It's a beautiful psalm. What's
interesting about this psalm is, in this psalm, there are absolutely
no petitions. David doesn't ask for anything in this psalm. All
he does is he praises the Lord for who he is and what he had
already done for him. It's a level of spiritual maturity that I
lack. I've never gone to the Lord and
just praised him for who he was. I've always asked for something.
But David, in this psalm, he asks for absolutely nothing.
He just praises the Lord for who he is. We're just going to
consider the first five verses this morning. It's very deep.
It's very beautiful. But Psalm 103 and look at verse 1. David says, bless the Lord, oh
my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and
forget not all his benefits. There are five of them listed
here. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities. Who healeth all thy
diseases. who redeemeth thy life from destruction,
who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies,
who satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth
is renewed like the eagle's. Let's pray. Our Father, we come to you this
day in the high and holy and wonderful name of your Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ. And we ask, Lord, that you would open this
passage of scripture to us, Lord, that you would enable us to bless
you, to fall before you and worship, Lord, for who you are, your holy
name, but also, Lord, these wonderful benefits you've given to us.
Lord, meet with us. Be with the conference in Florida. Lord, bless the speakers there.
Bless the fellowship there. Return Todd safely to us. And
we ask, Lord, wherever your gospels preach this morning, that you
would bless your word. And we ask these things in Christ's
name. Amen. David opens with three words,
three very peculiar words. He says, bless the Lord. Is it just me or does anyone
else find that statement somewhat odd? Bless the Lord, because
when I think of a blessing or someone giving a blessing, I
think of this greater entity, this greater, more powerful entity
that holds all these blessings, that has all these blessings,
and he is giving it, he is bestowing it to this lesser entity, this
one who is in need. He is blessing him with things
that are good and well-desired and well-needed. That's what
I think of when I think of a blessing. That's why this statement is
so odd, bless the Lord. How can that be? Let me give
you the first scripture I think of when I think of a blessing
in general. I want you to turn to Ephesians
chapter 1. When I think of a blessing, this
is the first scripture I think of. Ephesians chapter one, you'll
all be very familiar with this. In this chapter, four questions
are answered. Number one, who does the blessing? Number two,
who are the recipients of the blessing? Number three, were
they blessed with? And number four, were those blessings
found? It's actually all found in verse three here. Look at
verse three. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ. Now the first two questions are
answered here. Number one, who is the one who knows the blessing?
God the Father, the Lord. He's the one who has all blessings.
All blessings are found in Him. They are His to give. They are
His to withhold. He's the one who has them and
He's the one who gives them. That's the first question answered.
Who does the blessing? Second one, who are the blessed? What
this says is us. This is very important. We can't
go any further until we identify who these people are, who are
this us. Now, there are four names I thought
of that you look through the scriptures. This us are described chiefly
by four names. And the first name is this. It's
saint. Saint. What that means is sanctified
one. One that has been set apart for holy purposes or for the
purpose of making them holy. That's the first us here. They're
a sanctified people. People that have been set apart
by God. They didn't set themselves apart. And they didn't make themselves
holy, the Lord did this. This is the name of this us,
a sanctified one, a saint. Let me tell you something about
this name. I know that name by faith, and I have zero experience
with that name. I have no experience of holiness.
I have no experience of being set apart. I'm a common and ordinary
sinner. So I know this name by faith, but I have no experience
with it. Here's a second name, elect.
Elect, what is that? That is one who shares an eternal
union with the Lord Jesus Christ. He has always been united to
him, and he was chosen unto salvation because of the one he is united
to. Here's how election works. God the Father chose one person,
just one. He chose his son. He said, all
my love is here, all my joy is here, everything I could ever
want, everything I could ever desire is right here, it's in this man
right here, Jesus Christ. And because this elect, this
group of people share an eternal union with that one who God loves,
who God admires, when he got him, he got the rest of us too.
We're elect, chosen by God in Christ before the world began.
