Psalm 103
Part 7
Tonight we will examine Psalm 103. This Psalm can be divided up into 3 basic parts. Part 1, which includes verses 1 – 2, David invites his own soul to praise the Lord. Part 2, which includes verses 3 – 19, David magnifies the great benefits we receive from God, and finally part 3, which includes verses 20 – 22, David calls on the abode of heaven to join him in praise to God.
As we will see, this Psalm contains one of the most affectionate sentiments of gratitude to God for His tender mercies, and it persuades us to continue to trust in God, and be obedient to Him. Lets us begin in verse 1:
Psalm 103:1 A
Psalm of David. Bless the LORD, O my soul; And all that
is within me, bless His holy name!
2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, And forget not all His benefits:
David is calling on his
entire being to give his best to God. He wants to make sure that he is fully
focused on praising God. He is doing exactly what God wants from us when we
worship Him and praise Him.
Deuteronomy 6:5
"You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul,
and with all your strength.
Friends,
we should have this same attitude when we worship God in spirit and in truth.
We need to call on our own souls to be fully engaged in our worship to God. This
means when the preacher preaches the Word of God, He should be excited about
what he His doing, and those listening should listen careful and enjoy the
message because the message is coming from God’s Word.
When
we sing praises to God, we need to think about the words we are singing and
allow our souls to be stirred up by the message we are singing to God and to
those around us.
When
we pray we should be listing closely and focusing in on what is being prayed
for.
When
we partake of the Lord’s Supper, our minds should be going back to the cross
thinking about the great sacrifice that Jesus made for us, and when we give we
should do so cheerfully knowing that the money will be used to further God’s
kingdom.
If
we come to worship with a half-hearted attitude, then we have not called on our
entire being, we are not giving God our best. Now when David says, “Bless the
Lord oh my soul,” he is proclaiming his thankfulness for God’s love and mercy.
Next, he says do not forget all His benefits, and in the following verses David
will mention several of the benefits that come from God, and we would do good
to pay attention to them because when we reflect on the great benefits that God
offers us, it will help remind us to worship Him with all our heart, soul, and
strength.
Psalm 103:3 Who
forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases, 4 Who redeems your life from
destruction, Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies,
One of the greatest
benefits we get from God is the forgiveness of our sins because without that,
we could never have a relationship with God, which means that we would never be
able to make it to heaven. There is also the healing of diseases, which could
include physical and spiritual ones. In the OT times and even in the NT times
when miracles were still being done, God
healed many physical diseases, but he also healed spiritual disease, which
comes from our sin. He gave us the cure for this by sending His son to die on
the cross, and everyone who is willing to embrace the gospel call and will continue
in the way of the Lord will continually be cleansed from the disease of sin.
As John says:
1 John 1:7 But if
we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one
another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
When we choose to accept
God grace by obeying the gospel, God will redeem us from the destruction that
awaits us in hell. The reason He does this is because of His love and tender mercy for us.
Psalm 103:5 who satisfies you with good so that
your youth is renewed like the eagle's.
The Bible uses the eagle several times to make its
point. In our verse, I believe David is referring to how the eagle molts. Every
year they get rid of their old feathers as they grow new ones. Like the eagle, the
children of
Isaiah 40:31 But those who wait on the LORD
Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.
I don’t know if you have ever noticed this in your
life, but I have. When you get busy doing work for the Lord, you begin to
forget about the bad things in your life or what you did in the past because
you are focused on the task at hand, and it gives you a renewed strength to
keep pressing on.
When you labor in God’s kingdom, it will make you
feel good knowing that you glorifying God and that you are helping the kingdom
grow. As Paul said:
1 Corinthians 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast,
immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is
not in vain in the Lord.
You will never regret the
time you spend working for the Lord.
Psalm 103:6 The
LORD executes righteousness And justice for all who are oppressed. 7 He made known His ways to Moses,
His acts to the children of
David points out another
important characteristic about God; God executes righteousness and justice.
Many today only want to talk about God’s mercy and His grace, but they want
ignore the fact that God is a just God and His mercy and grace only goes so
far. This is why David says God will not always strive with us nor keep His
anger forever.
I can remember having a
conversation with someone that belonged to a denomination. I was teaching that God demands obedience from us
or we will not make it to heaven, and she told me she did not think that Jesus
would keep someone from going to heaven because He loved everyone and was full
of grace. This lady had this attitude that I was talking about how some only
want to focus on God mercy and grace, but I preceded to give her example after
example of how God demanded obedience in the OT and the NT, and how Jesus would
judge us on the last day in according to the Word of God.
John 12:48
"He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges
him -- the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.
Therefore, God is not
just a God of mercy and grace, He is also a God of wrath and punishment and
this can clearly be seen throughout the Bible. There have been many who tried to
test God’s limitations and when they did, they found out pretty quick that God’s
limitations do not reach out to infinity because He would unleash His wrath
against them.
For example, in the OT,
God would bless the king of
Judges 10:9
Moreover the people of Ammon crossed over the Jordan to fight against Judah
also, against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim, so that
God was getting tired of
the Jews repeating their sins over and over again, and He tells them to call
out to their false God’s they keep embracing, but we see their response in:
Judges 10:15 And the
children of Israel said to the LORD, "We have sinned! Do to us whatever
seems best to You; only deliver us this day, we pray." 16 So they put away the foreign gods
from among them and served the LORD. And His soul could no longer endure the
misery of
When these Jews showed
true repentance by confessing their sin and putting their idols away God had
mercy of them because He could not stand their misery any longer.
