Bless the LORD

BIG IDEA: Bless the Lord of Love who is ours all-forever.

What do we have to know?

Why do we need to know it?

What do we have to do?

Why do we have to do it?

Of David.

A 1  Bless the Lord, O my soul,

and all that is within me,

bless his holy name!

B 2  Bless the Lord, O my soul,

and forget not all his benefits,

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.

C 6  The Lord works righteousness

and justice for all who are oppressed.

7  He made known his ways to Moses,

his acts to the people of Israel.

D 8  The Lord is merciful and gracious,

slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

9  He will not always chide,

nor will he keep his anger forever.

10  He does not deal with us according to our sins,

nor repay us according to our iniquities.

E 11  For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

F 12  as far as the east is from the west,

so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

D E 13  As a father shows compassion to his children,

so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.

D 14  For he knows our frame;

he remembers that we are dust.

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.

17  But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,

C 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.

B 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!

22  Bless the Lord, all his works,

in all places of his dominion.

A Bless the Lord, O my soul!

ME

is one of those Psalms which you hear on many occasions, but often in parts. Case in point, this past Thursday I conducted my first small part of a funeral service with Pastor Lou for a congregant’s mom, and this small part is the committal service where a ceremony is conducted at the gravesite before the casket is lower into the earth, to signify the departure of the earthly body and looking forward to the renewed body raised from the dead because of what Jesus did. And there I used

13  As a father shows compassion to his children,

so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.

14  For he knows our frame;

he remembers that we are dust.

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.

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.

It reminds us of course that life on earth is temporary, brittle, vulnerable, unpredictable, but God’s love is forever. Yet how does this part of the verse relate to the overall Psalm? What is David trying to say? If you have a bible turn with me to , in the pew bible it’s page 502.

WE

When we take apart parts of a Psalm, it can work sometimes but we may loose context. Just like pulling a paragraph from the novel and use it as a quote, without the context, like a chorus with the verses, like the climax of a movie without the many scenes which sets up and builds up the tension. Imagine if the Lord of the Rings started with Frodo struggling with Gollum at the mountain edge of Mordor. Sure it's intense, but it misses the whole journey from Frodo being called by Gandalf on the quest to carry the ring and bring the Fellowship together, and the perilous journey in between. When we take apart into verses which support our needs, we lose the overall message. So just what is in its entirety? Nothing BUT an epic song or poetry which is heightened by multiple contrasts, and also as was the last spoke about, , a chiastic structure.

GOD

And a chiastic structure for those who already forgot or did not remember is where a poem is a symmetry of itself if you take the middle verse, which would be verse 11 or 12 roughly as the center. Everything else that spring out of it has a similar theme and counterpart.

E 11  For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

F 12  as far as the east is from the west,

so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

As we look at this key verse, you realize verse 12 echoes verse 11, but verse 11 has an element which links to verse 13, which is "those who fear him."

13  As a father shows compassion to his children,

so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.

Hence as you work your way out, the chiastic structure looks more like this:

(show diagram).

You see clues from time to time, keywords that are repeated. Some are not as obvious unfortunately because while the Hebrew word is the same, the editor of the English bible may change the word.

But let us now focus on verse 12 then. What we have is a poetry of extremities. is intensely personal at times, and at the same time cosmic and grand in scale at other times. The key speaks of two opposing direction which never meets as a metaphor for how sin has been removed, and not just removed, but removed far from us. Easiest way to understanding is if we are at the westest of west, sin is at the eastest of east. In God, the two shall never meet. Now we know that not to be categorically true, because we do still feel the residual of sin in our lives, but as far as God is concerned, sin is as far from those who fear him as east is from the west. What a promise! What freedom! You can be assure if you fear him, no not terrified at God, but if he is your primary focus, the one who causes you awe at how grand and complete He is, sin and transgression will never define your life again! That's what verses 11 mean, whereas east and west are horizontal extremities, heaven and earth is vertical. But instead of a movement of pushing away sin from those who fear him, the expanse of heaven to earth is a measurement of how great is his love for us. In other words, where heaven and earth fills the whole of comsos, God's steadfast love, his hesed, faithful, true, unconditional will be in there! And not just as some ephemeral fuzzy feeling, but towards us! We are all beneficiaries of this love, always taking little by little, until we are overwhelmed and overpowered by this tangible of love and goodness! The comparison in verse 13 is like that of a Father's compassion to his children. Now I know not everyone of us has a compassionate father, so this analogy may irk or even be painful for some of us, but precisely where our earthly father is inadequate, if not altogether absent, our heavenly Father's overwhelming love and extravagant grace (what else is grace but God pushing away sin to as far remove from us as possible through the cross of His son) more than fills that void! David picks up the theme again in verses 17-18:

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.

