It’s my privilege this morning to open God’s Word for us from this pulpit. I’m going to ask you to turn your attention and your Bible to Psalm 103.
You will remember this past summer we were encouraging folks to memorize Psalm 103. We had some takers to that challenge, most of them among our children, our children’s ministry. We had about twenty of our children memorizing Psalm 103, verses 1 to 14 and then verse 22. We had these cards out. You passed these cards a million times this past summer but your children took them up and you may have helped your children memorize that portion of Psalm 103. With David taking a week away, it seemed good to take a moment, take a Sunday, to talk about Psalm 103, both to encourage our memorizers, our children, as well as to feed the rest of us on the good Word of God as well. So we’ll do that this morning; we’ll give our attention to Psalm 103.
This is a psalm that calls us to worship. We all love it; it comes to our minds from time to time. It leads us really straightforwardly to worship. Its language is plain and clear. It seems like one of those psalms we can spoil it if we talk too much about it, which I’m in danger of this morning. So let’s get to doing what David calls us to do, but nevertheless, in the words of Desi Arnaz, there is some “splaining to do,” so let me do some “splaining” this morning with the goal of encouraging and enabling our worship. I try not to be too clumsy. Before I read, let me provide you with a bit of a roadmap. We’ll examine this psalm from the standpoint, first of all, in verses 1 to 5, how David speaks to himself. Secondly, how he speaks to the rest of us in verses 6 to 19, and finally, how he talks to the wider creation in verses 20 and 22. Now let’s give our attention to the reading of God’s Word. First, let me pray.
Father, this is Your Word and You are the one whose teaching we need to hear this day. So open our hearts. Speak to us through Your Word. Father, would You indeed search us and know us, see if there be any wicked way in us and lead us in the way everlasting. For Jesus’ sake, amen.
Psalm 103:
“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 iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.
As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments. The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.
Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word! Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers, who do his will! Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul!”
Amen and Amen. May God add His blessing to His Word as we read it and hear it together.
How David Speaks to Himself
Well David first speaks to himself. He says, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name!” David is calling himself to action as a worshiper. Let me speak to the children just a little bit. Several times this morning I’m speaking to the children. You grownups can listen in, because it was mostly children who made the effort to memorize this, so children I want to speak some to you. And this is the first thing I want to say to you. Worship isn’t just going to happen because the music starts or the choir begins to sing or because the preacher stands up to read the call to worship. We don’t just get carried along in worship by somebody else’s momentum. We prepare ourselves. That’s what David is doing. We prepare ourselves. He’s calling himself to bless the Lord. He’s stirring himself up to bless the Lord, to worship God, to praise and adore God. He is reminding himself, “Oh, I’ve got a role to play here! I’ve got to be active here!” And he says, “all that is within me.” It’s not just our mouths as we sing or as we read. How do we love the Lord according to Deuteronomy chapter 6? “With all our heart and with all our soul and with all our might.” That’s what David is urging himself to bring into the praise of God. That’s what David is urging himself to bring into worship – all his heart, all his soul, and all his might.
Ooh y’all, children, parents, grandparents, how easy it is for us to sit in this room and maybe at this moment and our minds be wandering out there somewhere on Belhaven Street or wondering if we’ve remembered to lock the car door over here on the Pinehurst parking lot. We’re wandering in mind while our bodies are sitting here in this room. How simple it is, yet David is telling himself, “all that is within me, bear down, think about, be present for the blessing of the Lord. This is my moment to bless the Lord with others of God’s people.” This moment won’t happen another time for a week – unless you come this evening to evening worship; it will happen again this evening. Be here for it. There won’t be another one like it until next Lord’s Day. “All that is within me” – how easy it is, all of us, to recognize how our minds wander in prayer. We sit down to pray and then the next thing, our mouths may be moving but our minds are thinking about a million other things out there. We wander. How easy it is to be working on Tuesday or Thursday or plans for next weekend before we even get through the offertory. Did we make it to the offertory before we were wandering into next week and fixing things next week?
