PSALM 103 REMEMBER TO BLESS THE LORD2016 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Psalm 103 Remember To Bless The Lord

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2016.

So this morning, the title of the message is Remember to Bless the Lord. And I had a cool little slide with the finger with the string tied around it. So that was the old school days, you know, to remind yourself to do something. I remember when I worked at Paychex and I would have, you know, my computer desk or my desk and the monitor. And I would have post-it notes like, you know, on all parts of the monitor and the sides and everything. All reminders of things that I needed to do.

But then these days, I love having reminders on my phone. And I go to the extreme, you know, like most things I do. So I have reminders, you know, for the daily stuff, like taking my thyroid medicine, reminders to read the Bible, reminders to mow the lawn and take out the trash, reminders to be a good husband. You know, I have reminders galore. And as we look at Psalm 103, here we have the psalmist reminding himself that

to bless the Lord, reminding himself to praise the Lord for all that he has done. And it's a Psalm of David. And so we get to see David stirring himself up to praise the Lord. And it's an awesome thing. So we'll look at verse one for just a moment. It says, "'Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name.'"

When we talk about blessing the Lord, it means to express praise, but there's, you know, multiple things that are kind of tied into it. And so it's expressing praise with gratitude, as well as adoration or love to God. And so as we talk about blessing the Lord, it's that praise, that expression of love, it's that thankfulness for all that God is and all that God has done. I

I think, you know, we could think about it this way. Maybe you have those people in your life that it's kind of difficult to get them a present. You know, have you ever had that where it's like they have everything and if they don't have it, you know, they buy it for themselves, you know. So what do I get them for the birthday or for Christmas or things like that? And if you think about that in terms of God, you know,

What do you give to God who has everything? What is there that we could give to God when he is the creator of all things? But when we read here about blessing the Lord, there's something interesting to consider. And that is, he doesn't have everything if he doesn't have your heart.

because that's the one thing that he's reserved. He's given you the control of, and so he only has your heart if you give it to him. He only has your praise if you give it to him. He could squeeze it out of you if he really wanted, you know, and just, and in the end of days, of course, every knee will bow, and every knee will confess, you know, that he is Lord and will praise him. But

But what the psalmist is encouraging us to do is stirring it up right now. It's praising the Lord because that's what he deserves and he's worthy of. And it's what we ought to be doing. And so we need to be reminded. We need to be encouraged to not hold back our hearts and our lives and our praise and our love and our adoration to God, but to bring it forth and express it to God.

He says, "'Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me.'" All that is within me. Everything within me. Everything. God is worthy of praise to the greatest degree that we can give it. The commentator Albert Barnes says, "'God is worthy of all the praise and adoration which the entire man can render.'"

So he says every part of us. There's not one part of us that's excluded. Your hands should be given to the praise of God. God's worthy of that praise.

It shouldn't be excluded. Your feet should not be excluded from the blessing the Lord. It shouldn't be excluded from praising God. Your heart, your mind, your tongue, your lips, everything about you is designed, it's your duty and privilege to praise the Lord. And so bless the Lord because he is worthy. It's your duty and it's a privilege to

to worship the Lord, to praise the Lord. And that's not just with the songs that we sing, but it's every aspect of our life. We need to be giving ourselves to bless the Lord, to praise the Lord. And so the title is Remember to Bless the Lord here in Psalm 103. And there's four points that we'll walk through. Four points to help us understand why we should remember to bless the Lord.

Psalm 103 verses 1 through 6 has point number one, and that is, remember the Lord's many benefits. Verse 1 again, bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. And then verse 2, bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Don't forget all of his benefits, the psalmist says, David says.

It's so easy to forget how much the Lord has blessed us, isn't it? It's so easy to lose sight of the many ways that God has blessed

revealed himself and worked in our lives the miracles that have been done. And so we have the expression that we use from time to time, count your blessings. It's an old hymn that was also written to that topic. Count your blessings. It's kind of the remember like, hey, stop and consider, stop and think about how many ways that God has blessed you.

