Summer of Psalms: Part 3 - A Holy Synopsis
PSALM 103
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
We are continuing in our Psalms. I love being in the Psalms. Sometimes in life and sometimes at church, we're constantly learning new things Sunday after Sunday. And that's good. But there's also such incredible value to returning to something familiar, something comfortable. And so I just love that we come back usually every summer to Psalms. And it's so good to be hearing these themes that, again, we hear year after year. But it's so good to be washed over by the truth of God's character and to hear of His love, His goodness, His justice, and His compassion again and again and again. And so I pray that you guys are enjoying this series, and that it is refreshing and rejuvenating for your souls.
As to why we're in our specific passage this morning: this summer for kids' ministry, we sent out a reading list. So all the kids could read five chapters a week from Genesis to Revelation. And, you know, for the younger ones, they don't have to read; maybe their parents can read or a sibling can read to them. But by the end of the summer, they'll have read a lot of chapters—I think over 50 chapters, which is amazing. And if they do it, they get an In-N-Out gift card. So there's a little incentive there. Yeah. And so our family, sometimes we've been reading it before bed. The girls are in bed and then I'll read whatever passage it is for that day. And sometimes we've been a little bit behind, so I've had to read a lot in one night to keep up. And I have one daughter who's at the age of trying to do anything to stay up later. So it's, you know, like, "Oh, I didn't get my drink of water." Okay. "Oh, you know what? I didn't put that toy away." Oh, you want to put the toy away now? Okay. Yeah. Go for it. And then sometimes when we're reading, she was like, "Can you just read it again and again?" And who am I to say we're not going to be reading Scripture for, you know, two or three times? So this one night we were on Psalm 103 and she just kept asking for me to read it again. And as I was reading it three or four times that night, I was just hit with like, I love this passage. It's such a good psalm. And I was struck with just how great of a little synopsis this is of God's character.
Some psalms focus in on one characteristic of God. And I love those. Those are really good. But I just loved how general this one is. Such broad strokes of who God is. And I love that my daughters were hearing all these things about God in this one chapter. Some of the things are easy to grasp, that God is a loving God. Okay, we can understand that. And some other things we may need to wrestle with a little bit. How is God this? How is God that? David, the author of our psalm this morning, hits on God's forgiveness, God's character, His steadfast love and covenant faithfulness, and even a very famous passage from the Old Testament, God's quote about Himself. And so I'm excited to dive into this psalm with you this morning. And we're going to go ahead and read. If you want to turn in your Bibles there, it'll be on the screen as well. And as I read this aloud, I just want you to have this question going through your mind: Who is God? And then as you read or as you listen, just see how much of this psalm answers that question. I want you all to think, who is God? All right, I'm going to go ahead and read Psalm 103. It says, "Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise His holy name. Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all His benefits: who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's. The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed. He made known His ways to Moses, His deeds to the people of Israel. The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not accuse nor will He harbor His anger forever; He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for 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 has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him. For He knows how we are formed; He remembers that we are dust. The life of mortals is like grass; they flourish like a flower of the field. The wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But from everlasting to everlasting, the Lord's love is with those who fear Him, and His righteousness with their children's children, with those who keep His covenant and remember to obey His precepts. The Lord has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all. Praise the Lord, you His angels, you mighty ones who do His bidding, who obey His word. Praise the Lord, all His heavenly hosts, you His servants who do His will. Praise the Lord, all His works everywhere in His dominion. Praise the Lord, my soul."
Would you pray with me one more time? Heavenly Father, thank You for Your word. And we do praise You, God, for who You are and what You've done. And God, I pray that through Your truth this morning, we would be encouraged, that we'd be empowered to live for You as we go about our days to give You all the praise. So we pray this in Your holy name. Amen. All right. The question: who is God? Did you guys feel like that psalm provided enough of an answer? There's probably a list that you were forming of all these things about God. And I just want to go section by section and kind of break it down a little bit more.
