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
0.17UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.15UNLIKELY
Fear
0.19UNLIKELY
Joy
0.13UNLIKELY
Sadness
0.55LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.57LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.49UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.72LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.74LIKELY
Extraversion
0.09UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.89LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.68LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
ATTENTION
What would it be like to be 8 years old, thousands of miles from home, in an orphanage in a foreign country, and have no idea where your mom was?
Can you imagine the lonliness?
Can you imagine being in that place where you received hardly anything to eat and where you were deathly sick from malaria, all without the comfort of your mom?
One little 8 year old can.
Her adopted mother, Mercury Liggins, had an opportunity to go to work in Iraq back in 2004.
The opportunity offered a lucrative income, but Liggins had a problem: seven of them to be exact.
You see, she had seven adopted children ranging in age from 8 to 16.
But then her brother-in-law, who lived in Nigeria, offered to let the kids stay with him in exchange for 1500.00 per month which should have paid for their boarding school.
So Mercury took the offer and hopped a plane for Nigeria.
She stayed with them for one month to settle them in, then went on to Iraq.
She faithfully sent the money every month.
But the brother-in-law began keeping the money instead of paying the school.
The boarding school kicked the kids out and sent them to an oprhanage.
Can you imagine how you’d feel?
NEED
You might say, “Well, yes, I certainly can.
I wasn’t in Nigeria but I was abandoned.
My mom gave me up, or my dad left home and I was abandoned.
I know how that feels, preacher!”
Others would say, “Well, it wasn’t my mom or my dad who let me down, it was God.
I thought He would be there when my finances fell apart, but, near as I can tell, I was on my own.
No miraculous checks came in the mail.
I felt like I was left all alone and that God was not there to comfort me.”
And because the comfort hasn’t come, maybe you’ve begun to even doubt God’s ability to comfort.
You may really doubt that God’s even in control at all because there is this rising flood of doubt in your soul that comes from the fact that you just can’t make any sense of it all.
It seems to you that, if God were really in control, the conclusions would be more obvious and the relief would be much more real.
And if you summed it all up this morning, you’d really say that you feel like there’s no comfort and there’s no control.
BACKGROUND
But then you pull out your Bible and you begin to read verses like these in Psalm 34:
The eyes of the Lor are on the righteous, And His ears are open to their cry.
The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, To cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears, And delivers them out of all their troubles.
The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, And saves such as have a contrite spirit.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous, But the Lord delivers him out of them all.
He guards all his bones; Not one of them is broken.
Evil shall slay the wicked, And those who hate the righteous shall be condemned.
The Lord redeems the soul of His servants, And none of those who trust in Him shall be condemned.
Now, most of you in this room would claim to really believe what I just read.
If I took a poll, the results would be overwhelming.
But were I to get really specific about it, and if I were to ask you, “Has the Lord really delivered you from all your troubles?”
and you really knew that I wanted the truth, not the “Sunday School” answer, some of you would probably hang your head and say.
“Well, Pastor, I know there must be something I’m missing here, but I really can’t say I’ve been delivered yet.”
And for that reason we walk around with what I call “fake radiance.”
We’re beaming on the outside, but it’s not real.
We smile and talk as if we’re experiencing unbelievable blessing from the Lord, but, deep in our hearts, we’ve got doubts.
I know this happens because I’ve seen it.
I’ve seen the Christians with the painted on smiles.
Hey! I’ve been the Christian with the “painted-on” smile.
Now, if that’s you this morning, I want you to really listen.
God does deliver us!
Yes, He does!
Always!
Everytime!
Without fail!
The problem we sometimes have is that we don’t really understand what it means to be delivered.
And that’s our problem.
So, from this Psalm, on this Thanksgiving Sunday, I want to talk to you a few minutes about deliverance.
Just how does God deliver His children and how does that make us radiant?
Well, in the first place, when God delivers
DIV 1: HE CHOOSES SIDES
EXPLANATION
That’s right!
God is not some unbiased bystander, washing His hands in the midst of conflict.
He chooses sides!
V 15 says that He sees and hears the righteous.
It says, “The eyes of the Lord are on (who?
That’s right!) the righteous and His ears are open to their cry.”
God chooses sides!
He also redeems us.
It goes on to say in v 15 that “the Lord redeems the soul of (who?
That’s right!)
His servants and none of those who trust in Him shall be condemned.”
But there’s a definite contrast in v 16.
There is says that “the face of the Lord is against those who do evil to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
Evil shall slay the wicked and those who hate the righteous shall be condemned.”
Well, if the Lord is on the side of the righteous and the Lord is fighting against the wicked, how does one become righteous.
After all, if God’s choosing sides, I want Him on my side, or maybe I should say, I want to be on His! How do I become righteous?
Well, it isn’t by trying to be good in your own strength.
We know that all of us are sinners just like the Bible says.
As Romans 3:10 says, there is no one good, not even one.
The only way we become righteous is through the blod of Jesus.
When we trust Him in His death and resurrection and confess Him as our Savior, we receive His righteousness and when that happens, my friend, God chooses sides!
He takes care of His own.
ILLUSTRATION
One new believer discovered this.
He says that right after he and his wife became believers, the IRS the IRS asked him to defend a tax return from years earlier.
Unfortunately, he couldn't defend it.
He had been dishonest, and so he began months of painful meetings with the IRS.
Finally, the day came for his last meeting.
After parking, he discovered the meter wouldn't take my few remaining pennies, and he was already late.
He nearly cried.
Instead, though, He prayed, "Lord, we're trusting you with a huge tax problem.
It's dumb not to ask you for help with this little meter."
He said, “When I came out later, I saw what looked like a ticket on my car window.
I was stunned!
Hadn't I asked God to help me?
I yanked the paper from under the wiper blade and read these words: "Mike, your time was expired.
I took care of it.
Chuck."
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9