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Well, you can turn with me in
your Bibles to Psalm 103. God willing, we'll return to
the book of Acts next Lord's Day morning. But since tomorrow
is Thanksgiving, I thought it would be good for us to reflect
on a Psalm of David that does express thanksgiving to the true
and living God on behalf of his people. Most of us obviously
are familiar with the Heidelberg Catechism and that threefold
structure, guilt, grace, gratitude. Well, God's grace comes to us
so that we will respond with gratitude, that we'll respond
with obedience, that we'll respond in a way that is consistent with
those who have been begraced by our great God. So I want to
read beginning in Psalm 103 at verse 1, a Psalm of David. 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 iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems
your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving kindness
and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things,
so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. The Lord executes
righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. He made
known His ways to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel.
The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in
mercy. He will not always strive with
us, nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with
us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our
iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so
great is His mercy toward those who fear Him. As far as the east
is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions
from us. As a father pities his children,
so the Lord pities those who fear Him. For He knows our frame,
He remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like
grass, as a flower of the field, so he flourishes. For the wind
passes over it, and it is gone, and its place remembers it no
more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children's children,
to such as keep his covenant, and to those who remember his
commandments to do them. The Lord has established his
throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all. Bless the Lord,
you his angels, who excel in strength, who do his word, heeding
the voice of his word. Bless the Lord, all you his hosts,
you ministers of his, who do his pleasure. Bless the Lord,
all his works, in all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord,
O my soul. Amen. Well, let us pray. Father,
thank you for this wonderful psalm. What a great expression
of gratitude from the heart of David to his God. I pray that
this would express our hearts of gratitude as well to our God,
to that one who has saved us, to that one who has been so gracious
and so merciful. Lord God, as we read through
this, we are humbled at the thought that these things are even true
of us, because we are sinners, we are rebels, we are those who
are justly condemned by your law. And yet we have found grace
and mercy through the person and the work of our Lord Jesus
Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit. So God help
us to take this psalm as our own, help us to pray it back
to you each and every day, not just once a year, but God, may
we be a people that are marked by gratitude, by thanksgiving. And to that end now, fill us
with your Holy Spirit and guide us as we consider scripture.
And again, forgive us for our sin and that which does darken
our understanding. And we ask this through Jesus
Christ, our Lord, amen. Well, David is certainly a fitting
candidate to write this particular psalm, as he had experienced
very much the grace and the mercy of God Almighty. So I want to
look at three things with reference to the breakdown or structure
of this psalm. In the first place, the reminder
to bless God in verses 1 and 2. Secondly, the reasons to bless
God in verses 3 to 18. And then thirdly, the reflection
on the kingdom of God in verses 19 to 22. But notice, with reference
to this reminder, David is calling upon himself. David is actually
talking to himself as he pens this particular psalm. Now, the
literary convention is called a soliloquy. That's just a sort
of fancy way to say that a person is talking to himself. And so
that is precisely what David is doing. in this instance. So
notice he addresses himself in verse 1. Bless the Lord, O my
soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. So he's
not only calling upon David, but he's calling upon the entirety
of David. In other words, all my soul.
I don't want to keep anything back. I don't want to be reserved.
I don't want to hinder that which is due to God. I want everything
in me to shout the praises and the glory of God Almighty. This
isn't the only place that David speaks to himself in the Psalms. David, not only as he rehearses
God's blessing and as David rehearses the praise of God, David also
talks to himself when he's depressed, when he has that melancholic
spirit. In Psalm 42, 5, he says, Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within
me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of
His countenance. You see that in Psalm 42, and
then again in Psalm 43, 5. So what do we learn from David?
That in good times and in bad times, we need to remind ourselves
to call upon God. In good times, certainly we have
a tendency to possibly forget God and not express that gratitude
that is owing to Him. But in difficult times, we see
the difficulties and they cover from us the very glory of God
Himself. We saw that on Wednesday night.
Moses gets word from the living and true God on how to encourage
the children of Israel that God is going to deliver them from
bondage. He is going to bring them out with outstretched arm
from that land of Egypt. And yet when Moses reports that
to the children of Israel, they don't believe it. They don't
trust it. They rather see their anguish, they see their pain,
they see their hardship, and that clouds from their view the
glory of God Almighty. David is a better guide here.
When we're sorrowful, we ought to speak to ourselves and point
ourselves to God. When we are happy, we ought to
speak to ourselves and point ourselves to God. C.H. Spurgeon
made the observation, he says, soul music is the very soul of
music. The psalmist strikes the very
best keynote when he begins with stirring up his inmost self to
magnify the Lord. He soliloquizes. holds self-communion
and exhorts himself, as though he felt the dullness would all
too soon steal over his faculties, as indeed it will over us all,
unless we are diligently on the watch." I think there's a good
reminder here. We're busy. The Western world
is busy. We're governed by that thing.
that thing called the clock. And as a result of that, we let
our busyness, we let our schedules, we let all of the demands on
our time crowd out the place of gratitude to God. It crowds
out the place of agonizing before God when we are melancholic or
when we are sorrowful. Martin Lloyd-Jones, in his very
helpful book called Spiritual Depression, he highlights the
reality that there are times when we need to talk to ourselves.
In fact, this is what he says, have you not realized that most
of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are
listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? I think
the good doctor was correct. We listen to ourselves. Oh, life
is a bummer. Life is miserable. Life is hard.
Oh, brethren, I'm not indicting you. I'm just basically engaged
in some autobiography and some self-confession here. Life is
so difficult and it's such a tough thing. Talk to your soul and
direct your soul to the one who has the power to help you in
times of sorrow and the one who receives glory in your times
of praise. He emphasizes praise and worship
relative to his relationship to the true and living God. But
notice, he not only practices this in verse one, but he reminds
himself in verse two. So bless the Lord, oh my soul,
and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Now notice verse
two, bless the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not all his benefits.