Now if anyone would like to argue that point, I would like to direct
your attention to verse four of Ephesians chapter one. According, as he hath chosen
us, in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated
us, that is determined beforehand, to a known end. Perfect conformity
to the person of Jesus Christ. Unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to himself, but why? Why? According to the good
pleasure of his will. to the praise of the glory of
his grace wherein he hath made us accepted in the blood. A couple years ago, I don't even
remember if Mitch remembers this, he was in the men's study and
he read Ephesians chapter one. We all know Mitch, he's a man
of few words, but when he speaks, we listen to what he says. He
reads Ephesians chapter one, and after he gets done, he closes
the book, just sits there quietly for a second, and he goes, I
wonder who people that don't believe in election do with Ephesians
chapter one. That's a good question. What
are you going to do with that? If you don't believe in the absolute
sovereignty of God, the election of the saints, you have to just
omit if he's in chapter one. What are you going to do with
that right there? Because it says right there, he chose us. Not that we chose him.
He chose us. But at the same time, that name
is a name that I know by faith. It is not a name that I have
any experience with. Here's the third name I come up with. And
this one might resonate with you. It is faithful. Faithful,
that's a name for this us. They believe. What do they believe?
Here's what Paul said, 2 Timothy 1.12, he said, I know whom I
have believed, and I am persuaded. His faith rested, the faith of
this us rests not in a doctrine, not in a set of circumstances,
it rests in a man. We are dependent on a man. We
find everything in a man, and that man is Jesus Christ. He
said, I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded. I have seen
both sides of the argument. I have seen salvation by works,
or God makes a universal redemption, and I must do my part to make
it effective for me. I've seen that, and I know if
that is the way to heaven, if that's the way to salvation,
I'm gonna go to hell going that way, because I can't. I've seen
both sides of the argument, and I'm persuaded that the only one
who is able to pull this off is him. Him. I am persuaded that
He is able to keep that which I've committed unto Him against
that day. What have I committed? Everything. Everything. That's
what they believe. He's got to do it all, and it
can't rest on me. That's what they believe. But
here's about as far as we get with that. You remember Mark
chapter 9. A man came to the Lord, and he said, my son here,
he's got a dumb spirit. He's got a demon. And every time
that demon tears him, he tries to throw him in the water, throw
him in the fire. And the Lord said, bring him here. And he
said, right there, the demon tore him. And the man cries out,
and he goes, if you can do anything, if you can do anything, he's
speaking to the Lord, have compassion on us and help us. The Lord said
something very interesting. He said, if you can believe,
all things are possible to them that believe. You remember what
that man answered with? He said, Lord, I believe. Help that man
believe. We say, well, we rest on Him
and we trust Him for everything. We trust Him and we rest in Him.
We believe Him to give us the grace to believe, to give us
even that faith. That's something I have some
experience with right there. Here's the last one. I believe you'll
have a lot of experience with this one. It's sinner. That's the
last name for this us. Well, what is that? This is the
definition that gives me the most hope. It's Romans 5, 6.
For when we were yet without strength, In due time, Christ
died for the ungodly. Now, that is the definition of
a sinner. He is someone who is without strength and who is ungodly. In very short, he can't. He can't
satisfy God. He can't keep his law. If the
Lord looks inside him for a reason to save him, he's not going to
find it. He simply can't. He is an ungodly sinner. And
that's the name here of the Lord's people, of this us, sinner. Now, I just gave you a list,
right? A list. That list was saint, elect, faithful,
and sinner, right? I want you to turn that list
on its head. Sinner, faithful or believer, elect, saint. If you are the first one, you're
a sinner. You're ungodly, no strength,
no ability, sinner. If you're a sinner, you are commanded
to do the second one, to believe. to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, to trust him alone. And with the command always comes
the ability. If you are the first and you
do the second, and you will, you know what that means? It
is the evidence that you are the third and the fourth one.
You're elect. You share an eternal union with
the Lord Jesus Christ. You were chosen by God unto salvation
for the foundation of the world forever built. You're a saint.
You're sanctified, you right now, presently, in the person
of Jesus Christ, holy, unblameable, and unreprovable in the sight
of God the Father. That's the us that's being talked
about here. There are two more questions we want to answer from
Ephesians chapter one. Who blesses? The Lord. Who's
the blessed? The us, right? What are they
blessed with? All spiritual blessings, everything.
