Turn, if you would, in your Bibles to Psalm 103. Been thinking a lot of the Psalms lately, and James, when you read that, I was like, oh, that was one of my ones I had thought about, but hopefully this will do. Well, I know it will because it's God's word, and It's really a word of encouragement for each one of us who knows God. Really just a psalm full of praise of what God has done for his people. So Psalm 103, and I've been listening to this in the English Standard, version, so I'm gonna read from that this morning.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's. The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. He made his ways, known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, So great is his steadfast love towards those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass. He flourishes like a flower of the field, for the wind passes over it and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.

But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children's children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments, The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all. Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word. Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers who do his will. Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord.

Oh my soul, let's pray before we look into God's word together. Father, we are so thankful that you are gracious and merciful and kind to us, that you care for your children, And Father, I pray that as we look into your word that you would help us to remember some things that perhaps we've forgotten this week. Help us to recall all the goodness that you have towards us. And Lord, I pray that you would help any who do not trust you to see your greatness and your mercy and in your sovereign grace that you would bring them to yourself. Lord, we thank you for the good report this morning that for some grandma, for some mom, Great-grandma, I guess in some cases, for those who believe a sister, our sister is feeling better. Lord, we pray that you would heal her and that you would give her an encouragement in you in all that has gone on. Lord, we pray for so many who are hurting in different ways. Pray for all of us as we go through the busyness of life that you would continually remind us of your goodness and your care for your people. And we ask this in Jesus' name, amen.

I know this song is prone to wander, but I think sometimes it's prone to forget. And as I was reading through Psalm 103, or perhaps as you recall the passage, there's this forget not all his benefits. This Psalm is attributed to David and we have no reason to believe that it wasn't. David's, and you think about the life of David, how many ways God was gracious and merciful to him. You would think, David, of all people, how could you, a man after God's own heart, and yet a man who sinned greatly, how could you forget God's benefits? Well, I don't know about you, but I'm prone to forget myself. And as I was listening to various Psalms, this one just kept coming back into my mind as I need to be reminded of the goodness of God, the benefits of God as they're found in Christ.

What's interesting, and I know Joe and I had talked about this, and I'm sure he mentioned this more than once from the pulpit, but the story goes that Martin Luther was asked by someone in his church You know, why, Brother Martin, do you always preach Christ and the gospel of Christ every week, every time we get together? He said, because you forget it every week. And I think that's the case.

And it's interesting because, and it's sad, that a lot of churches And when you use that category, you have like, there's churches, there's churches that are at least somewhat orthodox in doctrine, and of that group, believe it or not, there's some that actually bother to preach from the Bible, they don't use it as a launching pad into some you know, personal experience or story that they wanna tell. But even in those cases, if you go into a church like that that professes to believe the gospel of Christ, it's sad how many of them ignore the biblical admonition given by our Lord Jesus Christ to see Christ in all the scriptures and to preach him and him crucified, the gospel as the central message. Oh, we've moved beyond that. No, in this life, and even in the life to come, we will never move beyond that.

Our only way of standing before God is to be in this benefit that the psalmist David here brings up. Perhaps you caught it when we were going through the psalm. In the beginning, he repeats, praise the Lord a couple of times. And at the end, he repeats it several times. So at the beginning and at the end, this is a song of praise, and in the middle, it's really, I don't know if Henry Mahan was the first person to say this, but whether or not he was, where I heard it was in one of his messages, it's really a Bible in and of itself when you look at all that's contained here in Psalm 103. in the middle. So first of all we have this call to praise and it's interesting when you think of scripture so often in scripture it is either the writer of scripture under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit speaking to a group of people, or perhaps speaking to God. But in this case, David, the psalmist, is speaking to himself. He's saying my soul needs to be reminded of this vital truth. My soul needs to know that the praise, as the NIV has it, or bless, which is an older way to render it, worship of God is vital to us and is something that Whether we like it or not, we're not always in the mood to do it.