Here's what David is saying. Don't forget all his benefits. Don't forget all that he's done for you. And he's going to go on in these next couple verses to give us a few examples. It's just a little sample of some of the things that God has done for you. And so there's six things that he lists here in these next couple verses. In verse three, he says, who forgives all your iniquities.

So he starts with a big one. Remember all his benefits. Here's the biggest of the biggest ones. And that is he forgives your iniquities. This is really what he's going to be focusing on in this psalm. And so we'll look at this in the verses to come as well.

but he forgives. He wipes the slate clean. He washes and removes the filth of all your iniquities. An emphasis there on the word all, all your iniquities, in that there is no sin that God cannot forgive. There is no sin that God will not forgive. So you could maybe imagine a scenario where God is able to forgive, but he's like, forget it. No way.

no, there's no sin that he cannot forgive, and there's no sin that he will not forgive. Now, maybe you're thinking, but wait a minute, wait a minute. What about the unpardonable sin? Well, the unpardonable sin is rejecting God's forgiveness. So that's the only thing that's unforgivable is rejecting God's forgiveness. Everything else

God forgives. There's no sin that he won't forgive. Every little sin, God forgives. He doesn't, you know, hold on to the little things. He doesn't hold those to your account, but he cleanses you of the little sins. And the little sins may not seem like much by themselves, but, you know, they add up and they add up and they add up. And it could be a huge debt that you owe, but God forgives all your iniquities. And every big sin,

You know, the things that we would look at and think, whoa, that was like really, really bad. But God's able to forgive the little, the big, every iniquity, every sin. And so David is, as he stirs himself up, he stirs us up, bless the Lord because he forgives all your iniquities. But then he also goes on in verse three to say, who heals all your diseases. So God forgives you, but he also heals you of your diseases. Yes.

Now, there's a couple of ways to look at this and understand this. The one is that any time that you are healed, God is the healer. So whether you want to look at, you know, well, I just rested and then my body recovered. Well, understand that God was involved in that and he is the healer.

If you want to think about, well, I went to the doctor and got some medication, you know, thank God for penicillin or whatever. God is the one who is the healer. He is the one still at work, even with the advances of modern medicine and science and all of those things. He's still involved. He is the healer.

Now, of course, some take it to the far extreme and say, you know, well, you'll never be sick and you'll never have disease and all that. But we also understand that Christians die, you know, that one person put it this way, you know, basically we die of whatever we got sick with last, you know, it's, that's kind of the way it works. And that's true. We're not supposed to live forever in this body. We are going to die. It's not that there is no sickness for us as believers. But

But as we look at any type of healing in our lives, we recognize God is involved. But then also we can look at it to another degree and say, well, ultimately, every disease is healed as we enter into eternity and we have a new body. And so in that realm, in that idea, who heals all your diseases, you can take it quite literally and understand every single disease will be healed.

And so if you have asthma, you will not have asthma anymore. If you've lost limbs, you will have regained those limbs. If you've lost hair, I don't know if that's a disease, but you will have that regained. You know, every disease, if you had a cough, you know, struggle with this or that. I had, you know, my thyroid put to death because it was out of whack. And all of those things,

will be dealt with. God will heal. I won't have to take medication every day any longer. You won't have to take medication any longer. God heals all our diseases. Bless the Lord. Verse four goes on to say, who redeems your life from destruction. So the third benefit that David reminds us of is redemption. God redeems your life from destruction.

The idea of redemption is he purchases you back from destruction. So you could look at, you know, the sin that he forgives you of, and it's the sin that puts us in this place of destruction. The wages of sin is death. It brings destruction, and God could forgive you and then just leave you there in the midst of the mess that you've made for yourself.

But he doesn't do that. He redeems your life. He purchases you back from destruction. The destruction that came from the life of sin. God bought you out of it. So not only do you have the forgiveness of sins and that benefits us, you know, for a relationship with God and then on into eternity, but he also is at work in this life. Well, looking at it another way is God works all things together for good.