We are fortunate that we
have a merciful God who is as patient as He is. If He were not, we probably
would not be alive right now. God has the same characteristics in the NT as
well.
2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise,
as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any
should perish but that all should come to repentance.
God is patient and He
wants everyone to have the chance to be saved, but this time span will not last
forever because Jesus will come back again, and everyone will be judged. When
that day comes, if we are found outside of Christ or have become unfaithful, we
will be cast into hell for eternity where we will remain separated from God
forever. While God is patient, He is also just.
David also points out God’s
mercy, and He uses Moses and the children of
Psalm 103:10 He has
not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor punished us according to our
iniquities.
If God dealt with us according
to our sins, none of us would be alive today and this is why we should remind
ourselves daily of the great mercy and grace that we are privileged to.
Psalm 103:11 For as
the heavens are high above the earth, So great is His mercy toward those
who fear Him; 12 As far as
the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from
us. 13 As a father pities his
children, So the LORD pities those who fear Him.
David is stressing how
merciful God is to those who fear Him or who show reverence toward Him. To show
reverence to God means to respect Him and honor Him by keeping His
commandments. When we do this, we can know that God will show mercy to us.
From verse 12, we learn
that when God forgives the sin in our life, it is removed as far as the east is
from west, which means it is completely gone. Sometimes, we struggle with our
past sins because we have a hard time letting them go because we are so ashamed
of what we did, but we need to realize that when we repent our sins, God has
forgiven them and forgotten them, and we must do our best to forgive ourselves
and put our past sins behind us so we can continue forward without our past
sins weighing us down.
I love verse 13 because
every parent can relate to it. God pities us just as father pities his child.
When children are growing up, they are going to make all kinds of mistakes. We
should discipline our children when they make mistakes, but when you do
discipline them don’t do it when you are angry or you might lose control and
hurt them.
When you discipline them,
you are not being mean, instead you are showing them how much you love them
because discipline is necessary in order to teach your children that there are
consequences to their bad behaviors and wrongful actions. When we fail to
discipline our children, they will grow up thinking that they can get away with
just about anything because they have no fear of consequences and this will hinder
them from respecting God and keeping His commands.
Of course, I do not
believe that we should discipline our children for every little thing they do
because we want them to be able to figure some things out on their own. While
we should be patient and merciful to our children, there is line that should
not be crossed, but when they do, we need to discipline them, so they will grow
up with a respect for God and for those around them.
This is the same way God
is with us. He is our Father, and we are his children. There are many things we
do wrong, and God pities us and shows us mercy, but that mercy only goes so far
before there is a consequence. But even when we are corrected by God, He does
it because he loves us. This exactly what,
Hebrews 12:6 For whom
the LORD loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives." 7 If you endure chastening, God
deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not
chasten? 8 But if you are
without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are
illegitimate and not sons. 9
Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them
respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of
spirits and live? 10 For they
indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our
profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. 11 Now no chastening seems to be
joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the
peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
So
God is merciful, and He is just.
Psalm 103: 14
For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust. 15 As for man, his days are
like grass; As a flower of the field, so he flourishes. 16 For the wind passes over it, and
it is gone, And its place remembers it no more.
17 But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to
everlasting On those who fear Him, And His righteousness to children's
children, 18 To such as keep
His covenant, And to those who remember His commandments to do them.
David is pointing out how
weak we are as humans and how short our life is compared to our everlasting
God. We are compared to the grass or flowers in the field, which quickly grows and
dies within a short time. He also gives us a visual illustration of how fragile
we are and how God could easily destroy us, but because of His love and mercy,
He does not. Since God’s mercy extends from everlasting to everlasting, it
means His mercy will be there for every generation until the end of time.
One important thing I
want to point out about God’s mercy is that it is conditional. Again, David
points out that God gives His mercy to those who fear Him by remembering His
commandments and doing them. This same thing holds true to the Christian today.
If we want to enjoy the mercy and grace of God, we must fear Him by keeping His
commandments.
19 The LORD has established His throne
in heaven, And His kingdom rules over all.
Since God’s kingdom rules
over all, this means we are under His authority. Therefore, if we want to be
pleasing to Him, we must submit to His authority. Since God has authority over
everything, David concludes his Psalm by requesting that everyone join in and
praise God almighty with their entire being.
Psalm 103:20 Bless
the LORD, you His angels, Who excel in strength, who do His word, Heeding the
voice of His word. 21 Bless
the LORD, all you His hosts, You ministers of His, who do His
pleasure. 22 Bless the LORD,
all His works, In all places of His dominion. Bless the LORD, O my soul!
What
a fitting end to a beautiful Psalm which shows how thankful we should be that
we have a God that love us so much that He gives us His mercy and His grace. We
need to count our blessing every day and thank God for the many benefits He
gives to those who love Him and strive to walk in His commands. We have learned
from this Psalm that God deserves our entire heart, soul, and strength in our
worship and in our daily lives.