Now, again, from my background, was raised in Roman Catholicism, and even in greater Christendom, there's this idea of a liturgy, and I don't have any, I mean, it's just a word. The idea there's a set way of doing things, Every time I come here, James has to break the Rock Valley liturgy since I'm sitting back there. I don't come up here and read the scripture in the same order and manner that Joe did. But in that liturgy, in the constructing of it, there's this idea of a call to worship.

And in many cases, it's an artificial thing. It's something where you have to make sure you pick the songs in the right order to get people into the mood of whatever they're doing. Well, no matter how good musicians we had up here. There's nobody who can get us into the right attitude. Perhaps they can get a mood or an emotion going, but nobody who can get us into the right attitude that we need to have.

And David, who is very skilled in writing songs of praise to God, he reminded himself and called himself to be prepared to praise God. Maybe that's an odd thought to you. As I thought about it more, it was a bit odd to me. It's like, well, I know that there's this sort of rote way or this emotional way that people try to get themselves in the mood, of worship to God, but here what David is doing is calling us to look at what God has done and who he is.

So he says, praise the Lord, O my soul, all that is within me, or all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Well, everything we have isn't much, but everything we have we're obligated, as believers in God, to engage in the worship of God. That's what we should all want. no matter how bad the preacher is, and I really like that quote that I came across, Joe, and I'm gonna have to paraphrase it a few weeks back, but it was essentially, stop listening to the preacher and start listening for Christ in what he preaches.

And I think a lot of times there's a benefit I won't mention any names, but I've been in a church where when I came out of the church and I heard the message, I spoke with somebody in the car. I guess that's narrowing it way down, but I won't mention any names so I don't get in trouble later, but I just said, did you hear what they said? Man, that was a horrible message. And what I was told was, oh, it was great. And what I heard was what was in the passage that we were meant to hear, but somehow the preacher managed to mess it up.

I think while we need to be discerning in what we hear from the pulpit, I think there's gotta be a bit of covering grace and desire to hear God speak. And if you have to blot out the speaker in order to hear God speak, so be it. But David here is saying, all that is within me, every faculty that I have, every part of my being, all my inmost being as the NIV renders it, everything, I need that to praise his holy name. One writer I came across said, to bless the Lord is to remember that he is the source of all our blessings.

And you might say, well, duh, that's really the truth here. But we forget that. I think oftentimes we think, yeah, God is the one who has to work these things, but if I wouldn't have gone and done this, or I wouldn't have made sure of that, this wouldn't have happened.

Well, I'm telling you, anything good that you have, or I have, if we're in Christ, anything we have that is good, He is the source of that, and He is the one who deserves the praise. Even if He's the one who drives you to do that necessary thing in this world to bring it about, you wouldn't have it if He didn't give you the capacity. Bless the Lord. Remember that He is the source of all your blessings. A passage that if I remember, we'll come back to Mark chapter 12. Jesus says to love God with all of your heart and soul and mind and strength.

That's what we're called to do. Not just when we come together, but also every day. We're called to praise the Lord, and we're called to do it with every aspect of our being. I know I fall far short of that. And it's not just some conception we have of God, but it's a holy God that we're called to worship.

Bless His holy name. And so often the scriptures speak of the holiness of God. All of us, or many of us, are familiar with Isaiah 6, where we hear those angels around this throne saying, holy, holy, holy. Psalm 99 also talks about this. The Lord reigns, let the nations tremble. He sits enthroned between the cherubim. Let the earth shake. Great is the Lord in Zion. He is exalted over all the nations. Let them praise your great and awesome name.

He is holy. And then down in verse five, he is holy. And then down in verse 9, exalt the Lord our God and worship at his holy mountain, for the Lord our God is holy. And we could go on and on, that could be a message in itself, but we're called to praise not a God of our own making, but the God of heaven, the holy God, the one true God.

So David is calling himself to do that, and in his second refrain of thinking about that, he says, and forget not all his benefits. So he moves from this call to personal praise to a praise specifically of benefits that he, as a child of God, enjoys.