He works the mess that we've made and the mess that we find ourselves in, the destruction from a life of sin, into good and redeems us from destruction in that way. Bless the Lord. He redeems your life. He purchases back you and all that you are from the destruction that you've created for yourself. Going on in verse 4, he says, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies.

So another benefit that David reminds us of is he loves you. He crowns you. Think about that idea. Consider how God treats you. You know, he crowns you. Think about placing a crown on the head of royalty.

Now we can think about Jesus with the crown of thorns, right? And how that was placed on Jesus's head. It wasn't gently, you know, with softness and carefulness, you know, with honor and reverence. It was, you know, forced on there. It was beat down. But normally when you crown somebody, it's the exact opposite of that.

right? No king is crowned, you know, just like, bonk, you know, and just drop it on the head. No, no, it's gentle. It's, you know, carefully placed. You know, this is royalty. That's the idea, you know, placing the crown. And so when you look at God crowning you with loving kindness and tender mercies, consider how God treats you. He crowns you. He treats you incredibly well. He treats you with gentleness and honor and care, expressing this loving kindness.

Isn't it amazing that God loves you, that he expresses loving kindness to you? Loving kindness, it's of course love and kindness put together. It's not just feelings of love, but it's acts of kindness that go with it. It's the combination of those two things. And then he also adds on tender mercies.

We're going to talk a lot about mercy here in this chapter because it's a theme throughout. It's something David focuses on for the rest of the chapter. The mercy of God is incredible as he expresses it to you. He crowns you with it. He treats you gently. He makes sure to honor and care for you. Bless the Lord for his loving kindness and tender mercies. In verse 5, he says, "...who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's."

The Lord feeds you, David says. Another benefit to consider. It's the Lord who provides for you. We like to remind Harvey of the verse that he always reminds us of, right? Matthew 6, 33. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other things will be added to you. It's always that promise of, Jesus says, don't worry about your food. Don't worry about what you're going to wear. Don't worry about your life. But seek first the kingdom of God, and I'll provide for you.

And that's the promise that David is highlighting here. He satisfies your mouth with good things. You've probably had some good things in your mouth this week. Some good steak, perhaps, or maybe a good piece of chicken. We had a, Kim and I tried something new. We went to a place called Blaze Pizza. We heard about it. They have some good gluten-free options. So we tried it out. Oh my goodness, that was good pizza. Good things. He satisfies us with good things.

So my youth was renewed like the eagles. I have a lot more energy today because I had good pizza this week, right? We're renewed, we're restored, we're refreshed. God blesses us. He provides for us. This is one of the reasons why we pray before a meal.

It's not so much that, like, you know, remove all the bad things, you know, take away all the calories and the curses, but it's to express gratitude. Thank you, God, for providing for us. It's an expression of thanks. That's what Jesus modeled for us also. When he did the miracle to feed the 5,000, he gave thanks to God for providing. And that's what David's remembering here. He feeds us. He satisfies your mouth with good things. Bless the Lord.

Well, the final example he gives is in verse 6. The Lord executes righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. We can look around at the world and we can see all kinds of injustice. There's all kinds of things that we could look on and say, that's not right. You know, why are they getting away with that? How is that happening? And we can see the injustice that's there. But

David says at the same time, we can bless the Lord knowing that he will not allow any injustice to last. The Lord is the one who executes righteousness and justice. And for those who are oppressed, for those who are mistreated, for those who are abused, for those who are taken advantage of, we can look and know that God will bring justice. Sometimes we see some of that justice in this life, but

Like in many things related to the Lord, we look to eternity for the ultimate fulfillment of these things, recognizing that God will not allow injustice to last. He will deal with every injustice. Nobody gets away with anything as far as God is concerned. So bless the Lord. Bless the Lord, because all those who are oppressed, all those oppressors, all those who come against and do things that are unjust—