How do we do that? How do we bring all that is within us to bless the Lord? I think verse 2 helps us. It gives us a clue. Because it’s in verse 2 that David says, “forget not all His benefits.” We begin to think about the benefits and the blessings and the many kindnesses we have from God. We bless the Lord. What does it mean to say we “bless the Lord”? We magnify Him. We adore Him. As Peter says, “We declare the excellencies of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.” And we do so from this great mountain of blessings upon which He has set us. We bless the Lord out of the rich kindnesses that have cascaded to us from Him. We bless the Lord out of the favors He extends to us every day. As we remember them, it motivates us to turn and bless Him, to adore Him, to thank Him, to praise Him, to respond to Him in gratitude.
David begins to talk about some of those benefits. He begins to list some – “who forgives all your iniquity.” It’s our most basic need. The issue that separates us from God is our sin. He forgives all our iniquity, not just a little bit of it, all of it. “Who heals all your diseases” – not just the worst ones or the biggest ones – “who heals all your diseases,” sometimes here, always there in His presence. There are no crutches in heaven. There is no closet of wheelchairs in heaven. We don’t need them, because there’s healing there. There’s wholeness. There’s restoration there, where He is. “Who redeems your life from the pit.” He conquers death so that the grave is not the end of our story. It’s a semicolon; it’s not a period. He conquers death.
“Who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy.” We know ourselves to be sinners. God knows us to be sinners as well, but what does He do as He forgives our iniquity? He gives us a new status, a new station. He calls us His sons and daughters. He crowns us with steadfast love and mercy so that those are the things, what He said about us defines us, defines who we are, defines our identity and not our sin. He crowns us with steadfast love. Steadfast love. We’re going to see it several times in this psalm. Steadfast love is God’s covenant making and covenant keeping love. He’s faithful to the promises that He has made. They are His steadfast love. We find them personified, we find all those promises and the keeping of them personified in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. “Who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” The goodness of God overflows in His rich goodness to us. Children, on your dinner plate today, there are going to be things you don’t want to eat. There may be some green peas that you don’t want to eat. There may be some other vegetable that you don’t want to eat, but I promise you there’s going to be something on your plate that you feel excited about eating. Parents who know how to eat better than children, I hope, there will be things on your plate that you are going to be excited about eating today, things that you enjoy eating, things that are pleasurable and that taste so good and it just makes you feel good all over. Just recognize that, just that one simple thing as a simple token of the goodness of God that saturates your life. God, His goodness overflows in rich goodness to us. The food on our plates today will be just a simple reminder as we begin to open our eyes and recognize all the goodnesses that come to us day in and day out from God the Father of mercies.
As we look at that list that David begins, and this listing really carries through the rest of the psalm, it’s as though David can see the future and recognize in the future to come the ministry and the work of His descendant Jesus. This is what Jesus does. This is the ministry, the work of Jesus – to forgive iniquity, to heal diseases, to redeem our life from the pit because He conquers death, to crown us with steadfast love and mercy and satisfy us with good. That is the work of Jesus that we see Him performing in the gospels and in our lives day by day.
How David Speaks to the Rest of Us
Let me turn then – David, in verse 6, turns and begins to speak to the rest of us. He’s been talking, remember, to himself all this time. Now he turns and he enlists the rest of us. He continues with the thought of remembering all His benefits. And first of all, he turns to all the oppressed. You see that in verse 6? “The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed.” Do we pay attention to how many times, in both testaments, the notion of justice, of God’s love for justice is pointed out? Do we think about how much God loves justice? I think if we think about how much God loves justice maybe we’d understand how we ought to love justice too. Let me quote Charles Spurgeon here. “All wrongs shall be righted, all the oppressed shall be avenged. Justice may at times leave the courts of man but it abides in the tribunal of God. Were He careless of His creature’s good, did He neglect the administration of justice, did He suffer high-handed oppressors finally to escape, we should have greater reason to tremble than to rejoice. It is not so. He will mete out His portion to the proud and He will make the tyrant bite the dust.” God loves justice, and for all who are oppressed – across the world, across the centuries – there will be justice; right will be done.