Why do you think David reminds himself of that? Because it's
easy to forget the benefits of God. It's easy to forget you
had breakfast this morning. It's easy to forget there's water
right upstairs. It's easy to forget we have an
open church. It's easy to forget that we have
decent people in our lives. It's easy to forget the the benefits
and the blessings and the mercies that God conveys upon us. So
David reminds himself and David stirs himself up not to forget
these things. Don't forget the various things
that God has conveyed upon you. Turn back to the law for just
a moment in the book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy chapter 6. I meant
the law, the five books of Moses. Deuteronomy chapter 6, instructions
for living in the promised land. The giving of the law, chapter
5, an exhortation by Moses on how to live in light of that
law in their tenure in the land. And in Deuteronomy chapter 6,
notice what we find in verse 10. So it shall be, when the
Lord your God brings you into the land of which He swore to
your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you large
and beautiful cities which you did not build, houses full of
all good things which you did not fill, hewn-out wells which
you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not
plant, when you have eaten and are full, then..." Notice the
language here, beware. What's the problem? God's given
us all these good things. Why is there a beware here, Moses? Because the tendency of your
heart is to receive from the hand of God these manifold mercies,
these great blessings, all of the things that the Lord has
conveyed and forget to thank Him, forget to exercise gratitude,
or worse, forget Him altogether and turn to the idols of the
land. Notice in verse 12, then beware lest you forget the Lord
who brought you out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage. Turn over to Deuteronomy chapter
8 for the same sort of emphasis. Deuteronomy chapter 8. Beginning
in verse 6, therefore you shall keep the commandments of the
Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. For the
Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks,
of water, of fountains and springs that flow out of valleys and
hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates,
a land of olive oil and honey, a land in which you will eat
bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land
whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper.
When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord
your God for the good land which He has given you. This is the
reflex we receive from the hand of God and we return praise and
thanks to God. That's the way it's supposed
to be. Now note the caution again in verse 11, beware that you
do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments,
His judgments and His statutes, which I command you today. lest,
when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses
and dwell in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply,
and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that
you have is multiplied, when your heart is lifted up, and
you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land
of Egypt, from the house of bondage. And then one more text in Deuteronomy.
Deuteronomy chapter 28. Again, just simply highlighting
why David not only calls upon his soul to bless the Lord, and
all that is within me, don't hold anything back, no reserves,
no, no, I'm going to give God 70%, no, all that is within me,
bless his holy name. And then he reminds himself not
to forget all of his benefits, because the tendency is there
to forget his benefits. Now, if you're familiar with
Deuteronomy 28, in many respects it's a horrifying chapter of
Scripture. It entails blessings for obedience in the land, but
it also further develops or amplifies the curses that will result upon
Israel should they not comply with the law of God in the land
of tenure. Notice in 28.47. 28, 47, because you did not serve the
Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart for the abundance of
everything. Therefore, you shall serve your
enemies whom the Lord will send against you in hunger and thirst
and nakedness and in need of everything. He will put a yoke
of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you. What's the
point? God gave these things to the people so they would live
in the land of Canaan and they would worship God. They would
engage in true religion. They would sacrifice. They would
build a tabernacle and then a temple. They would be His special people,
His royal priesthood, a people to mediate the blessings of God
upon the peoples around them. But they wouldn't do that. And
their ingratitude and this lack of remembering God would be one
of the reasons for their expulsion from the land. Certainly they
engaged in all manner of wickedness and transgression of the law.
They engaged in gross sexual immorality. They engaged in idolatry. They engaged in first and second
table offenses of the law. But what we have in this particular
verse, surrounded by a lot of other condemnations for other
various things, is a lack of gratitude, a lack of thankfulness,
and I suggest that's why David takes his soul by the scruff
of the neck and says, do not forget all of his benefits. The tendency to forget is real. There are many places in New
Testament theology that indicate the thankfulness, the gratitude
of the people of God. Ephesians 5.20, Philippians 4.6,
Colossians 1.3, Colossians 1.12, Colossians 2.7, Colossians 3.15,
Colossians 3.17, Colossians 4.2, 1 Thessalonians 5.18. That's
just a summary. There are many emphases throughout
the New Testament. You have received grace. Your
blood bought. You're children of the living
God. You're now forgiven. You've received a righteousness
that avails with the Father. What's the reflex for those who
have received such things? It's to praise God. It's to bless
the Lord with all my soul and forget not any of his benefits. Now let's look secondly at the
reasons to bless God. So he gives this general statement
in verse 2, forget not all his benefits. So this is a good time
in his soliloquy, remember kids, big word for talking to himself.