God's going to deal with them. Bless the Lord. He makes all things right. And so here in verses one through six, we see reason to bless the Lord because of his many benefits. He forgives, he heals, he redeems, he loves, he feeds, and he gives justice. Bless the Lord. Again, it means to express praise and thanks with love to God. He's worthy of

of this praise. It's your duty and it's your privilege to bless the Lord. And so David stirs himself up. He talks to himself and says, bless the Lord, oh my soul. I would encourage us to do the same. Stir yourself up. Bless the Lord, oh my soul. Moving on to verses 7 through 12, we have point number two, and that is remember the Lord's mercy.

How do we remember to bless the Lord? Well, first we remember the Lord's many benefits. Secondly, we remember the Lord's mercy. So we kind of went through a variety of different benefits, one of them being mercy. But now David's going to really focus on this subject of mercy here in verses 7 through 12. And so as we remember the Lord's mercy, it stirs us up to bless the Lord. Verse 7.

Verse 9. Here we see a reference to Exodus chapter 34, where God revealed himself to Moses and specifically said that

Some of these things that David is saying here in verse 8 and 9. The Lord revealed himself and here's what he said about himself. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in mercy. God is the best authority on himself. He's the one who knows himself the best.

And he can perfectly and accurately declare who he is. And here is who he's chosen to reveal himself as. Here's what he's chosen to express himself as. Merciful and gracious. Slow to anger and abounding in mercy. When he says the Lord is merciful, the word could also be translated compassionate.

He has compassion. He looks on and he feels what you feel. Sometimes we don't feel like that God would feel what we feel, right? We feel like we're all alone. Nobody else feels like we feel, but God has compassion. He understands what you're going through. But mercy has this other component where there's this holding back of judgment, this holding back of a penalty that is deserved.

And so that's the idea here is God looks on with compassion, and so he holds back the judgment that you deserve. Well, we've all sinned. We all deserve judgment of God, but God is merciful and gracious. So gracious is on top of merciful. So first, God has compassion on you, and he holds back judgment and penalty that you deserve. But then grace is the reverse of mercy. That is,

He gives good things that you don't deserve. What you do deserve is punishment. He holds that back. What you don't deserve is good things and blessings, and he gives good things and blessings. You haven't earned them. No matter, you know, what state we might find ourselves in life and how impressed we might be with ourselves, we've not earned the goodness of God in our lives. We've not earned the good things of our life. We've not earned the blessings of our life. But the Lord...

has given us great things. He has done great things because this is who the Lord is. He is merciful and gracious, and he's slow to anger. You might have noticed you weren't struck by lightning this week. That's because the Lord's slow to anger. He doesn't just react and respond anytime you mess up and just strike you down. He's slow to anger. It takes him a long time to

to bring him to the point where he will bring judgment. Even then, he'll still be merciful, but it takes him a long time. He's slow to anger. He holds himself back. He restrains the judgment that is due. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. This word mercy, slightly different word than the one before, emphasizes the kindness of

God is kind in his actions towards you. He does nice things for you. He's kind in his treatment of you. And he doesn't just have like a little bit of kindness, but he's abounding in mercy. He's abounding in kindness. This is who God is. And as David, you know, reminds himself and reminds us, it's occasion for us to bless the Lord. Bless the Lord, oh my soul.

Because the Lord is merciful and gracious and slow to anger and abounding in mercy. Jumping down to verse 10, he says, You can think about all the blessings that you have from God. You can think about all the many ways that God has been good to you, all the many ways that God has blessed you and just done wonderful things for you.

withheld judgment from you, you know, that you deserved. In verse 10, that's what he focuses on. God has not dealt with us according to our sins. I think this is one that we as believers really need to hold on to, to recognize this is fact. This is the truth. This is the reality. So many times when Christians go through difficulty, one of the first things that goes through our mind, whether we put it there or whether the enemy throws it there, is,

Well, this maybe is because of sin, you know, that God's dealing with our sin. He's dealing with us because of our wickedness. You know, that's what Job's friends told him, right? It must be sin. That's why God's... And when we go through things as believers, it's often a thing that we wrestle with. Even if we don't have Job's friends around us, you know, in our own mind, we have this battle. This is God trying to pay me back for sin, right?

