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.

Opening Prayer

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.

Introduction

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.

Reminder to Bless God

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.

David's Soliloquy in Verse 1

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,

The Command to Not Forget

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.

Deuteronomy's Warning Against Forgetting

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.

Reasons to Bless God

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

The Gifts: Spiritual and Physical

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.

The Persons Who Receive 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

The Gracious God Who Gives the Gifts

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.

The Measure and Constancy of God's 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.

Reflection on the Kingdom of God

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.

Application

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.

Closing Prayer

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.

Scripture References

• Deuteronomy 1; 6:10; 6:12; 8:6; 8:11; 28:47
• 2 Samuel 4:9; 11-12
• 1 Kings 1
• Psalms 30:5; 32:1-2; 42:5; 43:5; 65:3; 68:19; 103
• Micah 7:18-19
• Zechariah 13:1
• Matthew 26:41
• Luke 18
• John 19:30
• Romans 8:29
• Galatians 6:16
• Ephesians 5:20
• Philippians 4:6
• Colossians 1:3; 1:9-14; 1:12; 1:13; 1:14; 2:7; 3:15; 3:17; 4:2
• 1 Thessalonians 5:18
• 2 Timothy 3:16-17