So the first section, verses 1 through 5, David begins with blessing Yahweh and extolling His character. And by the way, if you are newer to the faith and you hear me say Yahweh, that is the Hebrew word for God in the Old Testament. So I just have this little habit of saying Yahweh when I see it in the Old Testament. So do not be confused. Yahweh, God, the same thing. But David begins with blessing Yahweh, the self-instruction, telling himself, praise God. And I think it's similar. I was thinking of what I do now, what seems like every morning, which is I have to tell myself to get up. I do not want to get up. I am tired, and I'm sitting there, and I hear my alarm, and I'm literally telling myself, you have to get up. You need to get up. And I think it's similar to that. Do I feel like getting up? No. Do I want to? Not at all. But I should. I know I need to. And it's the same here. We praise God for who He is. Do we always feel like praising God? No, probably not. Do we always want to praise God with wherever we're at in life? No. But we need to. I like this self-talk: "My soul, all my inmost being, all of who I am, praise God. Praise His holy name. Forget not all His blessings." All of who we are, from our physical bodies and what we do with our body to our inmost being, our thoughts and our feelings. All of who we are, from our head to our toes, praise God. And don't forget a single one of His blessings, or some translations say benefits.
Verses 3 through 5 have this list of God's blessings or benefits. He forgives our sins. Every single one. We'll get some more of that in just a bit. He heals our diseases. Every single one, either here or in heaven. He redeems us from hell. He saves our lives. He crowns us with love and mercy. A heavenly crown. He wraps us in His goodness, this eternal beauty. And He renews our youth. We're always young in His presence. Now, I don't mean like in an ignorant way where we're just children, and I don't mean like in a perfect skin type way, but speaking to what sin brought into the world and how it affected humanity and the negatives of old age, but in our relationship with Him, He renews us, and we feel the life with Him. He mentions the eagle, which is that symbol of strength and speed. So David is saying, praise God and don't forget about all these things about God. He's telling himself, don't forget. And you look at this list and you're like, that's a pretty unforgettable list. That's an amazing list. How would you forget? But we are, we're so quick to forget things in reality. You look at this list and it seems unforgettable, but we are so quick to complain, to worry, to become bitter, to become insecure. We have trust issues. We will spiral in the moment of anxiety, and we become hopeless and forgetful of how good God is, the fact that He sustains us, the fact that He blesses us. So let this be a reminder for all of us today. Don't forget. Don't forget the blessings of God. Maybe set a reminder on your phone, rotating through these truths. Maybe every day, you know, you wake up to your alarm, Monday morning, tomorrow morning, 7 o'clock. Your alarm goes off, and then you see this banner on your phone on the screen that says, "He has forgiven you." And just how would that change your day if you started your day remembering, I'm forgiven. God's forgiven me of my sins. And maybe Tuesday, wake up, 7 o'clock, your alarm goes off. There's a banner on your phone that you've set that says, "He heals the sick." And you're thinking, oh, you know what? I got that neighbor who said their mom's in the hospital. I can pray for them because I know that God is a healer. Maybe Wednesday you get the banner that says, "He redeems me." Thursday, "He crowns me with love and mercy." What a way to start your day remembering that you are crowned by God, the King of kings. He's crowned you with love and mercy. Reminders of God's blessings. Do whatever you need to do to not forget who God is and His blessings to us.
So David tells himself, don't forget. And next we see the works of God. Verses 6 through 14 reflect on God's loving disposition towards Israel. Think of the last time that you had to fill out a resume. Or maybe you've been on the other side of the table and you've received a bunch of resumes. And you're looking at the characters of people and their accomplishments. This is kind of what we get here in this section, is God's resume. We're learning who God is and what He does. And we see it through some highlights. It says, through the works of Moses and the deeds of the people of Israel. So He's highlighting this time in Israel's history, in Moses' lifetime, where they were just getting to know God. So you had things like the ten plagues, parting the Red Sea, manna in the wilderness, heavenly sustenance, providing the law on Mount Sinai, being guided by God with a pillar of fire and a cloud. And that experience for Israel was so foundational to them learning who God was. They had heard of God. They had known Him by, like, hey, He's the God of our forefathers. But that time with Moses was, oh, we're learning firsthand who God is. And how their God, this God, Yahweh, is above all other gods. Verse 8 through 13 is probably my favorite section of this entire psalm. And we could have a whole series just going one week with one verse of 8 through 13. So, so good. Verse 8, this is quoting Exodus 34:6-7. Verse 8 says, "The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love." The first time that we see that in Scripture is when God is telling Moses. And here's the scene, is that Moses had done all those amazing experiences with God, walked with God, the ten plagues. He had walked through the Red Sea. He had been God's right-hand man as He's leading Israel through the wilderness. And yet Moses had never seen God's face. And you imagine going through some amazing things in life, and you're like, hey, I'd like to meet and see the person I'm working with. I'd love to have that level of intimacy in our relationship here. And so there's a moment where Moses is up on the mountain and says, God, can I see Your face? I just want to know You in a deeper way. And God says, I can't do that. My glory is too much; that if you were to see Me, you would die. But I will tell you who I am. And God says in Exodus 34, He says, "The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.”