He's going to remind himself about the various benefits that
he has received from the hand of God. Again, a good exercise. Not just this vague, thank you
God for all of the good things. There are seasons and instances
where it's good to rehearse those things, where it's good to reflect
upon those things, especially in times where we perhaps are
feeling miserable or melancholic or sorrowful. We ought to review
and refresh ourselves with the very blessings that God has given
to us profusely. Now, I think there are three
things we ought to appreciate in this section. It's the largest
section of the psalm, and in verses 3 to 5, he identifies
the gifts. He identifies the gifts. In other
words, forget not all his benefits. Forget not all that he has given
to you. And now he indicates in verses
3 to 5 what those particular benefits are. And I think there's
a twofold emphasis here. First, spiritual things, and
then temporal or physical. So you got the spiritual first,
notice what he says in verse three. He says, the forgiveness
of sins, who forgives all your iniquities. Now, if we ponder
the life of David and we take that threefold structure from
the Heidelberg Catechism and apply it to him, did he have
guilt? Oh yeah, he had guilt. Most certainly,
David had guilt. We typically think about the
2 Samuel 11 and 12 guilt, where he commits adultery and then
covers up by the act of murder. But he had guilt prior to his
conversion. He had guilt during his conversion. He was a man
like us. And David rejoiced in the reality
that that guilt had been met by God's grace. And as a result
of his guilt having been dealt with by grace, he's now engaged
in gratitude. This is the emphasis that he
starts off with, with reference to his rehearsal of God's gifts
in his life. The chief benefit for David,
it may not have been, but at least in terms of structure here,
is forgiveness. It was the chief boon in his
life as a man before God. He not only celebrates it here,
he celebrates it in Psalm 32. He says, blessed is he whose
transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the
man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose
spirit there is no deceit. Psalm 65, 3. He says, iniquities
prevail against me. As for our transgressions, you
will provide atonement for them. See, David didn't just in this
place rehearse the goodness of God displayed in the cross of
Jesus Christ, but he does that throughout the Psalms. He does
that over and over and over again. And I think we ought to glean
from that. If your life is so miserable that there is nothing
that you can thank God in terms of the temporal world around
you, as a blood-bought child of God, you can always praise
Him for that reality. Your sins are forgiven. Your sins are cleansed. Your
heart has been purified through the precious blood of the Lord
Jesus. You now know, by experience, what the prophet Zechariah spoke
of. Behold, in that day there will
be a fountain open for sin and uncleanness. And by God's grace,
he has plunged you neath that flood, as Cooper taught us to
say. And sinners receiving that lose all their guilty stains,
and as a result, they praise God for it. They bless God for
it. They marvel at God's goodness
and grace toward them. The Geneva Bible says that is
the beginning and chiefest of all benefits, remission of sin. Spurgeon helpfully says, he selects
a few of the choicest pearls from the casket of divine love,
threads them on the string of memory, and hangs them about
the neck of gratitude. Pardoned sin, in our experience,
one of the choicest boons of grace, one of the earliest gifts
of mercy. In fact, the needful preparation
for enjoying all that follows it. Till iniquity is forgiven,
healing, redemption, and satisfaction are unknown blessings. So not
to surprise us when David starts here. 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, chief of which
is that he has washed me in the precious blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He has cleansed me, he has purified
me, he has set me in a place where one day I will enter into
his glorious kingdom where there will be no sin, where there will
be no affliction, where there will be no trial, where there
will be no hardship, where there will be no tears or sorrows or
hunger or thirst. The Lord God has secured for
us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ
Jesus. But David doesn't stop there. Forget not all his benefits.
There's not just one. And this is just sort of a summary
statement. The whole Bible could be taken
up by David rehearsing the various gifts of God and the blessings
that he conveys upon men. Notice there are physical or
temporal things. We saw that in Psalm 68. Psalm
68, verse 19. Blessed be the Lord who daily
loads us with benefits. The God of our salvation. Our
God is the God of salvation, and the God the Lord belonged
escapes from death. So the psalmist in Psalm 68,
David, rehearses the great salvation from God in terms of redemption,
the spiritual blessing that he has in Christ, but he also rehearses
the temporal deliverances, the blessings given by a gracious
God, the many times that perhaps we should have died and we didn't.
the many times that he has spared us, the many times that he has
watched over us, the many times he has kept us from engaging
in that which is absolutely atrocious. We hear that and we say it, but
I wonder if we actually ponder it when we say, oh, but for the
grace of God, there go I. That's true, brethren. We'd be
in prison. We'd be in an early grave. We'd
be whacked out on whatever drug or alcohol somebody could name. We would be in dire straits had
God, in His grace and mercy, not kept us, not restrained us,
and not restricted us from running headlong into that which would
ultimately destroy us. So, David rehearses those blessings
from God, not only in the psalm, but it's great in the life of
David as well, in both 2 Samuel 4 and in 1 Kings 1. You have
this statement by David, and it serves as bookends, at least
in that section of the narrative, with reference to his thankfulness
or gratitude to God. He says, as Yahweh lives, who
has redeemed my life from all adversity. That's 2 Samuel 4,
9, prior to all of the things that he'll get into in 2 Samuel
11 and 12. But then at the end of his life,
to Solomon, he says, as the Lord lives, who has redeemed my life
from all adversity. It might've been to Bathsheba
specifically that he's speaking there. Who has redeemed my life
from all adversity. Now think about that statement.
Not kept me from all adversity. At all, right? When you read
the life of David, you don't meet a man who's cut from all
adversity. In other words, you'll see a
man who goes through all adversity. You'll see a man who's chased
by Saul initially. You'll see a man who's chased
by Philistines. You'll see a man who's chased by the enemies of
God all around him. You'll see a man who's dealing
with his own sin, dealing with his own remaining corruption.
He has all these issues, all these challenges, and all these
problems. He doesn't say, the Lord kept me from them. He says,
rather, the Lord has redeemed me. In the midst of the affliction,
in the midst of the hardship, in the midst of the trial, God's
doing something. He's redeeming us, not in the
sense of salvation by grace through faith, as the afflictions are
operative in the hand of God, but He is bringing redemptive
ends through these sufferings, through these hardships. He's
teaching us, He's guiding us, He's directing us, and in the
language of Paul in Romans 8, He's conforming us unto the image
of His beloved Son. So David is able to express thankfulness,
not only for the spiritual blessings, but as well for the temporal.
Notice the fact of physical healing. Verse 3b, who heals all your
diseases. Now obviously, we don't universalize
that. People get diseases. David got
sick. There are issues. David died.
