I want to take you back to the time of Moses - when Moses led the people, the nation of Israel, out of Egypt. You remember the story. They were under slavery, under Pharaoh, and the Egyptians and Moses was called by God to lead these people, God’s people, out of slavery. So he goes and Pharaoh hardens his heart and ten plagues later, Pharaoh relents and he says, “Fine, Moses, take these people and get out of here.” So Moses takes the people and he goes out, but then Pharaoh changes his mind and pursues him. And they come to the Red Sea and God parts the waters and they cross over on dry ground. Pharaoh and his army are wiped out by the waters.
Then some 3 months later, Moses is with the people and he’s up on the mountain with God. God gives him the law – the Ten Commandments – and he gives him the Law and said how they were to live and how they were to operate with God as their leader. And he was up there for a while and while he was up there the people got together already after seeing the power of God displayed they put together a false idol, a golden calf. So Moses comes down and he sees that the people have already turned and they were worshipping this golden calf and his anger burns inside of him. But greater than that, God’s anger burns against the people. So much so that’s He’s going to wipe out the people and he says, “I’m going to start again with you Moses,” but Moses pleads with God, “No.”
But then something really interesting happens. God renews his covenant with Israel and with Moses in Exodus, chapter 33. We’re going to look there before we get to our Psalm. Exodus 33 – Moses says something to God that’s very strange. He makes a very strange request. He’s talking with the Lord all the time and he’s meeting with him and he says to God in verse 18 of chapter 33, “Moses said, ‘please show me Your glory.” He says this to God Almighty. “Please show me your glory.” Strange request. And here is what God says, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name, the Lord. And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious; and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy, but you cannot see my face. For man shall not see me and live. And the Lord said, ‘behold there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock and while my glory passes by I will put you in the cleft of the rock and I will cover you with my hand until I pass by. Then I will take away my hand and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”
Now does God have a face? Does God have a back? No. God is spirit. We know that from His Word. But these terms are used to describe Him. They are human terms used to describe God and He says to Moses, “I’ll show you my glory, but you can’t see my face.” “My face” being his divine presence – His glory. “Only angels can stand before the throne of God. No human can stand before my glory. You cannot see my face. But I’ll come and I’ll hide you in the cleft of the rock and you can go so many places with that.” He hides in the cleft of the rock as righteous God passes in front of him. Who is the Rock of our salvation? Jesus Christ. Who are we found in so that we can stand before the very throne of God? Jesus. But He says, “I’ll pass before you. And then I’ll take my hand away and you can look at my back.”
The word back – it’s interesting – it’s translated other places in the Hebrew Old Testament as being “afterwards” or “the time following” or “hereafter…soon after”. So it’s as if God is saying, “I’m going to pass by and you get to see the place where I’ve just been.” And he does that. In Exodus 34, verse 5, the Lord descends in a cloud. He stands there with Moses. The Lord passed before him. Now this is just how God described it. The Lord passed before him and he says,
“The Lord, the Lord. The God gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands. Forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children on the children’s children to the third and fourth generation.”
So this happens and God passes in front and Moses gets to see the place where God has just been. His face is changed. It becomes radiant, so much so that when he goes down again to see the people he has to veil his face because the glory of Almighty God is upon him because he has seen his back. These are the very words that David uses in Psalm 103 as he is blessing the Lord, as he’s praising the Lord, he uses God’s own word.
We’re going to see in the verses today, verses 6-14, that God is a covenant-keeping God. He’s a covenant-keeping God. Verse 6:
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.
Right away a reader here. “I remember Moses. I remember his acts coming out of Egypt. I remember what he did. Yeah. It’s in my mind.” And then he goes on – verse 8:
The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
He’s using the exact words that God used to describe himself. This is the reason David praises God. These are the very words that he uses. Here we have that interesting word. You see in verse 8 – the description of God? Merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. That word we had last week – steadfast love. It’s from the Hebrew word, “hesed”. It’s found all throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. It can be translated, “lovingkindness or steadfast love or abounding love or sometimes mercy”. But it’s really tied in with the covenant. Its covenant love. It’s a special kind of love that God has with people. It’s the covenant love that we find in Exodus 34 when God renews his covenant with Moses. We find it in Nehemiah closely tied, chapter 9 verse 32, with the covenant. It’s love but it’s covenant love.
Well, what’s a covenant? A covenant is a standing contract or an agreement between two parties. It’s an alliance. All throughout history God has made covenants with men. He made it with Noah. Do you remember the covenant he made with Noah? He made it to Noah, but he made it to all of creation. I saw a sign of that covenant a few days ago in the sky. You know what that covenant was? A covenant never again to send rains that would flood the entire earth. He made a covenant with men.
