GodIsMerciful 12/11/05 am, Rev. Jeff Simms
SBC Philippi
God’s Attributes: God Is Merciful
Psalm 103:1-8
Primary Purpose: Looking at how God is merciful to us and how we should respond in praise and gratitude for that.
We want to look at today what it means that God is merciful. We will take a look at a psalm that David wrote about the Lord. In some ways it is a call to remember and in others a call to worship. We are to remember how God has been merciful in our lives and to express gratitude to him for that.
(Read Psalm 103:1-8)
I’m struck by how the translations that I read used different words at times to describe the tender mercies of God. In verse 4 the first time the word mercy is used in the KJV it is the Hebrew word Racham which means compassion. The NASV translates it as compassion. Then, in verse 8, the word is used twice. The first time it is Rachuwm which means compassionate and then the second time it is Checed which means goodness, kindness and faithfulness. It seems from looking at the original words we see that there is a close link here between the mercy of God and the compassion of God.
There also seems to be a link between the grace of God and the mercy of God. The grace of God is said to be the unmerited favor of God. Grace is how God reaches out to us when we are not reaching out to him. He seeks to save men and women who don’t even want to acknowledge him. It seems then that the compassion and mercy of God we could say is the way in which His grace is demonstrated. It is one of the ways we would recognize that we are being treated by grace. Then, also God expects for us to treat one another with grace and mercy also just as He has treated us.
David appears to have written this psalm. He is in some way talking to himself by saying to himself “Bless the Lord, O my soul”. It is in many ways a call to worship. He wants to remind himself of the many blessings of knowing God which he calls his “benefits” verse 2. Our souls need to be stirred up also to be reminded of the benefits of knowing him. We need to be reminded sometimes of just what he has already done for us. Paul told us in Philippians 4:4 to “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.” We might not be able to rejoice in our problems, but we can always rejoice in the mercies and grace of God.
David then goes on to talk about how he and others have experienced the mercy of God. First, he speaks of how God has forgiven or pardoned our inquities. Inquities can be things we should have done but did not and what we have done that we should not have. The tense of the word here is important because it doesn’t say that God forgave once and it is done. But, rather it is in the present tense always. God continually washes over the believer with fresh waters of his grace and forgiveness. He doesn’t forgive once and then stop, but it is continual.
When God redeems us, he doesn’t just wash the old clean though. Scripture says that we are quickened and raised up from being dead. It is like we are born anew.
During the late 1800’s an English evangelist named Henry Moorhouse made
several trips to preach in America. On one of those occassions he was taking a walk through a poor section of town when he noticed a small boy coming out of a store with a pitcher of milk in his hands. Just then, he slipped and fell breaking the pitcher and spilling the milk all over
the sidewalk. Moorhouse rushed to the childs side and found him unhurt but terrified. "Mu mama’ll whip me," he kept crying. So Moorhouse picked up the boy and carried him into the nearby store where the preacher purchased a new pitcher. Then he returned to the dairy, had the
pitcher washed and filled with milk. With that done, he carried the boy and the pitcher home.
Putting the youngster down on his front porch, Moorhouse handed him the pitcher and asked, "Will your mama whip you now?" A wide smile spread across the boys tear stained face, "no sir, cause this is a lot better pitcher than we had before."
In grace God saves us. He doesn’t patch up our old lifes that have been shattered by sin and satan into a million pieces. That would not do. His reputation is at stake. We are His workmanship!
Contributed by: Tom Dooley,www.sermoncentral.com
Then, David mentions that he heals our diseases. We shouldn’t understand this as just physical problems. Rather, God heals the greatest disease of all and that is sin. In Ephesians 2:4 it says, “But because of his great love for us,God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions- it is by grace you have been saved.” You see here the love and grace of God working together to demonstrate mercy to us who were dead in our transgressions. God did this because he is rich in love and mercy. Again, in Psalm 86:5 it says about God that “For Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive, And abundant in lovingkindness to all who call upon Thee.” It’s a picture of God who is literally primed and ready and anxious to forgive if we only ask. It is He who redeems our life from the pit of hell and destruction. Nobody else can save us not even ourselves.
Third, David reminds himself and us of how God gives good gifts and crowns us with lovingkindness and compassion. David realized that God is good and that if he had anything that is good it was from God. James said it this way in James 1:17 “Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation, or shiftin shadow.” I have come to understand that the very best gift that God has first and foremost given us is knowledge of Himself. God doesn’t have to reveal himself to us. Our sin state is such that if he did not reveal himself we wouldn’t know him. But, God loves us and reveals truth to us through his son. It is a wonderful gift that not everyone has to know Him and to be able to know you have peace with him. To understand how he works and who he really is. God gives great gifts, but most of all he gives himself. The people of God would go into the temple in Jerusalem and sing out to one another these words in Jeremiah 33:11 “Give thanks to the Lord of hosts, For the Lord is good, For His lovingkindness is everlasting.”
