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
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
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Difficulties are an inevitable part of life in a fallen world.
Some of them are caused by our own foolishness, some of them are caused by the foolishness of others.
Yet others are simply an unfortunate part of living in a broken, sin-cursed world.
All ages experience difficulties.
The young have afflictions that seem great to them.
We who are adults should not look down on their problems, for we developed the strength to handle such things by going through the same things.
As adults we also have difficulties.
Some are great, like loosing your job or the death of a loved one.
Some are less difficult, but still hard.
Conflict at work or at home.
Financial difficulties.
One great way to find encouragement is to read the psalms.
There you will find people who suffered and who found strength in God. is one such psalm.
Turn there with me as we seek encouragement in trials.
Some psalm titles tell us who the author is; it might be ascribed to David, or the Sons of Korah, or even Solomon or Moses.
Some psalms are anonymous.
No one knows for sure who wrote them because it does not say anything about the author.
This psalm has a title that tells us something about the author, but it is anonymous.
It tells us what he was going through but not who he was.
This psalmist was experiencing trials, though we do not know what kind.
And when we read the psalm, it starts off like we would expect a prayer about trials to start.
He asks God to help him, and describes in emotional language how badly he is suffering.
But then in the middle, it shifts from a personal lament to national hope in verse 12.
It sounds almost like a different psalm entirely, but he switches again to his personal problems in verse 23.
Can we find a theme that explains this huge shift in subject and emotions?
We get a clue verse 17.
God’s promise to bring in the Kingdom of God and restore Jerusalem is ultimately what he does to respond to the anguished cries of his servants in trouble.
While God often ends our trials on earth, his ultimate response is to welcome us into the joys of heaven.
Some psalm titles tell us who the author is; it might be ascribed to David, or the Sons of Korah, or even Solomon or Moses.
Some psalms are anonymous.
No one knows for sure who wrote them because it does not say anything about the author.
This psalm has a title that tells us something about the author, but it is anonymous.
It tells us what he was going through but not who he was.
This psalmist was experiencing trials, though we do not know what kind.
And when we read the psalm, it starts off like we would expect a prayer about trials to start.
He asks God to help him, and describes in emotional language how badly he is suffering.
But then in the middle, it shifts from a personal lament to national hope in verse 12.
It sounds almost like a different psalm entirely, but he switches again to his personal problems in verse 23.
Can we find a theme that explains this huge shift in subject and emotions?
We get a clue verse 17.
God’s promise to bring in the Kingdom of God and restore Jerusalem is ultimately what he does to respond to the anguished cries of his servants in trouble.
While God often ends our trials on earth, his ultimate response is to welcome us into the joys of heaven.
Some psalm titles tell us who the author is; it might be ascribed to David, or the Sons of Korah, or even Solomon or Moses.
Some psalms are anonymous.
No one knows for sure who wrote them because it does not say anything about the author.
This psalm has a title that tells us something about the author, but it is anonymous.
It tells us what he was going through but not who he was.
This psalmist was experiencing trials, though we do not know what kind.
And when we read the psalm, it starts off like we would expect a prayer about trials to start.
He asks God to help him, and describes in emotional language how badly he is suffering.
But then in the middle, it shifts from a personal lament to national hope in verse 12.
It sounds almost like a different psalm entirely, but he switches again to his personal problems in verse 23.
Can we find a theme that explains this huge shift in subject and emotions?
We get a clue verse 17.
God’s promise to bring in the Kingdom of God and restore Jerusalem is ultimately what he does to respond to the anguished cries of his servants in trouble.
While God often ends our trials on earth, his ultimate response is to welcome us into the joys of heaven.
There are quite a few psalms that
I.
When Affliction is our Reality
In the opening verses of the psalm, we enter into his deep affliction.
In modern writing, the best way to connect with an audience is to be as specific as possible about whatever difficulty they are suffering from.
If the song speaks specifically to whatever we are enduring, it seems relevant and moving.
But the ancient Israelites did not write songs that way.
Like modern songwriters, they would write about their personal difficulties.
But unlike today, they would remove all the particular details of their situation so that the audience could insert the particular details of their experiences into it.
So to truly identify with the psalm as originally intended, you must use your imagination.
He describes how his situation made him feel, but he does not tell us much of anything about what that situation was.
He wants you to feel his pain with him, and to imagine whatever problem you are facing in place of the one that bothered him.
He might have been sick.
He might have faced personal conflict in the home or with a friend.
Perhaps he was enduring the loss of a friend or family member, or debilitating criticism.
Maybe he was overwhelmed by work, or by life itself.
In whatever case, he began with a desperate appeal to God about his problem.
A. Desperate Appeal
What do you do when life is tough?
Do you eat comfort food or skip meals?
Do you binge-watch old movies?
Unload your problems on a friend?
Whatever else you do, remember to go to God with your troubles.
He is the one friend who can always do something about your problem.
He is the one friend who will not think you are weird or weak, because he already knows everything about you, and loves you anyway.
To pray the way the psalmist did is to assume this about God.
02:1-2
There are no less than five phrases here that all say pretty much the same thing.
His prayer is also a cry for help.
He calls upon God in his time of distress.
He imaginatively asks God to cup his ear and lean in to catch every word instead of hiding his face in anger.
The only times God said he would hide his face are because of sin
But God does not always answer as speedily as we think he should, so sometimes we feel like God is hiding his face even though we are not in sin, just like David
But even when we feel like this, yet God does hear his saints
Luke 18:
Even if we must pray long, yet we can be assured that God has already heard our cry and is answering it speedily.
Still, we are not machines.
When trials come, they do have a physical effect.
B. Physical Suffering
The psalmist is wasting away, but he may not be physically sick.
He is so disturbed by his problems that he has lost his appetite.
That is why he is so thin he looks like a skeleton with skin.
He uses several similes to help us understand what he feels like.
He used a couple of body parts to refer to emotional states.
We do the same in phrases like “I just had a gut feeling,” or “what does your heart tell you?”
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