Bless the Lord, O, My Soul

Let’s begin this message by first looking at the entire 103rd psalm. Although I’ll focus primarily on the first two verses, I read the entire psalm for context.

“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 benefits; 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 Lord performs righteous deeds and judgments for all who are oppressed. 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. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. 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 but dust.

"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. The Lord has established His throne in the heavens, and His sovereignty rules over all. 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!"

Look with me again at those first two verses: 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 benefits; Who pardons all your iniquities.”

During my morning time with the Lord, I’m trying to redevelop once again the habit of praying back to Him one or two of the adoration psalms. I find that doing so centers me on Him who loves me and whom I want to love more and more with each passing year of my life.

David wrote at least four psalms at some points after his wicked adultery with Bathsheba and the subsequent murder of Uriah, her husband. Along with psalms 32, 38, and 51, he wrote this 103rd psalm, all for the same reason. 

And let me add this note: It’s good from time to time to revisit our own past sins – certainly not to dwell on them, nor to carry them with us like heavy baggage – but as a distant voice in the back of our minds to ever cut at our pride and tendency toward self-righteousness – toward the idea that we are not all that bad.

Not that bad? Really? If you don’t think your past is all that wretched, then I challenge you to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you HIS view of your past. If you do so with an honest heart, you will melt with anguished grief. Listen for a moment to the Holy Spirit’s charge against all humanity – every one of us:

“There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands,
There is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, there is not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving,” “The poison of asps is under their lips”; “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” (Romans 3:11-14)

When we let God speak to us about our pasts, and we are brutally honest with ourselves about our pasts, then we cannot help but to be brought face to face with our unworthiness of God's mercy.

‘Unworthy,’ but NOT worthless. There’s a stark difference between the two. ‘Unworthy’ means to be ‘undeserving’ – and yes, we ARE undeserving of God's mercy. ‘Worthless,’ on the other hand, is to be without any value. Christ’s death for us on Calvary should forever put to rest any doubt of our tremendous VALUE to God – even though our sins make us undeserving of His mercy.

So, as I said a moment ago, it’s good from time to time to revisit our past sins so they can remain a voice – a distant voice – in the back of our minds to remind us of our unworthiness, but at the same time remember His incomprehensible love that DRAWS us to Himself. Our memory of our sins – perhaps especially our worst sins – should remind us that it is only by God's mercy that we stand blameless before Him. It is He Himself who assures us that He has cast all of our sins – every last one of them – as far from Him as east is from the west.

You might remember another of David’s psalms that speaks of such incredible love. Here is a portion of Psalm 139 (verses 1-6) “O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it all . . . Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high,” I cannot understand it.

Our God knows everything about us: Our thoughts. Our words. Our deeds. Our motives. And yet, He loves us from eternity and back. O, such love. Such incomprehensible love. That God should love a sinner such as I – and as David – How wonderful is love like this.

I urge you to read Psalms 32, 38, and 51 on your own, and when you do, do so in light of what you know about David’s sordid and murderous affair surrounding Bathsheba and Uriah. There are important lessons in those psalms – lessons God will teach you about His mercy toward YOU, despite your sordid past.

I’ve said this in earlier studies and sermons that David broke at least three of the Ten Commandments in that Bathsheba incident. He ignored God's commandment against coveting another man’s wife. He defied God's commandment about committing adultery. He set aside God's commandment about murder. And we need to remember that God made no provision in the Law for forgiveness for anyone who willfully trashed any of those Ten Commandments. His law required David’s death for his crimes. Nothing less. And that is exactly what would have happened to him – were it not for God's mercy.

When God forgave David, it was not on account of anything he’d done other than his remorseful confession his sins. And the forgiveness he received from God was entirely rooted in God‘s mercy. And David knew that. Listen to what he wrote in the 32nd psalm: “How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute [or, charge with] iniquity.” (Psalm 32:1-2)

And it is at that point I want to pause. There is not a person in this sanctuary who has not willfully trashed any number of those Ten Commandments – and done so repeatedly. As Jeremiah wrote in the midst of Jerusalem’s destruction by the Babylonian army: “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed.” (Lamentations 3:22).

We get into serious trouble when we think we can do something to even the score, to compensate for our sins, that our good deeds will somehow outweigh the bad. To think that is to fall into a demonic trap. There’s nothing David could have done, and there is nothing WE can do to cleanse our sins. There is no atonement WE can make to cover our sins. That’s because God designed it that way. He alone will receive all the glory and praise for our salvation. As Paul wrote to the Christians at Ephesus (2:1ff):

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ . . . so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Please trust God's promise of total forgiveness because as was true of His mercy toward David, so is His mercy toward YOU, and me, and all who repent before the Almighty. Indeed, God's compassion toward the penitent sinner frames this entire 103rd Psalm. Listen again to what David wrote:

“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. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. 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 but dust.”