So David is bringing us back here, saying this is who God is. From God's mouth Himself, this is who God is. I love that scene. I love that passage. If you've ever been asked the question of, you know, if you can go back in time and in history to experience one thing maybe in the Bible, if you could go back and live a moment from the Bible, this would be up there for me, is hearing from God who God is. I think that'd be just incredible. And it continues in verse 9, all about forgiveness, how much He loves us, a steadfast covenantal love that has no bounds. It tells us that He forgives us. He forgives our sins. Verse 11, "As high as the heavens are above the earth," in other words, it's immeasurable how much He loves us. We cannot fathom how much He loves us. And I think sometimes we dismiss that. We're like, yeah, He loves us a lot. No, think about it. We cannot fathom how much He loves us. Verse 12, it says, "As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us." I mean, how comforting is it to know that God loves us more than we can imagine and that He forgives our sins, all of them. And He doesn't hang it over our heads. He doesn't say, hey, you're good this time, but I remember, I know, one more time. No, as far as the east is from the west. He completely removes them. Verse 13 says, "As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him." If you were to think of a New Testament parable about a compassionate father, can you guys think of one? Anything come to mind? It's not like a pop quiz. If you thought of the prodigal son, it's exactly what I wanted you to think of. The most compassionate story of a father. And that is hearkening back to the Old Testament and how much God has tried to convey, I am a compassionate God. I'm a compassionate father to my children. The scholars at Bible Project write that the primary word for compassion here is *rahamim*, which is deeply tied to the physical womb. It conveys the unconditional, instinctual love and intense bond a mother has for her child. And that's what God's love is for us. This deep, deep bond with His children. He loves us. And He wants to have compassion on us. We need more compassion in the world today. And the church should be the primary source of that compassion in the world. We as Christians, we in this room should all be a source of compassion in our circles of life, our neighborhoods, our families. We should have and model and give out compassion just like God has had compassion on us. So this section of our passage is a great synopsis, 6 through 14, of who God is.
And then we transition a little bit more. In verses 15 through 19, David compares the brevity of human life to the everlasting God. David shifts to looking at our reality as humans, as creation, showing how finite we are, and emphasizing the contrast between how great God is and how human we are. As a part of God's creation, all of us as humanity, we are truly sustained by God. Colossians 1:17 says, "He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together." Guys, without Jesus, this world would fall apart. Without Jesus, our worlds would fall apart. We would fall apart. He truly sustains us in ways we cannot imagine, but in ways we can. Just to say, how did I get through that day? That's probably Jesus. With you, walking with you, giving you what you needed. How did this happen? How is the world surviving right now with all the chaos? It's being held together by God. If you look at verses 14, you compare 14 to 19. Our reality is that of dust. So fickle, unstable, taken by the wind. But God's kingdom, verse 19, is this reality of a solid kingdom, firm, unchanging, in the heavens. And I love the phrase in verse 17, "from everlasting to everlasting." In this verse, God is being praised for His steadfast character in nature. Whereas humanity is seen as kind of transient. We're prone to wander. But God is always at this fixed point. We have a hard time sticking to the right thing, a hard time heading down the right path. We tend to go off path a little bit, and sometimes our life is like this, and we're sometimes on the right path with God and then all of a sudden we're far off to the right. We come back and then we're off to the left. And God is unchanging. He's steadfast.
I saw this growing up, uh, being embodied by older Christians that I so admire. I grew up in a church with some amazing Christians who modeled to me just the steadfast faith. And if I can put it, I'm going to have to imagine things. I'm a very, I got to see it. So I don't have a graph or I'm just going to use my hands. But if I can put it in the imagery of like wave patterns where God is this constant line up here, this is perfect, right? It's always there. And I think in our youth, whether by age or by spiritual maturity, we tend to have a lot of ups and downs. We're following God, we're reading His Bible, we're praying, and then all of a sudden something happens, school, work, and we're like, oh, I'm not following God. And then we come back up, and it's a lot of this. The wave pattern is up and down, up and down. Maybe it's in our reaction to things, and we're exercising compassion and love, and then all of a sudden something happens, and we're just hateful and judgmental, and we're back down here again. Maybe it's in our relationship to God, and we're feeling close to Him, like I said, we're reading, and all of a sudden, we're no longer close to God. What I noticed about some of these older Christians that I grew up with, one of them, maybe some of you guys know, Bob and Arlene Hughes, that were such faithful saints to me of just constant following God, is that as they got older and wiser, their graph was just kind of like this steady uphill climb. And no matter what happened in life, no matter the tragedies that they experienced or the truly amazing things, they were not like this. It was just this, really. And like, you know, God's straight line up here. And they just kept getting closer and closer. And I think that's what David is talking about. We tend to be so fickle. We tend to be so like this. But really, our desire and our prayer should be a constant growing closer and closer to God. No matter what is happening in life, we are not shaken from holding on to Him and being like Him.
