Sermon Tone Analysis
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\\ /"//Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.
Honor one another above yourselves.//"
(Romans 12:10, NIV) *[1]*/
*/1.
/**/Soldiers serve as “living sacrifices./*
Today we remember those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice.
We’ve seen pictures of young men and women whose lives have been laid down for others that they would never know or see.
I have thought so many times that enlisting in the armed forces or becoming a police officer is a calling that is in keeping with the scripture in Romans 12:1,2.
"/Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.
//Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will./"
(Romans 12:1-2, NIV) [2]
A living sacrifice, Paul calls it.
Your life becomes someone else’s property.
Your assignment becomes someone else’s discretion.
One of the things that makes the personal lives of these people so difficult is that everything else takes second place.
Even the ultimate meaning of your life is in someone else’s hands.
That is so difficult – to allow someone else to determine what my life means here on this earth.
As I have gotten older this question has become increasingly more important to me.
What is the ultimate meaning of my life.
I’m hoping that there will be a lasting message in it for someone.
I ask it in the days when it seems that most of what I do has little to do with what I feel called to do.
But then I remember that if I am truly a “living sacrifice” as followers of God are asked to be, then the sacrifice does not determine its own end or meaning.
There are many parallels between what is required of a soldier of Canada and a soldier of the cross.
Perhaps in honoring those living veterans and those currently serving, we can remind ourselves of what it means to call ourselves Christian.
Today we try to remember what most soldiers would like to forget.
I have watched in recent years, two movies that have helped me to connect with these men in a way that I have never been able to do previously.
Those movies of course were: “Saving Private Ryan” and “Flags of Our Fathers”.
They were shocking and graphic in their bird’s eye portrayal of the horrors of war.
What is the most horrific is that it probably doesn’t even approach the reality that lives in the minds of some of these soldiers for the rest of their lives.
It’s not the carnage that we want to remember but those lost in the process.
The lives spent for the greater cause.
These men see the faces of their fallen comrades and they mourn as they remember.
So this is a painful day for those that we honor today.
How do we honor them in this pain?
Perhaps as we might if we were attending funeral.
We provide presence today.
For a few minutes together in our service we look to something far deeper than words and we stand by and we allow the protocols of remembrance to provide something for these soldiers.
They will never hold the significance for us that they hold for these today.
/What is the significance for us?
How can God work in our hearts today?
/
*/2.
/**/It is an exercise in character building when we honor others./*
I believe that whenever we choose to participate in something simply because we know that it is the right thing to do, that this is a part of the process of character building.
It is one of those times that we tap into the greater source of motivation.
There is something that we feed that becomes stronger and of more significance when our will drives us.
So much of our lives are emotionally fueled.
And yet this fuel is so insufficient if we are to learn to live life well.
I have to confess to you that I had a bad week at this level.
It started on Monday morning at 3:30.
I woke up and the hamster got on his wheel and he took off as hard as he could go.
I wanted to reach out and strangle him, but I couldn’t get hold of him.
I flopped around in the bed for an hour or so and then gave up.
Got in the car and drove downtown to Queens Square.
I thought I might perhaps run the little rodent to death.
So we took off – me, the rodent and God.
The wheel was whirring and I was whining.
I was thinking about an unresolved situation or two that was hanging over my head.
And the craziest thing of all, I was remembering last Sunday morning, looking out over more empty seats than I like seeing, at least it seemed that way to me.
The all too human part of me kicked in and I was feeling sorry for myself.
In the midst of my running I was graciously stopped up by a slap in the forehead.
I mean that when I describe it that way.
Suddenly you hear yourself and you hear what God is trying to tell you and there is this wash of shame that breaks over you followed by a true picture of your heart and then this amazing reassurance that regardless of how off track we become at times we are deeply loved.
I had a “God-answer” in my early morning run~/prayer time.
God asked me – forgive the mystical reference.
That is a problem for some people when you say that God spoke.
It’s not a problem for me however.
I didn’t hear the response with my ears – it was far deeper than that.
It was something that I felt in my inner self.
The response was, “How many times have you laid awake at night when I haven’t showed up on Sunday AM?”
You see I find comfort on Sunday am when the crowds are up.
Sorry to confess to this bit of superficiality – I see it in me and I wish I could tell you that it doesn’t matter but it does.
On Sundays when the numbers are good, I guess I have a better day.
But God was asking me about Him . . .
about how I felt on the Sundays when His Presence was not so obvious.
He wanted to know if the Sundays when He was not so obviously present, affected me as much as the up and down attendance stats did.
I got the message.
At least some times, people mattered to me more than God.
*/3.
/**/It is possible to be addicted to emotional highs.
We come to believe that this is what we should expect as a matter of normalcy./*
And at an emotional level, I was an addict.
I wanted to feel good.
And when I didn’t have the good feelings, I had the bad ones and they were disturbing me enough that my everyday perspective was governed by them.
You know, that is not the way that God would have us to live.
There are times when faith calls us to obey God when the emotional tank is empty or when it’s full of the wrong kinds of emotion.
The bottom line is that when we refuse to allow ourselves to be governed by the way that we are feeling, we are running on a higher grade of fuel.
It’s something that will keep us moving, something that gives us much better mileage over the long haul.
Ministry is giving when you feel like keeping, praying for others when you need to be prayed for, feeding others when your own soul is hungry, living truth before people even when you can't see results, hurting with other people even when your own hurt can't be spoken, keeping your word even when it is not convenient, it is being faithful when your flesh wants to run away.
-- John A. Holt, Leadership, Vol. 10, no.
1.
It is that fuel that we call on today as we enter into this service of Remembrance.
We are not suggesting that you try to find emotional fuel for this act today, we are asking that you participate fully with your mind leading the way.
*/4.
/**/There are times when other aspects of our “being” must become our primary guidance system./*
The scripture tells us that we should love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.
Sometimes our heart leads the way and other times our minds lead the way.
Sometimes our human strength goes first and other times when God touches our soul, we go forward with a strength of connectedness to God that we cannot fully understand or explain.
Paul writes to Timothy the following words:
"/Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus./"
(2 Timothy 2:3, NIV)[3]
To endure means to press on when you feel like quitting.
Hardship is the absence of things that make our way easier or our experience easier.
Or just plainly the presence of difficulties.
To push through the situations, the problems, the difficulties that would otherwise cause us to call it quits.
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