Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'm going to be preaching from one of the
Psalms. This is Psalm 103. Psalm 103. And the title of the
message is, Bless the Lord, O My Soul. Bless the Lord, O My Soul. I preached last week from one
of the Psalms, and I decided to carry on with that in this
Psalm, because there's one line in it, the whole Psalm is a real
blessing. as it is a prophecy of Christ,
and it speaks of Christ as the savior of his people. But one
verse in this psalm that I particularly like is verse 10. And it says this, it says, he,
that is God, hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded
us according to our iniquities. And I always point out when I
quote that verse or refer to it, it does not say that the
Lord hath not dealt with our sins. It says the Lord hath not
dealt with us after our sins. And who is the us there? Now
you know the Bible teaches very plainly that in the end of all
things, At the judgment seat of Christ, there will be those
who are saved by the grace of God, whose names were written
in the Lamb's Book of Life, and they'll be judged as they stand
in Christ, not for their works, but then there's those who are
judged out of the books, plural, who will be judged by their works
and cast into outer darkness. And when God judges them by their
works, what he's doing, he's dealing with them after their
sins. But when he declares his people
to be justified based upon the blood and righteousness of Christ,
he's dealing with them, but not after their sins. Christ has
already taken care of their sin problem. So the us here in verse
10, he hath not dealt with us after our sin, that's God's elect. Upon whom it says in Romans chapter
eight and verse 33, I believe it is, who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies, who
can condemn us? It's Christ that died. So the
us here is not referring to everybody without exception. It's referring
to God's people. Now my question is, well, is
it referring to me? Am I in that us? Well, do I believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ? Do I worship God? Do I praise
God? And that's how this psalm starts
out. Verse 1. Bless the Lord, O my soul, all
that is within me. Bless His holy name. Bless the
Lord. Is that what I do? When I go
to church, when I live my life, what does it mean, bless the
Lord? You know, when we think about God blessing us, we think
of it in the sense of God giving us things, giving us spiritual
blessings and benefits. And that is blessing. Ephesians
1 and verse 3 says this, blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, that is blessed God, who hath blessed us. with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." And that's talking about
God being praised for blessing His people based upon the merits
of Christ. And blessing God doesn't mean
that we give anything to God or we add anything to God. It's
simply recognizing God for who He is and thanking Him, praising
Him with all our soul, our heart, our mind, our strength, everything. Bless the Lord all my soul and
all that is within me, my mind, my affections, my will, my thoughts,
everything. All that is within me, bless
His holy name. One God, unique God, no other
gods. The God who saves sinners by
His grace. The God who justifies the ungodly. The God who saves me, blesses
me, keeps me, and will bring me to glory, not conditioned
on me, but by His grace, All the blessings, and he says
this in verse two. Look at verse two of Psalm 103.
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. All the blessings and benefits
of salvation. The forgiveness of sins. Righteous
in God's sight. The imputed righteousness of
Christ. What a benefit. That's the righteousness of God
revealed in the gospel. I have no righteousness of my
own. If God were to judge me based upon my best, I would be
eternally lost. There's another Psalm, Psalm
130, verse three, that says, if the Lord, if thou Lord shouldest
mark iniquities, who would stand? None of us. We're all sinners. We all deserve nothing but death
and hell. Condemnation, that's what we've
earned. So when we understand through the gospel of God's grace
in Christ that God freely gives us all the blessings and all
the benefits of salvation and forgiveness and righteousness,
eternal life and glory, what do we do? We don't stand up and
boast about our experiences and boast about our decisions. We boast in Christ. We glory
in the cross. We bless the name of the Lord. Bless the Lord, O my soul. He says in verse three, he says,
all his benefits who forgiveth all thine iniquities and healeth
all thy diseases. The blood of Christ cleanses
us from all sin. That's what the Bible says. Now,
what does that mean? Well, that means that his death on the cross
was the full payment of my sin debt. You see, I fell in Adam
and I was born spiritually dead in trespasses and sin, come forth
from the womb, as David said, speaking lies. I'm a sinner.