David has brought us back around now in our passage to the divine, where he calls upon the heavenly powers to praise God, just as he did at the beginning of the psalm. So verses 20 through 22 concludes by calling everyone to bless and praise God. Every heavenly being, the hosts, the angels, the mighty ones, all His works everywhere. Anything under His dominion, and we know that everything is under His dominion. Old Testament scholar Robert Alter says, "And in this vast cosmic setting, the speaker repeats the words of his initial injunction to his own being to bless God, now making himself a part of the great chorus of all creation." I just kind of imagine like a big choir, and the conductor or whoever the choir leader is doing it, and then all of a sudden he turns around, and he just starts praising God too. That's what we were supposed to do. Given who God is, what He has done, what He's done for us, the only thing left to do is to praise God. Pastor Lauren and Pastor Chris and myself were in San Diego a couple weeks ago for our district conference, and in our Wesleyan denomination, everyone in the Pacific Southwest area gathered in San Diego. And our new superintendent over our entire denomination gave a brief speech. It was really good. And he was just reminding all of us pastors of the number one purpose we have as churches. And that is that the world may believe in Jesus. So simple, yet so profound: that the world may believe in Jesus. And then the favorite part is that he led us in the Doxology. And the words of the Doxology, if you don't know, are this: "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow." Already from Psalm 103, right? "Praise Him, all creatures here below." That's all of us. "Praise Him above, ye heavenly hosts," everyone in heaven. "Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." If I had a voice, I would have led us right now in singing that, but I don't. No, I can't. God's not leading me in that way right now. I love it, it's so beautiful. I just, maybe those words will stick with you this week. The Doxology will be playing. If you don't know it, look it up. It's short, but beautiful.
I want to end our time this morning with some questions, reflection questions to help us process Psalm 103. The first one is this: Where is your focus right now? Sometimes in life, we feel disconnected, maybe from ourselves, from other people. We're wanting to look inward, get ourselves right, and maybe that's needed to have this inward look of like, what's going on inside of me? But I find it insightful that David focuses on God. There is an internal work that is done, not by us, but by the Spirit in us, without our help. But when we focus and meditate on the person of God and realize and worship who He is, something happens inside of us. Our view of ourselves and our view of our circumstances, whatever we're struggling with, it comes into this holier perspective. I think of a camera. Things come into focus better. I don't know how many of you are familiar with photography; I dabble back there and I twist the lens and I take some pictures. All of you I know have taken pictures on your phone. You can zoom in. You can use your two fingers to pinch and zoom and tap to focus. I think of it like that. When you focus on what you want, usually that's at the center of your screen. And you tap and it focuses. And sometimes if you have that setting, the rest in the background becomes a little bit blurry. Just a little bit. And that's okay. It's still good, right? You captured what you want at the center and everything else that was there. And I think that's how we need to have our relationship with God. Our view of life and God is that God is perfectly in focus at the center. Everything else can be a little bit blurry. That's okay. It's still good, but we need to have God in the center and fully in focus. If we don't, then that means that something else is perfectly at the center and at focus, and God is somewhere blurry on the peripheral. We don't want that. And so I ask, where is your focus in right now? And does it need to adjust to have God at the center and in focus? Maybe it's helpful to focus on something specific. If you're sitting there and you're like, I want to focus on God, how do I do that? Maybe it's the reading of His word and you want to make reading and studying and meditating on God's work a bigger focal point of your life. Do that this week. Maybe it's His creation and you want to focus on Him as creator. And so maybe you just spend more time in creation this week. Get out for, well, it's really hot, but find some shade and just sit in the creation and recognize that God created all of this. How amazing is He? Or maybe it's your relationship with God and you want to spend more time with Him. And so maybe you go on a walk and you pray with God in the morning or you take a break from your work. It's a quick 10 minute jaunt around the building, whatever it is. And you're just praying and talking with God. Where is your focus and how can you bring God into focus more?