He made a covenant then with Abraham. He covenanted with Abraham. He said, “You will be my people. You will be the father of a great nation. All the nations of the world will be blessed through your family, Abraham. I will be your God. You will be my people.” He renewed that covenant with his son, Isaac. He renewed it again with his son, Jacob.
Then we read about the covenant he made with Moses. The Sinai Covenant that God once again said, “You will be my people.”
He covenanted with David. A few Psalms before in Psalm 89, David references this. Psalm 89: 3 and 4,
“You have said I have made a covenant with my chosen one. I have sworn to David, my servant. I will establish your off-spring forever and build your throne for all generations.”
God renewed his covenant with David. Why? Because before the kings, before Saul and then David, God was the people’s king. And here God renewed his covenant with the king of His people, David.
The covenant is also renewed in the gospel – under the gospel. In Luke, chapter 1, we read of God raising up a horn of salvation from the house of David. This is one who has been spoken from the prophets of old to show mercy, promise to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant. Now the new covenant is being realized through this promised one, Jesus.
The new covenant was spoken about in the Old Testament too. In Jeremiah, chapter 31, verse 31, here is the prophet, Jeremiah, who is under the Old Covenant talking about the New Covenant that is going to come. He says,
“Behold the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt – my covenant that they broke – though I was their husband declares the Lord. But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they will be my people.”
The New Covenant comes under Jesus Christ and God renews his covenant with people through his Son that whoever believes in his Son will have everlasting life. God covenants with that person.
“Do you believe in my Son – you have faith? Abounding grace is yours. My steadfast love. My hesed. My covenant love is with you.”
• In the Old Covenant the law was written on tablets of stone.
In the New Covenant, the law is written on people’s hearts.
• In the Old Covenant, you are part of a community of believers and that’s how you communicated with God as a people group.
In the New Covenant, we can know God personally within a covenant community.
• In the Old Covenant, God was known to be merciful and forgiving, but you were reminded of your sin once a year as you come to offer sacrifice for it. We read that in Hebrews 10:13.
In the New Covenant, forgiveness of sins is granted and God remembers our sin no more – Jeremiah 31. God is a covenant-keeping God. This is why David is praising him because God keeps his covenant.
And then secondly, God is a compassion-giving God. He’s a compassion-giving God. Look at verse 9:
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.
David is saying God doesn’t give us what we deserve. Have you ever been watching the news program or something and you see that somebody was killed or shot or injured or something happened to them. Your initial reaction is “Wow, that’s terrible. That’s horrible. How could that have happened?” But then the news program goes on and you find out that that person was in a crack house and they were a drug dealer and this stuff happened to them. What’s the reaction? Well, he got what he deserved. Right?
But if you and I got what we deserved, you know what that would be? It would be hell; it would be separation from God. It would be nothing of good; nothing of beauty; nothing of….God. David is praising God because he is saying he doesn’t give us what we deserve. He doesn’t repay us for our sin and our iniquity. He doesn’t remember them. He could but he doesn’t. The people of God have a compassionate God.
Then he uses three analogies to illustrate God’s compassion. Look at verse 11:
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
He uses the illustration “as high as the heavens are above the earth”, that’s how great God’s steadfast love is. There’s that word again – “steadfast love” – it’s God’s covenant love. You know that a light year isn’t a measurement of time. It’s a measurement of distance. One light year is the amount of distance that light travels over a year.
Light travels 186,000 miles per second. So a light year is about 6 trillion miles.
You know the closest star to the earth is 4.2 light years – so a little more than 25 trillion miles away is the closest star. Most of the stars that you see in the sky are much farther than that and there’s a good chunk of them that you can see in the sky that are 2,000 light years away.
If you go on a jet airliner, okay, the average speed is 550 miles an hour. You go across the United States it takes you 5 ½ hours. You go around the world it takes about 2 days. You go to the moon on a jet airliner it takes 3 weeks. You go to the sun it would take you 20 years. If you go to that nearest star, it would take you 52 million years to get there.
David is saying is “for as high as the heavens are above the earth” that’s how great God’s covenant love is for his people. That’s how much his love is.
When I was a child I would go from time to time with my dad when he would go visit people – people from this congregation. I remember one time being with him on a trip and we went to Art Larson’s house. We went in there and Art on the table had a jar of mints. You know those little mints that are white and sometimes green – kind of melt in your mouth. I saw those babies and my dad’s talking to Art and Art noticed that I saw them. He said to me, “You want some?” and I said “Okay”. He said, “Go ahead. Take some.” So I walked over there and I took one mint and went back and sat down and ate it. Art saw this and he said, “Don’t just take one. Take a whole handful.” And so I looked at my dad to see if it was okay and he kind of shook his head. So I went over there and took a huge handful – a huge handful of these mints. I had mints falling out of my hands. I had mints in my pocket. I had mints everywhere.