But check out verse 10 again. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities. God does not deal with us according to our sins. He doesn't. He doesn't. Charles Spurgeon puts it this way. He says, we ought to praise the Lord for what he has not done, as well as for what he has brought for us. We have never suffered as we deserve to suffer. Shall we not bless the Lord?

What God has not done is just as much an occasion for us to bless the Lord as what God has done. What we deserve is punishment, judgment, eternal judgment for our sin. Sometimes we wrestle with that, but it's because we don't fully understand the depths of sin, the depravity of sin. But it deserves judgment. It deserves God's wrath. And he has not dealt with you according to your sins.

Now, why is that? Why hasn't God dealt with us according to our sins? Well, you can go back to verse 8. He's merciful and gracious. He's slow to anger. He's abounding in mercy. But we also, living in the New Testament era, we also recognize that God dealt with Jesus according to our sins so that he could not deal with us according to our sins.

God dealt with Jesus according to the punishment. He received for us the penalty that we deserve so that God could withhold from us the penalty that we deserve. The penalty had to be paid, but he just didn't make us pay it. Jesus paid that price for us. He received the penalty. He received the punishment so that God could show us mercy. Remember the Lord's mercy and it'll cause you to bless the Lord.

In verse 11, he says, The psalmist, David, is looking up to the heavens. Now, don't think of this as the earth's atmosphere. You know, David's out there in a field. He's looking at the stars. The nearest star is 93 million miles away. It's called the sun.

That's the closest one. The next nearest star is Proxima Centauri. It's 4.2 light years away. So hop on a ray of light and travel for 4.2 years. And that's how far the nearest star is. How far is it to the end of the universe? Well, mathematicians speculate that we can see...

As far as 45 billion light years away. With all of our technology, you know, the farthest that we can look with all of our telescopes, we can see 45 billion light years away. That's not the end. It's just that's as far as we can see. But the universe expands beyond that. As high as the heavens are above the earth. So from here, looking up, seeing the heavens, how long does it take to get to the end? How far is the end? It's infinite. And that's what David says. That's how great his mercy is towards those who fear him.

God has infinite mercy, infinite mercy. You can't stack it up high enough to reach the end. You can't add it up so that it becomes too great. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his mercy toward those who fear him. In verse 12, he says, as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. So he's perhaps laying in the field, looking up, you know, thinking about the distance from here to infinity. And he's looking up,

And then thinking about that way and thinking about that way, east and west, as far as the east is from the west. That's how far he's removed our transgressions from us. So he's taken our sins. He's placed you at one extreme over here and your sin at the other extreme over here. Just as far as they could possibly be apart, that's how far he's removed your transgression from you. He's taken it away completely, out of reach completely.

impossible to be attached to you again. He's removed our sin, he says. Now, it's often been observed east and west is different than north and south. If you get on a plane right now from here and you go north, if I was good at geography, I'd explain and describe all the places. Well, let's see. There's Canada, and I think that's it. And then Antarctica. No, maybe that's south. Anyways, you go to the North Pole, but you hit a certain point and you begin going south.

Now that's not like, you know, suddenly you change direction and you're going south. But if you're walking in the North Pole, you could be walking this way. You hit a certain point. The next step you take, you're heading south. And you haven't changed direction. It's just now you're heading south because you've reached that point where now you're going south. East and west is different. If you get on a plane from here and head east...