Second question: What characteristic of God do you need to grow in? We had a great list here of characteristics of God. And we know that we are called to be like God. Ephesians 5:1 says, "Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." We have this long list. Which one do you need to grow in? Take some time, maybe right now, little moment, just search your heart and say, what area of my life needs to reflect God more? If you're struggling, you're like, I don't know. Ask the Spirit. He'll convict you. Don't worry. He definitely will. He'll bring something to mind. He'll bring something to your heart and say, you know what? There's an area that needs to be more like God. Specifically, if you're going to come back to this passage, verses 8 through 10, do you need to be more compassionate? Do you need to be more gracious with other people? Do you need to be slower to anger? Maybe the conviction dial is going up now. Do you need to be more abounding in love? Do you need to not blame others for everything? Do you need to not harbor anger towards other people? Do you need to not treat people as their sins deserve? Oh, it's a hard one. Do you need to be more forgiving? If you're like me, maybe it's all of them. You're like every single one. But if you want to grow to be more like God in these characteristics, maybe you can pray with God and bring one to the forefront of your heart and mind. And with God, commit to being more intentional and growing in that area. Have the Spirit pray that God convict me more. When I have a moment where I'm not compassionate, let me know right away, God, that I could see it and be like, you know what, I should have done that differently. Or maybe as a situation is playing out or as a conversation is happening, pray that God make me aware of what I need to be more. Do I need to love others? Do I need to forgive in this moment? Do I need to not bring up the thing that they did the last 10 times? Do I just need to let and not harbor that against them? What characteristic of God do you need to grow in?
And then the third final question is this: How much are you praising God? Really, this is just an encouragement to praise God more. You cannot praise God, I think it's impossible, to praise God too much. For me, it needs to happen, I need to do it more at the end of the day. It's kind of Becky and I, our habit of before falling asleep, we just kind of connect, we pray, and it's like, what? I need to praise God more in that day. Where did God intervene for me? Where did He bless me? Where were the mercies that I saw from Him? Where did He meet my needs? David wrote this modeling for us that we too need to praise God. So for you, how are you going to do that? Where are you going to do that? Maybe it's at the beginning of your day. And you're going to take a beat before you go off to work, maybe before you get out of the car. And you're going to thank God and praise Him for stuff that hasn't even happened yet. And maybe that will help you look forward in that day and say, God, where are You working? I want to see. I've already praised You, God. I know that You're going to do it. Now I'm aware. God, where are You at? Maybe it's as you go, and as you notice things throughout your day, the mercies of God, the small blessings, you take time to praise God and just stop and say, God, I just saw that that was amazing. Thank you for that. And then you keep going with your day. Maybe it's at the end of your day. Maybe it's at the end of your week and during your Sabbath on your rest day. And you look back over the week and say, God, You did all these things. Thank you so much. I praise You for what You have done. Church, if we were to do this consistently enough and long enough, do you know how much more your heart will be attuned to God? Do you know the benefits that you will experience giving praise to God on a regular basis? You'd have more peace in your life because you'd trust God more, because you would have seen so many more ways in which He loves and cares and provides for you. We'd be more consistent in our relationship with Him. We'd be more compassionate towards people. We'd be more gracious. I truly believe we'd be less anxious and less stressed out, less worried. And then if you're less stressed, less worried, less anxious, imagine your health benefits: better blood pressure, better healthier immune system, lower risk of disease and mental health issues. I'm not saying everything is perfect if we praise God, but it certainly is better if we get into the habit of praising God.
And so this week, church, how are you going to praise God more? That's our action step this week. If you pull out your bulletin, your program, and you see at the bottom it says, "I'm going to be intentional to praise God more," and you're not just going to check this off, well you can, you can check it off and if you want to do that and drop it in the back on your way out. What will happen is this week you're going to get a text from us pastors, and we're going to ask you, what have you praised God for? And it's not convicting. It's not supposed to be like, oh, I haven't. It's just now you get to share. I've praised God for this, this, and this, and we're going to praise God with you. So if you'd like to do that, we would love to praise God with you. If you could check that off, put it in the back, you'll get a text from us. We want to be doing this together as a church, as a body of believers, all following God together.