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The Always Damaging Reality of Divorce
Matthew 19:1-12; Matthew 5:31-32; Ephesians 5:22-33
 
/          I received a very disturbing phone call this past Tuesday night from a close friend and roommate in college.
This guy was a groomsmen in my wedding and someone I would count it to be one of my closest friends.
He was calling me on his way home from the Astros game in Houston and we begin to talk and catch up on how things are going and specifically how things were in his recent move back home to Houston after he was transferred there from Austin.
I knew he was living at home and last I had talked to him, he was telling me that he was excited about staying there so he could spend some quality time with his parents before he found a place of his own.
I asked him how all of that was going and he began to tell me about some intense frustrations and fights and problems at home and he kept referring to everything mentioning only one parent and not the other.
I asked him what was up, and he began to tell me how his parents are now separated and are in the process of getting a divorce.
25+ years of marriage and two twin boys, and now my close friend who is my age is having to deal and play the mediator between his 50+ year old parents because they no longer love each other.
What crushed me the most when hearing my good friend talk about this and trying to see how he was doing with everything, he said, “It is definitely a good thing and for the best.”
WHAT?? Divorce is a good thing.
It baffles me when I hear stories, even some from our own class of families who have been together for some over 30 years and then all of a sudden come and decide it isn't worth it.
/The sad truth is it doesn’t take long for me to realize that if everything goes according to plan for our lives like it has done for so many other classes and so many other marriages we will fall into the pattern of marriage, then the house, then the dog, then the children, then the divorce.
I was on the phone yesterday with a friend in Waco and I suddenly realized it is starting…two guys who were just one or two years older than me and have been married for only 3 years have now filed for divorce.
We may either know or will probably know very soon people who are like us and look like us and act like us and go to church like us and may even hang out with us yet they call it quits in their marriage because it doesn’t work and they tell themselves and tell everyone else, “It is a good thing and for the best.”
Some of you here this morning are living testimonies of how divorce is never a good thing.
Sure you can always make the best out of a bad situation, but the sting and the devastation and the pain that was caused when mommy tells daddy and daddy tells mommy that they no longer love each other is never good.
I want to talk about this issue of divorce this morning and here is how I want to go about it…we are going to look at how we think about marriage in the first place that should help us in regards to how to keep from divorce.
We are not going to talk about situations from your past or even situations in your families but rather deal with the fact that according to statistics…half of us will not be together in the future.
Turn in your bibles to Matthew 19:1-2:
*1 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. 2 Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.*
Jesus has just left his ministry in the town of Capernaum and is on his way in a round about way to the Jerusalem so that he might be handed over and fulfill what God the Father wanted him to accomplish.
On his way, he is once again gathering large crowds around him who are following him and listening to what he is saying and certainly since it was mentioned in the text, he was having a large influence healing people who were brought to him.
Right after this he has an encounter with the Pharisees in verse 3:
*3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him.
They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”*
Pharisees were the religious people of the day.
They were the ones who knew there stuff and they knew the Scriptures.
The main means of communication in that time was answering questions with other questions.
For example, someone would say, “How are you today?” and they would answer, “How are you today?”
They would answer questions with questions.
So Jesus, in response to these Pharisees who were there to test Jesus, he answers a question with a question.
Verse 4-6 says:
*4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?
6 So they are no longer two, but one.
Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”*
This must have enraged the Pharisees because they surely knew the Scripture.
This was a familiar scripture which Jesus essentially asks them, “don’t you understand what you have memorized?”
Think about what Jesus is saying which will be my first point about marriage:
*Realize marriage is not about you*
One of the most humbling realities happened to me during my first year of marriage when I came to the realization that my identity as I knew it before was no longer valid and I was now in the identity of us.
/I had a few close friends who came up last year and after watching a high school football game came by our house on the way home and wanted to hang out.
They came by our apartment which they were shocked to see.
These guys were used to coming over and spending time at my apartment in college which at the time, I thought was actually pretty awesome.
After being married for just a short while, I quickly realized how disgusting my standard of living had been in comparison to the house which Hillary was allowing me to live in.
My old apartment had so much furniture that it was so packed in to the living room that you had unlimited number of places to sit.
We also had many different posters and pictures on the walls of various things, all of which we were very proud of and displayed to everyone.
One of the key issues we were not concerned about was how all of the different arrangements of furniture and pictures looked in proportion to each other.
So you can imagine what those guys thought when they, still living in an apartment like that, came over and was amazed at what they described as “girly” my apartment was.
I had to admit, it was extremely girly because I had no say whatsoever as to what things would go where.
We all talked and hung out for awhile and Hillary went to bed.
After she left the room those guys began to tell me, “You are so old.
Your apartment smells nice, it is clean, you don’t have a playstation anymore, you don’t have any sports pictures on the wall, and you are proud when you show us your grill.”
Now, that comment hurt.
I being the prideful person I am fought back and tried as hard as I possibly could to defend not only my manhood but also trying to tell them, “hey, I am still one of the guys.”
But I realized I am not.
One ring on the finger and an “I Do” and suddenly the two become one and now it is no longer me but it is us.
I am no longer one of the boys but I am now a husband to a woman who I am called to love and cherish and provide for.
And my identity is no longer defined by me and what I want and what pleases me but it is now defined by us./
All of my decisions must be made in light of Hillary.
All of my actions must be made in light of my marriage with Hillary.
All of my thoughts must be made in light of my marriage with Hillary.
All of my life is defined by my relationship with Hillary.
All of this is because I am no longer shaped by my identity as a selfish self seeking and self pleasing person but I am shaped by my identity as “us.”  /Have you ever wondered why single people can’t get the whole marriage thing?
It is because we are supernaturally joined together to think completely different than the self-identity we have on our own.
/Jesus says in response to the Pharisees, “What God has joined together, let man not separate.”
It is supernatural and it is spiritual and it is not selfish.
What are some of the ways in which we try to make marriage all about us?
 
