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
0.15UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.08UNLIKELY
Fear
0.1UNLIKELY
Joy
0.57LIKELY
Sadness
0.51LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.15UNLIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.33UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.79LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.46UNLIKELY
Extraversion
0.26UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.78LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.58LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Acts 10:1-48
Introduction
Darren Carlson tells the following story:
A friend of mine tells of a Persian migrant who arrived at a refugee center at 6 a.m., visibly upset.
He told his story to a Persian pastor: During the night he saw someone dressed in white raise his hand and say, “Stand up and follow me.”
The Persian man said, “Who are you?”
The man in white replied, “I am the Alpha and the Omega.
I’m the way to heaven.
No one can go to the Father, except through me.”
He began to ask the Persian pastor: “Who is he?
What am I going to do?
Why did he ask me to follow him?
How shall I go?
Tell me.”
In response, the pastor held out his Bible and asked, “Have you seen this before?”
“No,” he replied.
“Do you know what it is?”
“No.”
The pastor then opened to the Book of Revelation: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.”
The man started crying and said, “How can I accept him?
How can I follow him?”
So the pastor led him in prayer and peace came over him.
The pastor then gave the man a Bible and told him to hide it, since the Muslims in the camps could cause him trouble.
But the man replied, “The Jesus that I met today, he’s more powerful than the Muslims in the camp.”
He left and an hour later returned with 10 more Persians and told the pastor, “These people want a Bible.”
No one had to teach him an evangelistic strategy.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/muslims-dream-jesus/
We take for granted that everybody knows about Jesus.
If we can only imagine that there are countless numbers just waiting to hear the Gospel
Sometimes we get caught up in our own little part of the world and forget that there are others who have never heard the name of Jesus.
Back in Acts 1:8, Jesus said, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.””
So far in the book of Acts we have seen the gospel spreading from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria.
Now we will see how the gospel is shared with the Gentiles, in this story of Cornelius.
In Acts 10, God is going to send Peter to the home of a Gentile soldier with the Good News of Jesus Christ.
But before God sends Peter to Cornelius’s house, He has to get Peter spiritually ready.
Peter needed a vision for the world.
And so do we.
Vision – is a clear mental picture of a preferable future imparted by God to His chosen servants.
Quote
John Stott - “The principle subject of this chapter is not so much the conversion of Cornelius as the conversion of Peter.”
Peter needed a change of attitude about the lost Gentile world – Gentiles needed Jesus too.
God was confronting Peter’s cold attitude against the Gentiles
This attitude left unchecked would have hindered the spread of the Gospel
Large areas of the world including people like you and me would have been written off as beyond God’s grace
*Peter’s story takes seventy- seven verses and tells his vision twice- God wanted to make sure we didn’t miss the point!
(Hughes, 153)
We too may need a change of heart about some of the lost in our world as well.
We may have written some off as beyond God’s grace.
What steps did God use to create a world vision in Simon Peter…and you and me?
I.
A Lost Man (vs.1-2)
Cornelius-Caesarea – important city located some 30 miles north of Joppa (MacArthur, 293)
Centurion-a military leader
A Roman Legion at full strength was 6000 men.
A centurion commanded 100 of these men, and of course each legion had 60 of these men who were the backbone of the Roman army.
(MacArthur, 293)
Cornelius had reached his rank by proving to be a strong, reasonable, reliable man (MacArthur, 293)
Devout man- his was a seeking heart.
He had lived up to the light that he had, and God was about to give him more.
(MacArthur, 293)
Feared God- He was a God-fearer.
God had moved on his heart and he had abandoned his pagan religion to worship the true God (MacArthur, 293)
Gave alms generously…prayed always
So, here is a man who is very generous in giving to others, and a man who prays regularly, but he is still lost in his sins.
Cornelius, is like many people in our world today, he was religious, but lost
There are many today that hold to a form of religion, but are lost without a relationship with Christ, and some of them are in the church!
*Even though Cornelius worshiped God to the best of his knowledge, and even though he was sincere and generous, he could not be saved apart from a correct understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
(MacArthur, 294)
**If Cornelius was okay the way he was, God would not have revealed Himself to him any further- but Cornelius needed the Gospel.
This is the reason we must go to the world with the gospel.
Acts 4:12-Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
John 14:6- Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through Me.
God was arranging to provide Cornelius with that knowledge (MacArthur, 294)
People without a relationship with Jesus Christ are lost.
In our world today, there are many people groups who have little or no access to the gospel.
Stat
A people group - An ethno-linguistic group with a common self-identity that is shared by the various members.
11,995 people groups in the world – 7.9 billion people
UPG – 7,364 people groups – 4.7 billion – less than 2% evangelical Christian
UUPG – 3,215 people groups – 272 million – no Christian witness, no Bible, no church strategy
https://peoplegroups.org/ Accessed - 6/2/22
“To the best of our knowledge … nobody has [these unengaged people groups] on the radar screen.
It’s like having people standing out in the cold around your house, while you’re enjoying a wonderful, warm meal.
You know they’re out there, but you have no plan to go out there and offer them anything.”
— Tom Elliff, President of IMB
“When we say ‘unreached,’ we’re not just talking about lostness.
We're talking about access.
Unreached means that you don’t even have access to hear the Gospel.
There’s no church, no Christian, no Bible available around you.” — David Platt, pastor of The Church at Brook Hills, Birmingham, Ala.
“What drives passion for unreached peoples is not guilt.
It’s glory.
Glory for a King, for a King who deserves the praise of every people group on the planet.”
— David Platt
If lostness impacts everything we do, then everything we do should impact lostness.
Illustration
John Decenzo calling about an emergency and wanting Eddie or Randy to go.
I immediately thought of a medical emergency, but he was talking about a spiritual emergency.
A friend of his was lost and he needed someone to go share the gospel before he left town to go home to Baltimore.
Why don’t we think of lostness as an emergency?
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9