Bless the Lord
Notes
Transcript
We have dealt with a lot of sad Psalms in recent years - even last week’s Psalm was a lament, but I am glad to say that Psalm 103 is a happy Psalm.
Last week’s Psalm was the lament of a dying man who is watching his beloved home collapse - and how he can find hope in the midst of despair.
This Psalm, is also a man seemingly at the end of his life, but this time praising God for his faithfulness in the past, the present and even in eternity.
This Psalm reminds me of the last words of John Newton, the writer of “Amazing Grace” - “Though my memory is nearly gone, I remember two things: That I am a great sinner and Christ is a great savior.”
This sentiment seems to also very much model the attitude of David here. Now, I don’t know about you but many of the times that I mentally picture David writing a Psalm, I think of a young shepherd boy, out in the pasture with a pen and notebook.
This is not likely to be the 16 year old shepherd boy with kingly aspirations. But rather the old King who in his life has been found guilty of the sins of murder, adultery, polygamy, conducting an unjust census, committing gross injustice and turning a blind eye to his children’s sin… This is a David who has sinned greatly. But this is also King David who has been forgiven greatly.
David begins with an address to his own soul that he might bless the Lord. That every fiber of being, all that is within him, should bless the Lord. And the content of the Psalm continues on to demonstrate to us why the Lord is worthy of worship.
It seems that as Americans define blessing poorly.Most of the time people speak of “being blessed” it refers to their worldly status or possessions. We think we are blessed because we have nice things. And while possessions can be a part of blessing - it is not all of what it means to be blessed.
If we are instructed to bless God who doesn’t need anything then we must understand that true blessing is not ultimately about what we own.
How we bless God is not by giving him things… and the greatest source of blessing for us is not him giving us things. We bless God, by speaking of his goodness and mercy, and as we will see in this Psalm, how God speaks of us is where we find our truest source of blessing. We bless God by praising him. And that is exactly what David does in this Psalm. But David also shows us how God has blessed him in this Psalm.
2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits,
And one might ask “What benefits?”
One of the first answers would be God’s covenants. Noahic covenant that God made after the flood by placing his rainbow in the sky - saying that he would not destroy the earth with a flood again.
The Mosaic Covenant that he made when bringing Israel out of slavery with Egypt. David certainly would rejoice in God’s covenant with him to put his offspring on the throne for eternity - a covenant that we see fulfilled in Jesus. The covenant by which we are saved.
And David will continue to demonstrate what those benefits are. But before we move on further… Do you forget God’s benefits?
How often do you forget or ignore how good the Lord has been to you?
(Let that sit… Don’t rush to the next point.)
Do you take for granted God’s mercy toward you?
(Pause.)
Now you might ask how you do that… and I would say that to take God’s mercy for granted would be to sin carelessly. To understand what forgiveness looks like, how it comes from Christ - and yet to live a life that lacks repentance. If your response toward your sin is:
“What does it matter God will forgive me anyway?”
Or to completely regard the obedience that the Lord commands of us.
And this will become clearer as we read through this text.
As David lists the benefits that come from God in the following verses:
3 who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, 4 who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, 5 who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
That God forgives your iniquity… and I mentioned it already… but who would know that better than David. David was a big sinner, who rejoiced in the Lord as being a great redeemer.
Heals all your diseases…
Sometimes we only think of God having healed our diseases when it is a miraculous healing. We think that when we recover from a mild illness it was just because we toughed it out, or that’s just what our bodies do. But even when it is a common cold, we ought to thank God, remembering that he has created our bodies that so that might recover from illness. He created our immune systems. Or even that it wasn’t God, it was doctors. God has created an orderly world in which science and medicine can exist. God has blessed us with the modern marvels of medicine, and he formed brilliant doctors in the womb that they might be a blessing to the world.
But we also need to be careful when we read verses like this that we do not think that they promise us some sort of supernatural vaccine.
Though it does deal with our greatest infirmity, our sin. And for the Christian, we look forward to a restored, renewed body in the age to come.
He redeems your life from the pit.
This is again connected to God’s forgiveness of sin. Because of our sins we deserve hell, but God through his infinite mercy gives forgiveness for those who fear him. And He crowns you with steadfast love and mercy.
In the redemption of Christ, we are not just forgiven of our sins, but we are given the righteousness of Christ. His steadfast love and mercy is placed upon us.
v 5: He satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
In Christ there is newness of life. Restoration of our desires, and true satisfaction is found in Christ.
Verses 3-5, are the summary of the blessings that we received Christ.
And to continue the Lord’s blessings is that he does not forget those who are oppressed. But he is in his good timing, working justice for all the oppressed.
6 The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed.
This verse turns us to the Egyptian slavery of Israel, and God’s deliverance.
7 He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel. 8 The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
And in verse 8 David makes reference to what the Lord tells Moses in Exodus 34:6-7. That is the passage where Moses requests to see God’s glory. The Lord refuses to show him his face because Moses would die. But he places Moses in the cleft of a rock and allows him to see his back. As the glory of the Lord passes by Moses, the Lord says to Moses:
6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
This is one of the most quoted passages in the Old Testament. The Bible has a repeated reminder that God is merciful, gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
And the following verses demonstrate how God shows these attributes. It seems as if David quotes this interaction with Moses and then preaches a sermon on it in the following verse. He expounds about God’s mercy, grace, patience and abundant steadfast love.
