
Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?
56 Aren’t all his sisters with us?
Where then did this man get all these things?”
What does a life look like under the favor of God? I’m sure Mary didn’t expect this.
It’s supposed to be easier.
It’s supposed to be picture perfect.
I ought to be sending out perfect Christmas pictures with a husband, 2 kids, and a dog all dressed up.
“Isn’t this the carpenter’s son?
Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?
56 Aren’t all his sisters with us?
Where then did this man get all these things?”
What does a life look like under the favor of God? I’m sure Mary didn’t expect this.
It’s supposed to be easier.
It’s supposed to be picture perfect.
I ought to be sending out perfect Christmas pictures with a husband, 2 kids, and a dog all dressed up.
Rejected by Her Hometown
By the time Jesus was 30 he had begun his ministry openly.
His hometown rejected Him.
How could the prophet Isaiah point at Jesus, Mary’s son?
They became so enraged that they were attempted to push Jesus off a cliff.
His brothers didn’t even believe…
All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips.
“Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.
23 Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’
And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’
”
24 “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown.
25 I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land.
26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon.
27 And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”
28 All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this.
29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff.
30 But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.
The Woodlands/Magnolia/Tomball area has become a big area but I can tell you from growing up in a small town – everybody knows your business.
Everyone knows who you are and it couldn’t have been easy in Nazareth.
His brothers didn’t even believe…
Jesus’ brothers said to him, “Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples there may see the works you do. 4 No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret.
Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.” 5 For even his own brothers did not believe in him.
The Woodlands/Magnolia/Tomball area has become a big area but I can tell you from growing up in a small town – everybody knows your business.
Everyone knows who you are and it couldn’t have been easy in Nazareth.
Death of Her Son
Parents are not supposed to attend the funerals of their own sons, not to mention a public crucifixion.
Almost without an exception, Israel’s religious and public leaders demanded his execution.
The crowds demanded it and preferred a scoundrel’s release from prison instead of her son’s.
Blessed?
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9