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
0.12UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.1UNLIKELY
Fear
0.1UNLIKELY
Joy
0.57LIKELY
Sadness
0.58LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.66LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.74LIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.84LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.45UNLIKELY
Extraversion
0.1UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.63LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.64LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
In the previous chapters of 1 Samuel, we’ve read about the downfall of King Saul.
Saul has been told his dynasty would be non-existent; the kingship would be ripped from him.
He has disobeyed the Lord’s commands and has not followed the Lord.
The Lord will choose a new king.
His choice no doubt seemed to many to be strange, unexpected.
But the Lord’s choice is far more than meets the eye:
There’s Hope found in the Lord’s Choice
Samuel has been mourning for Saul, for Israel, for the whole situation, I’m sure.
He’s been mourning for a time.
The Lord even asks him, “How long?”
The grammar here indicates that Saul’s mourning was on-going.
Everything had collapsed.
The king has been rejected.
Now possibly the kingdom itself was in jeopardy.
The Lord, faithful and good, is going to give Samuel something to take his mind off Saul.
The Lord sent Samuel on his way to anoint a new king.
“I have chosen one of [Jesse’s] sons to be king.”
The Lord is able to provide a new beginning: a new beginning here for Samuel and for Israel; new beginnings for His people whenever He sees fit.
There is no situation we need to mourn indefinitely.
Some mourning is proper.
it’s good to mourn loss.
We need to mourn our sin.
We need to mourn our participation in the gossip about others’ sins.
We need to mourn our idolatry, our worship of people and places and things.
We need to mourn.
But we don’t mourn like those without hope.
What Samuel was mourning was heavy.
Very real, very serious.
But Samuel should have known the Lord well enough to know that in Him there is hope—hope for any and every situation.
The Lord is able to provide a new beginning here for Samuel and His people.
“The Lord will provide for His people when all is coming undone.
The true King never loses control of His kingdom; He is never unsure how to handle the latest emergency in His realm.
The Lord’s choice spells hope.”
-DRD
It’s Jesse of Bethlehem and one of his sons who will bring some hope to a bleak situation.
In the history of Israel, we’ve seen Jesse’s name before.
At the end of the book of Ruth, we read:
That’s how the book of Ruth ends.
So, as we turn the page in the Bible and in history to the time of Samuel, we have to believe that Jesse—the grandson of Boaz and Ruth, the great-grandson of Rahab—is going to feature again in the story of God’s people.
And here he is.
Out of all the families in Israel, the Lord has chosen one of Jesse’s sons to be king.
This word chosen or provided is the verb ra-ah.
This word shows up 9 times in this chapter as “chosen, provide, see, look at, appearance.”
It’s the main concept here.
Samuel isn’t told which of Jesse’s sons (that’s part of the unfolding drama of this chapter), but Samuel is told by the Lord to head on over to Bethlehem, find Jesse, and his son whom the Lord has chosen.
For us on this side of the story, we read “Bethlehem” and our hearts are quickened.
We know “Bethlehem” means something.
Someone significant was born in Bethlehem, someone more important than Jesse or David or any of David’s brothers.
It was prophesied by the prophet Micah that One would come from Bethlehem to be the ruler over Israel.
When the Magi came to Herod and asked about the One born king of the Jews, he called everyone together to figure out where the Messiah was to be born:
On that first Christmas morning, we read where Joseph and Mary traveled for the census:
The great announcement from the angel to the shepherds:
Later in Jesus’ ministry, there were questions about Jesus:
Bethlehem—any mention of Bethlehem—for us with eyes to see and ears to hear should make us think of Jesus.
So there is hope in the immediate—a new king for Israel from Jesse’s sons.
And there’s the hope, for us and for all people, of a faithful and forever king, born in the city of David, Christ the Lord.
The hope of a new king outweighs the fear Samuel has of Saul and the fear that the people have upon Samuel’s arrival.
Who know what they were afraid of: Saul?
Samuel himself?
After all, Samuel just put Agag to death, hacking him to pieces (yikes).
Samuel, as a prophet of God, was expected to bring message of God’s judgment.
But Samuel makes clear to the elders and the people that he wasn’t there to cause them harm.
He came to sacrifice to the Lord and invited the people to join him.
What they are about to witness is the wisdom of God, albeit rather confusing:
The Lord’s Choice is Confusing, yet Wise
Samuel saw the eldest son of Jesse, Eliab and was just sure that this was the one the Lord had in mind to be king.
It makes sense.
He’s the oldest, the first to line up as Jesse brings them in starting with the oldest like Captain Von Trapp.
But it wasn’t Eliab.
Neither was it Abinadab nor Shammah nor any of the 7 sons Jesse brought forth.
The Lord’s choice doesn’t make any sense outwardly.
THE KEY TO UNDERSTANDING THE LORD IS TO UNDERSTAND HE IS UNLIKE ANY OTHER AND HE DOES UNLIKELY THINGS.
Verse 7 expresses one the great and confounding truths about our God: 1 Samuel 16:7 “The Lord does not look at the things people look at.
People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
This is one of the defining characteristics of our God.
He doesn’t evaluate people the way we do.
My childhood pastor, Carl Helm, was preaching on this passage and came to church wearing a tie-dye t-shirt tucked into purple cut-off overalls, red cowboy boots, and a lip full of chewing tobacco.
Now he always had a lip full of chew, but his ensemble that day was about the strangest outfit I’d seen in my 7-year-old life.
The reactions he generated from the congregation were the perfect illustration for his sermon.
It was important for the angry, hyper-traditional saints at Greensburg Christian Church to remember: The Lord does not look at the things people look at...
My best friend, Derek Slack, was a youth minister in Washington, Kansas 20 years ago.
For some reason, after some significant moment in his life, he decided to get his eyebrow pierced (we still make fun of him a little for that…why the eyebrow I’ll never know).
But the hatred and the anger and the judgment from his church family really hurt him.
I was living in a spare room of their house that summer and I had a front-row seat to all that drama, caused by something so small and insignificant.
Derek brought this verse up to the elders and the church board, but it didn’t matter to them.
They couldn’t excuse his outward appearance.
That eyebrow piercing was the least striking thing about Derek who was 6’3”, 450 lbs.
But, you see, people look at the outward appearance.
The Lord doesn’t look at the things people look at.
The Lord’s choice won’t meet human standards.
Remember, though: THE KEY TO UNDERSTANDING THE LORD IS TO UNDERSTAND HE IS UNLIKE ANY OTHER AND HE DOES UNLIKELY THINGS.
The Lord’s choice for king isn’t any of the sons Jesse brings before Samuel.
Did you happen to notice Jesse doesn’t even bring his youngest son in from the field to be part of this?
The youngest son is so obscure, so insignificant that his own father doesn’t even think it worthwhile to call him in from tending the sheep.
The youngest of Jesse’s sons isn’t even named for a few verses.
And this is the son of Jesse the Lord has chosen to be king.
The Lord’s choice doesn’t make any sense, outwardly speaking.
It’s confusing; but God’s wisdom and way of doing things usually is to us.
All of this—picking the unlikely, being unconcerned with outward appearance—is a foreshadowing of Jesus, of who the prophet Isaiah foretold:
There was nothing about Jesus that was attractive.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9