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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Fear
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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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/Why is it so hard to be good?
/
A young man filled out an application for admission to a university.
In a space which asks “List your Personal Strengths,” he wrote, “Sometimes I am trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.”
Where the form said, “List Your Weaknesses,” he wrote: “Sometimes I am untrustworthy, disloyal, unhelpful, unfriendly, discourteous, unkind, disobedient, gloomy, wasteful, cowardly, unclean and irreverent.”
/            Most of us are not so eager to talk about our dark side.
We’d rather show the world our respectable Dr. Jekyll, and do our best to keep our ugly Mr. Hyde hidden.
Nobody wants to admit how really hard it is sometimes to be good.
/
/            And yet just like Mr. Hyde, that part of us rears its ugly head from time to time.
No matter how calm and even-tempered you seem, your ugly anger sneaks out on occasion, maybe at home, showing your dark side.
You have a clean-cut reputation for being a good family man, but nobody sees how lust lurks just beneath the surface of your smile.
Everybody talks about how sweet and kind you seem, but they’ve not been around when you’ve backstabbed your friends with ugly gossip.
Mark Twain was right when he said/
Everyone is a moon and has a dark side, which he never shows to anybody./
/
/            This is why it’s so hard to be good.
Every one of us struggles with our dark side, with our troubling desire to do what’s wrong instead of what’s right.
You may think you’re the only person who fights this fight, or you may try to convince yourself you are above this battle.
I want to assure you that everybody-*everybody* fights a war within between what they ought to do, and what they ought not to do---even giants of the faith like the apostle Paul./
/            In *Rom.
7:14-25* Paul openly shares his war within.
He doesn’t make excuses for sin, nor does he suggest we just give in and give up.
Instead, he shares 3 secrets about how he is winning the war---3 secrets that can help you and I win our own war within.
/
*PRAYER*
Since Paul’s never been to the church in Rome, one of the purposes of this letter is to summarize the message he preaches, which is simply the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
This letter is one of the most systematic explanations of what it means to be saved from sin found anywhere in the Bible.
Paul explains how salvation doesn’t come from obeying the Law, but from believing in Jesus Christ.
He goes to explain the difference this salvation makes not only in your eternal destination, but in your everyday life.
Over and over he stresses we are saved only by faith in Christ.
But if we’re saved by faith and not works, how can we win this war within?
Is there no way for a person to overcome his sinful desires and live to please God?
This prompts Paul to share his strategy for slugging it out with sin.
He begins by saying 
*1.
**I know the right thing to do.
*
The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do…- General H. Norman Schwarzkopf
Paul would agree.
In this war within, the problem is not confusion about what’s right and wrong.
Paul makes this clear when he writes
*v.
14* /For we know that the law /[God’s command] /is spiritual…/
*v.
16 */…I agree with the law that it is good./
*v.
22* /For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man./
/            /In other words, Paul says /I know the right thing to do.
/How can he be so sure?
Our society says /he can’t be sure.
/Our postmodern mindset tells us nobody really knows for sure what’s right or wrong because there’s no such thing as right and wrong---only what’s right for you, or what’s wrong for me.
It’s your opinion vs. mine.
Paul says /that’s rubbish!
/Not only /can /we/ /know what’s right and wrong—/we do know what’s right and wrong.
/How do we know?
Earlier in this same letter Paul wrote in
*Ro 1:18-19* /18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.
/
/            /Paul goes on in the next verses to list various sins which people know are wrong because God placed this knowledge of right and wrong within them.
His moral law is written in the heart of every human being; people can suppress this knowledge, but they cannot truthfully say they don’t know the right thing to do, because /God has shown it to them.
/
            Think it through.
If people don’t really know the difference between right and wrong, why do we put criminals in jail?
Maybe the poor things don’t really understand killing or stealing is wrong.
You can’t blame terrorists for killing innocent people if they really don’t know any better.
Paul emphatically declares /we know the right thing to do because God has revealed it to us in our hearts.
/
            But there’s another important way we know right from wrong: /God has revealed it to us in the Bible./
In our hearts we have a general revelation of right and wrong, but in Scripture we have a specific revelation of right and wrong.
*Ps 119:11* /Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You./
/            /From the 10 Commandments to the Sermon on the Mount, God reveals how we ought to behave, how we ought to think, how we ought to live.
I know the right thing to do---if I /want/ to know the right thing to do.
/Winning the war within begins by acknowledging that you know the right thing to do.
You know you ought to tell the truth and not lie.
You know you ought to forgive instead of holding a grudge.
You know you ought to control your temper instead of losing it.
You don’t win the war within by ignoring the truth God put in your heart, or the truth God reveals in the Bible.
You have the power to suppress the truth, but that won’t help you win the war within.
You begin to make progress when you remind yourself: I know what I ought to do.
/
The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do.
The hard part is doing it.-
General H. Norman Schwarzkopf
*            *Paul would agree with the 2nd part of the general’s statement because he goes on to admit
*2.    **Sometimes I can’t seem to do what I know is right.*
*            *Have you ever noticed how doing wrong can come so much easier than doing right?
A preacher was bargaining with a young man over a used push mower.
“Are you sure it still works well?” asked the preacher.
“Oh, yes sir.
It’s in good working order.”
So the preacher buys the mower, gets it home, and decides to try it out.
With the hot sun blazing down, he pulls the rope, but the mower doesn’t start.
He pulls it again, a little harder, it sputters, but doesn’t start.
He pulls 5 more times, 10 more times, each time sweating a little harder, and getting a little more frustrated.
Finally, he pushes the mower all the way back to the young man’s house and says, “Young man, I thought you told me this lawn mower was in perfect running order.
“Yes, sir, it is.”
“Well I’ve pulled and pulled and can’t get it to turn over.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you---you have to cuss at this mower if you want it to start.
Sometimes you have to cuss at it a lot.”
The preacher straightened up indignantly and said, “Young man, I gave up cussing a long time ago.
I’ve forgotten all the cuss words I ever knew.”
The young man replied, “Preacher, you just keep pulling that rope, and you’ll be surprised how they’ll all come back to you!”
*            */No man knows how bad he is until he has tried very hard to be good.-
C. S. Lewis/
This is the essence of the war within: /I know what I ought to do, but sometimes I just can’t seem to do it.
/Paul expresses this several times here:
*v.
15* /For what I am doing, I do not understand.
For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do./
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