Psalm 103 - A Psalm Of Personal, Passion, Perpetual Praise! Series

I once heard a humorous little story, that is based on the imagery that is captured in Revelation 5:8, that will serve well as an introduction to today’s message…

Revelation 5:8b the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people. - NIV

And God said to the elders bring to me the golden bowls filled with the incense of the prayers of my people. In one of the bowls were prayers and praise and thanksgiving, and in the other bowl was prayers of petition and supplication, and the little story ends with this humorous question….which one of the elders do you believe got a hernia?

THE ONE CARRYING THE BOWL OF PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING OR THE ONE CARRYING THE BOWL OF PETITIONS AND SUPPLICATIONS?

You guessed it, the one carrying the bowl of petitions. Why? Because we spend most of our time in prayer asking for things, that are many times related to this lifetime alone, and we spend so very little time in prayer praising and thanking God for what he has already given us which according to Ephesians 1…

Ephesians 1: 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ - NKJV

The theme that has come from this pulpit the last two Lord’s Day’s has been the theme of being joyful, happy, fulfilled in the Lord. Two weeks ago from Psalm 1 I brought to you a message I entitled..

How to live happily ever after – Psalm 1

Last week from Psalm 16 –How you can experience pleasures forevermore

Sometime back I shared a snipet of an article from Desiring God Ministries whose theme is,,,

John Piper — ‘God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him’

One of his associates wrote a piece that is worth reconsidering this morning….

The Most Repeated Command in the Bible -Jon Bloom – Desiring God.org

What do you think is the most repeated command in the Bible? It’s not any of the prohibitions or warnings. It’s not about sex, or money, or power. The most repeated command in the Bible will probably surprise you: Be happy. God tells us more than anything else, in different ways, to “praise the Lord,” “do not be afraid,” “rejoice,” and “give thanks” — all of which are commands, in essence, to be happy.

AND THAT BEING HAPPY, JOYFUL, REJOCING, HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH PERSPECTIVE!

IT HAS TO DO WITH LEGITAMATE REASONS WE GIVE OURSELVES NO MATTER WHAT WE ARE GOING THROUGH!

AND THAT IS WHAT I FIND SO HELPUFL ABOUT THIS PSALM – A PSALM THAT I’VE ENTITLED IN THE FOLLOWING WAY WHICH SERVES AS A GOOD TITLE FOR MY MESSAGE:

Psalm 103 – A Psalm of Personal, Passion, Perpetual Praise!

And what is amazing about this Psalm, what is noteworthy is that unlike other Psalms of David that we looked at, this Psalm has no requests within it - only rejoicing! There are no complaints, no petitions, no supplications, no expression of disappointment, or sadness or fear, just pure, passionate, personal, perpetual praise arising from the pen of David!

The interesting thing about this Psalm is that we don’t really know at what stage of his life that this Psalm was written.

Like some of the Psalms that we looked at in the past, it provides no superscription above it to explain the circumstances in which is was written. There is no historical backdrop, no mention of what is going on in his life.

We are not sure if David wrote this while he was young or old, in peace, or being pursued by enemies, we just don’t know, but I believe that the reason that this Psalm is packed with so much praise is because it is packed with gospel truths! In fact I think that you could safely entitle this Psalm the gospel according to David!

And my proposition to you this morning from this Psalm is this..

A study of Psalm 103 will give us ample ammunition to personally, passionately, and perpetually praise no matter what we are going through!

And I use the word , “ammunition” because praise is literally a weapon of our warfare!

You’ll recall that in…

2 Chronicles 20:1 After this, the Moabites and Ammonites with some of the Meunites came to wage war against Jehoshaphat. -NIV

Their response?

2 Chronicles 20: 21 After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying:

“Give thanks to the Lord,