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
0.54LIKELY
Disgust
0.09UNLIKELY
Fear
0.05UNLIKELY
Joy
0.63LIKELY
Sadness
0.18UNLIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.51LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.1UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.65LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.93LIKELY
Extraversion
0.3UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.94LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.8LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
October 15 Mission Festival
/Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.
// //As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ.
// //Because of my chains, most of the brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly.
It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill.
The latter do so in love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel.
The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains.
But what does it matter?
The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached.
And because of this I rejoice.
//Philippians 1:12-18a/
/ /
*Keep the Number One Thing Number One*
Right after we came here, I made a mistake that I’m still hearing about.
I said in Bible class that pastors don’t like doing weddings.
The mistake was letting you know that, because I’m not sure that what I meant was well understood.
Pastors love seeing two people commit their lives together before God.
Pastors love sharing what God’s Word says about marriage with a couple to give them the blessings God wants them to have.
But we don’t like it when the wedding gets lost in the trappings.
I always tell couples that the most important thing that will happen on their wedding day is that they will get married.
If that happens, the day was a success, no matter what else went wrong.
If that doesn’t happen, no matter how nice the service was or how well the reception was planned, the day was a failure.
But so often the number one thing -- making a promise before God to unite to each other for as long as you both shall live -- gets lost in arguments about music and candles and soloists.
So often the joy is sucked out by overbearing relatives and stress over things that won’t change whether that bride and groom make that promise or not.
So my advice to couples for their wedding day is simple: keep the number one thing number one.
That advice is true for our entire lives.
Every day of your lives, you will be pulled in fifty different directions by fifty different needs in your family and your job and your church.
You can’t possibly satisfy all of them.
While all those things are important, only one thing can be the most important.
God says that one thing is the gospel.
*Keep the number one thing number one.*
*I.*
The apostle Paul gives us a good example of that from his own life.
He says, *Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.
* Maybe four years before he wrote these words, a mob in Jerusalem had tried to kill him.
The Roman garrison there had rescued him by arresting him.
He had spent more than two years in prison in Caesarea, having one hearing after another.
Finally, he had appealed to Caesar.
We he finally got to Rome, Paul spent at least two more years under house arrest, waiting for his case to come up.
That’s what had happened to him.
Who could have blamed him if he had felt sorry for himself?
If he had gotten angry with God?
But Paul didn’t do those things.
Instead, he saw the purpose in all of it.
The gospel was advanced.
He says that the whole palace guard knew he was in chains because of Christ.
That probably means that these soldiers’ first real acquaintance with Jesus came from taking turns guarding Paul.
Paul says that many other brothers were encouraged by his imprisonment to preach the gospel all the more courageously.
God gave them an example of a Christian standing up under persecution.
That moved them to preach even though the same thing could have happened to them at any time.
What had happened to Paul did advance the gospel.
But does that make it all worth it?
You only get so many years on this earth, and spending four or five of them in jail for nothing seems like a pretty high price to pay.
But Paul realized that the gospel was more important than he was.
If the best way to advance the gospel was for him to spend years in jail -- in fact, if it was for him to die -- then Paul was ready to suffer those things.
He knew that if he died, he would be with Christ, which is better by far.
So whatever he suffered here wouldn’t matter.
He knew that advancing the gospel is the only way to give other people that same gift of eternal life.
Getting others into heaven was worth every day and hour and minute that he was chained or imprisoned.
Do we share that attitude?
Everything in our lives also serves to advance the gospel.
Maybe not as dramatically as in Paul’s life, but God is still in charge.
Why do we live in this place, at this time and under these circumstances?
There are a thousand reasons we could give.
But the real reason is because being here and now is the best way to advance the gospel, for us personally in our own faith and for our families and for the community and the world around us.
What disappointments in your life have brought here?
What losses, what pain have kept you here?
God worked through those.
For today at least, this is the best place for you to hear the gospel and this congregation is the best place for you to share it.
When God balances his ledger and puts all the opportunity to grow in the gospel here and to bring others to heaven here on one side and all the pain and all the disappointments on the other, there’s no question.
You and the gospel come out way ahead.
Do we trust God enough to acknowledge that the gospel is more important than we are?
God never promises that we’ll be able to say, “I see that all this happened to advance the gospel in this way,” like Paul did.
We may just have to accept on faith that it did because God promises that all things work together for good for those who love him.
That isn’t easy for us to do.
If we can see the good, maybe we can accept the bad.
But when God works behind our suffering to advance the kingdom in ways that we never even see, our sinful human pride struggles.
It’s easy to feel sorry for ourselves.
It’s easy to get angry with God because he just isn’t taking care of us.
That attitude is a sin.
It’s a lack of trust.
We should go to hell because we don’t trust nearly enough that God is doing everything to advance the gospel for us and for all people.
But that very gospel says that God won’t send us to hell.
That’s why God has brought us to his house today.
There are a million other places you could be this morning, but you are here because God wants you to know that you are forgiven for all the failings in your trust.
God wants you to see Jesus today.
He wants you to see Jesus’ trust.
More than anyone else who ever lived, Jesus put God’s plan ahead of himself.
That’s why he came down from heaven.
That’s why he hid his glory and didn’t have angels running around, catering to his every whim.
Jesus trusted his Father enough to put the gospel ahead of himself.
To sacrifice his life, his comfort, his body for us.
Today, when God looks at us, he sees that perfect trust, that perfect sacrifice, that perfect love of Christ.
In God’s eyes, we have put the gospel ahead of ourselves every minute of every day of our lives, because Jesus did.
God wants us to see Jesus dying on the cross for all the pride that keeps us from really living the way that God sees us living.
All too often, we do moan and complain.
We do put what we want ahead of God wants.
But Jesus paid for all that sin on the cross.
He suffered our hell.
That takes it all away.
On Easter Sunday morning, we rose with Christ.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9