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
0.1UNLIKELY
Joy
0.59LIKELY
Sadness
0.57LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.73LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.48UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.67LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.9LIKELY
Extraversion
0.18UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.71LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.63LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
If only.
We all have “if only” moments in our lives.
It doesn’t matter how young or old you are.
Everybody has “if only” moments.
Consider some of the categories of “if only” that work their way into our everyday lives.
Every single one of us has features about our looks or about our personality that we wish would be different.
If only I was a better athlete.
If only I wasn’t so shy all the time.
If only I could get better grades.
If only my joints didn’t hurt so much so often.
Sometimes our “if onlys” are circumstantial.
If only my boss didn’t seem like such a jerk.
If only my basketball team could win just one game.
If only I could have a superpower.
If only I could be batman.
If only the baby would sleep so I could get one good night of rest.
If only I didn’t get cancer.
If only I had more friends.
If only I had bought stock in Microsoft back in 1984.
If only I could grow hair again.
Sometimes our “if onlys” are regrets.
If only I could take back those words I said in anger.
If only I had applied for that promotion at work.
If only I had spent more time with my kids while they were young.
If only I had taken a chance and asked her out on a date.
If only I had ordered the salmon instead of the chicken.
If only I could remember where I set the keys.
I don’t care how old you are; I don’t care how young you are.
It doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor.
It makes no difference what background you come from.
Here’s what I want all of us to see.
We all have “if only” moments.
In fact, many of us have these moments every single day.
But follow along with me now, because I want us to consider what all of these “if only” moments do to us and to our lives.
How does this pile of “if onlys” impact who we are and what we do and how we live?
How does this weigh upon our relationships and community?
How does this shape our hopes and dreams and plans for the future?
Today I think there is something we can pick up from the Old Testament prophet of Jeremiah that could help us with this question.
Let me set up the background here for you first.
We are going to be reading a section of scripture that include what is—for some of us—a very familiar verse.
In fact, this is a verse that many people have on plaques and pictures in their homes.
This is a verse that some people have tattooed on their body somewhere.
This is a verse that ranks among the top-five favorite Bible verses in all of the scriptures.
And the problem with a verse like this is that many of us know it and have heard it ripped all by itself completely out of its context.
And so most of us actually have no idea whatsoever what this verse is actually saying.
But—lucky you—you’re in the right place because we are going to fix all of that today.
So, here is background for the prophet Jeremiah.
In the year 722 BC the ten tribes of northern Israel were conquered by Assyria.
Only the tribe of Judah was left in the southern kingdom.
135 years later, in 587 BC, the Babylonians conquered the city of Jerusalem and the southern kingdom of Judah was taken into captivity.
Some of the people were left behind in a city was burned and destroyed.
Others were taken into exile to live as servants in Babylon.
This is the context into which Jeremiah writes.
He is writing specifically to the people of Judah who are living as exiled servants in Babylon.
Note this in particular.
Jeremiah is writing to a group of people who are dripping with “if only.”
These are people whose entire lives are an “if only” story.
If only we had followed God’s commands.
If only we had learned the lesson we saw take place in the northern kingdom 135 years earlier.
If only we could just be back home again.
If only we weren’t stuck over here in Babylon where we don’t want to be.
Here is a group of people that seems to have no hope for the future at all.
Their entire existence is now predicated on a series of “if onlys.”
In some ways, maybe not all that indifferent from us today.
And here’s what God has to say to them (and us) in Jeremiah 29
The excuse: if only
If only.
If anybody had an excuse to play the “if only” card, I think it might have been these exiled Hebrew people.
And I can only imagine the reaction of those exiled people who might have heard these words from God through Jeremiah.
Humph, yeah right.
I have every excuse in the world to tell you why I am not prospering.
I have every reason in the world to explain away why my plans for the hopes of any kind of future can’t happen.
After all, God, have you forgotten where I am?
A slave in Babylon?
If only you hadn’t let that happen.
Maybe then I could believe what you have to say about a plan for a prosperous future.
But not here.
Not like this.
I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you.
I sometimes wonder why it is that so many people claim this as their favorite verse in the Bible.
Yes! Let our homes burn, destroy everything I have, let my family and loved ones be murdered, carry me off as a slave to a foreign nation.
I love that verse!
No, I get it.
We all love the part about God promising a prosperous future.
Who wouldn’t.
There is an entire branch of prosperity gospel churches that build their entire existence upon this idea—that God promises a prosperous future.
We just forget about and want nothing to do with the rest of this message from God.
We conveniently leave out the other details of Jeremiah’s message from God.
So what about all of these “if onlys” in your life that you want so desperately to change; all of these circumstances around you, and all of the regrets from your past?
What about all these hinderances that we look at in our lives and identify as blockades?
What about all the “if onlys” in the way of the prosperous future that we would like God to have planned for us?
We all live with a multitude of “if only” moments we see as hindrances keeping us away from plans for a prosperous future.
We all have our Babylonian exile moments.
But what does God say about that?
Build your house there.
Plant your gardens there.
Have your family there.
Those of you living in Babylonian captivity, pray for the prosperity of that city.
Because if it prospers, you also will prosper.
What’s that?
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9