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
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Disgust
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Fear
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Joy
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Sadness
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Language Tone
Analytical
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Confident
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Tentative
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Social Tone
Openness
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Conscientiousness
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Extraversion
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Agreeableness
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Emotional Range
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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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The scoreboard reads double zeros.
Streamers shoot across the sky, confetti rains down, and music blares loudly over the stadium’s speakers.
Flashbulbs from thousands of cameras go off all around the packed stadium.
The Superbowl is over.
The players are all gathered around a podium set up in the middle of the field.
A world champion is about to be crowned.
In a moment the speeches are over and the players prize is passed around?
They hoist it in the air for all to see.
This is what their hard work accomplished.
They have something to show for it.
A big… shiny…hunk of metal.
Doesn’t it seem that sometimes we lift high the strangest things?
That Superbowl trophy will gather dust.
The excitement of the championship game will fade.
What in the grand scheme of the universe did this trophy even mean?
What do you lift high in your lives?
Is it that promotion your boss just gave you?
Or is it that new gas grill that can grill ten hamburgers at once?
Is it that new car?
Or the new clothes?
Are the only things we should be lifting up in our lives just the “stuff” that gives us joy for short lived moments?
What are we to lift high in our lives?
What provides lasting meaning, in a meaningless world?
In the Gospel for today, Jesus is addressing these same questions.
But Jesus isn’t going to focus on trophies, cars or clothes, but a cross.
*Lift high the cross!*
*1.
The cross on which Jesus carried our sin*
*2.
The cross which Jesus invites us to carry*
* *
1.*         *The Gospel picks up right after Jesus had done an incredible miracle.
He had just fed 5,000 men with five loaves of bread and two fish.
Can you imagine being there on that day, eating that all you can eat fish fry with thousands of people around you?
And all of it from two small fish and five loaves of bread?
Don’t you hear the whispers around you? “Who is this guy?” “How did he feed us all?”
As the disciples went around and collected twelve baskets of leftover food, they too began to wonder, “how did Jesus do this?”
As they left the crowd the disciples minds must have been racing.
Jesus led his disciples to a private place to pray.
Jesus then asked his disciples a question, “who do the crowds say I am?”
The disciples answered, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.”
As the disciples had made their way through the crowd after the feast, they must have heard all sorts of theories as to who Jesus really was.  “He’s John the Baptist.
No, He’s Elijah.
No, he’s a different prophet.”
The crowd had realized one thing, Jesus wasn’t an ordinary guy.
He was someone extraordinary.
Their bellies were full of food that had miraculously appeared.
His sermons were like ones they had never heard before.
He had to be a prophet.
But these people were missing the point.
They were so focused on trying to figure out who he was that they didn’t listen to his message.
But surely Jesus’ disciples would know who he is, right?
Jesus then turned to the disciples and asked the question again.
But this time the question was more personal.
“But what about you?” he asked.
“Who do you say I am?”  Peter answered, “The Christ of God.”
What a great response, right?
Peter recognized Jesus as the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies.
And Peter was right.
But like the people in the crowd, Peter also was failing to understand Jesus true purpose.
During those times it was a common misconception that the Christ would be a political Savior.
The Jews at that time saw the Christ, as a king who would save Israel from the control of the Roman Empire.
He would fulfill the desires of all the people of Israel.
But Jesus would be a different type of Savior than that, and so Jesus tells Peter to “not tell this to anyone.”
Jesus didn’t want people to see him as a political Savior or a Bread King, but as a Savior who would serve a far greater purpose.
Peter and the crowds were all lifting high the wrong things, they were all focused on temporary worldly things.
And so Jesus points his disciples to lift high that which has eternal significance, his cross.
“The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
What a surprise these words were to the disciples.
Jesus hadn’t come to earth to be a popular person, but a person rejected by the most important people in Israel.
He didn’t come to defeat the Romans, but to die on a Roman cross.
Can you imagine the shock of the disciples?
Jesus was capable of having all the power and prestige imaginable.
He could have had fine palaces and thousands of followers.
And instead his purpose was to die on a cross?
This is why Matthew tells us that Peter rebuked Jesus, “Never, Lord!” “This shall never happen to you!”
But Jesus set Peter straight, “you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”
As Jesus had said, “The Son of man /must /suffer.”
This wasn’t some morbid desire that Jesus had for himself.
It was something that had to happen.
Why?
Why was it such a “must” that he suffer and die?
Since Adam and Eve had sinned in the Garden of Eden every person was born sinful.
King David wrote about this fact in the Psalms, “surely I was sinful from birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”
People needed a Savior from sin.
And throughout the Old Testament, God preserved the line of the Savior.
He repeatedly promised to send them this Savior from sin.
It would be necessary for this Savior to live a perfect life and be sacrificed.
Jesus is reminding his disciples that they needed this type of Savior far more than a political savior.
Jesus here is lifting before the eyes of his disciples this cross.
He’s instructing them to put this cross first in their lives.
To lift high the cross.
Because through this cross, they would be given forgiveness from their sins.
Brothers and Sisters in Christ, we also need this Savior from sin.
We think that we are good people because we give to charity, we treat others with respect, or help that old lady walk across the street.
But in this section, Jesus is talking to us also.
When Jesus said that, “the Son of man must suffer.”
That “must” was for your sins and mine.
God commands us to be perfect.
And we certainly aren’t perfect.
For this reason, Jesus lifts high his cross before our eyes as well.
As Christians we put our faith in this cross.
We lift it high it our lives.
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