And if you notice, most English translations have this set off with the word, who. Who is God and what has he done for me that I'm called to remember? Who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases? Who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion? Who satisfies your desire with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles?

And commentators point out, and I think it's right, is David starts off here with not so much the negative, but the fact that there is a curse that is removed. And when we come to worship before God, one of the things that we need to remember, and if you're in a good gospel-preaching church, you'll hear, is if you are in Christ, the curse Because you're an Adam, and because you've chosen sin, and because your flesh is fallen and cursed, the curse is removed in Christ.

God, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, came and paid for our sin so that all of our iniquity and all of our diseases, and I think this is more spiritual than physical, but certainly God can heal physical diseases. and who redeems your life from the pit. And the idea of that word in other places is the place where you throw someone or place someone when they die. God is the one who brings us back from all those things. All the things that Adam brought about in the Garden of Eden by sin and passed on to his race, we his children inherited and have embraced. We can praise God if we're in Christ because he forgives us, he heals us, he redeems us.

But it's not just that removal, but there's also these blessings. He crowns you with steadfast love and mercy. So he saved us from what we deserve, but he's given us what we don't deserve, and that is his steadfast, or some translations have it as his loyal love and mercy.

And he crowns you with it. And you think of many biblical pictures, but the son who goes astray and his father sees him from afar off, he's come from the pigsty, bring the best robe, put it on him. This is the idea here in this passage. He gives you What you deserve is to be thrown in a pit, never to escape again, but because of the work of Christ, you are given steadfast love and mercy as a crown, as something that is placed upon you and places you in a place of dignity in Christ. And he satisfies your desires is what the NIV, or he satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. And I think David here isn't trying to get any special message out of using this idea of an eagle other than it was a majestic bird and just seems to effortlessly fly above the fray.

And what he's saying is that God satisfies you with good. Oh yeah, there may be pain. There may be misery. In fact, there will be. brought about by this sinful world, but you know that ultimately in Christ, you will be satisfied with good. And then it's a bit subtle here. But later on, and if you were to look into it, the verbs or the pronouns, the references here go from singular to plural.

And you can kind of see it here in verse six and seven, he's talking about Moses and the people of Israel. But he goes from this is what God has done for me to this is what God has done for us. and he's calling the people as a whole to remember what God had done for them as his covenant people.

The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed. He made his ways known to Moses and his deeds to the people of Israel. Think about it, they were brought into bondage in Egypt and God through many miracles delivered them from Egypt with spoils brought them through miraculously into eventually the land of promise. Yes, there was some sin and disobedience, but David here is focused on what God had done for them.

He worked righteousness and justice for our people when we were oppressed. And the same thing is true for us. When we were under the oppression of sin, Those of us who are in the Lord Jesus Christ, he delivers us in a way just as miraculous and just as deserving of praise. And part of the reason we come together in a group like this is so that we can be reminded that we are not alone in our deliverance from sin.

When he said he made his way known to Moses. You may remember from Exodus 33 and 34, the famous interaction with Moses with God where he says, Lord, please show me your glory. And if you want to, you can turn back. I'm going to turn over to Exodus 34. And actually go back a little bit to Exodus 33. 33, 18, Moses said, now show me your glory. Verse 19, I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. And then, I'm not going to read the whole account, but then if you pass down the Ten Commandments are given, the two stone tablets, and 34 verse 4, Moses chiseled the tablets.

Verse five, the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord. And he passed in front of Moses proclaiming, the Lord, the Lord, compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness.

If you look at our back in our passage in Psalm 103, David had to have had this passage in mind, verse eight, the Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love. And one of the many ways we can be brought to a right place in our understanding is just go to scripture and be reminded of what good God has done. And David, as he's thinking of ways to cause not only his own soul, but those who are with him in worship to praise God in the way he deserves. He reminds them of not only what the covenant God had done, but who he is in his being. God is merciful and gracious and slow to anger and abounding in steadfast or loyal love.