That’s what God’s love is like. God doesn’t just say “just take one.” He says, “This is all for you. Take a handful. It’s overflowing. This is my steadfast love for you. I love you no matter what. I love you even though your iniquity is before me. I love you. Why? Because you are my child.”
That’s why Paul can write in Romans 8:38, “For I am convinced that neither life nor death nor angels nor principalities can separate us from the love of God. Neither heights nor depth nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” This is the love of God. This is his hesed – his lovingkindness, his steadfast love.
And then he goes on – the second analogy. “as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
Here he used the illustration “from east to west”. How far is it? It’s just like saying the heavens. We can’t comprehend it because it’s so far. That is how far your sins are removed from you. As far as the east is from the west. That’s the promise of the new covenant. That’s the promise of Jesus Christ. That’s why Jesus came to offer forgiveness of sins so we can actually enter into a relationship with God. He doesn’t just offer forgiveness of sins so we have a ticket out of hell and a ticket to heaven. No. He offers forgiveness of sins so that we can be free. So that we can be free to live the life that He has called us to. So we can be free to be the man or the woman or the child of God that He’s made you to be…to make a difference here on earth right now. So we can know Him and make Him known. It’s a wonderful promise of scripture.
In Colossians, chapter 1: 13 and 14, “God has delivered us from the domain of darkness and he has transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son in whom we have redemption – the forgiveness of sin.”
You see in the new covenant of God, God offers forgiveness – not by following a set of rules and regulations; not by doing a certain amount of sacrifices. No. He says forgiveness of sins is through my Son. Jesus said, “Come to me all ye who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.” To be forgiven is freeing. To be forgiven means no more guilt; to be forgiven means standing justified before God. David praised God for that. He had it. In the Old Covenant, David had that forgiveness. He is saying “Praise you. Bless your name God. You have taken my sin as far as the east is from the west. There’s no better feeling. I can be who you have called me to be. I can be your son; I can be the man after your own heart.”
The third anaology he uses verse 13:
As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
He then – the last analogy he uses about God’s compassion – is as a father shows compassion to his children” There’s not anything that I wouldn’t do for my son and to think of him being hurt in any way tears me inside – I can’t even think about it. There’s nothing that I wouldn’t give him or want to keep him from evil. David is using this analogy of a father and his great love for his children. The same that Jesus said in Matthew, chapter 7. He said, “How many of you when your son comes and he asks for bread you give him a stone. Or if he asks for a fish do you give him a snake? Well, if you who are human know how to give good gifts to your children how much more will our heavenly father give to those who ask?”
That’s who we serve – a compassionate God. The Lord. The Lord…slow to anger, merciful and gracious, steadfast love, lovingkindness.
In David’s heart, he’s praising God for this. He’s praising him because he’s a covenant-keeping God. He keeps his covenant. He’s praising him because he is a compassion-giving God. He loves as high as the heavens. He forgives as far as the east is from the west. He shows compassion like a father who loves his children.
And then our last verse, verse 14, which really leads into next week’s teaching, “For he knows our frame and remembers that we are but dust.”
David, in my mind, goes to this sentence just to show really how unbelievable this covenant-keeping God, this compassion-giving God is. Because all these things that He does for you and I and for humans is in spite of the fact that we are dust. God doesn’t have to do that. He doesn’t have to. He knows our frame. We are but dust, but he chooses to do so. We cannot stand before the presence of God like Moses. We can’t stand before Him. We can’t stand before His glory because of our frame – our weakness. Great angels in heaven - they are before the throne of God, but we can’t hope to stand. We can’t hope to stand before a righteous God who is holy and perfect. He knows our frame because we are sinful. We are human. We are dust. And we will return to dust.
So he covenants with people and now in the new covenant it is through his son, Jesus. It’s through that cleft in the rock. That Moses came and the glory of the Lord was going to pass in front of him and he had to stand in the cleft of the rock so he could even bear to be before God and his holiness and our cleft in the rock is the Rock of our Salvation, Jesus Christ. He says, “Come to me all ye who are weary and heavy laden…” God loves people. His love is so great and he says to one and all…he says, “Come, for today is the day of salvation.”
May we see a glimpse of his glory right here? Can we? Can we see God’s back – where he’s just been? And will that glory radiate from our faces? It all starts with why we are a Christian in the first place – why we even exist – and that’s to give glory to God. And that’s why David in this whole Psalm is doing this. He’s giving glory to God for his lavishness and his greatness, “Bless the Lord O my soul and all that is within me, bless his holy name.” Why? Because he gets it. He gets the great love of God and his forgiveness and his compassion. It’s free to all.
I want to encounter God and His glory. Do you? Worship Him today. I’m not going to say any one or two or three “How to steps” how to worship him. No. That’s not what David’s doing – he’s just praising God for who he is. He is a covenant-keeping God. He is a compassion-filled God.
Enjoy today, my friend, the lavishness of the Lord.
