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
0.14UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.07UNLIKELY
Fear
0.07UNLIKELY
Joy
0.64LIKELY
Sadness
0.55LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.14UNLIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.2UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.87LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.85LIKELY
Extraversion
0.12UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.76LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.86LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
“The Song of Salvation”
.
You know Christmas season has arrived when the music on your radio, and in the stores changes to Christmas music.
A lot of Christmas music is just fun music with no spiritual meaning, but I like it.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas; or grandma got ran over by a reindeer, or all I want for Christmas is a hippopotamus, that’s good stuff!
There are two Christmas songs that I am not sure how they could possibly go together; Silent Night, and little drummer boy.
I guess it was a silent night, until the little drummer boy showed up.
And I’m not sure if a baby would like a drum solo anyway, I just don’t get little drummer boy.
While I’m talking about Christmas carols; what about, “We wish you a Merry Christmas”.
Have you ever sang the verse that says, “Now bring us some figgy pudding; and we won’t leave until we get some”.
Bad taste, and bad manners.
There’s nothing wrong with these Christmas songs, and I’m sure you have some of them on your playlist.
Where does the idea of Christmas music come from anyway?
It comes from the Bible; from the book of Luke and the Christmas story.
The gospel of Luke is called the singing gospel, because it records four songs connected with the birth of Jesus.
Luke records the songs that were sung before and after the birth of Jesus.
This is the second song sung in the book of Luke; Mary has sung her song, and now Zacharias will sing the song of salvation.
Let’s get a little background before we hear the song.
Elizabeth gives birth to a son; all of her neighbors and cousins show up, and are happy for her and Zacharias.
They decide they’re going to help them pick a name for the little boy.
They say to Elizabeth at the time of circumcision, which was the time the Jewish people gave the baby its name; his name will be Zacharias, after the name of his father.
Let’s name him Zacharias Junior.
V:60-“Elizabeth said no; his name will be John”.
Now you would think that’s all that would need to be said; after all she is the mother; and she is the one who went through all the labor to have the baby.
She should be able to name the baby whatever name she wants to.
But these are pushy relatives and friends; and they say (with squeaky voice and hand on hip) “there’s no one in your family named John”.
It was their way of saying to her; you have chosen a bad name, we don’t like the name John.
So they make hand signals to Zacharias and ask him what he wanted to name the boy.
This leads many people to believe that John was not only mute but he was deaf.
V:63-“he asked for writing tablet, and wrote… His name is John!
He didn’t write down, were thinking about calling the baby John, he said, his name is John!
End of conversation!
Why did they call him John?
Because this was the name that the angel Gabriel told Zacharias that God wanted him to be named.
The name John means, God is merciful; John would introduce Jesus, whose name means God saves.
It is the mercy of God that introduces you to the salvation of God!
At the very moment Zacharias wrote down the name John his mouth was open and his tongue loosed and he began to praise the Lord.
Just as unbelief closed his mouth 9 months earlier; obedience to God opened his mouth.
Once his mouth was open, and his tongue loosed; he is filled with the Holy Spirit and sings one of the greatest songs in all of the Bible, in V:67-79.
In the lyrics of this song we have some of the most beautiful word pictures of salvation in all of the Bible.
In his song we learn that salvation means:
1. God has Come Down to Us!
V:68-“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he has visited and redeemed his people…
The first words of Zacharias’s song capture the heart of Christmas.
God has come down to man to redeem him.
His praising God because God had come to visit his people; after 400 years of silence, between the book of Malachi and Matthew, God is going to send the Messiah.
All of the joy that had been pinned up in his heart for 9 long months cascades out of his mouth as he praises God.
Zacharias is blessing God for blessing him; the words that he sings or words of faith, he speaks in the past tense as if these were things that God had already accomplished.
In the coming birth of Jesus; and the birth of his son to announce the coming of Jesus, he tells us that God had visited his people.
The word visited is a verb, an action word; God has taken action and come to earth to redeem man.
Like doctors used to visit the sick and dying with concern and compassion; God has visited sin sick and dying man with salvation.
There is coming a day when God will visit this world in judgment; but the visit at Christmas was a visit of grace, love and compassion!
God coming to man; God stepping out of eternity into time to bring salvation.
Emmanuel, God with us!
Do you know why God came down to earth?
Because we can never get to him!
One of the pictures that pluralist use to describe how all religions lead to God is; the picture of a mountain with God on top of the mountain.
And there are many roads around the mountain leading up the mountain to God.
And they say, that these roads are like different religions, they all start at different places, but they all leave to the top of the mountain to God.
They say that we all are traveling different roads, but all roads lead to God.
The problem with this picture is that God sits on top of the mountain of his holiness; and the mountain is too steep, and God is to holy, there are no roads up the mountain to do God; none!
It is impossible for man to get to God!
So God came down to man; visited man, and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Tragically Israel and the Jews did not recognize the day of their visitation.
God came to this earth, to do for us what we could never do for ourselves!
Salvation is possible only because God came to this earth on that first Christmas to bring us salvation.
-“Jesus came into the world to save sinners…
In his song we learn that salvation means:
2. God has Set-Us Free from Sin!
V:68-“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he has visited and redeemed his people…
Christmas means that God has visited man to redeem him.
To understand the purpose of God’s visit, you have to understand redemption.
Redemption is paying the price required to set someone free.
It can refer to the releasing of a prisoner, are the freeing of a slave.
The greatest Old Testament example of redemption; is the freeing of God’s people from Egyptian bondage.
The Jewish people were in Egypt, enslaved by the Pharaoh; God sent Moses to tell the Pharaoh, let my people go.
The Pharaoh resisted, God sent a series of plagues; the last plague was the worst one- death.
The firstborn in each family would die; unless they sacrificed a lamb in the place of the firstborn, and placed the blood of the lamb on the doorpost of their home.
The lamb died, the people who trusted God lived; the Pharaoh let the nation of Israel go, God had redeemed, delivered, set free his people from slavery.
You’re thinking, that’s a great story, but what does that have to do with me?
Everything!
Zacharias is telling us that God is redeeming his people all over again, but not from an earthly enslavement to an Egyptian king, but from enslavement to our own sins.
The Bible teaches, that we’re all in bondage to our own sin; and we need forgiveness of our sins.
But were unable to pay the price for our sin, or to set ourselves free from the grip of sin; we need redemption, someone to pay the price for our sin and set us free!
The grip of sin is too strong, and the debt of our sin to great for us to redeem ourselves.
So on that first Christmas God visited us, to redeem us; to pay the price for our sin and set us free!
When I was a kid me and my friends were playing baseball in my neighbor’s front yard that was adjacent to a vacant lot.
The baseball was hit and went right through our neighbor’s front window.
Some of the boys ran; some of us were too afraid to run; the neighbor came out the front door, he was red in the face and he said, somebody is enough to pay for this!
Those were scary words for a
10 or 11 year-old boy!
There was no way on the face of the earth I could pay for that window!
Since I was the one holding the baseball bat; and since he knew me, he said Eddie, I’m calling your dad, and he’s going to have to pay for this window.
And my dad did, he dug in his wallet and paid what it cost to fix my neighbor’s window.
When it comes to our sin; the only person who could pay for our sin and set us free was Jesus Christ, the Redeemer!
Jesus paid the price necessary for our redemption on the cross:
-“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace”.
We’re not redeemed with corruptible things, but with the precious blood of Jesus!
In his song we learn that salvation means:
3. God has Delivered Us from Satan’s Power!
V:69-75.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9