Selected Psalms

Do Not Forget God...!

“Preaching the Dimensions and Details of God’s Great Goodness to your Wandering and Weak Heart...” - Psalm 103

Introductory Thoughts:

·         I want to invite you this evening to open your Bibles to Psalm 103...

·         If you have been a Christian for some time, my guess is that you will be able to relate to this statement:

“We don’t always feel like blessing the Lord... like praising Him, or worshipping Him, or speaking well of Him...”

·         Life happens and there are times when we feel down and out... there are times when we are in a spiritual slump... where we feel overwhelmed... discouraged... worn out... cold hearted... guilty... weak... joyless...

·         What do we do when this happens?

·         What David does in Psalm 103...

·         In this Psalm David is preaching to himself... he is preaching God to himself... he is preaching the goodness of God to himself...!

·         David Strain: “You’ll notice there’s not a single word of prayer in Psalm 103. Psalm 103 is not addressed to God... This [Psalm] is not a prayer; this is a sermon that David is preaching to himself as he wrangles his heart into a place where it can give thanks to God and bless Him...”

·         This because David was a man just like us and he may have been at a time when he was cold and sluggish in blessing and praising and worshipping God as he should... and so he preaches to himself...!

·         Note how this Psalm begins... Ps 103:1-2...

·         David seeks to stir up his soul to bless the Lord... he calls and challenges himself to bless the Lord... three times in these opening verses he calls himself up to “bless the Lord” to make sure his soul is listening and getting the message...!

·         The method that he is using to stir up his soul to bless the Lord, is through remembrance...!

·         Verse 2... the reality and issue is that we do forget God and His benefits... that is one of the greatest frustrations of being human...!

·         Note this very important spiritual truth and reality:

We get into a spiritual slump when we forget God...!

·         And therefore I want to entitle this Psalm tonight in this way:

Do Not Forget God...!

·         And how do we not forget God...?

·         Well, by preaching the dimensions and details of God’s great goodness to our wandering and weak hearts...!

·         We need to remember God and recount all of His goodness so as to keep our hearts from wandering from blessing His holy name...!

·         This whole Psalm revolves around the great goodness of God...!

·         And this is the truth about God – He is good...!

·         You know the saying: God is Good all the time... and all the time God is Good...!

·         Ps 119:68... Gen 50:20... Rom 8:28... Jer 32:41...

·         With that being said, lets then read Psalm 103...

·         In verse 1-2 The Psalmist is calling himself, and everyone us by implication, up to “bless the Lord, to bless His holy Name.”

·         To bless the Lord means: to speak well of Him, to praise Him, to have a strong affection for Him and to express great gratitude towards Him.

·         We should be doing this then with our “soul and all that is within us”.

·         The word “soul” here is equivalent to our mind or heart, our mental and moral powers, as capable of understanding and appreciating His favours, His benefits, His great goodness...!

·         The soul of man was made to praise and bless God; to enjoy His friendship; to delight in His favours; and to contemplate His perfections.

·         Our souls can never be employed in a more appropriate or a more elevated act than when engaged in His praise.

“A moment of praise is never a wasted moment!”

·         Our souls and our entire beings should be used on a daily basis to speak well of God and to bring praise to Him... to His “holy Name” which simply refers to all that God is and does...!

·         Why? Well, because of all His benefits or favours or goodness that He is so abundantly giving to us, but what we so easily forget...

Teaching Points:

·         And so from the body of this Psalm, namely verse 3-19, we will then study four dimensions of the goodness of God with the aim of not forgetting God so as to be able to get a distinction in the subject of the great goodness of God...!

1. The reach of God’s Goodness... (v3-5)

·         In verse 3-5 David helps us to remember five benefits that God is His goodness gives to us that reaches to our hearts and health... to life and death... and for which we should bless Him:

1.1. Bless Him for His forgiveness – in Christ all of our iniquities, all of our sins and guilt, past, present, and future, has been delt with. God has covered the sin of every believer with the blood of Jesus and He will never hold it against them in judgement! Oh believer in Christ, bless the Lord that He has granted you freedom from the penalty of your sin! He has forgiven you! His goodness reaches into your heart!