All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. I'm a man
of iniquity. My best does not measure up to
the perfection of the law that can only be found in Christ.
And so he's forgiven my iniquities on the basis of the blood of
Christ. And he heals all my diseases.
Now the main disease there that he's talking about is the disease
of spiritual death and sin and all of that. People will look
at passages like this and say, well, that means that I won't
get sick, won't have a cold, or won't get cancer and die.
Well, now, let me tell you something. This body that we live in in
this life is going to die. And even if we're alive when
Christ comes back again, we can't exist in this vile body, wretched
body of death, Paul called it. in Romans 7. The body is dead
because of sin. What we're experiencing in aging
and in diseases and all of that, that's the consequences of sin.
But the people of God will ultimately and finally and fully be healed
when they leave this body and go to be with the Lord. Then
there'll be no vile body of death. There'll be no death, there'll
be no sorrow, there'll be no sickness. And this body will
be changed in the twinkling of an eye. This corruptible must
put on incorruption, the scripture says. So in that sense, he heals
all our diseases. I have some chronic diseases
that I have to deal with in my life now, as I'm getting older. But one day, they'll all be gone. Has God healed me of him in this
life? No. Will he? I don't know. I pray
that he does, but he may not. But I know this, it is appointed
unto man once to die, and after that to judgment. So don't think
of this as these false preachers going about, well, if you're
sick, you don't have enough faith, and all that rot. Listen. Disease and death are part of
this life, but it's not gonna be that way eternally for believers,
for those who are in Christ, because their iniquities are
forgiven. Look at verse four. He says, who redeemeth thy life
from destruction. Now that doesn't mean we're gonna
live forever in this body. But we who are in Christ, who
are washed in his blood and clothed in his righteousness, we're gonna
live forever. It says, who crowned thee with loving kindness and
tender mercies. Eternal life, salvation, forgiveness
is all a matter of God's loving kindness and tender mercies.
But there's something else that we need to understand. Let's
read on verse four or verse five. Who satisfies thy mouth with
good things so that thy youth is renewed like the eagles. That's
poetic language that speaks of a believer's view of himself
in Christ, in the gospel, the good things of the Lord, the
word of God. But look at verse six. Now remember
we said that All of salvation is a matter of God's loving kindness
and God's tender mercies, but it's also, verse six, the Lord
executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed. It's
also a matter of righteousness and judgment. And we must never
forget that. You see, what I'm saying is this,
and people look at that verse six, and they may say, well,
that means God's gonna exercise judgment and righteousness against
all our enemies. Well, He will. But let me tell
you something. In the salvation of God's people
by His grace, He executed justice and righteousness for them, not
in their own persons, He didn't punish them as payment for their
sins because we can't pay for our sins, but He punished all
of their sins. He brought about all judgment
and righteousness in His wrath placed upon the Lord Jesus Christ
as the surety, the substitute, and the Redeemer of all His people. So God is a loving God. but he's
also a righteous judge. He must be both. That brings
forth the eternal question of all questions. How can a sinner
be justified in God's sight? And how can God be just and righteous
and true and still show mercy and goodness and love to me?
How can he do both? He must be both a just God as
well as a Savior, a righteous judge as well as a loving father. He must be both. How can this
be? And this is where we come to
the glory and the miracle and the wisdom of the gospel of God's
grace in Christ. No religion of human origin has
ever even come close to answering this question. How can God? be just and justified? How can
He be both a just God and a Savior? Well, the answer is, before the
foundation of the world, God chose a people and made Christ
the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, their surety,
which means He put all of their sin debt upon the shoulders of
Christ, all conditioned on Christ, and Christ willingly submitted
to the Father and said, I'll take that burden. And in order
to pay the debt, He had to be made flesh and substitute Himself
in the place of His people and obey unto death, the death of
the cross, because the wages of sin is death. Christ died
for His sheep, not for everybody without exception, but His sheep. and he redeemed them. He bought
them back. He bought them off the slave
block of sin and paid their debt in full. And as a result, he
sends his spirit into the world to give them life and bring them
to faith in Christ and repentance of dead works. And that's how
God is just to justify the ungodly. What is it to be justified? It's
to be forgiven all of my sins. That's what he said here, who
forgiveth all thine iniquities, but on a just ground. It's the
loving act of God forgiving my sins on a just ground, the blood
of Christ. You see, sins are not forgiven
based upon anything we do. I heard a man say, a preacher
say one time that the cost of forgiveness is repentance. Absolutely
not. If you ever, listen, if God ever
brings you to see the forgiveness of sins based on the blood of
Christ, he'll bring you to repentance as a result. But the cost of
forgiveness is the blood of Jesus Christ alone. That's it. So to be justified is to be forgiven
of all my sins on a just ground. And it is to be declared righteous
before God, the judge of all, on a just ground, the imputed
righteousness of Christ. Romans four, I believe it's verse
six, speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord imputeth
righteousness without works. What does it mean to impute?