How far is east from west? That’s not a trick question. The answer is – the distance goes on and on forever and into infinity. And THAT is the point David makes here. When God forgave his sins, He removed them completely and infinitely from David’s record. God promised to never bring those sins up again to David after death. It is as if he never committed them.

The application for you and me? Don’t think for a moment that God has not ALREADY done the same with YOUR confessed sins – MY confessed sins – as He did with David’s. They are cast from God's memory as far as east is from west and into infinity.

Now do we begin to understand why David wrote: Bless the Lord, O my soul”? And do we begin to understand why it should not be difficult for any of us to pray this psalm of adoration back to God: “Bless the Lord, O my soul”?  

When you return to your apartments today, think for a while of the Lord’s incomprehensible mercies toward you when He redirected His wrath against your sins and onto Jesus, His only begotten Son.

And this is also important: For David, God's forgiveness was not theoretical. It was his daily reality. It was THE reason he could move on with his life, instead of wallowing in paralyzing guilt. When the king believed the prophet Nathan’s words that God had forgiven him, he was then able to move on with his life and complete the work God had given him to do for the rest of his life.

Do you believe the prophets and the apostles who all assure you of God's forgiveness of every sin you’ve ever confessed and of which you repented? Even the most terrible sins? If not, why not? CS Lewis said it well: “I think that if God forgives us, we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him.”

So now, and in the very short time remaining today, let’s move on to what David wrote next in this 103rd psalm: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits;

He lists a few of those benefits in the following verses, and while those benefits are certainly not all-inclusive, they’re a starting point for us:  “[He] pardons all your iniquities, [He] heals all your diseases;  [He] redeems your life from the pit, [He] crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion, [He] satisfies your years with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle.”

Not only, as I’ve already stated, not only does God pardon all our iniquities – the Biblical definition of ‘pardon’ means to be set totally free from all punishment for the offense – but God also heals us; He redeems us from the eternal terrors of His judgment and of hell; He crowns us with lovingkindness and compassion, and He satisfies our years with good things.

But there are yet more benefits to being a true child of God. We know from experience that life is not – even for the Christian – a proverbial Rose Garden. Each person in this sanctuary has had his and her share of thorns. But think of the Christian’s awesome privilege, the astonishing benefit that God allows us – that He USES us to turn our thorns into a means of comfort and a source of hope and, yes, even to encourage perseverance in others who are wounded by their own thorns.

This is not at all an insignificant point. How many people do you know or have heard of who turned away from Christ because of disappointments or trauma in their life? But God reminds us of the beautiful benefit we have as Christians to support others who are on the precipice of desperation: (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 

Let us not be ignorant or unaware of Satan’s tactics. How often has the devil whispered doubts or disillusionments into the ears of God's children as they suffered illness, or loss, or heartache? How often has he been able to seduce them from their Savior?

THAT is why it is so much a privilege to come alongside and lend comfort to those who need comfort. And we can do so because we also have received God's comfort through the words and actions of others. The writer to the Hebrews understood that principle: (Hebrews 3:13) “Encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”

Whenever you sit in the dining room there will be people all around you – maybe even at your very table – for whom YOU can be the encouragement of God. A word, a hug, a kind look, a soft hand on their arm.

During the last few weeks, we looked at ways to bear fruit for Christ. Well, here is a way to do so. Only God and the person with whom you speak will know how your words, or touch, or look has blessed them in their time of need.

As I said, we must not be ignorant of Satan’s tactics to seduce any of us away from our Lord. But God has blessed us with the wonderful benefit to be used by Him to help and encourage our brothers and sisters to persevere for and with the Lord.

But what about the non-Christian, the ones who don’t believe God loves them because of their sins? They don’t believe God will – or can – forgive them for the terrible things they’ve done in their life.

Well, the Christian knows such doubt is designed and then nurtured by Satan himself. But God has blessed the Christian with the extraordinary benefit of telling them God DOES love them – despite their sins. That Calvary’s cross is God's immutable answer that, yes, He will forgive everything they’ve ever done. All they have to do is confess their sins to God, repent, and ask Jesus to be their eternal Lord, King, Master, and Savior.

Coveting. Adultery. Murder. God forgave David of them all. He then cast David’s sins as far as east is from west and into infinity.

And God will also forgive you and me – anyone, everyone – when we confess and repent. We have the unalterable promise of the Holy and Righteous God.

Yes, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name.”