Everything God has to give, these people have. More importantly
than this, everything He requires, these people have. See, everything
the Lord requires of these people, He freely provides. They have
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. Where? Where is everything
found? In Christ. It's all found in His Son. Not
only is He the dwelling place of all these blessings, He is
the reason for it. Now, that's what I think of when
I think of a blessing. Right? The Lord blessing us with
all spiritual blessings. That's why what David says in
this Psalm is so interesting. He says, bless the Lord. Well,
how am I supposed to bless the Lord? And in short, you can't.
Not the way we're talking about here. I assure you, the Lord
wants nothing you have. He will accept nothing you have.
That's not what David means here. I actually looked up what that
word bless means in Psalm 103. It simply means to bow in adoration. It sounds a whole lot like worship
to me. Now go back to your text in Psalm 103. I want you to read
it in the Messianic. See if you see something here
that I saw. Read these are the words of the
Lord Jesus Christ, verse one. It says, bless the Lord, O my soul. As the words of the Lord Jesus
Christ, this is the Lord Jesus Christ commanding himself to
fall down in adoration of his father. This is beautiful, something
Todd has pointed out a lot recently. The Lord Jesus Christ is God.
He is absolutely equal. He is no less God than God the
Father, and yet He constantly made Himself subordinate to His
Father. He bowed in adoration to His
Father in all things. He was always doing His Father's
will. He was always seeking to please His Father. And right
here, here He's commanding Himself, Bless the Lord, O my soul. I'm
going to bless the Lord. I'm going to bow in adoration
to who he is, right? But it continues on. There's
another commandment here. Read on. Bless the Lord, O my
soul. And who? And all that is within me. This is talking about his people.
This is talking about the us. We've been talking about this
eternal union. How strong is that union? How real is that
union? Bless the Lord, O my soul. This is Christ talking to himself.
I'm going to bless the Lord. You know who else is going to?
Everybody who's in me. These ones I share this eternal
union with. Two reasons he gives. Two reasons
that we should fall down and bow in adoration to the Lord.
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. There are two reasons he gives
here. Number one, his holy name. Now, you guys have heard this
hundreds, maybe thousands of times. The Lord's name is his
attributes. It's who he is. What I think
is very interesting here, we should never discount that word
that is used to describe his name, holy. I'm going to be honest
about this. Anytime me or anyone else starts
talking about holiness, I get a little nervous, right? Because
it's something we don't have a really good grasp on. We just
don't have a good description for it. We don't have a good
definition for it. It is very much other. That's what it is.
But I'm going to give you some things about holiness real quick.
I'm going to run by you. Number one means this. It is the central
attribute and nature of God. Now, Henry Mahan gave this example
at one point. He spoke to me. Think of a bicycle
tire, right? Bicycle tire in the center there,
you have the hub, right? The center circle. From that
hub come the spokes that go out to the wheel. If you break that
down, that hub is the Lord's essential attribute, holiness,
his character, his nature right there. All his attributes are
those spokes that are coming off that essential characteristic.
So his sovereignty, it's a holy sovereignty. His justice is a
holy justice. His hate is a holy hate. His
mercy is a holy mercy. Everything stems from this essential
attribute of holiness. What does this mean? It speaks
of this. It speaks of an inability to
change. Immutable. He cannot change. Whatever he
has purposed, he has always purposed, and it must be simply because
he purposed it. He cannot change. That's why
everything in this book is yea and amen, because everything
he says he can't recant on. He cannot change. Speaks of this,
it speaks of perfection, absolute perfection, we don't know a whole
lot about. But also this, an inability to accept anything
that is not absolutely perfect. Righteousness can only accept
righteousness. Holiness can only accept holiness. Speaks of this, it speaks of
this that the Lord's actions, whatever it is he does, it is
the very standard of right and wrong. So he does not subscribe
to a set of rules. It is very much this, he did
it, therefore, that's what we know is right, simply because
he did it. It speaks of this, it speaks of other, other. We
just don't know that much about it. He's completely unlike us.
