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
0.11UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.09UNLIKELY
Fear
0.11UNLIKELY
Joy
0.63LIKELY
Sadness
0.52LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.44UNLIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.11UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.61LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.26UNLIKELY
Extraversion
0.19UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.38UNLIKELY
Emotional Range
0.47UNLIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Introduction
Marathon runners talk about something called “the wall.”
It’s the point that comes to nearly every runner at some point in the 26.2 mile run.
It is at the intersection of a tired body and a tired mind.
Suddenly the run goes from being pretty hard to really, really hard.
Everything in you says: quit.
We all “hit the wall” at various times in our life.
In a marathon, they prepare you for it.
In real life, it stalls us.
when disappointment piles on disappointment / frustration on frustration
when grief overwhelms
when we prayers are unanswered
when finishing seems impossible
when starting seems pointless
There’s another kind of wall.
After finishing, living in the past—inactive, sluggish, and complacent.
Couch-potato faith / spirituality (a person who spends little or no time exercising and a great deal of time watching Netflix).
“for your progress and joy in the faith” (1:25)
How to beat the wall
In the middle of Paul’s letter to the Philippian church, he has told them about his marathon-goal of his faith.
Then, he writes as a man who familiar with marathons—who knows all about the wall—and he gives us a message to meet our walls with.
“think this way” - mindset / mature Christian thinking, taking care not regress — progress in the faith.
Three things you need to beat the wall:
1. Goals
The trouble with not having a goal is you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score.
- Bill Copeland
“to make it my own” / “to what lies ahead” / “toward the goal.. the prize of the upward call of God.”
To know Christ.
To be Christlike (mature/perfect).
To be with Christ in the resurrection.
Heaven.
In the Greek games, an official would call the winner of an event up to be awarded the prize.
Paul may be referring to this, as if to say “I’m running for that moment when I will stand before my God and receive the heavenly reward.”
2. Grit
Grit: a combination of passion and perseverance that keeps you locked in on an goal for a long period of time.
Endurance.
Perseverance.
Stick-to-itivness.
A never-give-up attitude.
Relentless.
I’m not their yet, BUT this one thing I do: I press on
Pressing on has two components for Paul:
Forgetting: Not an inability to call something to mind, but the discipline of mind to not dwell on the past.
He intentionally forgot.
negative (failure and shame) / positive (good ol’ days, trophies)
Straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on...
“Paul portrays himself in the least relaxed, most demanding posture he knows: as a runner in a race.
His language is vivid, tense, repetitious: pressing, stretching, pushing, straining.
In those words the lungs burn, the temples pound, the muscles ache, the heart pumps, the perspiration rolls.”
Fred Craddock.
Neither the awareness of him imperfections or the sense of accomplishment from the ‘good ol’ days’ stop Paul from straining toward the future.
Paul is determined to run the race all the way to the finish line.
Paul inspires grit: “passionate perseverance” in the life of faith.
“To be gritty is to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
To be gritty is to hold fast to an interesting and purposeful goal.
To be gritty is to invest, day after week after year, in challenging practice.
To be gritty is to fall down seven times, and rise eight.”
—Angela Duckworth
Do you know what they tell you to do when you hit the wall in a marathon: keep going!
65-year marriages (real love has grit)
difficulties of aging (going to church takes grit)
grief, disease, heartache, spiritual desert (gritty faithfulness)
3. Grace
Paul writes as one fully aware of his own imperfection.
He runs as one who has been first taken hold of by Christ.
Video that was highlighted on the news several months back.
It was filmed just as young woman neared the finish line in a marathon.
Her legs gave out.
Two other runners grabbed her arms and kept her on her feet, inching forward until she could go no further.
Then another man ran over and picked her up and carried her across.
One man even raised her arm in victory as she crossed—seemingly unaware of his own victory.
Parable of Christ taking hold of us.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9