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
0.08UNLIKELY
Fear
0.12UNLIKELY
Joy
0.68LIKELY
Sadness
0.56LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.58LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.15UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.82LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.82LIKELY
Extraversion
0.11UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.89LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.65LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Introduction
When you want to be happy, you don’t pursue happiness.
Happiness is a by-product of other pursuits.
You can’t isolate happiness from the circumstances that create it.
It’s not an end in itself.
So if you want happiness, you need to find what creates true and lasting happiness.
Am I right in assuming you want to be happy?
Do you want great joy?
Do you want good life?
Where will you find it?
Our future is shaped by our pursuits.
You Pursue the right thing and you will have joy, pleasure and life.
But when you purse these things for their own sake - you end up empty.
The reward is found by looking in the right place.
Do you think you will find lasting happiness in anything you can do for yourself?
Do you think that you will find lasting joy in the next thing you consume?
Do you think you will find life in this world of decay?
This song teaches us where true life and joy are found.
They are the result of belonging to the LORD.
He is the true source of goodness.
He is where happiness resides.
He has joy to give, abundant joy.
Overflowing life he pours the out blessing so that your cup may overflow!
But if you seek the good life, where do you start?
Start with King David in v1, and we will see unfold in 4 parts where the good life is to be found.
The LORD my Refuge (v1)
This song starts with a plea, a request.
The person who sings this song looks not to themself for their own security of provision, they look to God.
He is the place of refuge.
Where do you turn for refuge when the going gets tough?
Where do escape to?
Is it to the bottom of a bottle?
Is it to the mindless binge of episode after episode?
Is it to retreat behind a wall of anger and hostility?
Is it to the mounds of work that will bury your fears?
Why do you turn to these worthless saviors?
They will not save you from anything!
Turn to God!
He is a refuge.
He will preserve His people!
He is a safe harbor on sea of trouble.
Pursue God.
Ask him to rescue you!
He is a faithful Savior!
David prays for refuge.
And he is confident he will have what he has asked for based on everything else that follows.
Lets look at it together.
The LORD my Good (v2-4)
In these verses David sings of the Lord as his source of Good, and in fact there is nowhere else he can turn to find good.
He will even give an example of looking elsewhere to no avail.
Look from v2:
So, David’s confidence in God keeping him safe is first because he says “YHWH is my Lord”.
For the person who sings this song their assurance comes from belonging to the LORD.
That means rejecting all other gods, religions and loyalties and having first loyalty to God.
This is covenant language - because The LORD is our God, we belong to Him and He to us and so we expect to receive the covenant blessings of that relationship.
Such are the blessings of God for His people, that David can say “I have no Good apart from you” - God is the source of all Good things!
David sees this for the truth that it is.
This is also true for people who don’t acknowledge or serve God, but they just don’t see it yet.
Outside God there is nothing good.
But God’s people, the saints, the Holy Ones, we can delight in them because they are in the LORD - they too are made good by belonging to God.
They are the Bride who are being purified by God, they are the Body of Jesus Christ being made holy.
They are the set-apart people who God lovingly chooses to save.
How do you thing of the Church?
Do you delight in Christ’s bride?
As opposed to the Saints, there are those who try to find good outside God, in other gods: Run after another god - swift pursuit, interestingly same word for finding a wife, they quickly court other gods.
But they only suffer, because there is no good outside the LORD
The faithful on who belongs to the LORD will not partake in any worship to other gods with drink offerings, or even speak reverently about them.
David has confidence in God’s hands because he does not have divided loyalties.
He’s not hedging his bets in worship.
Can you say the same?
Are you 100% on the LORD’s side?
Or do you live as though you would be fine without God?
The LORD my Inheritance (v5-8)
David knows that there is no other way.
He is 100% for the LORD the only source of good, and from the LORD he receives His inheritance and security.
God provides and teaches him:
David here uses metaphors of the Good life under God
God is His good food and drink
God has given him the best plot of land.
God has given him a great inheritance.
Three images that I’m sure we can identify with! <explore>
He naturally flows into praise, but he is then reminded of yet another blessing from God - that the Lord even teaches him, even through his midnight meditations.
This isn’t some mystical thing, because we already know from Psalm 1 that the righteous man dwells on God's covenant word day and night.
It is in his brain and he keeps thinking of it.
It get’s bedded down.
This means David can always keep his eyes on the Lord.
The Lord is like His right-hand-man who supports him.
Because of this he will not be moved.
Imagine if we could say these kind of things about our own perspective on the LORD!
<explore>
The LORD my Eternal Joy (v9-11)
Therefore - results of Refuge, finding Good in the LORD and looking to Him means that David can rejoice and rest secure!
He has a hope beyond the grave.
He does not fear death, abandonment to Sheol.
Instead he knows threefold blessing in this last verse:
Making known The path of Life
The fullness of Joy in God’s presence
Pleasures forevermore at God’s right hand!
This is the results of pursuing God!
You look to the LORD, you seek after Him, and you are blessed!
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9