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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Emotion Tone
Anger
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Analytical
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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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“I used to have such a passion to read and study God’s word.
Suddenly, that passion is gone.
It is difficult for me to even pick up my Bible.
What has happened?”
*“I used to have such a close relationship with the Lord.
I haven’t heard from Him in a long time.
I am no longer interested in reading the Bible or praying.
I don’t even want to go to church.”
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*“I’ve fallen into sin – big sin, after all these years of walking with the Lord.
I feel so far away from Him.
What has happened to me?”*
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*“It’s like someone slammed a door in my face.
I no longer get anything out of reading my Bible, and I don’t hear from the Lord.
I feel like all my prayers go unanswered, I don’t even feel like praying.”*
*/ /*
            For John of the Cross it was a Dark Night of the Soul.
For Some it is a Crisis of Faith.
Most Evangelicals refer to it as a Desert experience.
Some hearing this know exactly what I am talking about-and others can’t believe that any good Christians would ever has such a doubt.
Make no mistake—if you continue to serve God-you will go through a period of emptiness before God.
You can be scared of these times or you can recognize them for what they are-periods of growth.
They are those times when we learn to depend on God.
They become seasons when we experience God as much through our emptiness and his apparent absence as we do during times of refreshing and God’s nearness.
How is that possible?
Its possible because we learn to trust God rather than our feelings.
There is only one way that our faith can mature to the point of full reliance of God.
We have to experience need rather than emotion.
We have to long for God rather than rest in his rich presence.
We need this kind of love for God because we live in a world that still separates us from him in part.
We need this kind of faith because we still live in a world that is often controlled by the demonic and the spiritual forces opposed to God’s work.
We need to learn to trust God because our feelings, our passions, and our hungers lie to us.
Only God’s voice can tell us truth and lead us through the darkness of this present world.
Did Jesus go through the desert?
Yes!
            Immediately following his baptism-he was driven by the Spirit into the desert.
Where:
*/ /*
*/Matthew 4:1-11 (NRSV) \\ 1 /**/Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil./*
*/2 /**/He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished.
\\ \\ /*
            God leads us, at times to places we are reluctant to go.
Very few will choose struggle and pain.
But these are the things that God uses to grow us.
Without trial-there will be no maturity in the faith.
This is one of the costs of discipleship.
\\             From this account we learn that Jesus has fasted.
He has taken his body to the limits of human endurance.
A human body can not go much beyond 40 days without food and live.
Jesus has denied his flesh.
He is most certainly weak, lonely, and vulnerable to temptation.
Any of us dying of hunger and removed from all support would be emotionally and physically broken.
We learn from this passage that the devil still tempts even the son of God.
Spiritually he is tested in one of his weakest moments.
This seems to be the pattern too for our lives.
We are often tested when we are at our weaknesses, and immediately following a spiritual victory.
We tend to want to rest in our highs and resist our lows.
We find ourselves, sick, or hungry, or sad—and we withdraw from God.
But Jesus did not withdraw—he leaned on the presence of his father.
How did he resist the devil?
*/3 /**/The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”
\\ \\ /*
*/4 /**/But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ” \\ \\ /*
            The first test is one of physical desire.
Jesus is terribly hungry and the devil challenges him to feed his flesh.
This is a challenge in that his relationship with God is challenged, his pride is challenged, and his hunger is emphasized.
Turning the stones into bread was a selfish misuse of God’s gifts.
It was a miraculous way to satisfy his own desire.
Satan tried to misdirect Jesus by doubting his sonship-but the real test was one of Jesus’ obedience.
Was Jesus truly weak and vulnerable as any other human?
Yes!
He was fully man and fully God.
In his humanness, he needed food.
Would he misuse his power to meet his own needs?
He answered with scripture-His sustainer wasn’t food.
Jesus was leaning on God the father to meet his needs.
When you go through a period of emptiness and spiritual drought, remember that there is only one way to get through temptation in a weakened state-lean on God alone to provide for you.
Sometimes God doesn’t answer until just when you need it.
When I was first married, there was more than one occasion when I was overwhelmed with bills.
We would pray for God to take care of us and—I kid you not—A check would come in the mail for exactly the amount that we needed to pay the bills.
Once down to the penny.
God knows what we need, but there are times that he waits to meet our need.
In learning patience, we learn to trust God and not our own wits or abilities to make due.
*Wait for God to meet your needs.*
*/5 /**/Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, \\ \\ /*
*/6 /**/saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’
” \\ \\ /*
*/7 /**/Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’
” \\ \\ /*
            The second test really hit Jesus with pride.
If he really was the son of God-no harm would come to him.
The temptation here is one trying to get Jesus to “prove himself.”
Pride is an ugly thing.
When you see a bully-they are usually trying to convince everyone else that they are in control of the chaos.
It is hard to just trust God to take care of you when everything else seems to be falling apart.
The devil was trying to make Jesus feel small and insignificant.
He was challenging his ability to prove his own worth.
I think the toughest challenges we face are those that strip away our self worth or question our integrity.
That means to question how we see ourselves.
We will often react very emotionally when someone does that to us.
But Jesus didn’t take the bait.
He responded again-don’t put the Lord your God to the test-He is claiming his own divinity here.
He is God.
The devil is not to put him to the test. 
1.
Police in Wichita, Kansas, arrested a 22-year-old man at an airport hotel after he tried to pass two (counterfeit) $16 bills.
\\ \\ 2. A man in Johannesberg, South Africa, shot his 49-year-old friend in the face, seriously wounding him, while the two practiced shooting beer cans off each other's head.
\\ \\ 3. A young teller was new to the job when she was approached by her first robber.
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