Psalm 103
Last week, in preaching from Psalm 95, I talked about how desperate our situation is apart from Jesus. As Paul described our situation in his letter to the church in Rome, as sinners, we are enemies of God, deserving his wrath. I used an image from Jonathan Edwards that described us as sinners hanging by a slender thread over the fires of hell.
That is not a pleasant image, but often, in order to appreciate the good news, we have to understand the reality of the bad news. Jesus said (Luke 5:31-32)
It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Unless we understand how sick we are, how desperate our situation is apart from Jesus, we will not cling to him as we need to do.
I ended the sermon with another image, an image of rescue. We are caught in a terrible situation, unable to help ourselves, doomed to eternal destruction, and then like a helicopter that appears overhead with a rope dangling from it, we grab hold of the rope and holding on for dear life, we are lifted to safety.
We need to cling for dear life to the rope that is carrying us to safety. And it is the hand of Jesus that is the rope that reaches toward us and offers us rescue.
Today I want to talk about the hand of Jesus that pulls us to safety.
At the end of the service we will be singing Sing for Joy which has this verse
If we call to Him, He will answer us
If we run to Him, He will run to us
If we lift our hands, He will lift us up
Come now praise His name
all you saints of God
The most secure way to be pulled to safety, hand-to-hand, is for each person to grasp the other personâs wrist. If I hold on to your wrist, I can lose strength and let go and fall. If you are holding on to my wrist as I hold on to your wrist, then if I begin to lose strength, your hold on my wrist saves me.
We call to Jesus and he answers us. We run to Jesus and he runs to us. We lift our hands and he lifts us up. With a double-handed clasp, we are rescued.
Who is Jesus who saves us?
There is a movie currently in the theaters titled, Hancock, which talks about a different kind of superhero. Will Smith plays a drunken, alcoholic, homeless man who has superhuman abilities and does heroic things but makes a mess of it when he does.
To be saved by Will Smithâs Hancock is not necessarily a blessing. If we have a choice about who we want to save us, we want to be saved by someone who is kind and gentle and decent, someone who has our best interest at heart.
Psalm 103 and Psalm 104 were written as a pair of psalms and describe the wonder and glory of God who loves us and saves us, who has our best interest at heart. We will not have time to look at Psalm 104, but just in Psalm 103 there is an embarrassment of riches. Blessing upon blessing.
The psalmist begins with an expression of praise with which we began our service this morning.
O my soul, bless God.
From head to toe, Iâll bless his holy name!
We used different words when we sang.
Praise the Lord, O my soul,
and all that is within me
Praise his holy name!
I hope that song will resonate within you through the week and encourage you to look to God who loves you.
The psalmist goes on:
O my soul, bless God,
donât forget a single blessing!
And now begins this cascade, this waterfall of good news that makes this psalm so refreshing to read. Follow with me in the text and listen to the benefits with which we are blessed:
He forgives your sinsâevery one.
We hear this so often, that God forgives our sins, we can fail to appreciate the wonder of this.
In 1875, Fanny Crosby wrote the hymn, To God Be the Glory, which has this verse:
O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood,
To every believer, the promise of God;
The vilest offender who truly believes,
That moment from Jesus a pardon receives.
You may think that God can forgive the sins of others, but what you have done is so terrible that he could never forgive you. Or you may think that you have sinned so repeatedly that God is tired of forgiving you. But through Jesus, God forgives your sins, every one of them. And the moment you come in repentance with a desire to turn away from sin and follow Jesus, resisting the temptation that has trapped you, you are pardoned, you are forgiven. There is no end to the forgiving love of Jesus.
He heals your diseasesâevery one.
When Jesus ministered in Palestine he healed the sick, drove out demons, gave sight to the blind and enabled the lame to walk. Jesus continues to do this through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Some of us are healed in this life and some will have to wait until we come into Godâs eternal kingdom, but we will all be healed, every one of us.
He redeems you from hellâsaves your life!
David wrote in Psalm 40 about our experience of being saved:
I waited patiently for the Lord;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
2 He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
That has been my experience. This was the experience of John Newton who wrote the hymn, Amazing Grace.
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now am found
Was blind, but now I see.
When we were lost, with no hope, Jesus came and gave us life. He pulled us to safety.
He crowns you with love and mercyâa paradise crown.
It could be possible that someone might forgive your sins and save you, but not welcome you, not treat you with respect.
Jesus saves you and lavishes you with love and mercy. You are valued. You are worthy in his eyes. You are special in his kingdom. You are not one of many. You are uniquely loved. He crowns you with love and mercy.
He wraps you in goodnessâbeauty eternal.
He renews your youthâyouâre always young in his presence.
Youth is not always a matter of age. I have known people who were eighty years old when they were thirty. And I have known people who were eighty whose eyes twinkled with humor and radiated life.
