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
0.09UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.08UNLIKELY
Fear
0.45UNLIKELY
Joy
0.54LIKELY
Sadness
0.55LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.76LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.79LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.67LIKELY
Extraversion
0.21UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.82LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.57LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
At noon on September 23, 1857, a businessman walked into a church in the middle of lower New York.
This was the business district.
Other churches were closing their doors in the area.
And everyone expected this church to do the same.
However, this man was starting a new thing.
Never been done before.
He decided to open the church at noon for one day a week so that the business people would have a place to get away and perhaps pray.
After waiting 30 minutes, and having no one show up, he was about to leave, but then 6 men walked into the door.
The next week 20 came.
The next week 40.
It was then that he decided to make the meetings daily and to move into a bigger room.
Jeremiah Lanphier didn’t know what was in the future.
As one historian said, “All he knew was that men needed to pray.”
His heart and his passion is the second important thing that James is writing in his letter.
He is squishing 3 important issues into his goodbyes.
Last week we talked about radical honesty.
This week, we are going to talk about prayer.
3 things that should be defined by prayer.
1A.
The follower of Christ should be defined by prayer
James gives two instances where the follower of Christ should seek the Lord.
1B.
When the follower of Christ is in trouble
James says “Is anyone among you in trouble?”
Literally, suffering misfortune.
This word is used many times for a believer who is being persecuted.
Paul refers to himself this way in .
This meaning is definitely fitting in the general context of this letter.
The Christians were being persecuted for their faith and for their poverty.
They were in trouble!
But, the context also supports a broad meaning of this word.
They weren’t just suffering misfortune because of their persecution.
They were in trouble because of their poverty, because of their circumstances.
Some of them were really sick, as we read in this passage.
They were in trouble, spiritually, economically, physically.
Consider Job.
James just told us about Job’s perseverance through hard times.
He was in trouble.
His family died.
His livelihood was demolished.
He was suffering from a horrible skin disease.
He was having marriage problems.
He was in trouble.
James says, “if you are in trouble, pray!”
2B.
When the follower of Christ is happy
James says “is anyone happy?”
Now, I have to note, as many scholars have noted before me, this might not be a different group than the previous sentence.
Just because one is in trouble doesn’t mean that they aren’t happy.
Though, we can generally assume that the overlap is small.
If someone is happy or cheerful about something, they should sing songs of praise.
Consider
Singing songs of praise is a form of prayer.
And it can be done by anyone, no matter how badly they sing.
I love my dad, but he cannot carry a tune.
He loves to sing though.
We would always sit in the 3rd row, and my dad would belt out his favorite songs.
One day, the song leader couldn’t take it anymore.
She couldn’t sing, because she was laughing so hard.
My poor dad.
James says: If you are happy, tell God!”
The bottom line is this:
3B.
In all situations, the follower of Christ should continually turn to God
If you look at the two instances which James says should drive a person to God (trouble and happiness), they pretty much encompass all of life!
I don’t know of a time when we aren’t in trouble and we don’t have something to be happy about.
We should always be turning to God.
Every situation that we are in, we should drop to our knees and bring it before God.
The verbs that James uses in these verses are imperatives.
That means that they are commands.
The English language sometimes waters down the force of what is going on, by using the little word “let”.
A more forceful translation would say, “Is anyone among you in trouble?
He must pray.
Is anyone happy?
He must praise.”
For those of us who are followers of Christ, we must be turning to God in every situation.
Not only must we be turning to God, but we must be doing it continually.
The verbs are showing an ongoing process.
“He must continually pray.”
“He must continually praise.”
Our lives as Christians should be defined by our consistent coming before the throne of God.
He is the only one who can truly help!
Christ died that we might have a relationship with our creator and king.
Are we pursuing that relationship through every circumstance of our lives?
Can our family members say that we are people who seek God in all things?
Can our family members say that we make our relationship with God a priority through prayer?
I interact with some people who say that they don’t have a specific time of prayer, but they continually talk with God.
That is talking by distraction.
And God gets the short end of that stick.
If I said that I never have a specific time to talk with my wife, but I interact with her all day while I am focused on other things, would you think that I had a strong marriage?
I can interact with her all I want, but if I do not spend intentional time with her, talking truthfully about events, emotions, etc., my relationship suffers.
If we do not come to God, seeking His face through all things, our relationship with him suffers.
The average Christian in America prays for 1 minute a day.
And, we wonder about the state of Christianity!
If you are going through hard times, take some time and intentionally pray.
If you are happy, take some time and intentionally pray.
In the words of Paul
The follower of Christ should be defined by prayer.
The follower of Christ should be defined by prayer.
2A.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9