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
0.1UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.06UNLIKELY
Fear
0.1UNLIKELY
Joy
0.64LIKELY
Sadness
0.63LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.53LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.28UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.74LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.84LIKELY
Extraversion
0.09UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.93LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.58LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
[Jeremiah 31:7-26]
Sometimes it’s hard to find something to be thankful for.
If you’re sick or someone you love is sick or maybe you’ve just experienced the death of a loved one, thanksgiving becomes difficult, if not impossible.
But God’s promise to his people is that their sorrow will be turned to comfort and joy.
God’s promise isn’t to take the tragedy and turn it into something we’re happy about but to lead us from a place of sorrow to a place of comfort and joy.
Christmas, for example, is a holiday that is all about comfort and joy, yet it has a gruesome dark side that is rarely told.
After the wise men visited Jesus in Bethlehem they were warned in a dream not to return to Herod.
In Matthew 2:16 it says, “Then Herod, when he realized that he had been outwitted by the wise men, flew into a rage.
He gave orders to massacre all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, in keeping with the time he had learned from the wise men.”
So the Christmas story as wonderful as it is starts out with grief and sorrow.
And as Matthew recalls the events he thinks of the words of Jeremiah...
While Mary and Joseph and the wise men were celebrating birth of Jesus the town of Bethlehem was weeping.
And they can’t be comforted because their suffering is so intense.
To fully understand the connection Matthew is making, we need a little background information about Rachel.
Rachel was the wife of Jacob and she became pregnant with Benjamin.
The pregnancy was a difficult one and she died while giving birth just outside of Bethlehem in a little-known town called Ramah.
When Rachel died we can say in a sense she lost her children.
She was separated from them and so Matthew says she “wept” over her loss.
So Rachel is a symbol of any person who has ever experienced loss of a loved one— the loss of a child, the loss of a friend, the loss of a parent or a spouse.
Now, the point of this sermon isn’t to get all theological and try to show us how death and suffering can actually be good things.
The truth is the answers to why God allows bad things to happen are complicated and difficult.
Not even Jeremiah had all the answers, but he knew where to turn for comfort.
So the message for today is that by God’s grace you too can be comforted.
Your tears of sorrow can turn to tears of joy.
Not because you all of a sudden see the tragedy of what you’ve gone through as good but because the God of all comfort will give you new experiences to laugh and rejoice about.
During the days of Jeremiah Ramah was a refugee camp.
It’s where the Babylonians took their prisoners before the long forced march to Babylon.
Mothers were separated from children.
Starvation and disease were rampant.
Families were in despair.
So Rachel wept.
Their misery was real and needs to be acknowledged but there is still hope for a bright future.
Lasting comfort was promised to them if not in this life, in the next.
Sometimes our grief is so severe we will carry it with us to the grave, but eventually our sorrow will turn to joy.
So God’s promise to his people is that while you may weep now your tears will not last forever.
There is hope for a better tomorrow as God gives his people comfort.
There are 9 ways that God promises to comfort his people.
1 Comfort of Worship
Jeremiah 31:7 (CSB)
For this is what the Lord says: Sing with joy for Jacob; shout for the foremost of the nations!
The term “foremost of the nations” is a word that can also mean the “remnant of Israel” but it’s meaning here is not just of those who have survived but of those who have remained faithful.
The faithful sing for joy and receive comfort as they worship.
Jeremiah 31:12–13 (CSB)
They will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion...the young women will rejoice with dancing, while young and old men rejoice together.
These public displays of worship aren’t just for show.
They shout and sing and dance praises out of genuine joy to their God.
In verse 23 God says they worship him with specific words...
Jeremiah 31:23 (CSB)
“When I restore their fortunes, they will once again speak this word in the land of Judah and in its cities: ‘May the Lord bless you, righteous settlement, holy mountain.’
“May the Lord bless you, righteous settlement, holy mountain” is a quote from Psalm 48.
So the people are worshiping God corporately out of their version of a hymnal!
Every Sunday as we gather together we receive comfort from worship.
For the Christian there is no substitute for singing praises to God and being reminded of his grace.
We may feel like we need to be alone after a particularly hard week or an upsetting event but the quickest path to recovery is through through worshiping with God’s people.
How many times have forced I forced myself (before becoming a pastor) to go to a church event that I didn’t feel like going to?
And then after I went I was sure glad we did.
God gives us comfort through our worship together.
2 Comfort of answered prayer
In the second half of verse 7 Jeremiah says...
Jeremiah 31:7 (CSB)
Proclaim, praise, and say, “Lord, save your people, the remnant of Israel!”
In other words, God’s people are specifically told to pray for salvation and it they do God promises to answer.
Jeremiah 31:8 (CSB)
Watch!
I am going to bring them from the northern land.
I will gather them from remote regions of the earth...
When God’s people pray for salvation they are comforted by the assurance that he will answer.
Perhaps when you became a Christian you prayed a prayer like this…
“Lord, I admit I am a sinner.
I need and want Your forgiveness.
I accept Your death as the penalty for my sin, and recognize that Your mercy and grace is a gift You offer to me because of Your great love, not based on anything I have done.
Cleanse me and make me Your child.
By faith I receive You into my heart as the Son of God and as Savior and Lord of my life.
From now on, help me live for You, with You in control.
In Your precious name, Amen.”
J.D. Greear says, “It’s not the prayer that saves; it’s the repentance and faith behind the prayer that lays hold of salvation.”
But when a person prays in faith for salvation, God will save them.
That’s a comforting truth.
3 Comfort of promised preservation
In the second half of verse 8 it says...
Jeremiah 31:8 (CSB)
... the blind and the lame will be with them, along with those who are pregnant and those about to give birth.
They will return here as a great assembly!
God’s promise of preservation means he’s going to keep you alive until your tasks in this life are complete.
We don’t have to worry about dying before “our time.”
For the Israelites it meant that even the weakest among them would make it back home safely.
God wasn’t finished with them yet.
The blind, the lame, and those that are pregnant are the last people you would expect to survive and yet they do because of God’s preservation.
In fact God has a special care for those who are weak.
So there is great comfort in knowing that God cares for the weak and will be faithful to accomplish all that he sets out to accomplish in our lives.
4 Comfort of promised return and repentance
Return and repentance go together.
In fact, to repent means to turn and go in the opposite direction.
When the Israelites were brought home they returned with repentant hearts...
Jeremiah 31:9a (CSB)
They will come weeping, but I will bring them back with consolation.
Consolation is a word that means “supplication” or a humble request for mercy.
In other words God comforts or consoles us through the process of repentance.
These are the words of repentant people.
Ephraim represents the people of Israel, especially those from the north who are on their way home.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9