You can go all the way around the world and back, and you're still heading east. You never reach a point where now all of a sudden you're heading west. And if you go west, same thing. You go all the way around. There's no point where all of a sudden now you're heading west. So there's a difference. North and south meet at a very particular point. East and west, they're opposite directions. They're opposite ends. They don't meet in the same way that north and south do. And the point is your sins are removed from you in a way that

You're completely separate. Opposite ends of the spectrum. You can go to infinity there and see how merciful God is towards you. You can go infinity there and see where your position is and infinity there and see that's how far God's sin or God has removed the sin from you. It's a complete forgiveness. You know, sometimes people do you favors and then they kind of hold it over your head. You know, it's like then you owe them perpetually.

That's not what God does. He removes your sins from you, just completely throws it as far as the east is from the west. Remember the Lord's mercy. Remember to bless the Lord, to express thanks and praise and love to God. He's worthy. It's your duty. It's a privilege to praise the Lord. And as you can think about his mercy, as you consider how he's removed your sin from you, it should stir you up. It should cause you to bless the Lord.

Bless the Lord, oh my soul. Moving on to verses 13 through 18, we have point number three. The Lord remembers our frailty. The first couple points is about us remembering and needing that reminder. Remember the Lord's many benefits. Remember the Lord's mercy. But now consider that the Lord remembers you and your frailty.

Now, unlike me, the Lord doesn't need reminders. He doesn't have, you know, strings tied to his fingers. He doesn't have post-it notes around his computer station, no apps or alerts or anything like that. The Lord, he doesn't need help. He remembers. And what does he remember? He remembers our frailty, who we are, and how we're made. In verse 13, it says, as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him. The word pity means to have compassion.

Very similar to mercy. Now, sometimes we think of pity, we have a kind of a negative connotation, but the picture here is God looks on what we're going through, and He has compassion. He feels what we feel. I've shared this story before of when I cut my thumb with the X-Acto knife. I was cutting some pictures out, and they got stuck in the cutting board, and so I yanked the knife out, and it went right through my thumb, and so it was just hanging off by a piece, and

They took me to the emergency room and...

They sewed it back together. And I remember being there just in so much pain. You know, they gave me the shots and everything, but still I could feel it. And I just, I was in so much pain. And I've shared the story from my perspective in the sense that, you know, there's my dad just standing there letting this doctor torture me and inflict me with so much pain, right? And how terrible it was. But of course, from my dad's perspective, he wasn't saying, yes, make it hurt, doctor. Stick him again, you know, do it again. No, no, no. He didn't do it.

He was feeling the pain. He just knew it was necessary, right? He just knew that it was needed. He was there. He had compassion. He understood what it felt like. He understood the pain. He understood. And that's how God looks at us as a father pities his children.

As you would look on your children and their pain and their difficulty and have compassion and wish that you could take the pain for them and wish you could take the pain away. That's how the Lord looks at you. He pities those who fear him. He has compassion. He feels it. It's not something that is done lightly. It's not something that is done for no reason. But he allows it, but he feels it.

You know, it'd be one thing if God allowed suffering and pain in our lives, but, you know, I don't care. You know, sometimes you deal with bosses like that, right? It's like, well, I don't care how you get it done. Just get it done. I don't care if it costs you, you know, your weekend or whatever. Like, I don't care. Just get it done. That doesn't matter. But then to have one that has compassion. Yeah, I know it's hard. I know it's tough. I know it's painful. It's difficult, but he feels it. He allows things in our lives, but he feels it.

In verse 14, it says, for he knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. The Lord has pity on us because he knows our frame. He knows how we're built. He knows how we're made. He remembers. He doesn't need a reminder. He remembers that we are dust.

The Lord told Adam in Genesis chapter 3, it's part of the curse. He says, for dust you are, and to dust you shall return. Death was brought in as a result of the curse. But even at the beginning, in the perfect Garden of Eden, in the perfect world, Adam was made from dust. He remembers that we are dust, David says. We were created, he was formed from the dust of the ground and

created from dust, and that's what we still are. And when we die, we return to the dust. That's the cycle of life. We come from dust, we are dust, and we return to dust. And God never forgets that. He knows our frame. He knows our weaknesses. He knows our frailty. He knows who we are. He knows what we struggle with. He pities us as a father pities his child because he knows what we're made of.