He's not living somewhere right now in Israel. He did die. So it's not a universal statement,
there'll never be hardship, there'll never be problems, there'll never
be trial. No, it's a general statement, the Lord God is good
to His people, redeems them or heals them of all their diseases. Notice the protection from calamity,
verse 4a, who redeems your life from destruction. Brethren, I
wonder if we actually knew how many times we almost got hit
by cars, how many times we almost got shot. Now, you might think
that's a bit of an odd thing, but I've been hearing gunshots
near our house recently, and you might say, well, it's backfired
cars or whatever. Well, about a year or two ago,
there was an actual gunshot. Somebody was gunned down about,
I don't know, I could probably, with a good throw, throw a baseball
to the front door of the house where the person got shot. And
that morning, I reflected on it. What if a stray bullet came
through the window and my wife finds me dead on the floor? How
many instances of that have we been kept from by our God? How much opportunity for great
and grievous destruction? I think that it's a wonderful
thing to muse upon the reality that we're not in prison, the
reality that we're not in hell, the reality that we're not in
some other place of destitution. Who do we give praise to for
that? Well, I made good choices. I always look both ways before
I cross the street. No, God's hand is upon his people.
God is gracious. God is merciful. In the spiritual
sphere, in conveying to us that righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption that comes from us being in Him, but as well
temporally. The food that we have, the water
that we drink, when we have our prayer meetings or when we reflect
upon the various conditions of others around the world, brethren,
not everybody has access to taps. with clean, fresh water. Not
everybody has Costco's. Not everybody has super stores. Not everybody has those benefits
that God in His mercy has conveyed lavishly upon us. That is just
the reality of it, and I think David not only sees things in
their spiritual realm, or in the spiritual realm, but he sees
it in the temporal realm as well. He speaks of God's crowning His
people with loving kindness and goodness in 4B. Who crowns you? That is a great statement. He
doesn't just give you a little bit. When you look at a king,
yeah, you might see, wow, what a nice robe, what a nice, you
know, set of shoes on that king, or whatever it is. But it's the
crown that is the emblem of his dignity. It's the crown that's
the emblem of his royalty. It's the crown the eye naturally
goes to. And so when God comes to deal
with his creatures, His redeemed in Christ creatures, He doesn't
just give us a little bit of loving kindness and mercy. He
bestows it upon us lavishly. He puts the crown, as it were,
on our heads, such that when persons look at us, they see
men and women and boys and girls who have been blessed richly
by the true and living God. And then notice in verse five,
the provision of temporal goods. who satisfies your mouth with
good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagles."
Isn't God good to provide food? Isn't God good to provide medicine? Isn't God good to answer positively
our cry to Him, give us this day our daily bread? You see,
when we pray that, Perhaps we don't even, because of the Costco's
and the Walmart's, because of the great profusion of blessing
we have, we may even start the day without saying, give us this
day our daily bread. But if we do, and we should,
and God does give it to us, what is the reflex? What is the response? Is it to forget him? Is it not
to thank him? Is it not to praise him for the
sustenance that he gives us each and every day? That's horrible.
No, we come to God with great thanksgiving. So that's the identification
of the gifts. Notice the persons who receive
the gifts in verses 6 and 7. The Lord executes righteousness
and justice for all who are oppressed. It may not feel like that immediately.
It may not seem like that initially, but He does. Isn't that the story
in Luke 18? Shall not God avenge his own
elect who cry to him day and night? Remember, it's the story
of the importunate widow, that widow who goes to the judge who
neither feared God nor regarded the face of men. But the importunate
widow comes to him and keeps knocking and knocking and knocking,
keeps putting her case out to him and keeps saying, give me
the verdict that I require. Even the wretch himself, the
unjust judge, says, I don't fear God and I don't regard men, but
lest this woman weary me by her constant asking, I'm going to
go ahead and render her verdict. That's the basis upon which Jesus
says, shall not God avenge his elect who cry to him day and
night? Think again of Israel oppressed
in Egypt. It didn't happen immediately
for them. In fact, I've already cited there in chapter six, because
they were in anguish and they were in pain. Nevertheless, they
didn't honor God. Nevertheless, God continued to
bless and God continued to watch over them. He is the one that
vindicates his oppressed. And then in verse 7, the people
of God. Very simply, he made known his ways to Moses, his
acts to the children of Israel. Well, who's the children of Israel
today? It's the church. The true Israel, the Israel of
God, according to Paul in Galatians 6.16, are the blood bought from
every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. They might make up
what is the Israel of God. So we see the identification
of the gifts in verses 3 to 5, spiritual and physical. We see
the persons who receive the gifts in verses 6 and 7. But notice
the gracious God who gives the gifts in verses 8 to 18. So David
moves from what he gets to who gives it. And that's where we
ought to go as well. We praise God for the blessings
that He conveys upon us, but we also ought to ponder God.
Just God. Just ponder Him. Think about
Him. Consider Him in His perfection. Consider Him in the way that
He manifests those perfections to His people. And that's precisely
what David does there. Notice he calls Him the merciful
and gracious God in verse 8. The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. This is a wonderful
statement. Parallel Psalm 30, verse five,
for his anger is but for a moment. His favor is for life. Weeping
may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Verse eight,
the Lord is merciful and gracious. In other words, this is our God. Yes, he gives us all these good
things, but don't be so consumed with the good things you forget
the one who's given the good things. And this is what David
says. He is this. His perfections are
these. And not only are they his perfections,
but he demonstrates them. He manifests them. They are evident
in the reception of the gifts by his people. And that is what
David goes on to highlight in verses 9 to 18. Davis, before
I move on, says, biblical prayer seems to ponder God a good deal
more than we are prone to do. I don't want to make anybody
feel bad or get offended or anything like that, but I do want to remind
us that this is the way David prayed. And this is a great model. And many have seen rightly that
the Psalms ultimately are the prayers of Jesus. And we need
to adopt that model. We need to understand that reality.