This attribute is completely unlike us. You've heard all that
before, and you've heard this before, but I wanna draw your
attention to it. Everything he does is right, and it's right
simply because he does it, and that's true. But I want you to
remember this. Everything he does is good. It's
very good. And it's good simply because
he does it. Now you remember when Moses went to the Lord,
he said, show me your glory. Show me your glory. And that's
a very, who would even think to ask this question? He says,
show me your glory. What did the Lord say? He said, I'll make
all my goodness pass before you. What is intricately linked with
his holiness is his goodness. All his attributes are so incredibly
good. And I want you to consider this
for a moment. We're going to run through some of his attributes.
Consider his sovereignty and the goodness of his sovereignty. What did he do with absolute
unchecked power and control? What did he do? How did he exercise
that? He used it to save a whole bunch of people who would not
have been saved. Now, I think it's interesting,
this attribute, this attribute of sovereignty is the thing the
world hates about him the most. It defies this man's sense of
free will and sense of freedom and things like that, things
we don't really have because we're bound to this evil nature. And yet
men hate this the most. Yet this is the single reason
that any man will be saved, the will of God. I pose this to you. What if God simply made a universal
redemption? He said, I've made salvation
possible for all men, but it is up to you to believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ. It's up to you by nature to come
to him. You must believe I'm not going to intervene in this
thing. And any man that comes to him and any man that believes on
him, you know what? He'll be saved, but they'll be the only
ones. I asked you who would be saved. I'll give you two scriptures. John 6, 44. No man can come to
me except the father, which has sent me draw him. No man can,
he lacks the ability. Without the intervention, the
sovereign will of God acting on a man and giving him a new
nature where he can believe, he will not come to God. He can't.
John 540, and you will not come to me. Now you might have life. Not just an inability problem,
a hatred problem, an unwillingness problem. Unless he sovereignly
intervenes and he breaks that will and he gives a new one,
he will not come to him. He can't come to him and he won't.
What did he do with this beautiful attribute of sovereignty? What
did he do with unchecked absolute power? He used it to save a whole
bunch of people who didn't want saved in the first place. Man says something like God's
sovereignty holds you off. God's sovereignty doesn't hold you
off. You hold yourself off. God's sovereignty brought in a bunch
of people who didn't want salvation in the first place. Think of the goodness of that
attribute. Think of the goodness of his love. Now, my love is
not really good. It's not very good. And your
love is not very good, and it's for this reason. We only love
people who love us. The Lord says, love your enemies. I've
never done it. It's never happened. I only love people who love me.
So what thank have I, right? My love's not very good. And
also this, my love is not very effective. I can love you, and
I can fail you. Probably have. You can love me
and you can fail me. His love is very good though.
It's a very good love because he has this capability. He loved
a whole bunch of people who by nature hated him. There was a
time when you hated God. You might not even have known
it, but you hated God. And yet you were loved by God
in Christ because he's the lamb slain before the foundation of
the world. He has this capacity to love people who did not love
him by nature. And his love is always effective.
It's never without effect. He can't fail those he loves.
Everybody he loves, he saves. The goodness of his love, his
holy name. Consider this, the goodness of
his perfect sense of justice. The chief problem with this world
is what? Sin, right? We're in it, sin.
That sin leads to great injustice. Now here's a dirty little secret
that everybody already knows. If you are rich and you are powerful
and you are well-connected, if you get in trouble and you go
into the legal system, you have a much better chance of getting
a favorable outcome from the legal system than someone who
is poor who doesn't know anybody. We live in an unjust world. There's no justice here, right? That's not the Lord. He has a
perfect sense of justice. And you know what? He's no respecter
of persons. Doesn't care how wealthy you are, doesn't care
how smart you are, doesn't care how pretty you are. One question
must be asked and answered. When you stand before God, has
he kept my holy law? Has he kept it? That is the one
question. Law, what do you say about this man? If he's kept
it, he's righteous. That means he lives. If he has
not kept it, he's unrighteous and he dies. That's it. His world,
his kingdom is a kingdom of perfect justice and judgment. Isn't that
good? Living in a world of such inequity,
of such injustice, isn't it good that His kingdom is a kingdom
of perfect justice? Now somebody may say, I bow in
adoration, that is awe-inspiring, no doubt, but here's the problem,
it doesn't inspire much comfort because I haven't kept the law.