Sometimes we look at the word of God and we think, man, God has some really high standards. You ever think that? And it's like, oh my goodness, like how has God, well, for example, last week at the marriage retreat, we looked at 1 Corinthians chapter 13 and the way God calls us to love one another, I kept reminding the couples, this is just how we're called to love one another, period. Husband and wife, that's even on top of that. But we're called to love one another in this perfect way. We can look at this and think, man, that's a high standard. How does God ever expect us to keep that?

But considering that God knows our frame, he remembers that we're dust, I would encourage you to think about it in a different light. Think about it. As you look at the high standards and think, wow, God, you have these high standards, think about it this way. God's saying to you, look at this high standard. Now, if you let me, that's what I'll fashion you to become. He doesn't expect you to get there on your own. He's not saying, here's the standard, work up to it. Here's the bar, you know, work yourself up, train yourself, and then learn how to jump over it. He says, no, no, if you'll let me,

I'll teach you. I'll train you. I'll develop you. It's not really a high standard in the sense of this is what you have to achieve on your own. It's a high standard in the sense of God saying, this is what I want to do in your life. This is the greatness, you know, I want to develop in you. This is the strength and the character and the integrity. This is the love that I want to develop in you. Because he knows your frame and he remembers you're just dust.

You don't have strength on your own. You don't have awesomeness on your own. Only God can give you awesomeness. He goes on in verse 15 and 16 to say, as for man, his days are like grass. As a flower of the field, so he flourishes. For the wind passes over it and it is gone and its place remembers it no more. You can look around at the hills around us because we've had some recent rain. You'll see green on the hills. It's nice and it's beautiful, but it won't last forever.

It's going to dry out. Summer's coming. The hills are going to be brown. That's the way it works. And David here says, as for man, his days are like grass. That's how we, that's how our life is. Like a flower that just, you know, the wind passes over it, it dies, it fades away. That's how our life is. We're not meant to last very long in this physical body. We're temporary in this physical body. And like grass, we're going to fade away. We flourish for a bit.

But we fade away. We're not going to last. God remembers that we're dust and we're on the journey back to dust. And so he has pity. He remembers our frailty. Verse 17, He continues to talk about the mercy of the Lord. And notice what he says.

The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting. I think that's really interesting. It's from everlasting. It's not new. The mercy of the Lord was from the beginning before he even created Adam and Eve. The mercy of the Lord was there. He knew all that was going to go on. He knew every aspect of your life. He knew every part, every frailty, every time that you would fall short and

but the Lord's mercy was from everlasting. So you never have to worry about, well, I accepted the Lord here. And so God's merciful from that point on. But what about, you know, all the stuff before? No, God's mercy is from everlasting. It's from the beginning. It's how he's always been. Slow to anger, abounding in mercy, grace, grace, grace, grace. He extends to us from the beginning. Now notice there is conditions here.

He says this mercy that's from everlasting to everlasting is on those who fear him. In verse 18, it says it's to such as keep his covenant and to those who remember his commandments to do them. And so there is a condition here to experience this mercy of God from everlasting to everlasting being applied to your life. You have to be part of the covenant. And that is you have to believe in Jesus. That's the new covenant to believe in Jesus, to

Which means that we walk with God, that we love God, that we obey God. As we walk with God, not that we're perfect. Again, those high standards, they're the model of what God wants to make you. That's not the requirement for you to be able to receive God's mercy. The requirement for you to receive God's mercy is to believe in Jesus.

to ask him for forgiveness of sin, to approach him by faith in the finished work upon the cross. And so you continue to walk with God, even though you fall short, even though you mess up. And as long as you continue to walk with God, as long as you believe in Jesus, as you keep his covenant, his mercy, well, it's as high as the heavens are above the earth. And your sin is removed as far as the east is from the west, because God remembers our frailty. He knows we're going to mess up.

