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.
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Anger
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Conscientiousness
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Agreeableness
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Tone of specific sentences

Tones
Emotion
Anger
Disgust
Fear
Joy
Sadness
Language
Analytical
Confident
Tentative
Social Tendencies
Openness
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Emotional Range
Anger
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\\ */1.
/**/The Power of God Revealed in Nature/*
 
I used to love a good storm on Grand Manan Island.
I remember days sitting in the cab of my father’s truck looking out at the white-capped horizon and hearing the roar of the relentless surf and the artillery-like pounding of the waves as they assaulted the shore line.
I recall the incredible power of those Fundy storms.
The Whale Cove wharf sat, nestled away from the unprotected Grand Manan coastline, a place for weir seiners to dock or to take on supplies.
It provided a rendezvous  point for retired fishermen to re-spin and embellish yesteryears’ yarns or to criticize newer fishing methods.
Curious tourists gathered there to capture pictures of things for which they had little to no understanding.
I learned on that very wharf to shoot seagulls and occasionally to pull a harbor Pollock from the waters around it.
I was there the day that they pulled Heber Beal’s body from the ocean, the victim of some sort of accident that I was too young to understand.
The old wharf was the command point for the operation.
It was a typically over constructed Fundy wharf.
Huge creosoted timbers, cross-connected.
And the whole crib work was filled from top to bottom with stone from the sea wall.
Unlike some of the other wharves on the island, I remember its birth.
As a matter of fact, I outlived it on either end.
One of those wild storms literally picked the wharf up and tossed it shattered remains 7-800 feet down the seawall.
Another storm somehow lifted sea logs over a 15 foot cliff in my mother’s back yard and deposited them in the middle of the road in front of her home.
Adulthood has made these memories more meaningful to me than the actual experience because I have a greater appreciation for the power of the wild untamable sea.
Back then it was just a storm.
Today it is somehow connected to a God whose might and strength is reflected in these sorts of things.
That power goes beyond anything that I can imagine.
A God whose power makes men tremble and whose love is infinitely tender and kindhearted.
*/2.
/**/The Heart of God Revealed in His Mindfulness of Man/*
 
The years have also brought to me a greater awareness of my insignificance and lack of knowledge and understanding.
And for some reason this does not make me feel less of myself.
In some ways the opposite is true.
Because the years have also brought me to a breath-taking revelation of the Almighty God who is the ruler of the wild, who is somewhere behind the storms and the sunsets and unmatchable beauty that surrounds us.
It is there as a grand sanctuary, defying our disinterest and self-absorption, offering us a window on eternity and an essential perspective on life.
And then I wonder with David as he reflects,
 
"/When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, //what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?/"
(Psalm 8:3-4, NIV) [1]
 
*/3.
/**/Man’s Role in Creation/*
 
Man’s significance comes from God’s estimation.
By virtue of the fact that this world was somehow incomplete until man was created in God’s image and given his own kingdom to rule.
"/You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings //and crowned him with glory and honor.
/*/You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: /*/all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, //the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas./"
(Psalm 8:5-8, NIV) [2]
 
I find it curious when we blame God for the inequities and the injustice that we face in today’s society.
The scripture indicates that this is our responsibility.
David says: /“You made him ruler over the works of your hands. .
.”/
It’s not as though God couldn’t do it.
It is his gift to us.
One that ought to teach us something about ourselves.
Life in the here and now is what we make of it.
The problems that we face in life are of our own doing, not God’s.
And it’s not as though God has abdicated.
He stands ready to guide us into a fuller more purposeful existence.
If we’ll just listen and implement the direction that we receive.
Usually the most insecure people are the most difficult to help.
They feel that it is weakness to need or to ask for assistance.
They want to “do it” themselves.
The majority of mankind believes that they hold their own highest good.
While God has, without reserve, given mankind the mandate to rule, he delights in those who recognize their weakness rather than their adequacy.
Those who recognize their limits make better rulers.
They make better supervisors, better parents, better people.
*/4.
/**/The Impact of Sin on the Order of Things/*
 
Sin spoils.
After Adam’s disobedience came the curse.
"/To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.
//It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
//By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”/"
(Genesis 3:17-19, NIV) [3]
 
As man rises in rebellion declaring his independence from God, so */nature rises rebellious to the rule of man/*.
It will not be tamed.
It reminds us poignantly and periodically that we do not rule unchallenged.
Recent natural disasters in our own day declare the insignificance of mankind.
Ask Katrina victims of the power of nature.
Ask those who suffer at the hands of nature.
The Tsunami, earthquakes.
Even the atrocities of evil men, acts of terrorism pale by comparison.
The truth is that we are not in control.
It is an illusion of a prideful heart.
What about your health?
Fine today, so far as you know.
What might the next visit to the doctor reveal to you?
And what happens when life takes an unexpected, hairpin turn?
Man, fiercely independent of God, begins to blame God as though He should have been running interference for us.
He loves us enough to allow us to choose our own direction, knowing, sooner or later that we will be enlightened.
We will come back to Him looking for answers.
Life leads everyone to their limits and reminds them that there must be something more sufficient than themselves.
*/5.
/**/The Message in the Madness/*
 
Let me ask you again a recurring question, one that you’ll hear time and time again in the months ahead.
Just how big is your God?
In your efforts to try to make sense of life are you looking to define a god that fits, that makes sense or are you looking for a God who defines life and asking yourself how you fit in the light of His Sovereignty.
It doesn’t matter how big your box, God will not confine himself to your parameters, your expectations your assumptions.
I’d like to write a book from the sermons that I preach this year.
One that would inspire people to see God as He is and then to see ourselves as we are.
You see He is a God of the wilderness, the wild.
He delivers his people through the wilderness.
It would seem that He leads His people to the places in life where they cannot survive without His Presence.
They depend on Him to supply what the surroundings can never supply.
In order to follow Him they have to turn their backs on subsistence and the slavery of sin and be willing to risk everything to follow Him.
If you’re looking for a ride, this is where it is to be found.
Not a religious trail ride on a broken down horse who follows the rear end of another broken down horse.
That’s all that religion can offer you.
Something safe and predictable, something that fits in the box.
I have to say that I find this nauseous – absolutely undesirable.
I have come to a point in my own spiritual journey where I believe that the best efforts of the church that I have experienced are lame.
We have all the appeal in our society today of a trail ride on broken down horses.
I absolutely love my church.
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