But you have. If you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, you have. David said, bless the Lord, O my soul, and
all that is within me. How tight is that union between
Christ and His people? In Him. So much so that you have
kept the law. You kept it when He kept it.
You were in Him. So when He kept the law, you
kept it as well in Him. So when the Father looks at you,
He says, He's kept it. The law says, He's kept it. He's
righteous, He lives, and it's just. Think about the goodness
of His justice. What the goodness of His mercy
and His grace. His mercy and His grace bypasses everyone who
believes they have earned it or at least has the capability
to earn it. Completely bypasses those people and it reaches down
and it reaches and touches those people who know they can't earn
it. What a blessing it is. How good is His mercy? Think
about His omniscience, His infinite wisdom. Infinite wisdom. Three
things. Chiefly, and you could go on
about this all day long. Chiefly, there are three things that are
necessary to save you, all right? Number one, the will of God.
Not man's will, but the will of God. Chiefly, that is the
first thing that is necessary for you to be saved. God has to be willing
to do it. Second thing is this, the shed blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. That is our salvation right there. We are in that house
with the blood over the door. The Lord says, when I see the
blood, I'll pass it over to you. The will of God, the shed blood of
Jesus Christ, and what else? Everything that ever has been
and everything that ever will be. There's nothing that happens
that is just arbitrary. There's nothing that happens
that doesn't mean anything. Everything that happens is happening for
one reason, because that's exactly what is necessary to save you.
That's what's necessary to save you. And in His wise, eternal
purposes, with this infinite wisdom, all this is woven together
in this thing we call the creation, in time. And everything that's
happening, there is nothing that is arbitrary. Everything that
happens, you think, well, I'm just killing time. You're not
killing time. You know what's happening? You're being saved. Everything that's happening
is His will coming together for this purpose. That's what's necessary
to save you. What do you do with infinite
wisdom? He created all this to glorify Himself and to save His
people. Now, that was the first reason
David gave us to bow and adore his holy name, his beautiful,
wonderful attributes. He then gives us five benefits. He says, bless the Lord, O my
soul, bless his holy name, and forget not his benefits. Five
are listed. I'm going to give them to you
here. The first one is, who forgiveth all thine iniquities. Now, as a sinful people, we struggle
with this thing of forgiveness, don't we? We shouldn't. We've been forgiven much. We
shouldn't struggle with forgiveness, but we do. There's many reasons
for it, but here's one. There is absolutely no justice
in our forgiveness. So here's the thing. If I wrong you, right,
in some way, if I offend you and I wrong you, I can apologize. I can do my best to re-earn your
trust, which I should do. What I cannot do is I cannot
take away that offense. It will always be there. No matter
what I do, that offense will still be there. I can't take
it away. That's why forgiveness is so hard. That's not how the
Lord's forgiveness works. You know what this word means,
forgive? It's a beautiful word. It means to lift off. Here's
how the Lord forgives. He lifts off. He took our sins
and he lifted them off of us. And he put them in one place
in his Son. and they were punished in His
Son. He punished His Son in our stead. He actually put them away. In fact, look at this. Look at
verse 12 of your text. Here's Psalm 103. This is how
real this is. As far as the east is from the
west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us. That's
real, and that's why God can forgive every member of this
us right now, because he lifted it off, he put it in Christ,
and those sins are gone, punished in him. Second one is this, who
healeth all thy diseases. The disease that's being spoken
of here is sin, the sin disease. This isn't talking about a physical
disease, because one day we're gonna die of a disease, that's
it. He healeth all your diseases. Let me give you this. You remember
the leper, the law of the leper in Levitical law. If a man had
leprosy, he had to present himself to the priest. What happened
there? Let me read it to you. Leviticus 13, 13. Then the priest
shall consider, and behold, if the leprosy have covered all
his flesh, he shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague.
It is all turned white. He's clean. Now if the leper
came and he had the smallest amount of clean, raw, good flesh
on his body, the priest turned to him and said, unclean, and
sent him back. The leper called him. But if
he came, and from head to toe, he was covered in nothing but
disease, nothing but leprosy, when the priest looked at him,
when there was no clean flesh in him, he looked at that man
and he said, you're clean. Go back. Be with your family.