Well, we've gone through some of the Psalms, and if you don't remember it from that, Psalm 95 or Psalm 90, certainly from other times in Scripture, you know that the people of Israel were not faithful to God. In fact, the generation that came through the wilderness, God was provoked by them.

And yet what Moses in his psalm reminded us about is said against here is that he will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. God does allow us to reap I was gonna say the benefits, but the detriments of our sin from time to time, but not because just like we would in our imperfect nature, or at least I would, you get mad, you blow up, you say something. No, God always has our good in mind. And it says here, he will not always chide nor keep his anger forever. Isaiah in Isaiah 57 16 says the same thing.

I will not contend forever Nor will I always be angry Micah Also says who is a god like you pardoning iniquity and passing over? transgressions So while we may reap to a certain extent The displeasure of God because of our actions, if he doesn't shield us completely from reaping some of those things in this life, what David said and what he experienced. Remember, he had a son who died, but until the point he died, he prayed that God would spare that son. He also had to deal with God Because of the sin of numbering the people and he said he was just gonna leave it to the hand of God But he knew this about God and he knew this from the history of Israel He will not always chide or accuse is what the NIV has Nor will he keep or harbor his anger? forever Why not? What is it about God? If you're in Christ, he will not treat you or deal with us, as it says here, as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.

What a gracious and marvelous truth. should be enough to remind me to be thankful and praising God with every ounce of my being every moment of the day, but because I'm flesh, I fail so often to do that. And if that isn't enough, He gives a comparative praise, an analogy of forgiving love. Now many of us are very familiar with Romans 8, and I'm gonna turn over there so I don't misquote it. So Romans 8, verse 38 is where I'm going to start.

For I'm convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor demons nor the present nor the future nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Keep that in mind. when we go back to Psalm 103, for as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him. The height and depth or anything else in creation won't be able to separate us from the love of God because that can't even measure God's love for his people.

That's why, and maybe I'm wrong, but those thoughts came to my mind as I was looking at this, as high as the heavens are. And we've learned, and I think often of Joe, and I think about how much he liked to geek out about lots of things, but astronomy, we don't even know where the heavens end. You know, there's a belief, you know, the Big Bang and everything, it started from nothing and something happened and blew up, but nobody knows where the end of the universe is. They believe that one exists, but nobody knows how big the universe is.

That is how great God's love is for all of his children. Did you sin? Have I sinned? Of course. All the time, every day, all day, multiple times per second if we're honest with ourselves. And yet God's love is so great the heavens can't contain it. And then he uses another analogy to talk about how close he keeps our sins. Again, remember how sinful David was. Murder and adultery are not minor things. And David is able to say, as far as the east is from the west. And that's one of those other geeky things that Joe would love to talk about if he were here.

Go east. When are you gonna start going west? You'll never start going west. You can keep going around in a circle, or go west. When will you go east? Not until you stop going west. But as far as that is apart, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. So heights and depths, east and west, God is loving and forgiving.

And then he gives another analogy, one One that I wish I was better at exemplifying, but he uses it, he knew that fathers were imperfect. But there is something about a father and his children where you have compassion. And I'm sure those of you who have children or grandchildren, they can always seem to push that button to get you to do what they want. And God doesn't need a button pushed. He's compassionate in a way that I am not and no earthly father is. But he has compassion on us.

And I know I went past two times where it talks about the word fear, to those who fear him. And I really liked what I heard from Henry Mahan on this. He said, the word fear here is not scared. It's respect. It's awe. It's worship. It's regard for God. It's not a slavish or Fear, it's the fear and awe and love of a son of an awesome father who's been gracious and wonderful and kind to us. That's what David wants us to see about God. Very well put. Then we see this comparison here as he goes along talking about the love of God for his people. We know how sinful we are, but there's also this idea of our temporary nature, our infirmity. For he knows our frame. And I don't know why I thought about this.

I'm not gonna start any wars here, hopefully, about this, but I remember, my dad was a Chevy guy, but I remember growing up, one of the relatives talked about Ford had I-beam something or other, frame, right? It was supposed to be better. It was like, oh, that Chevy, it's junk, right? Ford has the I-beam construction.