(Take responses)
 
/I have learned many things over the past two years  of being married, and one of the main things I have learned is that I don’t know anything.
Marriage isn't about plugging in formulas and coming out with the right result.
Most guys, if you give them a list to follow and a logically flow of how things are supposed to work, they can do it.
Women on the other hand are much more involved than a formula.
Let me give you an example.
For some reason, God made my wife to have the love language of physical touch.
She loves to be held and cuddle and to hug each other.
If we are anywhere together, she wants contact whether that be through holding hands or having her arm resting on mine.
God made me different.
My love language is not physical touch at all.
It isn't that I don’t love my wife, but that is not something that comes easy or enjoyable to me.
So I have learned that despite what works for me, if it works for her, then I better learn to make it work for me.
One of the times Hillary really enjoys hugging or being close is right before we go to sleep.
Her idea of a good nights rest would be cuddling up next to me and laying on me to fall asleep.
When I go to bed, I have other plans.
I want to go to sleep.
I get everything done for the day, and I get ready for bed, and then I am ready to sleep.
I don’t want to talk or hug or anything, I want to sleep.
So there have been times when I try to go out of my way and give her physical touch.
I will get in bed and I will put my arm around her and hold her and hug her, and then after a few minutes, I would ask her, “So Hillary, does this count?”
“Does this what?”
I said, “You know, does this count?
Do I get credit for hugging you?  Aren’t you noticing that I am going out of my way to hug you?”
She then proceeded to push me off of her and rolled over to the other side of the bed.
Of course, I was confused so I asked her what was wrong.
She then told me how if I only hug her so that I can get credit for doing so, then I wasn’t to hug her.
I should hug her out of the love in my heart and not make it such a chore.
/I have to believe there are many marriages that are suffering and struggling because of the way in which we are doing good things while completely driven by selfish motives and selfish plans.
And even in the midst of a relationship that is existing under the same roof and even in the same bed, the mentality is all about me and my needs and my wants rather than us.
There seems to be people who get to the point where the things they are doing are no longer good enough and no longer count and so therefore you have people who have been married for 30 years who no longer love each other.
Engrain it into your mind now and implant it on your heart…marriage is not about you, but it is about two people coming together to become one and this is something which God has joined together and it is supernatural and it is holy.
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