And we need to make the Psalms our own. We need to pray them
back to God. Sometimes people say, I don't
know what to pray. I don't have all the words. You
have 150 Psalms. Believe you me, you know what to pray. And
believe you me, you've got the words. Because God loves to hear
His word come back to Him. This is a blessed and a wonderful
thing. Again, if you were offended,
I'm going to give it to you again. Biblical prayer seems to ponder
God a good deal more than we are prone to do. Now notice how
God manifests His mercy here in verses 9 and following. The
first place, He doesn't strive with us. He doesn't allow us
to continue in our sin. He certainly chides, He rebukes. We think of that statement of
the Apostle Paul, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God.
It's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction,
and for instruction in righteousness. The man of God may be thoroughly
furnished unto every good work. There is the corrective element.
There is the reproving element. We come to grips with the Word
of God and it calls us out. God is in that, but He doesn't
strive with us always. Our relationship with God isn't
like some of the relationships people bear with their parents,
where there's this friction and there's this tension and there's
this constant heartache and hardship. That's not the way the Lord God
deals with His children. Notice as well, He deals graciously
with us. And verse 10 indicates that.
He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us
according to our iniquities. Again, David comes back to that.
This is a manifestation of the mercy of God. He hasn't dealt
with us like we deserve. Do you realize that all of us
deserve God's wrath and curse, both in this life and that which
is to come, for the smallest of the sins that we've ever committed?
For just one sin. That's Westminster Shorter Catechism.
What does every sin deserve? Every sin deserves. Now multiply
that sin by however much you and I have sinned. I dare say
that's a lot of sin, isn't it? It's hard to even quantify. It's
hard to even imagine. It's hard to even fathom how
much sin, not just in a church, but just in a heart, there is
operative or there is present. And yet notice how God deals
with us. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor
punished us according to our iniquities. This is a manifestation
or a demonstration of the perfections indicated in verse 8. The Lord
is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in mercy.
We know that because He will not strive always with us. We
know that as well because He has not dealt with us according
to our sins. nor punished us according to
our iniquities." Notice what he does in terms of mercy. Verses
11 to 14 is most awesome in terms of God's mercy to his people.
In the first place, he says he showers us with great mercy.
For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his mercy
toward those who fear him. Brethren, do you realize that
when you come to deal with God, you're not dealing with Ebenezer
Scrooge? You remember that fellow from
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens? Scrooge was that miser. Scrooge was that guy that just,
you know, huddled around his stuff. didn't want to share,
didn't want to give anything whatsoever. I mean, it was terrible. We use that term now. You may
not even know where it originated, but it's from Ebenezer Scrooge.
Scrooge is a mess when it comes to dealing kindly and faithfully
and graciously with others, not God. I think we get that in our
mind sometimes. Oh, you know, God's going to
deal with me the way Scrooge dealt with, you know, his contemporaries.
God's just a miser. He just doles out little pieces
of his grace and mercy. That's not what David says. Look
at what he says in verse 11. For as the heavens are high above
the earth, Now, as you look at the sky, there's certainly that
lower sky where you see the birds kind of hang out, and then the
higher sky, I know this sounds a bit odd, where the planes fly,
and then we've got the atmospheric sky where, you know, there's
spaceships and satellites and aliens and all that sort of thing,
right? We have all that, but what do we know for sure? The
heavens are high above the earth, aren't they? The heavens are
way up there. Look at what David says. So great
is his mercy toward those who fear him. I think I've told you
before, there were certain words coined by the apostle Paul in
order to exemplify or to demonstrate or to highlight the super abounding
grace of God. Paul would make up that word,
not out of thin air. He would take an existing word
and add a preposition to it. And the reality is that our God
is so good, our God is so glorious, our God is so wondrous, our God's
mercy is so abundant that we can't really even get at it.
We really can't understand it. So David uses this analogy or
this illustration, as the heavens are high above the earth, so
great is his mercy toward those who fear him. And then notice,
he doesn't deal with our sin in part, he doesn't deal with
our sin partially, He doesn't say, oh, I'm going to forgive
you of 80%, and the 20% balances on you. No, look at verse 12.
As far as the East is from the West, so far has He removed our
transgressions from us. Do you ever just stop and think,
praise God for that? Do you ever just stop and think
that it's not 99.9% of His forgiveness, but it's
100%? Do you ever stop and muse upon the Savior's words in John
19, that saying from the cross, when He says, it is finished?
It's a beautiful and a glorious thing. Salvation, according to
Scripture, is finished. It's done. It's wrought out by
Christ. It's accomplished in His person
and work. It's not like He does part of it, and then we have
to make up the rest. No, He's wisdom from God. That
is righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, so that we will
glory in the Lord. Micah is a prophet that is similar
in nature to what David says here. Micah 7, 18, and 19. Who
is a god like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over the
transgressions of the remnant of his heritage? He does not
retain his anger forever because he delights in mercy. He will
again have compassion on us and will subdue our iniquities. You
will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. Micah read
the Psalms, didn't he? Micah read David, didn't he?
Micah paid attention when he went to the synagogue or to the
temple. Micah listened when the preacher
or the expositor would read the Psalms of David and expand, amplify
them, explicate them, expound on them. Micah paid attention
and he rejoiced in that reality that when God comes to deal with
our sin, he doesn't deal with just a bit of our sin. And if
you're not a believer here this morning, I don't know what more
could possibly be said to entice you to come. I really don't know
what more could be said to show the goodness, the kindness, the
mercy, and the graciousness of this God. This God is this God. Trust us, those who by grace
have come, those who by grace have tasted and seen that he
is good, we'll be able to testify and affirm what David says here.