Well, we don't even have that. We're dust. Try to make a frame out of dust. like they do on a lot of these YouTube channels where they're doing a car restoration. They take this old car they pulled out of the field and they're wondering, they put it in the acid bath, is there gonna be anything left after it takes the rust out? Well, if it's us, we're dust. You take dust, a frame made out of dust, and you put it in that acid bath, there's nothing that's gonna be left.

God knows that about us. He knows our frame. is what David says. He remembers that we are dust, and the analogy often used in scripture, that of grass, flourishes in the morning, flower in the field, the wind passes over and it's gone, and its place knows it no more. Well, if that's all I knew about life, there would be no hope.

But that's the comparison, the contrast that's given here is from everlasting to everlasting is the Lord's love on those who fear him. And his righteousness is with their children's children, with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts. And again, I'll just quote Henry Mahan here again.

They're not relying on their works or their goodness or their religion. They keep his covenant. That is, they keep to their hearts and to their breasts and to their minds what God has done. They remember his commandments to do them. They walk in his word. They walk in his love. They rejoice in his truth.

And I did remember what I said I was hoping I was going to remember, Mark 12. And I am watching the time. My wife said I had a short message last time, so I guess I have a little bit of balance left, right? Isn't that how it works? You can go long this time. And I keep turning to Matthew, Mark. Don't realize how much you use both of your hands until you're a little gimpy with one of them. Mark chapter 12, starting with verse 28. One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked them, of all the commandments, which is the most important? The most important one, answered Jesus, is this.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, with all your strength. And the second is this. Love your neighbor as yourself. Well, the love of God enables us to love others. We love him, the apostle said, because he first loved us. This love that we are able to do, even in a feeble and frail and dusty sense, is given by God.

All that he's saying here is God loves his children and his children's children, not necessarily physically, although there's certainly a benefit of having godly parents and grandparents and great-grandparents and so on, but God is the moving factor here.

It's his steadfast, his loyal love that's there. And in fact, he goes on to say the Lord has established his throne in the heavens and his kingdom rules over all. His kingdom rules over all. God is in charge. If God calls you to himself, he's gonna finish the job. We don't have a God up there hoping and praying that somebody will do what he wants them to do. No, we have a sovereign God whose throne is in the heaven and his kingdom rules over all.

Can you see why David, thinking about the benefits and the work of God and the benefits to himself, he just thinks about this? And this is the crowning, no pun intended, the crowning thought before he goes back to call others to praise is that God is sovereign. He has his throne in the heavens and his kingdom rules over all.

Psalm 147, 10 and 11 says, his delight Speaking of God, is not in the strength of the horse, nor is pleasure in the legs of a man, but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, and listen to this, in those who hope in his steadfast love. Want a reason for praising God? Want to know where you stand with God? Do you hope in His steadfast love? It's worth hoping in. Certainly we can see that from this scripture here.

So what started off in a sense as a lone singer, and James, you did a great job, you did better than I did when I sang without accompaniment, there's a benefit for more voices kicking in. So when I was sitting back there, first there was a lone voice of James starting the singing, and then we all started to sing with him, some of us, myself, trying not to mess things up too much by doing it. So at the beginning, you have David just starting to lead the singing, and now he's calling on, as it were, all of God's creation to sing along with him.

Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word. Obeying the voice of his word. Bless the Lord, all his hosts, probably the heavenly hosts, the angels, his ministers, ministering angels who do his will. Bless the Lord, all his works. Creation will cry out. the praise of God in all places of his dominion. Where is God's dominion not? His dominion is everywhere.

So literally what's happening here is David is saying, I had to stir myself up to praise. I had to be reminded of the benefit that I have in salvation found in God alone and trusting in his finished work. alone, and now that he's been reminded and reminding us of that, he calls us all to bless or praise the Lord with him. James. And we'll close by singing number 11 in the chorus book.