Sermon Tone Analysis

Do You Feel Understood?

In this world we all desire to be understood.

We often ask people if they understand.

We will look at people like they are crazy when they try and be compassionate and say I understand where you are coming from or that they know how you feel.

It is obvious we do not know but that we are trying to help give comfort or strength.

We are trying to get down there and do life with one another.

Even thought his is what we are doing we tend to only alienate the person because maybe they are not handling it as well as the person who asked them seems to be handling life.

So again, do you fell understood?

Or do you feel confused and downtrodden?

Do you feel like everything is out of control and you are just here without a purpose?

Is life becoming too much for you?

Is your world falling down around you and you feel like no one knows or cares and even if they did know they would not understand?

Well I want to tell you that there is one who does care and one who does know exactly what you are going through and He wants to help you.

This is God.

He loves you and has a plan and purpose for you but He understands everything you are going through.

He is not one that will just say He understands trying to comfort.

He genuinely does understand and He wants to strengthen you.

God desires and delights in meeting the needs of those in desperate straits.

He understands what is happening and He offers strength.

God knows your situation, He will give you strength through His love, and He will give you overflowing abundance to face everything.

He is the God who understands and as such He will help you.

We see this in today’s Scripture from Ps. 147

From within this Psalm we see many wonderful things about the understanding of God.

The first is that...

God Knows Your Situation (1-5)

He gathers the outcasts.

This should penetrate all of us.

To someone or some people out there we are all outcasts.

Every one of us are outcasts to someone.

We are not in with everyone.

We may not care or we may want to have involvement with certain groups.

Regardless where you are in life, you are an outcast to someone or to certain groups.

Some are worse off than others.

They may feel that they are completely outcast.

Completely left to fend life alone.

That they are a nothing to everyone else.

They have no hope they think.

Yet, God understands and God knows your situation.

He gathers the outcasts.

As I said a minute ago we are all outcasts.

I gave only human examples then but now let me give our spiritual.

We are all spiritual outcasts until we believe in Jesus for our salvation.

God knew our situation and sent Jesus into the world to take on flesh and suffer and die for us so we could live with Him as His and not be outcasts.

If He did this for us when we were far from Him, don’t you think He knows what you face and what is happening in your life now?

He does and He cares.

He heals the brokenhearted and binds their wounds.

He is the source for understanding and healing and comfort.

He will give what you need when you seek Him for it.

He will guard you and keep you.

He will heal your pain and suffering.

This may not be in physical healing but He will heal you spiritually when you seek Him.

This will be a comfort in the difficulties.

You will be joyful when terrible news hits and pains come because you know God is in control and He is the one who will give you what you need.

Look at verse 4. If you think you are alone and no one cares or no one understands you.

You may think that you are fighting this battle alone and God is too busy for you.

Look at this verse.

Ps. 147:4

This tells us many things.

First do you know how many known stars there are in the universe?

According to several sources there are 200 billion trillion stars.

This is the number 200 with 21 zeros behind it.

This is a massive number.

Yet God determined the numbers of the stars, and that number is unknown, and He named them all.

If He is that meticulous, I can guarantee that He knows exactly where you are and what you are facing.

Just as Christ said in Luke 12:6-7 “6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies?

And not one of them is forgotten before God.

7 Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered.

Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

God knows you and He knows exactly what is going on with you.

If He knows the exact number of stars and their names and if He knows the exact number of hairs on your head, He knows what is happening to you.

He knows your situation.

But to find this comfort and strength we must humble ourselves and quit seeking our answers from this world and things in this world and find our...

Strength in God’s Love (6-11)

If we depend on this world to help us, we will be let down.

If we depend on other people to help us, we will be let down.

If we depend on ourselves, we will be let down.

Our strength is not enough to make it through.

Paul cried out for relief and help during his difficult times and God told him that in our weakness His power rests upon us.

This means that when we humble ourselves and seek God in life and everything in it, we will have His power in our lives.

This is clear in verses 10-11 Ps. 147:10-11

His pleasure is with us who find our strength in Him alone and not ourselves or others.

When we have our identity in Him alone we are strong because He is working through us.

This is what it means to fear God.

When we fear God we “acknowledge his supremacy and one’s own subservient position, and to place one’s hope in God, rather than in oneself” (Tremper Longman, Psalms: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, Inter-Varsity Press, 472).

We place our hope and reliance in Him alone because only He is big enough to carry the burdens and only He is capable enough of handling it without fail.

I don’t care how strong and independent you are, you cannot handle life alone without God.

You will stumble and struggle and fail and fall.

You will be let down and depressed and distraught with no hope.

Only with God can we stand the world and all it throws at us.

We are only human and when too much hits us and too much difficulties arise we will have a breaking point.

We will get down and despair.

Strong men will break at times and will struggle in situations.

A scene in Saving Private Ryan gives us good insight here.

It is after they take the communication tower and they lose their medic.

He is off to the side looking at the map determining their next move when he breaks down crying.

He had faced the D-Day landing with strength, several encounters up to this point.

This attack on a fortitude position that was quite dangerous, all with courage and strength.

Yet, him a very courageous and strong man no doubt, finally breaks because it is more than he can handle.

Many men and women of great strength and courage have broke at some point because something is too much for them.

This tells us that no matter how strong you are or how strong someone else is that you depend on, our strength is not enough.