1.2. Bless Him for His healing – all healing ultimately comes from God. It is not primarily because of doctors or medicine or your good diet or rigorous exercise that you can be healthy and so we should be blessing and praising God for whatever measure of health we are experiencing right now, knowing that it is He who is good to our bodies. And we can also bless Him knowing that one day in heaven, there will be no more sickness or pain, but that for every believer there is waiting a perfect and glorious new body! His goodness reaches into your health!

1.3. Bless Him for His redemption – as long as we have life in this world, it is because God is keeping our lives from the pit, from the grave. You and I are breathing right now because God is giving us the breath we need to live for another moment.... another moment where we can praise Him for our lives and ultimately praise Him that in Jesus He has redeemed us from the fear of death and the destruction of hell. Oh believer bless the Lord that He has redeemed you from everlasting hell and that your soul will never corruption! His goodness reaches into your death!

1.4. Bless Him for His undeserved constant affection – oh what a mystery and joy to be loved by God... to be the object of His unwavering, unchanging, and persistent love where He is constantly not giving us what we deserve, but rather a place of honour and dignity as He crowns us with His love and mercy... oh believer in Christ, bless the Lord that He has chosen to love you and be merciful to you! His goodness reaches into your life...!

1.5. Bless Him for His all-satisfying goodness – God is good and He does good at all times and in all seasons. He is the One who gives us what we need, He satisfies us, so that we can have our strength renewed and keep on praising Him and blessing Him! Every good and perfect gift comes from God and the greatest of all these gifts with what He satisfies us, is... Himself! Oh believer in Christ, praise and bless the Lord that He has given us Himself as our eternal possession, so that we can be satisfied in full in this life and in the one to come! It is His goodness that satisfies and strengthens us...!

The Goodness of God is Sufficient for all your needs...!

2. The roots of God’s Goodness... (v6-10)

·         The goodness of God is grounded is who He is... God is good...! That is His disposition... He is bent towards goodness... being good and doing good...!

·         Who God is leads to what He does – for us and towards us...

·         Verse 6-7 – in His righteousness and justice, He is for us...

·         David is recounting the deliverance of God from the Egyptians through the great exodus...

·         He also gave them the ten commandments and they saw all His mighty and glorious acts in the ten plagues and in Him providing and leading them through the desert...

·         All this to remind us that God is for His people... Rom 8:31... and with His people... Heb 13:5...

·         In verse 8 David reminds us of how God revealed Himself to moses in Exo 34:6...

·         This is our God...

·         He is merciful – He is constantly holding back what we deserve... the worst thing that can ever happen to us is still less than what we deserve...!

·         Charles Spurgeon: “All the world tastes of his sparing mercy, those who hear the gospel partake of his inviting mercy, the saints live by his saving mercy, are preserved by his upholding mercy, are cheered by his consoling mercy, and will enter heaven through his infinite and everlasting mercy.”

·         He is gracious – He is giving us so much that we can never deserve...

·         He is slow to anger – He is patient with us... God does not have a bad temper... He gives us so many chances...

·         He is abounding in steadfast love – there is no limit to God’s loyal and faithful love towards His people... His children... if we are unfaithful, God remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself... His love is steadfast and therefore unchanging...

·         This is why He is doing towards us what David remembers in verse 9-10...

·         He acts towards us according to who He is, even when and especially when we are not who He has called us to be...

·         David is mindful of his and our sins and iniquities, of how we stumble and fail... and yet

God remains good towards us...

·         He will not keep on fighting with us... He will not keep the quarrel over our sins going... He will not hold a grudge against us and will not exact the payment from us that our sins deserve nor take His vengeance on us...