In 1513 the Spanish explorer, Ponce De Leon, traveled to the New World in search of the fountain of youth. He did not find this but did discover Florida, which ironically is now populated with a lot of elderly people.
He searched for the fountain of youth but looked in the wrong place. A love relationship with Jesus is the fountain of youth. Growing in intimacy with Jesus keeps us young.
Paul wrote in II Corinthians 4:6-7
God, who said, âLet light shine out of darkness,â made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.
This wonderful treasure is contained in clay pots that easily crack and chip and eventually break. When they dig up archaeological sites, it is rare that they find a clay pot that is not in pieces. Clay pots do not last and are not meant to last.
As people age, some frantically try to hold off the aging process with plastic surgery and other medical procedures, but clay pots do not last. We all age and our bodies gradually break down.
There is another way to stay young. Paul continues in verse 16
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
Our clay pots crack, chip and break but the treasure they hold is being renewed day by day. We are always young in his presence.
For the sake of time, letâs move down to verses 8-10
God is sheer mercy and grace;
not easily angered, heâs rich in love.
He doesnât endlessly nag and scold,
nor hold grudges forever.
He doesnât treat us as our sins deserve,
nor pay us back in full for our wrongs.
When God met with Moses on Mt. Sinai, to give him the law that was to rule Israel, Moses stood with the two stone tablets in his hands and God met with Moses in the clouds. The words in verses 8-10 are what he said to Moses to let Moses know who he was. These words are a brief autobiography of God.
Let me read them in the NIV which might be more familiar to you.
The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
9 He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;
10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
Remember that these words were said at a time when Israel looked at Mt. Sinai in fear because of the trembling of the earth and the fire and lightning and thunder coming from the peak of Mt. Sinai.
This all-powerful God who rescued them from slavery in Egypt revealed himself as an all-loving God who is compassionate and gracious.
God is a god of justice who demands payment for sin, but God is also a god of love who works for our benefit and finds a way to draw us into a relationship of love with himself.
Starting in verse 11 the psalmist presents three hugely encouraging images:
As high as heaven is over the earth,
so strong is his love to those who fear him.
Who are those who fear him? To fear God does not mean we are to be afraid of God, but that we are to have awe and wonder that leads us to deeply respectful submission to him.
For those who fear him, how much does he love us?
I can put my grandson or granddaughter on my lap and ask them, âHow much do I love you?â and then stretch out my hands wide before giving them a hug, âThis much!â
How much does God love us? As high as heaven is over the earth, which is to say there is no limit to how much God loves us. As much as we seek to understand the love of God for us, we will never get to the end of it. His love for us is unlimited.
In the second image, the psalmist says
And as far as sunrise is from sunset,
he has separated us from our sins.
God has forgiven us our sins. But has he forgotten that we sinned? Will our sins come back later to haunt us?
In a marriage, one of the destructive things couples do is to forgive each other for something that happened but then months or years later in an argument, that something that happened is brought up all over again and used as a weapon in the argument.
Does God hold on to our sins so he can nail us with them later in time? That is what the Devil does but not God. As far as sunrise is from sunset, as far as the east is from the west, God has separated us from our sin.
The work of Jesus was so excellent, so perfect, that when we are forgiven, our sin is gone.
And the third image:
As parents feel for their children,
God feels for those who fear him.
This is perhaps the weakest of the three images because parents can terribly mistreat their children. So for this image, you need to think about good parents and good parents have a ferocious love for their children. They will sacrifice greatly for them.
Jesus taught (Matthew 7:9-11)
Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
God loves us as a good father loves his children.
In Paulâs great summary of Romans 8 he asks
If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us allâhow will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
God saw us in our desperate condition, unable to obey the law that would satisfy his justice, but he could not sit back and do nothing. His father love drove him to satisfy his justice by taking on the penalty of death himself.
I John 4:9
This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
Amazing Love how can it be
That you my king would die for me
Verse 14 might be the most encouraging verse in this psalm.
He knows us inside and out,
keeps in mind that weâre made of mud.
I am my most severe critic and I have often been frustrated over the years of my Christian life that I have not been able to live a better Christian life.
When I was a pastor in the early 80s, I had a spiritual director, a Marist Brother named John Malik. When I met with him he would often tell me to be more gentle and patient with myself and he would lead me to Scriptures for my meditation that helped me see how God loved me and cared for me.
I learned from him and I often remind people who are stressed because they are not perfect that they need to pray to see themselves as God sees them.
God knows we are not perfect and he knows we cannot be perfect. Our nature works against us. The sinful institutions of the world work against us. And the devil works against us. We are not made of superhuman stuff. We are made of mud and God knows that.
God is far more patient with us than we are ourselves.
This is not an excuse to do whatever we want. Three times in this psalm the psalmist wrote that the favor of God is toward those who fear him.