It means to charge, to declare, it means to legally account a
person to be debt free and to be blessed of God in righteousness. So, verse six now, the Lord executeth
righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed. Verse
seven says he made known his ways unto Moses. Moses knew this. His acts unto the children of
Israel. God declared himself to Moses and the children of
Israel as a just God and a savior. God declared himself. Now Moses
believed it as an individual. The majority of Israel rejected
it. but there was always a remnant who believed it. But you remember
Christ in John chapter five, when he confronted the Pharisees,
he told them in verse 39, he says, you do indeed search the
scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, but they
are they which testified of me. And then later on in that same
passage, he said, you'll be condemned by the very one you claim to
follow, that's Moses. He said, Moses wrote of me. So God declared himself in the
Old Testament. Verse eight says, the Lord is
merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy.
If God was not slow to anger, this world would have been snuffed
out the moment Adam fell. but God is long-suffering. And
the reason He's long-suffering is because He's plenteous, or
great, in mercy. God has a people whom He chose
before the foundation of the world, and He means to have mercy
on every one of them, and He's not willing that any of those
people should perish, His elect, but that all should come to repentance.
and he's going to grant them the gift of faith and repentance.
Verse 9, he will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger
forever. This isn't going to last forever now. God's long
suffering. There's going to come a time
when it's all over. Christ is going to descend from
the heavens, bring his people with him and call up his church,
and he's going to destroy this world. It's going to be burned
up. So don't, you know, and don't count that God's delay in this,
as men see it, He is not delaying. There's a time appointed, He
knows what it is. But don't count it as God being
slack or not fulfilling His promise. The only reason he hasn't come
yet is he still has some people out there that he intends to
save. He's going to bring them under the gospel. But he's not
going to always chide and always keep his anger forever. But verse
10, this is the one I mentioned at the first. He hath not dealt
with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
Talking about God's people there, believers. Now you know God does deal with
us in certain ways after our sins sometimes. It's called chastisement. Sometimes we suffer the chastisement
against our sins here on earth. Sometimes we don't. We don't
have the wisdom or the knowledge to discern that a lot of times.
We know certain things that we do are wrong and there are consequences.
But what he's speaking of here is in an eternal way. The wages
of sin is death. If I appear before God at judgment
and sin is charged to me, then that's eternal damnation, friend. And if that's where I go, then
that's God dealing with me after my sins. But if I stand before
God in the glorious person and finished work of Christ, washed
in his blood and clothed in his righteousness, Then I can truly
say God has not dealt with me after my sins. God is a just
God. God is a righteous judge. He
must deal with sin. He cannot just look over it.
