Forget Not all His Benefits

Introduction

Thanksgiving is a time to stop and reflect on all that the Lord has done for us. In reflecting, there is something wrong with us if that meditation does not produce heartfelt praise as well. This Psalm of David is such a psalm: a song that bursts forth from meditating on what God had done for Him.

Sometimes I feel like my view of God must be deficient because it does not excite me as much as it should. Can you understand the feeling? Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why praise just does not naturally come out of our mouths. Why is it we complain so much? Why is it we grumble for what we have to go through? Why is it so hard for us to thank God for anything? Is it not that we lack a deeper love and view of our God?

Consider the fact that all praise is an outflowing of what we love. Men inevitably praise what they love. Now some men are excitable like those men at the football game who tear off their shirts and have the team name painted on their chests. Men will at times do crazy extravagant things for the thing they love. Not all men are so emotional, but their praise takes another form. Men will praise what they love by talking about it at every possible moment. Think about the things that excite you? What things make your pulse run just a little faster? What conversations invigorate you with energy? Think about all the conversations you have initiated with someone. What was the topic of that conversation? Are their none that talk about the Lord? Is it not because we fail to think about how good our God is and in doing so fail to be excited by any thought of God?

Maybe it is because we have an over inflated view of ourselves? Maybe we think we deserve everything we get? Maybe we think that we have earned everything we have in life and so it is due us? Maybe we don’t think or say those words, but inside we feel them?

Maybe its just that we have forgotten. What you do not actively spend time trying to remember, you will usually forget. Think about all those bible verses you memorized as a kid. How often do you need to go back and refresh them in your memory because you have started to forget them? Many things in our lives are forgotten because they are not meditated on or recalled enough. But to the believer who truly grasps, remember, meditates on the goodness of God, how could it not but flow out in praise.

Thesis: If we truly meditate on what God has done for us, it will flow out of us in praise.

David sets an example for us in Psalm 103 for how to develop a truly thankful heart that bursts out into praise.

I. David’s call vs 1,2; 20-22

A. Bless the Lord- Verses 1,2 and 20-22 repeat the same command 8 times with one minor variation. Notice the chapter begins and ends with the Phrase Bless the Lord O my Soul. If you have been in my Sunday school class you will recognize this as an inclusio. For those who haven’t been in my class think of it like a book end, but the book end sets the main theme. This phrase is what the entire chapter is about. This is the emphasis that David wants to set before us. This is the command he calls us to obey: Bless the Lord. David is making a summons. He is calling for the audience to join in with him in praise. Notice who he calls to this praise service:

O my Soul- David knowing how easy it is to slip into lethargy, spiritual sleep rouses himself up to praise the Lord. The soul here is defined as all that is within me. David praises God with all of himself. Deut 6:5 “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” Praise is meant to be a mental exercise in that you remember what he has done. It is meant to be an emotional exercise in that you rejoice in what God has done for you. Praise is meant to be a matter of the will because you may not always feel like giving Him praise but you choose to anyways. Praise is meant to be an entire person thing. This is why in Psalms people danced, they clapped their hands and they shouted. Praise should light up the eyes and quicken the heart. David makes his first call to rouse himself up to praise God.

angels- these angels are the archangels that do his will. I say not all the archangels because Satan was one. Isa 6:2-3 “Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: The whole earth is full of his glory.”

all his hosts- these are the armies of lesser angels. They serve as servants of the lord. Heb 1:14 “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” God’s angels minister to our needs at God’s pleasure.

all his works- all the created things: the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, the animals on land and even the earth itself are called to praise. Psalm 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament sheweth his handywork.”

B. Forget not His benefits- What does it mean to bless the Lord? The Psalmist in poetic parallelism tells us that praising God means recounting all the things God has done for us; so that we do not forget them. You cannot properly praise God if you are forgetting everything He has done for you. I mentioned above that sometimes we just forget to praise God. Maybe we forget to think about God. This happens because we do not spend enough time meditating on what God has done for us. One of the best practical tips I have picked up along the way for helping us remember everything that God has done for us is Journaling. (Show them journal) Every day for my devotions I write down in this little book here. I write down a key thought from what I read that day, but I also write down things the Lord has been doing in my life. Whenever the Lord has specifically blessed me, I place a little star in the right hand corner so I can review what God has done. Journalling may not be for you, but I challenge you that you would be hard pressed to find any great man of God in the past, any great preacher who knew and love his Lord who did not do it. We see such a practice in the culture of the days that this what written. Consider

Esther 6:1-3 “On that night could not the king sleep, and he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles; and they were read before the king. And it was found written, that Mordecai had told of Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s chamberlains, the keepers of the door, who sought to lay hand on the king Ahasuerus. And the king said, What honour and dignity hath been done to Mordecai for this? Then said the king’s servants that ministered unto him, There is nothing done for him.”

Even God himself keeps such a book.

Mal 3:16 “Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: And the Lord hearkened, and heard it, And a book of remembrance was written before him For them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name.”

More often than not, we don’t praise God because we don’t remember everything God has done. We don’t even think about it. It is more like, “Oh, that was nice” and we go on our way. Maybe we don’t even think that the Lord brought that nice thing into our lives. What follows in David’s Psalm is in essence a book of remembrance. (He did write it down after all) He recounts what God has blessed us with and why we should praise Him.

II. David’s list of Benefits vs 3-19

The following list includes 10 points. Don’t worry I won’t be going through every detail or we would be here until tomorrow.

