“Don’t Forget”
Psalm 103
Introduction
This is considered one of the most beautiful expressions in all the Scripture. It aptly and passionately communicates the glorious gospel message. Many of the phrases in this psalm are familiar as they have repeatedly been sent to music. Before we can fully appreciate the wonder of this Psalm, we need to set the scene. It was written by King David. It obviously flowed out of a heart intimately familiar with the many benefits itemized here. Poetry seeks to draw pictures in the mind that stir the soul. Like a magnificent piece of art, this Psalm portrays two intricately related subjects. We have a quite extensive portrait of a Holy and just God powerfully and mercifully interacting with sinful and weak mankind.
The dark and sorry state of man clearly emerges throughout the Psalm.
Insignificant as dust
Oppressed
Weak and frail
Fleeting
Sinful
Guilty
Sick and diseased
Aging
Dying
In contrast to the pathetic creature is the all powerful Creator.
Holy
Just
Sovereign
Eternal
Yahweh – the Great “I AM!”
Commander and chief of a powerful angel army, who perform His word perpetually, obey His voice explicitly, serve Him wholly and do His will fully. The artist then employs the soft colors of compassion, grace, love, tender mercy, goodness, giving, covenant keeping and renewal and redemption to portray the interaction between pathetic creature and powerful Creator. It was enough to incite David to not only stir his own soul to passionate praise but a fervent invitation to all creation to join him in blessing the Lord.
I. David stirred his soul to bless the Lord 1-2
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name.
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget none of His benefit
David used “soul” in the sense of his inner person; the inner core of his being. It is the aspect of our being that contemplates, reflects, thinks, feels emotion, dreams dreams, struggles with introspection. He frequently addressed his inner core out loud. The parallel language here seems to confirm such an interpretation. “All that is within me.”
Here, he stirs himself to bless the Lord with every aspect of His being. Pull out all the stops.
Bless the Lord with words, thoughts, actions, emotions, intentions, passions. Give full concentration and effort to blessing the Lord. He centers His focus on the eternal covenant making and keeping God. Yahweh, the great I AM!
“Bless his Holy name.”
Proverbs indicates the value of a good name.
A good name is to be more desired than great wealth, favor is better than silver and gold. Prov 22:1
How people use our name can offend us or bless us. They can either blaspheme (speak evil) or bless (speak well). History bears out the association of a name with a person or particular character both negative and positive. Jezebel, John Hancock, Benedict Arnold
David stirs his soul to passionately bless God’s name for it is holy. His name is special.
His name is above every name. His name represents the essence of His nature and therefore should be treated with utmost care. The honorable treatment of His name is one of the top Ten Commandments. David stirs himself to bless His most holy and precious name.
What does it mean to bless the Lord?
“bless” always means to express solemn words that show the appreciation, gratitude, respect, joint relationship, or good will of the speaker, thus promoting respect for the one being blessed….
We bless the Lord by expressing words that show our gratitude and good will toward Him as well as the wonder of our relationship with Him that stir others to consider Him as well.
It is similar to glorifying the LORD. To glorify the Lord is to draw attention to Him. That is our supreme purpose – glorify God and enjoy Him forever. We also draw further insight into what it means to bless the LORD by the following parallel phrase penned by David.
“and forget none of His benefit”
We bless the Lord when we don’t forget what He has done for us. Or putting it in the positive, we bless the Lord by remembering what He has done for us. How easily we can forget God’s continual touch on our life! David doesn’t stop with at simple reminder to remember His benefits. He spent the rest of the Psalm detailing those most bountiful benefits.
II. David stated the reason to bless LORD 3-5
Who pardons all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases;
Who redeems your life from the pit,
Who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion;
Who satisfies your years with good things,
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle.
The enumerated benefits break down into two categories. Redemptive and restorative.
Those benefits related to our pitiful sinful condition and those benefits related to renewal.
A. Redemptive benefits 3-4a
1. Pardons all your iniquities
He addresses our sin. He removes our guilt. He pardons. He releases us from the eternal consequences. He sets us free.
Perhaps this was first on David’s list because it was foremost on David’s heart. He had been devastated by his scandalous sin against God. Pride, rebellion, passivity, lust, coveting, adultery, cover-up, deceit, scheming, murder, more cover-up.
When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat. Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.” And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone. Psalm 32:3-5
How can a just God fail to address such blatant failure and sin? How can a holy God overlook sin? He did it by extreme personal sacrifice. The sacrifice of His only Son.
He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all. Isaiah 53:3-6 NLT
Extreme sacrifice calls for extreme praise. He pardons ALL our sin. He removes ALL our guilt.
Bless the Lord and don’t forget His forgiveness.
2. Heals all your diseases
God provides for healing of both the body and the soul. Jesus demonstrated God’s power over disease of the body and soul. He healed diseases of all kinds; leprosy, blindness, paralysis, deafness and death. He restored new life to the soul. He delivered from demonic bondage.
He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed. Once you were like sheep who wandered away. But now you have turned to your Shepherd, the Guardian of your souls. 1 Peter 2:24-25
3. Redeems your life from the pit
This is probably a reference to death and the grave. He paid the price to give us life.
and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. 1 Peter 2:24 (NASB95)
Jesus said, “because I life, you can life also.”
Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,
and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. Heb 2:14-15
Peter urges us to live differently by remembering the great cost of our redemption.
knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. 1 Peter 1:18-19 (NASB95)
B. Restorative benefits 4b-5
1. Crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion
A crown was a symbol of victory and honor and acknowledgment and reward. He rewards us with unconditional love as an act of the will but also with the compassion of His heart.
2. Satisfies your years with good things
As a result of His great love, He delights to give good gifts to His children.
Blessed us with every spiritual blessing (Eph 1)
3. Renews your youth like the eagle
The eagle was a symbol of power, vigor and freedom. Paul did not deny that our body ages and becomes frail. Yet he spoke of an inner renewal in spite of an outer deterioration.
Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. 2 Corinthians 4:16 (NASB95)
He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion. But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:29-31 (NLT)
III. David elaborated on the reason to bless the LORD 6-18
A. His deeds are righteous 6
The LORD performs righteous deeds and judgments for all who are oppressed.
There will eventually be justice. There will be release from oppression. God will make EVERYTHING right!
B. His dealings are merciful 7-10
David referenced a most dismal period in Israel’s history. God had brought them out of bondage in a most dramatic deliverance. He pardoned their iniquities. He healed their diseases.
He brought them out of a pit of destruction. He crowned them honor as His chosen people. He showered them with abundance from the spoils of Egypt. He renewed their strength; there was no a weak one among them.
He miraculously provided for them in the desert with food and water and even gave them shoes that didn’t wear out. In spite of all this, they turned on Him. They accused Him of neglect and murderous intent. They refused to acknowledge His deliverance. They doubted His promise.
They rejected Him as their God and gave themselves to the god of the golden calf.
They deserved annihilation and God was ready to carry it out but for the passionate intercession of Moses. Exodus 32:7-10 (NASB95)
God heard Moses’ prayer and spared them.
In the midst of it all Moses experienced an overwhelming encounter with God. It was in this encounter that God reinforced His compassion for His people.
He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the sons of Israel.
The LORD is compassionate and gracious, Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness.
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 rewarded us according to our iniquities.
Aren’t you glad that God deals with us in mercy? Aren’t you glad we don’t get what we really deserve? Not only doesn’t’ He give us what we deserve but He gives us what we don’t through His great love and grace.
C. His love is great 11
As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him.
Yes God is awesome and sometimes scarry. We must not forget that He is a God of great love.
How great? If you were to try to measure the dimensions of His love, it would extend higher than the heavens. Just how big is the heavens above the earth?
•Size of the universe
Milky Way a family of 100 billion Stars May be as many as 100 billion other galaxies
• Nearest galaxy 1.5 million Light years
Such is the measure of God’s love for us.
Paul prayed that God would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:16-19
D. His forgiveness is complete 12
David moves from the vertical to the horizontal.
As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.
Just as east cannot touch west, our record of sin is no longer attached to us. He has wiped the record clean. He has severed the connection between us and our sin.
When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Colossians 2:13-14
Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in unchanging love. He will again have compassion on us; He will tread our iniquities under foot. Yes, You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. Micah 7:18-19
“This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the lord: I will put my laws upon their heart, and on their mind I will write them," he then says, "and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more." Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin. Hebrews 10:16-18
Why are you still carrying your past confessed sin? David understood the blessing of forgiven sin.
How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered!
How blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit! Psalm 32:1-2
E. His compassion is tender 13-14
David sang of the manner of God’s love for His children.
Just as a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him. For He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are dust.
God is mindful of our insignificance and frailty especially in light of His majesty.
His mercies how tender, how firm to the end, our maker defender, redeemer and friend.
Many avoid God out of fear. If we would only get a renewed vision of God’s tenderness.
It would inspire us to run TO Him instead for FROM Him. He is our loving, tender Father who has extreme compassion on His children. He wants our best. He longs for us to know Him and to live life to its fullest. He longs to provide opportunity to affect eternity during this brief time.
F. His love is eternal 15-18
As for man, his days are like grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourishes. When the wind has passed over it, it is no more, and its place acknowledges it no longer. But the lovingkindness 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 His precepts to do them.
G. His rule is absolute 19
The LORD has established His throne in the heavens, and His sovereignty rules over all.
IV. The public call to bless the LORD 20-22
David concludes his poem with an invitation to the universe to join him in blessing the LORD.
Bless the LORD, you His angels,
Mighty in strength,
who perform His word,
Obeying the voice of His word!
Bless the LORD, all you His hosts,
you who serve Him, doing His will.
Bless the LORD, all you works of His, in all places of His dominion;
Bless the LORD, O my soul!
CONCLUSION
Let’s bless the Lord this morning. Let’s not forget what He has done for us. Let’s remember all His benefits.
He has redeemed us.
Pardoned all our iniquities
Healed all our diseases
Redeemed our life from the pit
He has restored us.
Crowned us with love and compassion
Satisfies the depths of our soul with good things
Renews our youth like the eagle
• His deeds are righteous 6
• His dealings are merciful 7-10
• His love is great 11
• His forgiveness is complete 12
• His compassion is tender 13-14
• His love is eternal 15-18
• His rule is absolute 19
Bless the LORD, O my Soul, let all that is within me bless His holy name!
Bless the LORD, all you works of His, in all places of His dominion!
