Psalm 103. We looked at the first 12 verses last
week. And today we're going to look at the rest
of the psalm. Psalm 103, starting in verse 13.
Last week we talked about the Lord's gracious
compassion and His love for us, even though we
were undeserving. That we rejoice in the fact
that God is slow to anger and rich in faithful
love and that he gives us grace that we are undeserving
of. And in this psalm, David is praising the
Lord. He starts the psalm off with praising the
Lord and he's going to conclude the psalm with
praising the Lord. And that's what we're going
to see in a few minutes. We're going to read
from 13 through the end of the chapter, but we're
only going to focus on kind of these first few
verses tonight. 13 through 17, but let's read
through these few verses and we'll pray and we'll
get started. Psalm 103 verse 13. As a father
has compassion on his children, so the Lord has
compassion on those who fear him. For he knows
what we are made of, remembering that we are
dust. As for man, his days are like grass. He
blooms like a flower of the field. When the wind
passes over it, it vanishes and its place is
no longer known. But from eternity to eternity,
the Lord's faithful love is toward those who
fear him and his righteousness toward the grandchildren
of those who keep his covenant, who remember
to observe his precepts. The Lord has established
his throne in heaven. and his kingdom rules over
all. Praise the Lord, all his angels of great
strength, who do his word, obedient to his command.
Praise the Lord, all his armies, his servants,
who do his will. Praise the Lord, all his works,
and all the places where he rules. My soul prays
Yahweh. Let's pray. God, we thank you for this
psalm of praise, dear Lord, and I pray. that
we would be a people who would praise you tonight,
that we would see that we are not a whole lot,
dear Lord. We don't have a whole lot to offer.
We are sinners, God. But we thank you that you
love us anyway. And just as David had experienced
your grace and love, so may we experience that
grace and love and rejoice in it today. And I
ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. We talked
last week about the fact that God is so full
of compassion and love and that he cast our sins
as far as the east is from the west. And we left
off on that thought. And then David picks up
right here in this verse we see in verse 13.
As a father has compassion on his children, so
the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.
Now that's a beautiful verse for us to think
about. Not all fathers in this world are good.
There are many good fathers. There are some fathers
who perhaps don't have compassion on their children,
but I believe, generally speaking, fathers do
have compassion on their children. And when a
child comes into the world, that child cannot
offer you much, at least not in a physical sense.
The child comes into the world and... It can't
take the garbage out. It can't feed itself. It
can't wash your car. Eventually, at like 13 years
old, it can, and then you can get all kind of
good stuff. You can get them to bring you a glass
of water and anything else, and it's good. But
when they first come into the world, they are
really helpless, and they are hopeless apart
from you. They have come into this world, and
they can't offer nothing. Not only do they not
offer you anything, they take from you. They
take your sleep. You got to change stinky, dirty
diapers. You got to feed them. You got to rock
them. You got to buy clothes every other week
because they're just growing and growing and
growing and new shoes and new clothes. And it's
a lot. And here's this life form that really
can't give you anything in one sense, but it
gives you everything in another sense. It gives
you a blessing that is, I'm assuming, I'm not
a parent, that is probably beyond measure. that
is completely dependent on you. It can't offer
you anything, but you get great joy from knowing
that you brought this life into this world. And
so you are compassionate toward that child. You
say, I've got to feed this child. It's got an
earache. I've got to take it to the doctor. I've
got to make sure it gets medicine. I'm going
to sacrifice my sleep. I'm going to go without
things that I need. Because I'm not worried about
me, I'm worried about that child. And there's
a compassion that comes for a father, for a mother,
for a child. And this is the language that David
uses here. He says, As a father has compassion
on his children, so the Lord has compassion on
those who fear him. That's a phrase that we see
a lot through this passage. Those who fear him.
Now, those who don't fear the Lord don't seek
the Lord. Those who don't seek the Lord don't
follow His commands. They don't live according
to His will. They don't experience His blessing.
And fear is a powerful motivator. And we talked
about that on some level Sunday morning. We talked
about discipline. You get a whipping when you're
a child. You get a paddling from your teacher
or a whipping from your parents. And there's
a certain fear that comes along with that. Not
a fear that, oh, I never want to see him again.