Now God's steadfast love not only fills all space (heaven and earth), it fills ALL time! from everlasting to everlasting, nowhere ever as vast as in the history of creation, or as intimate as from the day we are born to the day we die and shall meet him again. We are introduced also to God's righteousness, that is his pure and just ways of guiding and molding the cosmos as the covenant faithful partner. Not only is his ALL time, it's all generations! One generation of faithfulness produces another generation. Now at this point I also know some of us may not be seeing this right now, that you have been faithful to the faith, but somehow your son or daughter is off to college or university, or is working in a competitive carrer and doesn't' have time for church, or is living with someone before they are married. Where's the children's children promise in that? And it would be easy to guilt-trip you and say well have you kept his covenant, and do his commandments, which is plainly spelled out here. Perhaps what would be more helpful are the verses we began with, that we are dusts, our life is finite, and like grass and flowers, which are often imageries of transience, that its there one day and gone the next. Limited, vulnerable, short, timed. How's that helpful? I firmly believe everyone of us will at some point in our life think of that, could be on our 20th, 30th, 40th birthday, first death in our family, a lay off, a terrible diagnosis, a crash in our life so painful and so unexpected or everyone else could have anticipated its coming (afterall, we felt we were invincible) and suddenly your children has to grasp with life's question. Of course, because we love them, we want our strayed child to return to God now so they can avoid the future pain, or the current illusions of superiority, but the struggles and pain of life brings LIFE itself into focus. So keep praying, waiting, expecting and hoping and allow God to faithfully be all space, all time, and all generations your God and Lord!

And some of us may say, but you don't know him or her. She is so far off the deep end I really can't see them wanting to have anything to do with God again. That again is our perspective, and our judgment. But God's promise is so reassuring here in verse 8-10:

8  The Lord is merciful and gracious,

slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

9  He will not always chide,

nor will he keep his anger forever.

10  He does not deal with us according to our sins,

nor repay us according to our iniquities.

David begins with verse 8, which for those keen in reading the Old Testament is often used to describe God, particularly in , as God tells Moses when the new Tablets of Commandments were being etched out, not only is He Yahweh or in English, translated as the LORD, or I am who I am, but He is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. But it is also repeating the key theme of verse 11 on the Lord's love and forgiveness. God keeps short record of our wrongs. The prodigal son and daughter is never beyond God's reach. Just look at our own lives and our own sins and shortcomings, and how God doesn't deal wth us as we deserve, which is condemnation and estrangement. So verses 8-13, and then 17 to 18 combined shows us the LORD who loves is the LORD whose love forgives, in all space, all time, through all generations! But again we shouldn't be surprise about this, because all the way at the beginning in verse 3-4 his forgiveness and steadfast love was already in full display! Now that is why we should Bless the LORD, and why this message is entitled bless the Lord. Because blessing the LORD is our response to the LORD who is gracious that He gives us all these benefits, so don't forget it. Recite it! Proclaim it! All these benefits are total and final: He is our redeemer. He is our forgiver. Healer. Our Inaugurator, He is Our satisfaction! And the Psalm ends beautifully as if our pondering of the Blessed Lord aroused all of creation from heaven and onto earth, even the inanimate to echo the glorious celebration!

YOU

So brothers and sisters, friends, how shall we respond?

We should pause to appreciate the scope and vastness of this Psalm, recite it slowly and just allow the extremeties to become a reality in you. Perhaps some of you are struggling with a repetitive sin? Claim it with the forgiveness promised in this Psalm. God says ALL. Perhaps circumstances have made you bitter and ungrateful. Recount His faithfulness towards, you, to not forget ALL his benefits. There was a time when things were better, and there will be a time when things will be better again. Do you trust His steadfast love? Some of you felt wronged by someone, or some circumstances, do you believe His righteousness will vindicate you, his path will set your life straight, and he can more than satisfy what you lost which so much more gain. All these are an example of works. Yes, but it's not works in spite or condition upon us being saved or in right relation with God. But they are our responsive work as a result of the character of God. Perhaps we need to go back through this Transforming the Heart series and if it's not this message, it may be another message, and we simply sit at Jesus' feet, and ask "how can I obey what I just heard?" You will by now, just counting the sunday messages, upwards of 44 messages throughout 2018 that you can choose to ignore, choose ot apply to others, or choose one to beginning living it out as your reality in God. Will you respond in obedience, again, this time?

WE

is grand, its extremeties are far reaching, because our God is immeasurable, not only in his character, but especially his steadfast love, forgiveness, mercy and righteousness towards us. Yet, he is at the same time intensely personal, though we see ourselves but a speck in a vast universe, He gathers, one speck at a time, little by little, a people for Himself. A people who He calls His own, who are forever grateful, worshipful, and faithful for all eterntiy. Will that be you today?