Well, yeah, but I mess up a lot. Well, yeah, and God knows that. And his mercy is much, much bigger than your sin. Able to handle easily whatever ways we fall short, whatever ways we fail in this life. The Lord remembers our frailty. Bless the Lord. Express your praise and thanks and love to God because he's worthy. It's your duty and your privilege because he remembers your frame.

Well, the final point is in verses 19 through 22. And here the reminder is to us again, remember the Lord rules over. Here's something we need to remember. Verse 19, the Lord has established his throne in heaven and his kingdom rules over all. Why ought we to, why ought we bless the Lord? Why should we praise the Lord? Why should we express our gratitude and thanks to the Lord? Why should we remind ourselves to bless him?

Well, because the Lord has established his throne in heaven. You know, as we often remind each other, the Lord's still on the throne, right? He rules over all, David says. Now, what good would it be if God was merciful and gracious and remembers our frailty but had no power? What good would it be? He could look on the sidelines and have compassion. Oh, man, I feel so bad for you. But, you know, with no power, he has no capacity to do anything for you. He's not able to work all things together for good.

But that's not the reality of who God is. And so as we remember the mercy of God, as we remember the way that God deals with us, the grace of God, the compassion of God, it's also appropriate to remember that he rules over all, that he has all power and all authority. And so he is able to accomplish his mercy. He's able to withhold the judgment that is deserved. He's able to show grace. He's able to

to do what's best for us. He is the one who rules over every home, every workplace, every nation, every spot on the face of the earth, every people, everything, physical, spiritual, he rules over all. And he demonstrates that in the next few verses. Verse 20, "'Bless the Lord, you his angels, who excel in strength, who do his word, heeding the voice of his word.'"

Bless the Lord, all you his hosts, you ministers of his who do his pleasure. He thinks about spiritual things. He thinks about angelic beings. And he says, you guys need to bless the Lord. He rules over you. He rules over the spirit realm. He rules over all created beings, physical or spiritual. In verse 22, he says, bless the Lord, all his works in all places of his dominion, which is all places, by the way, bless the Lord, oh my soul.

So he says, bless the Lord, to his angels, to every spot on the face of the earth, all the places in his dominion, all his works, the trees, the mountains, the rocks, every people. And then the psalmist David reminds himself again, bless the Lord, oh my soul. He speaks to himself. He encourages himself. And this is something that's important and appropriate for us to do as well, to stir ourselves up.

You're not going to bless the Lord just automatically. It just doesn't happen. Our hearts are inclined away from God. We drift away from God. We have to incline our hearts to God. We have to stir ourselves up. Maybe you have people in your life that will remind you, hey, praise the Lord. And that's great.

But whether you have those people in your life or not, you need more than, you know, a couple people in your life can provide that reminder. You need to be reminding yourself, talking to yourself, speaking to yourself, bless the Lord, oh my soul, expressing your thanks and praise and love to God. He's worthy. It's your duty and it's a privilege to bless the Lord. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,

as we consider all that you have done, who you are, your mercy, your grace, your incredible blessings in our lives. Lord, I pray that you would stir up within us like you did within the psalmist. Lord, those reminders, that heart that expresses praise and thanks to you. Help us, God, to bless your name, to glorify you.

Lord, to give you the honor and the credit for everything in our lives. Lord, that we would not hold on to anything or be impressed with ourselves, but Lord, that we would bless you with all of our heart, recognizing, God, that it's you who has done so much. Thank you, Lord, for remembering our frailties. Thank you, Lord, for not expecting us to measure up to those high expectations in our own strength, but Lord, that you want to develop those things in us and teach us

to live the life that you want us to live. And so, Lord, we invite you to do that. Would you give us strength? Show us grace and mercy. And Lord, we'll bless you for it. In Jesus' name.