Now what's the moral of that story? It's this. The only prerequisite
to having the righteousness of Jesus Christ is not having any
of your own. If you come just like that leopard
did, completely covered in sin from the top of your head to
the sole of your foot, you will be made clean. You have been
made clean. He's healed all your diseases.
Third one, who redeemeth thy life from destruction. Remember
the book of Ruth, right? Naomi. She was beautiful. She
was rich. She had a husband. She had children.
They moved to Moab. Her husband dies. Her sons die.
All of a sudden, she's a widow. She's broke. She's destitute. And she is in need, her and her
daughter-in-law, Ruth, of a kinsman redeemer. Here's how the law
worked. If you had lost everything, and
you had to sell everything off because you were destitute now,
if you had a near kinsman, He could come and he could buy back
everything you had and he could restore you everything you lost. There
were three things that had to be there. Number one, he had
to be near of kin. He had to be of close familial relationship
to you. Number two, he had to have the means to do it. He couldn't
just go get your stuff back. He had to make everything right.
He had to buy back everything you lost. He had to have the
ability to do it. And third, he had to be willing
to do it. He didn't get you in that position. He had nothing
to do with that. You got yourself in that mess. He had to be willing to
do it. The Lord Jesus Christ is such a kinsman and redeemer
to his people. How close is that relationship? I'm going to say
it again. This close, we're in him. Does he have the right to
redeem? Is he our family? He's our husband.
He's our father. He's our older brother. We share
this eternal union. He has the right to. He checks
the first box. Does he have the ability? He absolutely does.
He went to the law. He satisfied God's holy law.
He paid the price. He went to the cross. He satisfied
God's perfect sense of justice. He paid for our sins. He bought
us with his blood. He honors all of his offices
as prophet, priest, and king. He has the means. He has the
ability. He cannot fail. Third one, got to check all three
boxes. Is he willing? He is always willing
to save a sinner in need of mercy. Everything he did, he did voluntarily. Fourth one, who crowneth thee
with loving kindness and tender mercies. I want you to turn to
Revelations chapter four. I think this thing of The elect
being crowned is a very interesting thing and Revelations has something
very interesting to say about it. Revelation chapter 4 and pick
up in verse 4. And round about the throne were
four and twenty seats. And upon the seats I saw four
and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment, and they had
on their head crowns of gold. Now this speaks of glory. Four
and 20 elders, there are a bunch of seats there, right? Four and
20 seats, but they're all occupied. There's gonna be tons of space
in heaven, but there's gonna be no vacancies. All the elect,
everyone God purposed to be there, is going to be there. And what
I addressed him, white brain with the very righteousness of
Christ. They have a crown on their head. That speaks of glory. How real is this union between
the Lord Jesus Christ and his people? He gets a crown, we get
a crown. That's the way it works. That's
how close this union actually is. But look down here, look
what we do with it. Verse 10, the 4 and 20 elders
fall down before him that sat on the throne and worship him
that liveth forever and ever and cast their crowns before
the throne. Saying, thou art worthy, O Lord,
to receive glory and honor and power, for thou hast created
all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. What
do we do with that crown that we're given? Take it and cast
it at his feet, because it's his. Let me read this one more
time. Who crowneth thee with loving
kindness and tender mercies. Another way of reading it would
be, who crowneth thee because of loving kindness and tender
mercies. Why would we be there? Why will
we wear that white robe? Why will we enjoy his presence?
Why will we be perfectly conformed to his image? One reason, his
loving kindness and his tender mercies. It's his crown. Let me throw it back at his feet.
Last one, who satisfies thy mouth with good things, so thy youth
is renewed like the eagle's. We won't take too much time.
What that means is talking about perseverance. Lord said this,
it was Matthew 24, 13, but he that shall endure unto the end,
the same shall be saved. It's not the man who starts the
race, it's the man who finishes the race. Well, here's this blessed
promise right here. We're gonna be given the strength
to persevere. And we're gonna be given the strength to persevere
because we're going to be preserved all the way to the end. Because
salvation is all his work. That's enough, thank y'all.