Yeah, he's forgiven us of all our sin. He hasn't just forgiven
us of some of our sin and sent us on the path to deal with the
rest on our own. No, that's not the way it is. The blood of Jesus
Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin. It is most excellent
and most glorious. Now let's just move on here.
Look at what he says. We're gonna speed up here in
a moment. fear of the clock that I mentioned earlier. But notice
what he says in verse 13. As a father pities his children,
so the Lord pities those who fear him. That talks about his
tenderness. Brethren, not everybody, and
I think this is a bit interesting in this context of our particular
church. We have a lot of people in our church that came from
families that, you know, not broken homes. That's not typical.
You know, there's a whole world out there with a lot of broken
homes. There's a whole world out there with a lot of absentee
fathers, absentee mothers. There's a whole lot of people
out there that have some skewed view of parenthood because of
their own experience. And so they come to passages
like these, and they say, that's not my experience. I didn't have
a tender father. I had an abandoning father. I didn't have a kind and caring
father. I had a father who was very severe. If he was present, he was vicious,
and I perhaps would have rather him be absentee. So where we
see many persons struggling in terms of parenthood, we look
at what God says concerning, what David says concerning God,
and it does blow the mind of people that have come from Bad
experiences. But look at what the text says.
As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who
fear him. We fear him by grace. It's not
something that we flipped on. Oh, I've got now this fear of
God. No, it's been put there by God. Those recipients of his
grace are pitied by him the way that a father pities his children.
There's that blessed bit in Deuteronomy chapter 1. The people of Israel
complained about the wilderness. The people of Israel complained
about the wilderness. There were times in the wilderness
when they said, oh, that we could go back to Egypt. Oh, slavery
is much to be preferred over liberty, provided there's food
in the pot. That's where they were at. They
did not want liberty if it meant having to honor and glorify God
and having to fend for themselves and find their own food and be
dependent upon God. And when they interpret the wilderness,
the people of Israel, at times they whined about it, they grumbled,
they complained. Listen to how Moses describes
the wilderness experience of the children of God. And in the
wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried you. They didn't think of it that
way. They thought God abandoned them. They thought God wasn't
with them. We do that too. We go into our
prayer closet and we are not taken up into the very third
heaven. So we think that God doesn't hear us pray. Brethren,
God hears the normal and the ordinary just like He hears the
mountaintop experience. We interpret things based on
our understanding instead of the written revelation of the
living and true God. That is a fundamental problem
with each and every one of us that hopefully God corrects over
our lives. It says, and in the wilderness
where you saw how the Lord your God carried you as a man carries
his son in all the way that you went until you came to this place. We have seen again in our studies
in Exodus where God hears. the cries, the sorrows, the groanings
of the children of Israel. They're not groaning and sorrowful
in repentance. They're groaning and sorrowful
because they're oppressed, because they're hurting. God hears that
as a Father, and He pities them, and He engages to release them
from that position of suffering. Now, notice in verse 14, He is
sympathetic toward us, for He knows our frame. It's another
thing, I think at times we don't really respond or we don't really
think that God does know us. God knows us better than we know
ourselves, right? He knows our frame, is what David
says. Who better than David knew that?
Who better than David, king of Israel, who had engaged in adultery
with Bathsheba, covered it by the murder of Uriah the Hittite,
who knew this better than him? He knows our frame. He remembers
that we are dust. This is where, again, if we were
in a black church in Southern California, the preacher would
say, can I get an amen? Because this is glorious. Do you hear
what's happening? He knows our frame. He pities
us. Jesus says to the disciples in
the Garden of Gethsemane, he doesn't say, you dirty, rotten
scoundrels, you couldn't stay awake for one hour. He says the
spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Christ knows the creaturely
limitations of his people. Brethren, that's good news. He
doesn't call us to extend out of our creatureliness to be some
super spiritual being. He gives his beloved sleep. Sometimes
you'll hear people say, oh, he prayed all night. Brethren, does
that mean that those of us who sleep at night are somehow less
or somehow impure or unholy? It's probably not bad to pray
all night once in a while. But if you're praying all night,
every night, you're going to be in bad shape, brother. You
need to sleep. God is the God of sleep. God
is the God who gives his beloved sleep. God is the God who knows
our frames. He knows our creaturely limitations. And in the garden, Jesus doesn't
scream at Peter, James, and John. He says, the spirit is willing,
but the flesh is weak. Now, he does chide them, but
gently, watch and pray, or could you not watch and pray with me
for even one hour? But on the heels of that, he
doesn't scream at them for their creaturely limitations. The reality
is that God is sympathetic toward us. And then I think 15 to 18
is another analogy, another sort of metaphor, another sort of
way for him to highlight the constancy of God's mercy. See, if mercy came to us for
a week or a year or a month or a time, and then it dried up,
Would have been good in those times, but we need constant mercy,
don't we? Because we're constantly messed
up, right? That's just the way I read the
Bible. We're constantly messed up, so we constantly stand in
need for mercy. So look at verse 15. As for man,
his days are like grass, as a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
For the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place
remembers it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is
from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him and his
righteousness to children, to such as keep his covenant and
to those who remember his commandments to do them. Listen to Spurgeon
again. He says, how vast the contrast
between the fading flower and the everlasting God. How wonderful
that His mercy should link our frailty with His eternity and
make us everlasting too. From old eternity, the Lord viewed
his people as objects of mercy and as such chose them to be
partakers of his grace. The doctrine of eternal election
is most delightful to those who have light to see it and love
wherewith to accept it. It is a theme for deepest thought
and highest joy. The mercy of the Lord is from
everlasting to everlasting. What do we glean from that? You're
not an afterthought in the mind of God. You're not an addition. You're not a B to the A side. You're not some in time. God
orchestrated all things, this world, providence, redemption,
with you and I in mind. That's the beauty of Romans 8.