Let me run away from home. A fear that, man,
I got in trouble at school and I know I'm going
to get a whipping when I get home. And you just
kind of dread that. There's a certain fear there,
but that fear is a powerful motivator to say,
okay, I better do what my father or mother says
because there's a certain respect there. And
there's a real fear there. It's not just a reverent
fear. There's a real fear like, if I do this,
I'm going to get in trouble. And the Lord shows
us plenty of examples through Scripture of His
people. not being obedient to him. And God kind
of hands them over to their enemies or lets them
wander in the wilderness for a while. And that
type of discipline has a way of getting our attention.
And the point is, is that God wants us to know
that, look, I love you. The reason I'm telling
you to do these things is because I love you.
And when you don't do them, I allow these things
to happen to you. I discipline you in this way
so that you will fear me and think twice about
it and keep my commands. And that's the idea
that we see David acknowledging through this
psalm. God wants us to be people who fear him.
Not that we walk around just scared to death
that God's going to strike us dead. But there
is a certain fear there that one day we will
have to answer to the Lord. And David says, the
Lord has compassion on those who fear Him. Those
who fear Him keep His commands. Wisdom comes
from fear to some extent. And we see that echoed
here throughout this psalm. Listen to what it
says of us, though, in verse 14. For He knows
what we are made of, remembering that we are
dust. We are dust. God made us out of dust. I
mean, there's really not a whole lot that we
can offer God. What in the world can we do for
God? Just like that baby we talked about. That
baby comes into the world, and there's really
not a whole lot that we can do for God. I mean,
God created everything. He created everything
that there is, and He can create anything He
wants to create, things that we could not even
comprehend or imagine God could create. And isn't
it pretty phenomenal that of all the things that
God could create, that He created us. He created
humanity out of dust. He didn't make us out of
gold and diamonds. Like, we think about these
things as being valuable. Like, if we were going
to make something valuable, what materials would
we use? We would use the finest materials we
could find. And yet God took the dust of the
earth and look at you. Look at your grandchildren.
Look at your children. Is there anything more
beautiful in all of the world than that? Now
there's some beautiful stuff in the world. Beautiful
stuff. Trees and mountains and ocean and waterfalls.
And it is so beautiful. But is there anything
more beautiful than a child coming into the world?
I suspect probably not. If you think of something,
you can tell me afterwards. You can pull me aside
and say, I'll tell you what's more beautiful.
My new car I got. Well, I think you're wrong.
I don't think there's anything more beautiful
than a life that's created. And God didn't create
us for any reason that He's going to call us
to do some work or enslave us or anything like
that. God created us, or at least I believe God
created us. Because God is a God of love. And
I don't think love is much good if you don't
have anybody to share it with. And God created
us. And there is something unique and there is
something special about humanity. Something special
in that God created us, but not anything special
in that we can do anything for God other than
love Him. God wants to love us and He wants us
to love Him. And that's a beautiful thing. And
so there's nothing spectacular about us. There's
nothing that we can go before God and say, God,
I'm so awesome. I'm bringing this to you. I'm
deserving of your forgiveness. David's already
said we are undeserving of God's grace. Yet God
bestows that on us through Jesus Christ because
he loves us. Listen to what he says in the next
verse. As for man, his days are like grass. He
blooms like a flower of the field. When the wind
passes over it, it vanishes, and its place is
no longer known. What are we like in the grand
scheme of things throughout the history of the
world? We're like grass. It's unremembered by
everybody that's come before us and will come
after us. Nobody's going to remember who you
are in 100 years, probably. Probably. Maybe somebody
in your family will have a family tree. They'll
see your name on a page somewhere or on a screen.
But it's likely nobody's going to remember who
a single one of us are. Lord willing, maybe Enterprise
Baptist Church will still be here. A hundred
years, it may not be. Nobody's going to remember
us. We're like grass that's here today and going
tomorrow. Guess what? It's springtime. If you
hadn't already, you fitting out to cut your grass.
How many blades of grass have you chopped down
in your lifetime? How many of them do you remember?
I'm going to guess zero, unless maybe you got
a piece of grass in your eye or something that
you had to dig out and it was painful. Like,
chances are, you don't remember any of it. You
chop it up, millions of blades of grass in a
lifetime. You don't remember it. It's here. It's
gone. It blows to and fro when the wind comes.
