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.
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Emotion
Anger
Disgust
Fear
Joy
Sadness
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Analytical
Confident
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Social Tendencies
Openness
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Anger
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All the Things
This is a picture Logan drew recently.
I am so proud.
Logan signing up for ALL THE THINGS in high school.
The perfect time to try all the things!
At fourteen years old, Logan has ideas about what he might want to do… but he is wise enough to realize that he hasn’t tried all the things.
It’s too soon to rule out all the options.
Last week I talked about saying “no” to things so you can say a “bigger yes” to the most important things.
Especially, so you can say your “biggest all-in yes” to the center of your calling and passion.
Like the apostles did when they said “we will devote ourselves to pray and the ministry of the Word”.
Literally: “deaconing Logos.”
And I shared my biggest yes: “to lead and feed my family and church.”
What do we do when we don’t know our “biggest yes?”
Or we think we might know it… and the timing isn’t there.
Or the opportunity isn’t there.
I got some version of the question from several people last week.
It is a beautiful thing to have that “consuming vision” to devote to… but in most moments and seasons of life, we just don’t have that kind of clarity.
I LOVE it… because that is exactly what we see in the text.
While the apostles had that kind of clarity and calling… the other folks in the story don’t have that… yet.
From yes to yes
Seven Deacons
Holy Spirit Rockstars
How amazing were these guys?
Full of the Holy Spirit.
Full of Wisdom.
Full of Faith (it says of Steven).
Where’s the debate about whether they should?
Men who rise to the top among 10,000+… these guys are incredibly capable and gifted.
They say “yes”… to such a low and easy ministry.
It isn’t that it is degrading or menial… it’s that it’s trivial.
Nobody as a child goes to bed thinking “When I grow up, I want to re-balance food distribution.”
There’s a nobility to it: serving widows, serving the overlooked and neglected, feeding the hungry.
But, this is a guess...
It was no one’s “biggest yes.”
This wasn’t there great passion, there great calling and gifting.
This wasn’t it.
How do I know that?
Well I don’t for most of them.
But for two of them… I do.
Five of these guys we never hear about again.
They likely go on to do amazing things, but outside of the spotlight of this book.
Philip
But two we do hear about.
First, my man Philip.
Philip goes on to preach and do miracles in Samaria
Then God sends him down to southern Israel where he witnesses to an Ethiopian, the treasurer to the Queen.
Philip baptizes him...
And then (this is one of my favorites, God needs him so bad at the next place he teleports him there:
Philip, full of wisdom and full of Spirit, says “yes” to the ministry opportunity he is given in the moment… and it leads to the bigger “yes”.
It leads to the bigger calling.
Steven
We know more about another of these seven men.
And this is where the book of Acts goes.
These seven amazing men, full of wisdom and of the Spirit are called and set to this ministry.
And the very next verse, verse 8 immediately jumps the action to Stephen.
Immediately we find Steven in action.
What is he doing?
Is he doing the work he was commissioned to do? No. Worst deacon ever.
Maybe there is a time gap here, maybe he had administrated the others, or built a ministry team so effectively that now he could focus on other things… We don’t know.
But he has, it seems, immediately been called into a new ministry.
He is doing signs and wonders among the people.
He is preaching, we will see, among the people.
He is the first to show that neither signs and wonders, nor understanding of Scripture through the Holy Spirit, nor boldly preaching the gospel is going to be limited to the apostles.
He’s not an apostle, but there he is.
In fact, let’s see this guy in action.
You can’t stop him!
And from this ministry of preaching and doing miracles, he is called to be the ultimate “witness”, a word translated from the Greek word “martys” or “martyr” and Steven has the glorious honor of being the very first “martyr” as we use the word: one who goes boldly and defiantly to the death as a witness to Jesus.
Steven found his biggest “yes”.
What got him there?
At least as far as the story relates the sequence of events?
Steven said “yes” to the small ministry opportunities… and it led to the next step.
Philip said “yes” to the small ministry opportunity.
It was just for a moment, it was just for a season, but it appears to lead to the next steps in ministry.
And how were these guys the seven who were noticed out of thousands?
It says they were full of Spirit and full of wisdom.
How did everyone know that about these seven men?
Full of the Spirit
How do we know if someone is full of the Spirit?
We look for the fruit.
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control.
Is that fruit bursting out all over their lives?
Do I see it, do I experience it, do I taste it and is it good?
Is discord, bitterness, jealousy, rage… is that being transformed by the Spirit unifying them into Christ?
Full of Wisdom
Men of Sophia.
Wisdom.
Root in technical skill, like a skilled craftsman, these are men who are skilled at life.
They have knowledge and they rightly apply it.
When they speak, you feel the truth of it, the right of it.
Speaking to the heart of things, piercing to the truth of it.
Full of Spirit and Full of Wisdom.
They were pursuing God, they were surely gifted and talented… but how do people discover that a person is full of Spirit and full of Wisdom?
When the Spirit moves through them in word and deed.
When wisdom pours out of them in comfort and in counsel.
My assumption is this: these guys were ALREADY serving all over the place.
Already doing whatever their hand found to do.
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.
And one “yes” leads to another.
How does one find their calling?
Their passion?
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