Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction- Challenges Of Being Joyful During Advent

Joy to the world! the Lord is come;

Let Earth receive her King;

Let every heart prepare him room,

And heaven and nature sing,

And heaven and nature sing,

And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.

Joy to the world! the Saviour reigns;

Let men their songs employ;

While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains

Repeat the sounding joy,

Repeat the sounding joy,

Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.

"Joy to the World" is an English Christmas carol.

The carol was written in 1719 by the English minister and hymnwriter Isaac Watts, and its lyrics are an interpretation of Psalm 98 celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.

Since the 20th century, "Joy to the World" has been the most-published Christmas hymn in North America

Illustration: This is why Kipchoge smiles when he runs (and why you should be doing it too)

Training your facial muscles to lighten up can boost your performance

BY RUNNER'S WORLD

2 NOV 2018

Last year, top-ranked marathon runner Eliud Kipchoge ran 26.2 miles in just two hours and 25 seconds in Monza, Italy, as part of Nike’s Breaking2 project.

His time, although not record-eligible, is the fastest marathon time ever recorded, and the effort required to clock it was undoubtedly gruelling.

This year, the man himself went on to set a new marathon world record at the Berlin Marathon, crossing the line in 2:01:39.

Yet in both marathons, Kipchoge never let the pain show on his face.

In fact, it appeared as if he was actually grinning at times.

No, he was not trying to mock his competitors: Kipchoge later told reporters he was smiling to relax and work through the pain, employing a strategy some runners have long believed to be true: that smiling while running can help you to run more efficiently.

Studies have shown that when we enrich our workout with a smile, we feel that our perceived effort is far less than the effort we exert when we frown while exercising.

The reason for this difference has to do with facial feedback.

“When we make a facial expression, we may experience the emotional state we associate with the expression.

We associate smiling with happiness or enjoyment, states that make us more relaxed, so when we smile, we are consciously trying to relax.

By adopting the facial expression of frowning, however, we are experiencing an emotional state of feeling tense or less relaxed.”

And as it turns out the smile does not even have to be particularly genuine.

In other words you can fake it till you make it.

But if the muscular expression of smiling can influence or even cause the feeling of relaxation, then planning to smile so that one feels relaxed is no more fake than smiling as a result of first feeling relaxed.

So the writer concludes by suggesting “we ought to simply reconsider our assumptions about the one-way relationship between feeling and smiling.

Instead of believing we need to channel an emotion like happiness before smiling, we should remember that the act of smiling itself can cause an emotion or feeling.

Transition To Body

Body

Go deeper in our walk & relationship with the LORD

Paul (the Apostle Jesus Christ ) & Timothy (brother in Jesus Christ) pray substantively for faithful saints

Filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding

Walking Right

Illustration: Men’s Discipleship group teaching on replacing bad habits with good habits

(Go deeper in our walk & relationship with the LORD)

Understand the source & nature of our strength

Strength-

δυναμούμενοι endowed w. all capability Col 1:11

Power- potential for functioning in some way, power, might, strength, force, capability

Endurance- the capacity to hold out or bear up in the face of difficulty, patience, endurance, fortitude, steadfastness, perseverance

(Go deeper in our walk & relationship with the LORD

as well as

Understand the source & nature of our strength)

but also learn to

Appreciate the adequacy & expense of our acquittal

Giving Thanks- to express appreciation for benefits or blessings, give thanks, express thanks, render/return thanks

Qualified- to cause to be adequate, make sufficient, qualify

Conveyed- transfer from one place to another, remove

Redemption- redemption, acquittal, also the state of being redeemed

Illustration: The ESPN documentary, O.J.: Made In America, takes an exhaustive look at multiple facets of one of the most infamous crimes of the 20th century, but there's one small sliver of it that may be of particular interest to us today.

It's found in the fourth episode, and it's a two-minute breakdown that explains how O.J. Simpson was able to afford the famous "Dream Team" of attorneys that ultimately got him off when it seemed impossible.

The "Dream Team" refers to the team of trial lawyers that represented O. J. Simpson in his 1995 trial for the murder of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman.

The team included Robert Shapiro, Johnnie Cochran, Carl Douglas, Shawn Chapman, Gerald Uelmen, Robert Kardashian, Alan Dershowitz, F. Lee Bailey, Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld, Robert Blasier, and William Thompson.

This Dream Team that, at its peak, cost O.J. an astounding $50,000 every single DAY!

And keep in mind that the trial lasted 135 days, not including pre-trial, preparation and more.

So the cost of OJs defense was approximately $6.75 million

O.J. had already burned through his liquid assets such as cash and stock.

He didn't want to sell his house, so he had to find a way to make some money.

How does a celebrity accused of murder make money?

To put it simply, Simpson was able to sell various pieces of memorabilia while he was incarcerated, and in a somewhat ironic twist, the fact that he was incarcerated actually raised the value of signed O.J. memorabilia (which was already pretty valuable thanks to his iconic status as an athlete and entertainer before his arrest).

To that end, O.J., is reported to have dated certain items in his autographs, in order to conclusively place him in jail at the time of the signing, thus raising the value of that particular item even more.

Transition To Close- Patience with joy

Illustration: “You Bring Me Joy” by Anita Baker off her second studio album, “Rapture” released in 1986

You bring me joy

When I'm down

Oh so much joy

When I lose my way your love comes smilin' on me

I saw your face and then I knew

We would be friends

I was so afraid but your eyes, they'd say "Come to me"

So I'd say to you

"Can we talk for a while?"

You'd say "It's alright"

When you love me, I smile

I feel your heart and you feel mine

You bring me joy

You bring me joy

Don't go too far away

If I can't see your face I will remember your smile

But can this be right

Oh and should we be friends

I get lonely sometimes

And I'm mixed up again

'Cause you're the finest thing I've seen in all my life

You bring me joy

My joy, my joy

Close