For whom he foreknew. See, Armenians jump on that passage
and say, well, it's about foreknowledge. It's not about predestination.
The text is beautiful. For whom, not what. It's not like God looks down
the tunnel of time and sees some of you say, okay, I've decided
to follow Jesus, I've decided to believe the gospel, and it's
those who God predestines. That is not that text. For whom? Specific individuals, specific
persons, the elect of God from every tribe, tongue, people,
and nation. For knowledge in that passage speaks of intimacy,
it speaks of love, it speaks of God, and I speak in the manner
of man, setting his affection upon those who are unaffectionate,
who are unworthy, who are not those that should receive it. But mercy and grace in eternity
past is fleshed out by our God in and through the work of the
Redeemer on our behalf. Now let's look finally and quickly
at the reflection on the kingdom of God. Why does David do this? Why does David reflect on the
kingdom of God? Because, brethren, life isn't
just about David. It's just not. He may soliloquize
or engage in soliloquy. He may talk to himself. But as
he ends this particular psalm, and he ends where he began, he
ends at verse 22 with, bless the Lord, O my soul. But before
he ends where he began, he invites the rest of the created order
to praise God. In other words, it's never just
about us. We are a part of a much larger
whole, and that much larger whole is the kingdom of God. And while
it's joyful and most blessed as an individual to praise and
bless the Lord, while it's blessed and wonderful and joyful to praise
the Lord as families, it's also blessed to stand in the presence
of the entire created order and bless the Lord. and to do so
in unison. So look at what David says in
terms of the reflection on the kingdom of God. He makes this
declaration in verse 19. Yahweh has established His throne
in heaven and His kingdom rules over all. So what's the necessary
inference? What is the implication? Since
that sovereignty and kingdom rule over all, then all has responsibility
to bless the Lord. So David calls upon the angels,
you servants, you mighty ones, you bless the Lord too. Everybody
who has breath, wherever they find themselves, are part of
God's kingdom, and as a result of that being part of God's kingdom,
have this blessed privilege and yea responsibility to bless the
Lord. David knows he's not alone, he's
not the only fellow on the face of the earth. He starts with
himself, he ends with himself, but he calls the rest of us to
enjoy that blessing of God. It's a beautiful thing. Bless
the Lord, verse 20, you His angels who excel in strength, who do
His Word, heeding the voice of His Word. You don't get the vibe
that the angels are saying, who is this creature of God? This
lower creature, rather. They're creatures, too. But you
don't get the vibe that any angel would be put off by this. You
get the vibe that the angels would say, yea, and amen. Let
us bless the Lord, because that's why they were created. David
has no arrogance. David, rather, has a boldness
to call upon angels who, in the created realm, are a step up
the created order or ladder. And nevertheless, David says,
Bless the Lord, you his angels, who excel in strength, who do
his work, heeding the voice of his word. Bless the Lord, all
you his hosts. Again, I think this is the congregate
of angels, you ministers of his, who do his pleasure. And then
this universal summons to all men everywhere. Bless the Lord,
all his works, in all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord,
O my soul. David is not an island unto himself. David is connected to other people.
David is connected to a larger creation. And David, under the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, calls upon the entirety of the
created order to do what is most fitting for the creature relative
to the creator, especially the redeemed creature toward their
creator. Bless Him, praise Him, thank
Him. You've received grace, give it
back in gratitude. Well, brethren, there are some
practical benefits of blessing God and being thankful. We'll
end with just those thoughts. I won't amplify much, because
I think we've already done that. In the first place, Thanksgiving
keeps us in good company. Thanksgiving keeps us in good
company. We're with the angels. We're
with David before us. We're with the saints in heaven
above. We're with people that aren't whining incessantly, complaining
about everything. You've met those people before,
and it's not pleasant, is it? David's instruction to the people
of God gives us that status with the best people on the face of
the earth. And I don't mean best metaphysically,
they're made of better stuff, but the best people in terms
of they give God glory. It's offensive to live in a world
where men blaspheme God instead of praising God. It's offensive
to hear people take the blessed name of Jesus Christ and use
it as a curse word. Brethren, blessing and praising
keeps us in good company. Secondly, thanksgiving directs
us to God and keeps our eyes This is good. Off of self. It's
always a good thing, right? Always a good thing. Not saying
there aren't times where you shouldn't examine yourselves,
you shouldn't test yourself, you shouldn't make your calling
and election. I'm not suggesting that that's bad instruction from
Paul and Peter. But what I am suggesting is there
are a type of people that are consumed with themselves. It's
all about me, myself, and I. Everything revolves around me.
No, it doesn't. David may have engaged in soliloquy,
but David invites the entirety of the created order to take
their eyes off of self and to put them on God. Third, Thanksgiving
promotes the proper disposition for God's children. You see it
laced in the psalm. The people of God are those who
praise the Lord, verses 1 and 2. The people of God are those
who fear the Lord, verse 13. The people of God are those who
are dependent upon the Lord, verse 17. So what we have in
thanksgiving is that it promotes the proper disposition for God's
children. And then as well, thankfulness,
or thanksgiving rather, keeps us ever mindful of the blood
of Christ. Coming into the day, I knew I wanted to preach a sermon
on Thanksgiving. There were two texts. Psalm 103, I've preached
it a lot. If you go back in Sermon Audio, there'll probably still
be a sermon on there from Psalm 103. But also Colossians 1. Colossians
1 is also a section in there where Paul details or highlights
the thankfulness that God's people ought to have. I've preached
that before as well. And today happened to be the day. If I
was a weird mystic, this would have some impact on me. But the
Robert Murray McShane calendar today, we read Colossians 1.
