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
0.17UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.12UNLIKELY
Fear
0.15UNLIKELY
Joy
0.57LIKELY
Sadness
0.45UNLIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.63LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.58LIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.65LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.76LIKELY
Extraversion
0.1UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.73LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.45UNLIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
The Secret to Contentment.doc
SD20
October 21, 2007 File E
*8** *The Joyful Christian part 11
The Secret to Contentment
We are looking at the subject of the joyful Christians from the book of Philippians—the life that God wants for us!!!
Jesus said--John 15:11 (NKJV) \\ 11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and /that/ your joy may be full.
*8 *A vital part of that equation has to do with “contentment”
Listen to what Paul says here
Philippians 4:10-13 (read)
Listen also to his words to Timothy
1 Timothy 6:6-10 (NKJV) \\ 6 Now godliness with contentment is great gain.
7 For we brought nothing into /this/ world, /and/ /it is/ certain we can carry nothing out.
8 And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.
9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and /into/ many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.
10 For the love of money is a root of all /kinds of/ evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
*We are living in an age of discontent—we are not satisfied…*
Mick Jagger is not the only one who “can’t get no satisfaction…”
I know why it eludes him…but why it eludes so many who call themselves Christians is another problem all together…
We take a vacation of a lifetime.…We
fill ourselves with sun, fun, and good food.
But we are not even on the way home before we dread the end of the trip and begin planning another.
We are not satisfied.
As a child we say, “If only I were a teenager.”
As a teen we say, “If only I were an adult.”
As an adult, “If only I were married.”
As a spouse, “If only I had kids.”
…
We are not satisfied.
Contentment is a difficult virtue.
Why?
Because there is nothing on earth that can satisfy our deepest longing.
We long to see God.
The leaves of life are rustling with the rumor that we will—and we won’t be satisfied until we do.
---/When God Whispers Your Name*[1]*/
*8 *Paul writes from prison---(the picture here is from the dungeon under the streets of the Roman Forum…a dark and dismal jail called the Mamertine Prison…
As he writes to Timothy it is not so bleak as this, but nonetheless has its drawbacks:
Chained to a roman guard, dismal, he is dead broke, no family, nearsighted and worn out…
But as he writes his treatise on the joyful Christian life—we see a smile form across his wrinkled face…a grin as he looks at his captor… peers into his eyes—“Have you heard about Jesus Christ?...”
He is the reason I am here…let me tell you about Him…”
Paul’s prison was nothing compared to the one so many are in today…
The prison is not one of mortar and brick…and bars of iron…
But it is the most overcrowded prison in the world…come with me to the word’s most oppressive prison… Just ask the inmates; they will tell you.
They are overworked and underfed.
Their walls are bare and bunks are hard.
No prison is so populated, no prison so oppressive, and, what’s more, no prison is so permanent.
Most inmates never leave.
They never escape.
They never get released.
They serve a life sentence in this overcrowded, underprovisioned facility.
*8 *The name of the prison?
You’ll see it over the entrance.
*W-A-N-T*
The prison of want.
You’ve seen her prisoners.
They are “in want.”
They want something.
They want something bigger.
Nicer.
Faster.
Thinner.
They want.
They don’t want much, mind you.
They want just one thing.
One new job.
One new car.
One new house.
One new spouse.
They don’t want much.
They want just one.
And when they have “one,” they will be happy.
And they are right—they will be happy.
But then it happens.
The new-car smell passes.
The new job gets old.
The neighbors buy a larger television set.
The new spouse has bad habits.[2]
And before you know it they are back in the prison of WANT!
Discontented…
Are you in prison?
You are if you feel better when you have more and worse when you have less.
You are if joy is one delivery away, one transfer away, one award away, or one makeover away.
If your happiness comes from something you deposit, drive, drink, or digest, then face it—you are in prison, the prison of want.
That’s the bad news.
The good news is, you have a visitor.[3]
Sit across the glass from the apostle Paul—Pick up the phone that lets you speak to him…he will give you a way out of this prison…
…and they way out to the joyful life of satisfaction that Jesus longs for you to have…
The keys are in the text:
Paul says, “I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I find myself…”
If you were to believe what the commercials tell you, you would believe that contentment was something that could be sprayed on, rolled, inhaled, eaten or driven.
As if all of these products would give you lasting contentment.
They don't.
You can learn to be content with your present circumstances if you will follow the example sets for us here…
Paul says contentment is learned.
It's not something that's instant, in a one time experience.
Life is a school of contentment and the problem is most people never learn and they die unfulfilled and unsatisfied and unhappy.
How do you learn contentment?
In our text this morning we have three hints at how Paul learned his lesson on contentment:
*8**1.
Learn to avoid comparisons*
v.11b “I have learned…whatever the circumstances…”
Our trouble with contentment and satisfaction often comes when we compare ourselves with others…*LISTEN!!!!*
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9