·         Why is it that God will act towards us in this good way when we deserve His anger, repayment and vengeance...? because there was another with whom He dealt according to our sins on which He poured out His anger and vengeance and from which H received the payment in full that His holiness and righteousness demands and deserves – Jesus Christ...!

·         The roots of God’s goodness is in who He is that leads to what He does for us and towards us...

The Goodness of God is Sufficient because of who He is...!

3. The results of God’s Goodness... (v11-14)

·         Verse 11 – a love that is unmeasurable... we could easier measure the distance from earth to the very throne and heaven of God, than we could measure the greatness of His love...!

·         But we do know that He loves us... He loves us greatly...! (cf. Rom 5:8)

·         note: His steadfast love is towards those who fear Him...!

·         Verse 12 – forgiveness that cannot be reached... you and I cannot reach the point or place where we can find or discover where God has buried our sins... if you were to seek to understand how far your sins are removed from you, you would never be able to reach that place... for there is no place or position like the east or the west...!

·         Clarke: “As the east and the west can never meet in one point but be for ever at the same distance from each other, so our sins and their decreed punishment are removed to an eternal distance by His [goodness].”

·         Verse 13 – a relationship that is intimate and caring... in the goodness of God we are adopted as His children in and through Jesus Christ... and that brings us into the

relationship where God has compassion on us... He sees our needs, He is moved by it

and He does something about it...!

·         He is not a hard and apthetic tyrant, but our perfect father who knows us...

·         note again: He has compassion on those who fear Him...!

·         Verse 14 – He knows how we are formed and He is very mindful of the fact that we are but dust... so frail and so easy to be blown around and wander... God knows us better than we will ever know ourselves... he knows the depths of our hearts and therefore the full extend of our wanderings into sin and trangression and iniquity... and yet He loves and forgives and have compassion on us...!

·         He loves us in spite of what and who we are...!

The Goodness of God is Sufficient to deal with your wandering heart...!

4. The reliability of God’s Goodness... (v15-19)

·         In these verses David is contrasting the goodness of God with the weakness and frailty of man...

·         Verse 15-16 – We are but temporary and we are so weak... not very flattering to be likened with grass or a flower... we can be here the one day and next the following... so too our loved ones... we are weak, frail and transient... we exist but for a moment and that in the long run of things don’t make us very reliable...

·         but God... His steadfast love is from everlasting and it is to everlasting... it has no beginnning and no end... You can rely with everything in you on God’s goodness, His love for you...!

·         FB Meyer: “God’s love does not alter with our alterings or change with our changes... There never was a time when He did not love you. His mercy is from everlasting; nor a time when He will love you less – it is to everlasting.”

·         His righteousness is from one generation to the next – He keeps on doing what is right for those who fear Him, trust Him and obey Him...!

·         His goodness is reliable....! It is not fickle as we are, or weak and frail and temporary... but everlasting and faithful...!

·         We can then also be absolutely assured of his continuing goodness because He is the sovereign God...!

·         Verse 19 – He has established, firmly placed and fixed, His throne in the heavens, above all and he rules over all... He can therefore further do what is good for His people...!

·         Rom 8:28-29 is still true...! preach that to yourself...!

·         The Goodness of God is Sufficient to outlast your weaknesses...!

·         David then closes this Psalm by extending the call to bless the Lord and making it a universal call...! (v20-21)

·         All of creation exist to bring praise to God, to glorify Him, and it is only as we do this, that we are busy fulfilling what we have been created for...!

·         He ends the very last line exactly like he began, calling and stirring up his soul one last time to bless and praise and speak well of the Lord, for He is worthy and deserves our praise...!

Closing Thoughts:

·         When we are in a spiritual slump, we need to preach God to our souls... we need to preach His goodness to our souls...!

·         We were made to praise Him, to worship Him...

·         A worship less souls is a withering soul... a soul that isn’t praising God is a soul that will perish...

·         Do Not Forget God... but stir up your souls to bless Him as you remember all His wonderful benefits and blessings that he has bestowed upon you...!