9 He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever.
He will not always chide - or accuse, or contend with us. God will make peace. He will not hold on to this anger forever. And this is a promise for God’s children.
If you are his child - God is not mad at you. This is not a blanket promise for everyone though.
There are two common phrases that get thrown around a lot that aren’t biblical.
God is not mad at you.
We are all God’s children.
Now, if you are God’s child, he is not mad at you. But I want to ask questions to clarify that first.
Why would God be mad at you?
By what terms can you call God Father?
God is mad at sin. God hates sin. God will punish sinners according to their sins.
Only by faith in Jesus can we be forgiven of that sin. Those who believe in Jesus have been given the right to be called sons and daughters of God. David was looking forward to Jesus Christ, who would take God’s wrath toward sin upon himself that we might be forgiven. God does not chide, or keep his answer toward those who are forgiven in Christ.
If you are a Christian, you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. That he died to save sinners, and rose again - then God is not mad at you.
But if that’s not true of you - then you are separated from God. But for those who repent of their sins, and trust in Jesus then what David rejoices in here from verses 6-14 can be your song too. If you trust in Jesus, your sins are forgiven - and you can be thankful to God for the same things.
And this is further demonstrated in verse 10.
10 He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.
That God does not deal with his children according to their sins, or repay us because he has laid them all on Jesus.
Our Psalm last week celebrated that God does not change. So when take that our sins are forgiven in Christ, and that God never changes. That God has dealt with our sins on the cross, so that he doesn’t deal with us according to our sins - then we rejoice that this is an eternal truth.
That God has removed our sins from us.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
Here in verse 11, and again in verse 13, David writes this phrase “those who fear him.” David understands that salvation comes by faith.
There is a condition the the Lord’s salvation - and that is relationship. This relationship is only through faith in Christ Jesus.
For those who fear God their transgression is as far as the east is from the west. While David lived 1000 years before the coming of Christ, he clearly understands that those who trust in the Lord for salvation will have their sins forgiven.
And that forgiveness David demonstrates with two incredible metaphors. Both of them conveying the same thing - and both using geography.
As far as heaven is from earth. As far as the east is from the west.
Both of these are immeasurable distances. If you are a follower of Jesus - this is true of you. The sins that created a separation between you and God have been cast so far from you that they cannot be measured… because Jesus bore our sins in his body on the tree - that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. Because he died, and rose again - we can live.
Christian, do you believe that about your sins? Do you believe that God has dealt with your sins, but not dealt with you according to your sin? Do you believe that your sins are as far from you as the east is from the west?
If you do, there is no reason to feel guilty anymore. And you can rejoice as David does here that
13 As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
This is parenting instruction here. Fathers be compassionate toward your children, because the Father has shown your compassion. David assumes that fathers will show compassion upon their children - and that reason the Lord will do the same to those who fear him. Remember when you interact with your children… both old and young children. Men, when you bear the name father, you represent your Father in heaven.
Then verse 14 reminds us of who we are and where we came from. That God brought Adam up out of the dirt, breathed his life into him, made him in his image. But when Adam sinned, he was told that it was from the dust that he came and to the dust he shall return. The Lord knows where we came from - he made us. And though he has numbered our days before we are born - yet he still interacts with us. He still loves us. He still shows us his steadfast love. And this reference to our dustly nature leads us into the next section. Where David focuses on our frailty, and God’s eternality.
15 As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; 16 for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.
While that sounds a bit like the Kansas song, “Dust in the wind”, because of God’s faithfulness, we are more than just dust in the wind.
17 But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children, 18 to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments. 19 The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.
While, we are but grass God is eternal. The Lord is King - he reigns over all. He is worthy of honor, glory, and praise. And everything that he has created ought to worship him. And that’s how the Psalm ends.
20 Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word! 21 Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers, who do his will!
The angels. his hosts. His ministers. It is not just the inhabitants of the earth, but the hosts of heaven that ascribe glory to God. And we see this when we read the Book of Revelation and we are given a picture of what this looks like. We are shown that the four living creatures eternally sing “Holy, Holy, holy, is the Lord God Almight who was and is and is to come!” and the 24 elders singing “worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” And as we continue through Revelation 4-5, we continue to see that the host of heaven are eternally singing praises to God. They were created for the very purpose of blessing God. And David draws our attention to that, as he closes this hymn out by reminding himself:
22 Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul!
At the beginning I mentioned that David blesses the Lord in this Psalm by the manner of how he speaks of the Lord. David blesses God - and following from that we are blessed by how God speaks of us.
And how God blesses us is that he calls us his children.
In the introduction of the gospel of John we read:
12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
And in 1 John 3:1-2
1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.
In this Psalm, we read of how God has blessed us by the mercy that he has shown toward us, that even though are days are like grass - he has shown his love for us by casting our sins as far as the east is from the west - and through the death of Christ Jesus, that those who believe in him - those who fear him - are given the right to be called children of God. God blesses us by bringing us into his family, and calling us his children. Though we were sinners - he has forgiven that sin, and brought us into his family.
Read the Aaronic Blessing for the Benediction.