You cannot take advantage of God and try to make his mercy and grace work for you so you can do whatever you want to do.
Jesus is holding you and pulling you to safety but you have to reach out to his hand that is offered and you need to cling to his hand.
When we try as hard as we can and still fail, there is abundant grace available for us.
God knows you inside and out and knowing you completely, he is patient with you. God does not expect more of us than we are able to give. God knows we are made from mud.
Men and women donât live very long;
like wildflowers they spring up and blossom,
But a storm snuffs them out just as quickly,
leaving nothing to show they were here.
Here is the Ecclesiastes view of life.
In the news this week was the discovery of a 10,000 year old civilization in Niger, when the Sahara was green and had lakes and abundant wildlife. One of the pictures on the internet was of a triple grave, mother and two children aged five and eight.
The mother was placed in the grave kneeling with her arms raised and clasping the hands of her children who are facing her. The five year old is standing and the eight year old is kneeling. The three were buried on top of flowers.
There is no indication of how they died but the choreographed burial speaks of tenderness of the mother for her children and of love by the people who buried the three members of their community.
Was this woman especially loved because of her kindness? In the spirit of the Olympics, perhaps she was honored because she was the fastest female runner in her community. Perhaps she was the wife of a powerful ruler.
Whoever they were, they were buried and forgotten. Time passed and the sands of the Sahara erased all memory of these three people who were buried with such care. Any evidence that any community had ever lived there was covered over.
This is how it is with us. We live our lives and except for a small handful of people who live on in history textbooks, we are forgotten. We are remembered by our children and grandchildren, but soon all we are is a name in a genealogical chart. It doesnât take 10,000 years. Just a couple hundred years is enough to make sure we are forgotten.
Time passes and it is as if we had never lived.
That is discouraging but the psalmist goes on
Godâs love, though, is ever and always,
eternally present to all who fear him,
Making everything right for them and their children
as they follow his Covenant ways
and remember to do whatever he said.
On the bulletin cover is a picture of a sand castle, much more elaborate than any I ever made. I would take a pail of wet sand and turn it upside down and dribble down more wet sand to make spires on top of it. But no matter how simple or elaborate the sand castle is, the tide comes along and it is swept away and the next day it is as if it never existed.
As I said in the sermon on Psalm 73 a couple weeks ago, at the end of the game, it all goes back in the box.
Our bodies are clay pots that will not last. We are made from dust and to dust we will return. But when I die, I will leave behind the chemicals that make up my body. I will have a new home and a new body.
The world is decaying but Godâs kingdom is forever.
I John 2:17
The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way outâbut whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.
Donât be discouraged that your body and all you have in this world will disappear. Be encouraged that your longing for eternity will be fulfilled as you come into Godâs kindom.
God has set his throne in heaven;
he rules over us all. Heâs the King!
It is not that God will one day set his throne in heaven. It is not that he will one day rule over us all. God has set his throne in heaven. God now rules over us all. He is the King!
This is not a future hope but a present reality. The reality of Godâs kingdom and rule is not dependent on world events.
The Christian churches of the world may rise and fall in attendance. Other religions may overtake areas of the world where the Christian church once dominated. But world religions will fade away with time as sand castles on the beach. There are not multiple heavens. There is only one truth and one eternal hope. âI am the way, the truth and the life,â said Jesus. âNo one comes to the father except through me.â
The kingdom of God only moves from strength to strength. In each generation God is at work to draw men and women to himself. He will do it. He will not be stopped.
Jesus said in Matthew 16:18
I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.
As I speak, God is building his church. Around the world people are being lifted up and coming to faith. In each generation God adds to the numbers of believers in his eternal kingdom.
This is bedrock truth on which you can base your hope. Donât allow world events to weaken or shatter your faith. You cannot destroy a rock with a feather and Godâs kingdom cannot be weakened or destroyed by anything in this created world.
So bless God, you angels,
ready and able to fly at his bidding,
quick to hear and do what he says.
Bless God, all you armies of angels,
alert to respond to whatever he wills.
Bless God, all creatures, wherever you areâ
everything and everyone made by God.
And you, O my soul, bless God!
Here is what I would encourage you to do this week. Read through Psalm 103, bit by bit. Remember what I said about each section and allow this to help you praise God for who he is.
If you would like, you can write your name and email address on one of the pew cards or on a part of the bulletin. When I get home Sunday afternoons, I send out my sermon to an email list of those who have asked to receive the sermons.
But let Psalm 103 lead you into praise this week. At each point, reflect on how you have experienced this part of Godâs character and work. And when you get through Psalm 103, continue on into Psalm 104. These are great psalms to lead us into praise.
We were created to praise God. Let these psalms lift your heart to God.
**************************************************
I Peter 2:9
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