We just had a little tornado come through here.
Trees, big, big trees that have grown for decades.
Wind comes, boom. What does it say? It talks
about the wind. Blows them over. They're done.
There'll be firewood in somebody's stove and
they'll burn up and that'll be the end. A tree
that was here today that we knew that was there,
we say, man, I hate that big old tree fell. Five
years from now, nobody will even remember that
tree was there. It's here today and it's gone
tomorrow. That's what humanity is. That's the
point that David is trying to make. When the
wind passes over it, it vanishes. Its place is
no longer known. But yet God loves us. We look
at a blade of grass, we don't think anything
of it. To us, it's worthless. We are a people
who are made of dust. We are a people who are
here today and gone tomorrow. But in the eyes
of an eternal God, we are precious in His sight.
So much so that He sent Jesus Christ to die on
a cross for us. That's pretty phenomenal. That's
pretty special that you'd send your only son
to die. For a sinful people who, by all accounts
that we would measure as humans, is pretty worthless.
But we are not worthless to God. God created
you. You were knit in your mother's womb. God
knew who you were. He knew who you would be.
He knows every hair on your head. He knows how
many there are. For some of us, it ain't that
hard for Him to keep count. But whether it's
one or whether it's a thousand or whether it's
a million, God knows everything about you. And
you are special to God. And there are a lot of
people in this world that are lost trying to
find their way and they feel so worthless. And
maybe there are some of them here tonight or
maybe there are some of them listening online
and they need to know, you need to know that
God loves you and you are worth something in
the eyes of God. That He created you. That He
didn't just create you to go to and fro and fear
of the world and stress. All these things, He
created you so that He could love you and so
that you could love Him and so that He could
love you as a father loves his child and be compassionate
towards you and give you strength and hope. And
He does that through Jesus Christ. So even though
we are here today and gone tomorrow, we were
created by an eternal God who wants us to share
in that eternity. We may have had a beginning,
God wants us to have an eternity through Jesus
Christ. It says in the next verse, but from eternity
to eternity, the Lord's faithful love is toward
those who fear Him. Boy, that's good to know.
We are short -lived in this world. We come, we
go. People here know us. A few years, we'll be
forgotten. But God says, I won't forget you because
I created you. And I want to spend an eternity
with you. God loves us and we are worth something
in the eyes of God. And the way that we fully
understand God's love is through Jesus Christ.
That if we would repent of our sins, if we would
realize that we have nothing to offer God but
that Jesus Christ offered his life for us, that's
grace. There's nothing we have to offer God.
God says, I want you just to come to me. I want
you to accept the gift of grace in Jesus Christ.
Have you done that? Have you asked the Lord to
forgive you? Have you trusted in Jesus Christ?
Have you realized that your life is worth something?
No, we're not deserving of God's love, but that's
why it's called grace. And David knew that. David
was a godly man, but he was a man who sinned
greatly. And he knew he wasn't deserving of God's
love, but he had experienced God's love. And
David penned this psalm, and he starts it with
praise, and he ends it with praise. May we rejoice
and praise the Lord tonight. Let's pray. God,
we thank you for these good words. I pray, God,
that you would help us to know that we are special
in your sight. We may not feel special. Our life
may be full of trouble and we may feel worthless
at times, dear Lord, but if nobody else has ever
showed us or told us or let us know that we are
worth something, I pray, God, that everybody
here tonight and everybody listening online will
know that they are worth something in your sight,
dear Lord, that your word speaks of the fact
that you created us, that you love us, that you
care for us. And so, God, I pray. that we would
all find hope in Jesus Christ tonight, that we
would know that we have value in your eyes, dear
Lord, not because of anything we can do, God.
We don't have a whole lot we can offer you. The
only thing you want, dear Lord, is for us to
love you, for us to love you and to seek you
and just to follow your commands, dear Lord,
so that you can bring about goodness in our life,
dear Lord, to just walk in faith to you. And
I pray, God, that if there are any... who do
not know Jesus Christ, if they had put their
faith and trust in Him tonight, that we would
all rejoice in You. And I ask these things in
Jesus' name. Amen.