That thought puts David in mind of what God did for Israel as He delivered them from slavery in Egypt, raising up Moses as a mediator and a deliverer. By a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, God led His people to the land He promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give to their descendants after them. What do we learn as we read the stories of their deliverance from Egypt and their coming into the land? Well David tells us. David tells us what we learn, what stands out about God’s dealings with them. Verse 8, “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” Verse 9, “He will not always chide, nor will He keep His anger forever.” How often could He remind us of our sin against Him? How often could He have reminded Israel of their sin against Him because it was abundant, as we see in the Biblical record. Ours is abundant too, and yet God’s not constantly chiding us. He’s not constantly telling us how wrong we are, but extending His grace to us in Christ and making us right in Him.
“He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.” Who can find our sins? Who can bring them back to be sifted through one more time? As God has forgiven them in Christ, as Jesus has paid their penalty in His own suffering and in His own blood, because of God’s covenant keeping love towards those who fear Him, love greater than any can measure – “as high as the heavens are above the earth,” says David. And who has found the edge of the galaxies? Verse 12, “As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us.” Children, find a globe. Maye there’s one at your house, maybe there’s one in our classroom or maybe somebody else’s classroom at your school. Find a globe and go put your finger on the equator and then begin to move north. Take your finger and move north and you’ll find that as your finger moves across the North Pole down the other side of the globe, it’s not going north anymore; it’s going south. Because you see, north and south meet at the two poles – the North Pole and the South Pole – and they swap almost, right there; the North Pole and the South Pole. Then go back to the equator again. Put your finger on the equator and move it to the east. That will be to the right. Follow that globe all around. Guess what? You’re never going to be moving your finger west. You’ve never going to move your finger west because east and west never meet. East and west never come together. “As far as the east is from the west,” that’s how far God has removed your sin from you. It’s behind His back. It’s gone. It’s gone. It’s never to be seen again.
That was the point of sending Jesus to pay for our sin. He paid for them totally; not just a little bit, He paid for them totally. They are completely covered by His obedient life and His death on the cross in your place, in my place. When Jesus says, “It is finished,” our sin was paid for, your sin was paid for, mine was paid for. Let me ask this one question, “Do you trust Jesus and His work for you to be enough to remove your sin?” David says it’s enough. God says it’s enough. John chapter 3 verse 16, “For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son, as whoever would believe in Him would not die but have everlasting life.” God says trusting Jesus and His work in your behalf and in mine is enough.
Well there’s another benefit that unleashes our worship that David points out to us. God knows we are weak. God knows that He made us of dust. He didn’t make us of steel. We’re not men of steel. We’re not women of steel. God made us of dust. And so He shows compassion on those that fear Him. What is compassion? For children, that may be a big word. Compassion is pity that is moved to action. It’s not just pity, but it’s pity, it’s sorrow for someone that’s moved to action. What does that mean? That means God helps us, God supports us, God carries us because we are weak, we’re frail. God carries us. Maybe as a shepherd will carry a lamb. We see that image before us from time to time. Maybe as you and I might carry a hurt puppy, carefully, gingerly to go and find some help. God’s our help. He helps. He supports. He carries us. He’s moved to pity about our situation and our hurts, our pains, our struggles. The times that we’re scared; the times that we’re lonely, the times that we’re hurt. And He comes close and He helps us. He does something about it. We’re weak. We’re finite. We’re limited. We don’t last long in this world.
What do verses 15 and 16 say? “As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.” I go visit my parents’ grave from time to time when I go to Byhalia and other family graves there. And I pass stones – I grew up in Byhalia. I pass stones, family stones whose names I don’t know. And my mother would tell me, “Oh, they were a big family here when I was growing up.” When I was growing up they weren’t around anymore. We pass. We’re frail. We’re limited. We’re finite. We pass and our place remembers us no more. That’s why all those heirloom photographs cover the walls at Cracker Barrel. I’ll be up there one of these days because some great-great grandchild will think, “We can get money for this old photograph! The frame is still good. Let’s put great-great granddaddy whoever he was, let’s sell him to Cracker Barrel!” I’ll be gone and my place will be remembered no more. Yours too.