Ooh, I should have preached that today. Well, I can, we've got
about seven minutes. I'm gonna go ahead and give you
the heads. Thanksgiving keeps us ever mindful of the blood
of Christ. In fact, turn to Colossians once,
good to have it in front of you. Colossians chapter 1, specifically
verses 9 to 14, the apostle outlines what a worthy walk looks like.
Those saved by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ, aren't
the sorts of people that go out and sin so that grace may abound.
They're the sorts of people that take seriously not only justification
by faith alone, but sanctification by the power of the Spirit. They're
those who are not only benefited by the work of Christ for us,
but they're benefited by the work of the Spirit in us. And
so, therefore, there is such a thing as a worthy walk. Not
a worthy walk unto our salvation, but a worthy walk because we've
been saved, and that's what Paul highlights in verses 9 to 14.
Notice, he speaks of good works. Verse 10b, those who walk in
a worthy way will be fruitful in every good work. He speaks
of the knowledge of God in verse 10c, and increasing in the knowledge
of God. You see, that's not just optional.
That's not just for the seminary students. That's not just for
the pastors, not just for the deacons, but rather it's for
every Christian. Every blood-bought child of God
should be increasing in the knowledge of God. And then notice in verse
11, he says, they'll be people that are strengthened. In other
words, they receive benefit from God, being strengthened with
all might, according to his glorious power for all patience and long
suffering with joy. It's not interesting, we're strengthened
with all might, according to the very power of God Almighty,
so that we can be patient. I think those of us who struggle
with patience give a hearty amen here. Yeah, I need that mighty
power of God. Because those passions and that lack of self-control
can be overwhelming for all patience and long-suffering. But then
notice the importance of thankfulness, and here we look specifically
at verse 12. Giving thanks to the Father, and he does what
David does. Not only does he say we should
give thanks, but he gives us reasons why we should give thanks.
So again, when you ponder tomorrow before that bird, What am I thankful
for? God? Yeah, yeah, God's good,
generically so, but the believer has many details, many particulars. Now, don't be the guy that, you
know, the turkey's cold because you're three hours in, and you're
rehearsing every good thing, and we're going to take up the
early years, then we'll look at the adolescent time, and I'm
going to rehearse all the blood. Let's eat already. You know,
that sort of thing. But there ought to be details.
There ought to be pondering. There ought to be reflection.
In other words, our thankfulness to God isn't vague and generic.
It is specific and detailed. Why? Because God has graced us. God has blessed us. God has done
what Paul says in verses 12 to 14. God, according to Paul, qualified
believers to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints
in the light, verse 12b. God delivered us from the power
of darkness, verse 13a. God transferred us to the kingdom
of the Son of His love, verse 13b, and Christ redeemed us from
bondage to sin, verse 14. So brethren, gratitude, thanksgiving,
this attitude inculcated by David in his own heart and life. called
upon to others to participate in, is that which keeps us mindful
of our Savior, of our Deliverer, of our Redeemer. Thankfulness
and gratitude is a great expression and a great commendation of the
grace-based nature of God's dealings with His people. You see, if
it were us, we'd be thankful to us. But when we give thanks
to God, we express gratitude for these sorts of things, then
it keeps us mindful of God, of His grace, of the power of the
gospel, of that blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. So brethren,
let us bless the Lord with everything in us, not just partially, not
just a little bit, When you come into this place from out of the
world, you get a respite. You get to stop thinking about
what's happening out there, at least for an hour and a half.
You get to get caught up in who God is and hear from his word
and enjoy the blessedness of being able to sing his praises,
psalms and hymns that are good sound doctrines so that we can
teach and admonish one another, so that we can reflect upon Holy
Scripture and our hearts can hopefully swell up with love
and adoration and worship as we bless the Lord. Well, let
us pray. Our Father, we thank You for Your Word, we thank You
for the clarity of Psalm 103, and we thank You as well for
the example of David, and for the instruction of the Apostle
Paul, and for the lives of the saints throughout the history
of the Church. We see Your people are marked
by that gratitude, having received the grace of God. And I pray
that would be the case for each and every one of us here. that
we would reflect upon the Bible and theology, yes, so that we
understand, yes, that our minds are enriched, but as well that
our hearts would go out in love and worship unto you, our great
God. We thank you for all that the psalmist celebrates in this
psalm concerning your dealings with us. We have been blessed
so richly, so exceedingly, that we can't even begin to describe
in detail all the things that you have done for us. God help
us, help us to speak to ourselves, help us to direct ourselves onto
you, and help us to bring glory and honor and praise to your
great name. And we ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. We'll close by singing the doxology
568 in the hymn book. We'll stand as we sing together.
♪ Praise the God who brought the
blessings home ♪ ♪ Praise him, all creatures, save the Lord
♪ ♪ Praise him, all the people ♪ The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you
all. Amen. Lord, thank you for your graciousness.
Thank you for your mercy. Thank you that you are Our glorious
God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we ask that you would go with
us now. I pray for each of your people here, that you would give
health and strength, both physically and spiritually, that you would
watch over the sheep in this flock, that you would guard us
and protect us and guide us unto that blessed reality of Emmanuel's
land. Go with us now, we pray, in Jesus'
holy name, amen. Well, please be seated for a
brief time of meditation.
