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
0.08UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.07UNLIKELY
Fear
0.13UNLIKELY
Joy
0.63LIKELY
Sadness
0.18UNLIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.4UNLIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.39UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.89LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.86LIKELY
Extraversion
0.08UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.57LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.6LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
What does it mean to be Saturated?
Have your kids ever brought home those little pills with animals inside that, when you put them in water, they grow to be like 5x larger than they started.
The are made of a super absorbent polymer that was originally used in agriculture to help increase the amount of water the soil can absorb.
They can absorb up to 400x there mass in weight.
The more saturated they become, the more they grow.
Those cheap little toys are a good analogy for the life of a Christian.
Our growth in the faith really is about saturation.
This process of saturation is what we call discipleship.
To define discipleship we first have to define what a disciple is.
A disciple is a follower, a learner, someone who takes up the ways of someone else.
We could call a disciple an apprentice or a person in training.
So discipleship is the process of following, learning, and becoming like the one you are following.
Christian discipleship then is more than education.
It is a followship, a process of learning about Jesus, following His words and His ways.
Embracing the things that Jesus showed us were the most important things in life.
Being shaped by His life, His values, and His mission.
And the way of discipleship is saturation.
Saturation in His Word
Saturation in His Family
Saturation in His Mission
We are going to spend the next 3 weeks talking about how to be saturated.
Today we are going to look at one of Jesus’s closest disciples, Peter, and look at how and why we must be Saturated in His Word.
Peter Always Reminding
Peter is likely writing this letter from a prison cell in Rome somewhere between 64-68 AD, not long before he would be executed for his faith in Jesus.
Peter likely knows this is one of the last letters he will write and these are some of the last days he has to live.
Do you ever think about how you would spend your last days?
If you were to write a letter, what would you write about?
Peter has opened his letter speaking of the promises of God to His people, as well as calling them to a seriousness and faithfulness in their pursuit of Christ.
And then, in what seems like a response to what he assumes those reading might be thinking, Peter states his purpose for writing what he does.
His audience is likely much like us.
There are some here that are new to the faith, still figuring things out.
Then there are those of us whom Peter says “are established in the truth”, those that know of the things he is speaking.
Peter’s opening monologue is something they would say “Yes Peter we know those truths.
We have heard them, we have even taught them ourselves.
There really is no need to repeat these basic things.”
To that Peter “But I must remind you, in case you have fallen asleep; in case these truths have become so common that they don’t move your heart anymore.”
“I must keep reminding you, brother and sisters, because my days are numbered, and so are yours.
You must not forget these truths, in the storms and trials of life, you will need to remember.
In the temptations to stray, these are truths you must remember.”
Even you who know the truth and are established in it need repeated reminders of its greatness, lest we all fall asleep or forget.
The most dangerous attitudes we as followers of Christ can have are apathy and indifference.
The way to battle apathy and indifference is to remember.
That is why we gather every week here to sing songs of worship and to hear the bible preached, less we may forget or fall asleep.
It is the reason we encourage one another to read the Word daily, and to get plugged into a group so we together can read and figure out how to live out these vital truths.
There is an URGENT NEED for us to REMEMBER.
Peter continues in the next section telling us what it is that we need to remember:
1) Remember that the Bible is REALLY REAL.
We must remember that the words we read in this book, the accounts and teachings are not made up stories, myths, or baseless instruction.
The words and accounts in this book are real events, from real people, that happened in real places, with real life happening in and around all that was being written.
One pitfall of studying bible that is so easy to fall into is failing to understand the realness of what we are reading.
Those he is writing to had heard of (maybe from Peter himself) of the Transfiguration, when Jesus took Peter, James, and John up a mountain and revealed His divine nature to them.
(Matt 17)
Peter says “I heard the voice from heaven.
I saw the majesty of Jesus with my own eyes.
This isn’t a tall tale brothers and sister.”
It is important to understand why Peter points to this experience and not the plethora of others he could have pointed to.
He has spoken of the second coming of Jesus in the first part of the chapter, reminding these believers that Jesus is coming back and that we must keep our eyes fixed on the hope of that day.
But the confidence Peter has in the second coming is built and bolstered on the reality of His first coming and the wonder of what he had experience when Jesus had revealed His glory on that mountain top.
The realness of the Word disarms the apathy and indifference that so easily grows in our hearts.
2) Remember that the Bible is GOD’S OWN WORDS.
I want to skip down to verses 20-21 quick.
The second reason to remember is that these words we read in this book are not the words of mere men, they are the very words of God.
There is a uniqueness to this book that separates it from any other book ever penned.
It holds power in its pages that can soften the hearts of the most cold and callous there is.
It can encourage those who are deep in despair and discouragement.
In can heal, restore, reproof, and redeem the most broken or bewildered.
It has the power to save, to set free, and to send.
The power is not in the paper, leather, or ink.
Nor is it necessarily in the particular words used or the structure of the words
The power is solely in the one who breathed them out through the mind and hands of those whom he chose to write them.
This book is God’s answer to our prayers.
It hold the truths our minds search for and the peace our hearts long for, because it was written by the one who created our minds and knows the inclinations of our hearts.
We must remember these words, because they are God’s words to us.
I heard it said, though I do not know who said it:
“Don’t say God is silent when your Bible is closed.”
These ten words rebuke our fear that God might be inactive or uncaring in the brokenness and messiness of our lives, and reminds us that he cares, he sees, and he speaks.
But too often, we’re just not listening.
God is always ready to speak into our lives.
We simply need to listen, tuning our ears and hearts to what he is saying in the book he inspired.
When we open the Bible, we find more than 750,000 words breathed out by God himself for us.
3) Remember that the Bible is our GUIDEBOOK for LIFE.
Now back to 19:
Peter organized his words how he felt were best and he did well, but I felt we needed to establish that this is God’s book before we speak about it being the guidebook for life.
It is the guidebook for life BECAUSE it is God’s Book.
But we so often treat the bible like a manual for an appliance.
You might look at if you get confused or need to know how to change the filter, but it mostly just sits on the shelf.
Or we treat it like google.
When we are anxious or sad we flip to the back and find verses on anxiety and sadness.
Don’t get me wrong, there is a place for this, but we too often approach the bible looking for specific words, rather than trusting that is it “living and active” and will speak to our needs when we give it a chance.
But this Book is a lamp guiding us through the darkness of this world.
Our only hope to survive the night is to have a lamp going before us.
And Peter says the prophetic word, the promise of Christ's coming, is that lamp.
And he pleads with us: keep your eyes on it; don't fall asleep; don't turn away after some bewitching song in the night
put in front of you the carrot or the hot fudge sundae of God's promises, and let it lure you on in paths of righteousness into eternal life.
“There is a spiritual diet without which no Christian can be strong and healthy and fruitful.
And that is a diet of the word of God.” — John Piper
Hold fast to it for the sake of faith.
“Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).
Hold fast to it for the sake of your joy.
“These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11).
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9