“But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments.” We fade, we falter, but the Lord’s steadfast love is from eternity past to eternity future. He redeems our life from the pit. We have a home. We have a place. It’s just not here. It’s there, with Him. Our security, we want to find somewhere. David reminds us our security is in the steadfast love of the Lord, given to us who fear Him from eternity past into eternity future. Jesus said it this way. “In My Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to Myself that where I am you may be also.” We have a place. We have a home. It’s not in Cracker Barrel. It’s at the right hand of the Father in the place that Jesus has prepared for those who trust in Him.
A word about children’s children. Parents, grandparents, I know you know this, but let me just say it. Our children watch as we soak in the goodness of God and work to live life in the light of His steadfast love, personified in Jesus and His work for us. Let’s be self-conscious of that. Let’s be self-conscious about teaching them the righteousness of God. Let’s be self-conscious about teaching them why we try to obey and those times that we fail, why we know that’s serious. How we try to keep our covenant obligations to love the Lord with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our might and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Let’s be mindful of our opportunities to plant seeds, seeds of righteousness, that we pray will bear fruit in their lives and the lives of their children and the lives of even their children. God is promising His righteousness to children’s children here. Let’s not miss that promise. Let’s not miss the implication for us as parents and grandparents that we have a role to play as we keep His covenant and remember to do His commandments and teach our children and grandchildren and the generations beyond through their influence to do likewise. Hear God’s promise and let’s buckle into the challenge it means for us as we raise our children and our grandchildren.
Well verses 6 and 19 really kind of form bookends. Remember verse 6? “He works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.” And again, he comes back to a wider, more universal view here in verse 19. “He has established His throne in the heavens and His kingdom rules over all.” Well David spends most of his time in this section calling God’s people to bless Him in light of all our benefits from Him. But David also says the wider world of men enjoy the blessing of God as well. And he calls upon their worship too. Indeed, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. David is priming that pump, as it were, calling all men to worship because all men owe God their worship.
How David Speaks to the Wider Creation
Finally David turns to speak to the wider creation. He speaks to the angels, “you mighty ones who do His word,” to all His host, “His ministers who do His will.” What does he say to them? He says the same thing he said to all the rest of us – “Bless the Lord. Bless the Lord, you angels. Bless the Lord, all His hosts.” Angels are creatures, children, as we are, though they’re not made in the image of God; they’re finite. They have limits. Their limits are different from ours. The angels that David refers to right here are the angels that are serving God, who are living to worship and to obey Him. They give themselves to His service and to His worship. They worship Him both in His presence, as we saw in Revelation chapter 7, and in all their obedience to Him, whatever He gives them to do, most of which has to do with serving His people in the world. A quote from a commentator right here – “To them,” that is, the angels, “is given exceeding might of intellect and voice and force which they delight to use in His service. Now to Him who gave angelic strength, let all angelic strength be given.” To Him who gave angelic strength, let all angelic strength be given. David calls the angels. David, as a man made in God’s image, calls the angels to worship and bless the Lord.
And if that weren’t enough, he calls everything else, “Bless the Lord, all His works, in all places of His dominion.” That means birds and planets and stars and fish and mealy bugs and fireflies, dogs and cats – everything – “Bless the Lord.” How will horses and cows and eagles and condors bless the Lord? By doing what God has made them to do. By doing what God has made them to do. And to tell you the truth, that’s what this whole psalm is about. We do what God has made us to do. God made us to worship. He made us to worship. He made us to worship Him. And if we don’t worship Him, it’s not that we worship nothing. We will worship anything. We will worship anything because we are hard-wired for worship. We’re made for it. And David calls us then to, “Bless the Lord, O my soul.” Amen. Let’s go to the Lord in prayer.
Father, we do bless You, we do bless You for Your rich kindnesses and Your benefits and Your blessings. We bless You because You have reached in and claimed a people for Yourself. Father, we bless You for all the myriads upon myriads, thousands upon thousands who will stand around that great throne and worship You as the redeemed. Father, Your mercy is great, Your loving kindness to the heavens. We stand awe struck before You and we just say thank You and we praise and adore You. Hear our prayer, receive our praise, in Jesus’ name.
And all God’s people said, “Amen.”