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
0.11UNLIKELY
Fear
0.58LIKELY
Joy
0.61LIKELY
Sadness
0.2UNLIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.51LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.49UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.82LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.93LIKELY
Extraversion
0.11UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.7LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.58LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Last time I left us with a meaning from the cross that gives us new purpose.
We said that the cross reinstates our kingdom vocation.
The cross gives us a meaning and a purpose for what it is we do here in this life.
We said last time that the reason we do good—the reason we live in ways that avoid sin—are not things we do in order to keep some kind of moral contract with God.
But we do good because God has reinstated a kingdom vocation for us.
So now we live in gratitude to God.
And the best possible way to show gratitude to God in the way we live is to return again to the kingdom vocation he has given for all humanity.
But we also acknowledged last time that we are all people who still are born with a sinful nature.
We still carry that sinful nature within us.
We are still broken people.
So how is it that sinful people best follow this idea of living out a kingdom vocation?
Let’s unpack that here today.
*Jars of Clay*
2 Corinthians 4:5–12 NIV
For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
What is Paul up to in this passage?
People who lived at this time also had pots and kettles made of bronze.
It was lightweight, yet durable.
Clay pots were fragile.
Much more fragile than the stoneware dishes many of us have in our kitchens at home.
And clay pots were not artistic showpieces to be set on the mantle and displayed as flower vases.
They were common vessels for everyday chores.
People then did not have Nalgene bottles or glassware.
They did not have drinking fountains or indoor sinks.
Every house needed jars to hold water.
And mostly these jars were made of clay.
And often they would wear out and have cracks.
Paul says that God has placed his greatest treasure into fragile, cracked jars.
In my house I have a fireproof safe.
It holds important documents and other irreplaceable items.
No one can break in and take those things without a great deal of work to get it open.
The items inside would not be destroyed in a fire.
We use things like a safe to hold things that are important to us so that it will be protected.
But God takes his treasure and puts it in something fragile and cracked.
And this seems to be his intentional plan all along.
So maybe there is something here for us to learn about what it means for us to be redeemed people who are called to a kingdom vocation.
Before we can describe what a redeemed kingdom vocation looks like, let’s start by talking about what it means to be redeemed.
*What it means to be redeemed*
Maybe the place we need to begin in talking about redemption is to talk about a common misconception.
Before we note a few characteristics of redemption, let’s focus for a brief moment on what is NOT a characteristic of redemption—although we commonly treat it as though it is.
Redeemed does not mean fixed.
I think we commonly hold it somewhere in the back of our minds that redemption means fixing everything that is broken.
We hold onto this ultimate ideal in our minds that God’s redemption of the world means fixing everything that is broken.
Since the Bible tells us that we have been redeemed through Jesus, that must certainly also mean that all of our brokenness is fixed through Jesus.
To be certain, the Bible does speak about a recreation of all things with a new heaven and a new earth, and in that new creation of all things, everything that is now broken will be fixed.
But that is not the same thing as redemption.
We need to go one step further today and split some hairs with exact definitions so we can leave here with an accurate understanding of what our redemption means for us and for this world we live in today, right now.
Redemption does not mean everything that is broken gets fixed—yet it is redeemed.
Let me explain what that looks like.
All the vehicles I own are over ten years old and have quite a few miles on them.
They all have a list of items that don’t work quite right anymore: a rear wiper, a bad power window, a malfunctioning key fob, side mirror adjustors.
And all of them have dents, scrapes, scratches, and cracks.
But at the same time, they all run quite reliably.
They all have things that are broken, but they still do the thing that a car is supposed to do—get people around where we need to go.
Since they are older vehicles, sometimes that needs attention.
A while back, one of my vans had a battery that had gone bad.
No amount of charging would bring it back.
So I had to replace the battery.
Now it starts right up again.
It’s been redeemed, but at the same time it’s still broken.
The van has been redeemed to once again do what it is I need it to do—to get people around places.
But it is certainly not perfectly fixed to factory conditions—there are still dents, scrapes, scratches, and cracks.
Maybe sometimes you and I get the idea that for us to be people that are redeemed in Jesus means that somehow we are automatically restored to a perfect factory condition.
That somehow everything that was broken is completely fixed and brand new again.
But I think you and I who have walked in the faith for any considerable amount of time can attest that this is not the case.
We can say that we are redeemed people.
But I think we are aware—especially those of us who get a little older—that we also have dents, scrapes, scratches, and cracks.
My body has been through a lot the last three years.
Doctors went in and took out a section of my colon that had cancer in it.
They pieced me back together, and my body has been trying to figure out ever since then how to get back to normal.
I’ve got some pretty significant scars left behind.
This is literally true.
Every time I go to change my shirt, the reminder is right there on my body from the surgeries I have had.
I have scars.
I have been redeemed, but I have scars.
The cancer is gone.
But I am not perfectly restored, good-as-new.
Redeemed does not mean fixed.
I think it’s safe to admit that we are all broken.
We’ve all got dents, scrapes, scratches, and cracks.
Some of us get up in the morning and wonder if we will have the physical energy to even leave the house.
Some of us care for a family member whose mind struggles just to remember our names.
some of us here have dealt with things like MS or Parkinson’s for many years.
Some of us have watched children or grandchildren struggle through life.
We all have scars.
And then there are the scars that are inside.
The ones that people don’t always see.
Some of us carry scars of rejection from broken families and lost relationships.
Some have scars of career hopes that have been torn apart.
Something that we have worked so hard to achieve has been taken away.
Some of us carry scars of broken promises.
Other people have let us down.
Maybe the people we thought we could count on to be our friends did not stand by us in a time when we needed them.
And we know that for some people out there in our community, the church itself has inflicted wounds and left scars and left people wondering if they can ever come back.
Let’s be honest, for some of us this is very real because it has been within our own families.
Our own loved ones have distanced themselves from the church because there have been wounded, and the scars still show.
I think it’s safe for us to say here that whatever it means for us to be redeemed, it means we still have scars.
To think about our redemption in a way that completely washes over all our scars and ignores our brokenness is simply not being honest.
It’s like the ostrich who sticks its head in the sand and pretends not to be aware of the obvious.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9