A. Forgiveness of sins vs 3

God actually forgives our sins. We know that God did not have to send Jesus Christ to die for our sins. He could have been just as just to send every last man woman and child to Hell because of our sin. Forgiveness is not something we are owed by God; it is a free gift from God. God does not desire our death. Eze 18:23 “Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?” Eze 18:32 “For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.” Eze 33:11 “Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” God is perfectly just. Gen 18:25 “That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” God has to punish sin Ill. Judge who lets a murderer go. But Jesus took our punishment and so God’s love and justice could both be satisfied. 1 John 4:10 “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” As a believer, we have so much to be thankful for; but the greatest is that God has forgiven us even when He did not have to.

B. Healing vs 3

God heals our diseases. Some of these statements may sound like promises that God is going to heal every disease and He will in the future. But anytime we are healed of a disease, it is God who brings the health. Sometimes we take this for granted. We are sick with the flu for a week and we gradually get over it; so we don’t stop to praise God. It isn’t like I was at deaths door or anything? But anytime I recover God is behind it and deserves our praise. Psalm 147:3 “He healeth the broken in heart, And bindeth up their wounds.”

C. Kindness vs 4

When we think of God, do we think of God’s kindness? Another way of wording it is that God is nice. God goes out of His way to shower us with good things every day. We often don’t make the connection because we don’t physically see Him giving the gifts. Not only is he kind, but he is tender. Matt 11:29 “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” the world is full of cruel taskmasters. Seek money and it will consume you until you have nothing left. It will leave you empty and dry and it will enslave you. Seek popularity and when it dies you will crash. Popularity cannot last forever. all these other pursuits will oppress you and hurt you in the end, but God is tender and kind.

D. Satisfaction vs 5

Just as those taskmasters are cruel and will only bring misery, they cannot bring you fulfillment. but God can give us fulfillment. He can satisfy us. There are some who will never be satisfied. They are greedy for more and they are hollow because they can never be satisfied. Jeremiah likens those who seek fulfillment in anyone else as putting water into wells that are broken and leak. Haggai 1:6 “Ye have sown much, and bring in little; Ye eat, but ye have not enough; Ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; Ye clothe you, but there is none warm; And he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.” They sought to satisfy themselves but it was like drinking but never getting enough to drink, putting on clothes but still being cold, and putting money in a bag but it has holes and the money falls out. We must thank God for the fulfilled life that he gives us.

E. Renewal vs 5

God can give us strength when we feel like we don’t have any. The illustration here has brought a lot of debate about how a eagle renews its strength. I don’t think that is the focus. Rather the verse is saying he will renew us so that we will have strength like an eagle does. Weakness is a normal human condition though we try to ignore it. Even the strong have weaknesses. But these weaknesses drive us to God. 2 Cor 12:9 “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

F. Justice vs 6

God is the one who brings justice. Does this mean there is no injustice today? No. But no one escapes the justice of God. Those who persecute Christians, those who promote evil, the killing of babies in the world, slavery, oppression, racism, unjust war; God will punish. And even if it does not happen here, the record is being kept; they will pay. Evil will not prevail.

G. Revelation vs 7

We should be thankful that God has revealed Himself to us. As we saw on Wednesday nights, God is incomprehensible meaning he cannot be fully known and he is transcendent. If God has not taken steps to reveal Himself to us we would never know Him. But God has revealed Himself Hebrews 1:1-3 “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;” God has spoken. We have a blessing to know God. To have a relationship with Him. To know Jesus and to read God’s word. He has not left us in ignorance.

H. God’s Mercy vs 8-18

God’s mercy spans a larger section of text in this chapter. We see that God shows mercy. When we deserve punishment, he forgives. He is slow to get angry. He doesn’t fly off the handle and consume us. In vs 9 He doesn’t always chide us. He doesn’t hold grudges and He isn’t always badgering us. We know the bible says 1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” We can be sure that God is not nurturing some secret anger against us that He just can’t get over. Vs 10 God doesn’t give us everything we deserve. We would all be in hell this moment if he did. Vs 11 His mercy is as boundless as the heavens. Vs 12 when He forgives us, our sins are removed from us as far as the east is from the west. The two shall never meet. They are gone. I do not have to bear them any longer. He has forgiven them. we will come back to vs 13-14 in a second. Vs 17 God’s mercy is from everlasting to everlasting. It has no beginning or ending. It is who he is. And it belongs to those who are in a covenant relationship with Him.

I. God’s Pity vs 13-14

God pities us. He knows our weaknesses and He is merciful because of them. First it say He pities us as a father does His child. Why didn’t he say as a mother? We don’t know how to relate to the gentle father who cares for his children, but I think any good father’s heart grieves for their children when they are heart. This verse clearly states that God’s heart grieves for us . Why? he knows our frame that we are dust. We are mortal weak beings. Our days are few and we are all dying. Death grieves the heart of God. We will all pass away, but God’s mercy is forever.

J. God’s Sovereignty vs 19

The final praise on David’s list is one I could and had planned on preaching an entire sermon on the sovereignty of God. God is still on His throne. He is still in control. The verse does not say He will rule but he does rule. God’s sovereignty is over everything. There is nothing that escapes God’s rule and control.

Conclusion

I highly recommend the practice of journalling if for no other reason, it will allow you to remember all the things that the Lord has done for us. Any practice that helps us meditate on who God is and what he has done ought to cause us to overflow with praise for Him. Maybe our mouths are so often silent because we are not spending anytime actively meditating on God’s goodness. As a practice, I challenge you this thanksgiving to read Psalm 103 and write down what God has done for you. Write down a specific time that he forgave you when no one else would have forgiven you. Write down a time when God healed you of some illness that was difficult to work through. Write down a kindness the Lord has shown you. Write down a time when God met your needs but even sometimes your wants. Write down a time when he gave you strength when you had none. Write down when you have seen God be just in punishing the wicked or those who unashamedly hurt you. Write down thoughts of God’s mercy, his pity in your life. Write down how god has shown Himself to be in control.

Forget no all his benefits.