He cannot just forget that it's happened. He must deal with it. The soul that sinneth must surely
die. Death is the punishment. So God must deal with sins. and he dealt with the sins of
his people, where? On the cross of Calvary in the
person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our sins, the sins of
God's elect, were imputed to Christ. Second Corinthians 521
speaks of that. For He, that is God the Father,
made Him, that's Christ the Son, to be sin. How did he make him
to be sin? By an act of imputation. God
charged him with the debt of sin of all his people, his sheep. And it says, Christ who knew
no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. So as he was made sin by the
imputation of the sins of his sheep, his elect, to him, our
sin debt charged to him, he's our surety, He imputed righteousness
to them. And that's the righteousness
of God. You see, we stand, if we're believers, sinners saved
by the grace of God, having all the benefits by which we say,
bless the Lord, O my soul. We stand before God in a righteousness
that we had no part in producing. We stand before God in the righteousness
of His Son, imputed, charged, accounted to us. And I often
use a banking analogy to kind of illustrate this. It's like,
for example, if you were in debt a million dollars to a local
bank, but you had nothing, not even a penny to pay off that
debt, and you went into the bank to see one of the officers, and
you're gonna throw yourself at the mercy of the bank. And of
course, you know that wouldn't do any good. So you go into the
bank officer, loan officer, and you say, well, I owe a million
dollars and I can't pay it back. And the bank officer says, well,
let's open the books and let's see, find your name. And he opens
the book and he finds your name and your address, this is you.
And he said, well, according to the book here, you don't owe
a dime to this bank. Your debt has been paid by somebody
else. Somebody else came into this
bank and said, that person, your name, put his debt, her debt,
on my account. I'll pay it. And they paid it
in full. You don't owe a dime. That's
what this is talking about. That's what Christ did for his
people. Put it on my account, I'll pay it. Can you imagine
upon hearing that, and that's what we hear when we hear the
gospel, see, how relieved you'd be? And the first thing you'd
want to do is praise and thank the one who paid it. Bless the
Lord, O my soul, all that is within me, bless his holy name.
And so you get up to leave the bank and the bank officer says,
well, hold on, there's more. You say, well, what more could
there be? My debt's paid in full. He said, not only did this individual
pay your sin debt, your money debt here, But he also gave you
a million dollars to the good. You've got a million dollars
to your credit. You didn't earn it, you didn't
deserve it, but he gave you that. And that's what Christ did for
his people in righteousness. He took our sin debt, paid it
in full, wiped the books clean by the price of his blood, and
he gave his people in return a righteousness, the very righteousness
of God. that equals the demands of God's
justice. Righteousness imputed. And because
of that, he gives life to the dead. Now look back at Psalm
103, verse 11. For as the heaven is high above
the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. To
fear him is to worship him. To fear him is to trust him. To fear Him is to bless the Lord,
O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. It's
to respect Him. Verse 12, as far as the East
is from the West, so far hath He removed our transgressions
from us. How far are my transgressions,
my sins removed from me as far as the East is from the West?
You notice if you look on a globe, East and West never meet. and
never can. And so that's how far, this is
language that describes how infinite God's mercy is. And he says in
verse 13, Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth
them that fear him. God's pity for his people. But now again, based on a just
ground, verse 14 says he knoweth our frame. He knows what we are.
We're weak, pitiful, sinful people. He remembers that we are dust.
This body's gonna die and return to the dust. He says in verse
15, as for man, his days are as grass, as a flower of the
field, so he flourishes, comes and goes. Verse 16, for the wind
passeth over it, and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know
it no more. But look at verse 17, but the
mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that
fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children. all
of his children, who he chose before the foundation of the
world, whom he adopted into his family at the adoption of grace,
whom he justified based upon the blood and righteousness of
Christ, and whom he has shown mercy to. Mercy and truth meeting
together. In verse 18 he says, to such
as keep his covenant and to those that remember his commandments
to do them. Now what is it to keep God's
covenant and remember his commandments? My friend, it boils down to this.
It's believing the gospel of God's grace in the glorious person
and finished work of Christ. He's not talking about keeping
the law for salvation. If that was what he was talking
about, we're all doomed. The Bible says that by deeds
of law shall no flesh be justified in His sight. You want to be
a covenant keeper? You want to remember His commandments? Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ
who is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that
believe it. That's the only way. the perfection
of righteousness, of the law that can only be found in Christ. And that'll bring you to bless
the Lord, bless His holy name, all that is within you, bless
His name. Hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia. 317-07. Contact us by
phone at 229-432-6969 or email us through our website at www.TheLetterRofGrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.