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
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Disgust
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Fear
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Joy
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Sadness
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Language Tone
Analytical
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Confident
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Tentative
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Social Tone
Openness
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Conscientiousness
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Extraversion
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Agreeableness
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Emotional Range
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Tone of specific sentences
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Anger
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Interview
What was your life like before Jesus?
What led you to Jesus?
What encounters have you had with Jesus?
What has He done in your life?
How is He transforming you today?
Have you ever noticed that when we tell our story… when we talk about our walk with God… we start out excited?
We feel Joy at our encounter with Him?
We focus on those “epic” moments… those powerful emotions… the bold commitments and declarations we made…
BUT… Then what happens?
It doesn’t take long for
— feelings to fade
— life overwhelms us
— struggles come
and we begin to ask “whats going on?”
We soon find that the excitement has diminished!
Throughout our journey — notice I said journey… this is not an instant perfection thing — the Journey of Grace is just that, A Journey!
And that’s the nature of a journey…
It’s going to have ups and downs...
It’s going to have excitement and disappointment, triumph and trial… That’s what makes it an adventure!
— Scripture does not promise us an “easy” path.
—
If you travel with Jesus long enough, you WILL find yourself in situations that you don’t have the will power and spiritual reserves to persevere.
(FACT!)
When it happens, we find ourselves lost — burned out, frustrated, stumbling in our attitudes, words, and deeds…
We find ourselves out of alignment with the Journey of Grace.
No matter how many miracles are happening around us, we throw up our hands, give up, and go back to what we knew before...
— We just kind of quit… and become numb and apathetic!
We’re not alone…
Peter is a great example of this.
— At Pentecost, we find him giving one of the most amazing, inspiring, convicting sermons in history, and the result was 3,000 people were saved as a result!
BUT… Just two months prior…
— Peter was lost… discouraged… frustrated… and had given up!
— Fishing was Peter’s default — His comfort zone — His reset button…
— He found himself standing flat dab in the middle of the gap, and he didn’t know what to do!
— So he threw up his hands and said: “I’ve had it!
I give up!
I don’t know what to do, so I’m going back tp what I know, and that’s fish.”
Have you ever been there?
“It’s ok!” (I want you to know that)
“It’s ok!”
The Gap is vital to our journey!
What happens in the gap makes all the difference in the world!
Let me tell you: “Jesus will not leave us in the Gap.”
— — We know the rest of the story, right?
The Gap matters!!!
— We cannot go from fishing to faithfulness in a couple of months without the gap!
So, What is the Gap?
The Gap is the space between those “epic” moments with God…
— The Gap is the Upper Room.
This is interesting…
Jesus rescued Peter from the boat (again!), declares that he and the others will be his witnesses…, then puts them in “time out!”
(look at that again)
Jesus says to them: “Before you go out on your own… Before you start thinking you’re all that, and you can do all those things you were just incapable of… go and wait!”
“Take a time out!”
It was during that “time out” that Peter and the others experienced the work of “sanctifying grace.”
— It was in the Gap that they chose Mathias to replace Judas.
— It was in the Gap that they learned to wait and pray…
— It was in the Gap that they received the Holy Spirit!
The Gap Matters!!!!
It was in the Gap that Peter came face to face with himself.
It was in the Gap that he faced the “magnitude of his purpose and the deficit of his capacity.”
(anonymous)
The Gap is where we come face to face with our past, present, and future.
I. Past.
Like it or not, we all have a past, and our past has left its marks.
We have baggage, residue, wounds, and default settings…
Any movement towards Grace requires that we deal with our past.
— We must recognize it and consecrate it…
To Recognize it and consecrate it means turning it over to God.
— We have to recognize where we’ve been and what got us to where we are…
— That means not blaming others for ur sin…
— It means drawing a circle around ourselves and taking responsibility for everything inside it!
And then giving it to God, realizing that He is the only One who can take care of it!
We cannot deal with our present without dealing with our past and realizing that sometimes they are interconnected.
II.
Present.
— Looking at our shame, guilt, ego, and arrogance…
— dealing with our preferences, demands, prejudices, and biases…
— owning our fears and self-deceit…
— identifying our reluctance to embrace the fullness of God’s work in our lives, and surrendering!
Why do we struggle with that?
Why do we seem to struggle so much with surrendering EVERYTHING to God?
When we try to do it, why do we lose excitement and try to take it back so quickly?
(Remodeling example)
We need to let go and let Grace do its work.
III.
Future
When we became Christians… When we confessed and received His forgiveness and salvation… when we were baptized…
We agreed to hand over our story to Christ!
But here’s the problem: We kept the pen!
The Gap is where we learn to hand over the pen… to allow God to write the rest of the story — Every Line!
The Gap is where Jesus becomes not only Redeemer of our story, but LORD of our story!
Surrender to Him means that:
— We take our direction from Him…
— He defines our work, our play, our use of money, our lifestyle, EVERYTHING!!!!
The Gap is a place of:
— Radical consecration
— self-denial and sacrifice
But it is also a place of Joy, Excitement, and Hope… because it sets the stage for the deepest work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
It is a place of transformation and rebirth… if we will let it be!
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