Good morning to those who do not know me. My
name is Dalton Vedder and I am the ministerial
intern here at Fairview. My job normally is to
follow Kenny around and follow his example, but
today I have the honor and the pleasure of actually
getting to bring to you the word of God. And
it's a very special day to get to do that. Today
is one of those days that my grandma would call
it a cup of plenty. It's a cup full of blessings.
We had the teaching of the word this morning
in Sunday school. We get to come and sing and
glorify the Lord now after service. We get to
attend a beautiful wedding. And then we get to
celebrate later today, 240 years of Fairview
as we plan for the full celebration. And then
we get to come back tonight for an evening service
where we get to praise the Lord again and hear
from his word. It is a cup of plenty. It's more
than we deserve. But but sometimes we feel like
we lack that cup of plenty and we desire it We
have times in our lives and we even see it amongst
our couple plenty today of grieving and suffering
and of struggles But whether it's a day full
of blessing or season of your life full of blessing
or a season of your life filled with trials What
will ultimately learn this morning from Psalm
103? that we always have a cup of plenty and
So if you'll turn with your Bibles to me to Psalm
103 We're going to talk about praising the Lord
and blessing the Lord for all the good that he
does for us But before we read through the chapter,
let me go ahead and pray and ask for the spirits
help in doing this our Lord and our God We praise
you for you who you are You are the God who forgives
iniquities, who heals our diseases, who redeems
us from the pit. You lift us up so that we soar
on wings like eagles and you renew our strength
when we are weak. Lord, we ask your help this
morning to understand everything that you have
hidden in your word for us today. Lord, help
us to praise you through the reading and preaching
of your word this morning. Pray all of this in
Jesus' name. Amen. So Psalm 103 of David bless
the Lord. Oh my soul and all that is within me
Bless his holy name bless the Lord. Oh my soul
and forget not his benefits Who forgives all
your iniquity who heals all your diseases who
redeems your life from the pit? who crowns you
with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies
you with good so that your youth is renewed like
the eagles. The Lord works righteousness and
justice for all who are oppressed. He made known
his ways to Moses, his acts of the people of
Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow
to anger and abounding and steadfast love. He
will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger
forever. He does not deal with us according to
our sins nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love to those who fear
him. As far as the east is from the west, so
far does he remove our transgressions from us.
As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear
him. For he knows our frame. He remembers that
we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass.
He flourishes like a flower of the field, for
the wind passes over it and it is gone, and in
its place knows it no more. But the steadfast
love 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 to do his commandments. The Lord
has established his throne in the heavens and
his kingdom rules over all. Bless the Lord, O
you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word,
obeying the voice of his word. Bless the Lord,
all his hosts, his ministers who do his will.
Bless the Lord, all his works and the places
of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul. So
as the beginning of the Psalm states, this is
a Psalm of David. Now, normally Psalms are tied
to a specific event or time in Israel's life
and we know why they're written and why the psalmist
is talking about what they're talking about.
But this is one of those Psalms that seems to
have no event tied to it. It's a Psalm just of
pure praise, of pure worship, of encouragement
to our souls. And maybe this is towards the end
of David's life as he sits and reflects on all
that the Lord has done for him and for the nation
of Israel, looking forward to all that the Lord
will do. I think that's maybe the safest place
to assume that the psalm has taken place, David
reflecting on his life, because this is a psalm
of praise, but it's a psalm of praise that comes
out of reflection. And that scene in the beginning
of chapter one, because David begins the psalm
with a personal reflection and praise in verses
one to five. David says, bless the Lord, oh my
soul. The word bless here is actually the word
for praise, but it's not just the generic act
of worship of praising, but it's a act of praise
that comes out of thankfulness for all that the
Lord has done. It's an honoring the Lord. It's
very similar to actually the beginning of our
Lord's prayer telling the Lord that his name
should be hallowed and David tells his soul to
praise the Lord, but it's not just his soul.
It's all that is within him. David is pulling
on the Shema here the national chant of Israel
that says the Lord your God is one and you shall
love him with all your heart with all your mind
with all your soul and with all your strength.
David is telling his whole person to worship.
He's encouraging it to worship. And this is what
we have to do as believers in times where we're
struggling. We have to follow David's example
here and encourage our soul in worshiping. And
David continues on, telling his soul again to
bless the Lord and not to forget the Lord's benefits,
to not forget the good of the Lord. Now, forgetting
here does not just mean a casual, oh, I forgot
what the Lord did. But it actually means no,
I know of the cross. I know what the Lord has
sacrificed I know how the Lord has has sustained
us as a church and how he sustained the nation
of Israel But I will choose to ignore that it's
a willful forgetting But the psalmist here is
telling his soul do not do that Remember the
good of the Lord And then David tells us why.
He tells us five attributes that the Lord has
that we must remember. Or five who's that David
will say here. The Lord is the Lord who forgives
all of our iniquity. This benefit is the greatest
benefit. It's the chief benefit. Without this
benefit from God, none of the others matter.
Calvin says that reconciliation with Him, with
God, is the fountain from which all other blessings
flow. And what we'll see here, too, is that the
forgiveness that God gives is through His Son.
This is actually a Messianic Psalm that points
us to the future and to the Messiah. It's talking
about the God who plans and the Son who accomplishes
and the Spirit who applies. And so David begins
with forgiveness for sins because it's the most
important thing of all. It allows us to come
into covenant, to come into relationship with
God because otherwise we are sinners separate
from God who cannot enter his presence. While
close to forgiveness is healing, God is the God
who heals from our diseases. Jesus actually makes
this comparison in Mark chapter two, handling
the paralytic man. Man's friends had taken time
to lower him through the roof to get him to Jesus,
and this man is laying in front of Jesus, and
Jesus does not say, I'm healing you, get up and
walk. Jesus actually says, your sins are forgiven,
now go. And Jesus gets questioned about it, and
Jesus just says, well, what is easier, for me
to say your sins are forgiven, that he knows
you will have no guilt, or to tell him to get
up and walk? There is a close tie to forgiveness
and healing from all our diseases and We don't
always have immediate relief in this life but
we do look forward to a day when Christ will
come again and there will be no more weeping
and there will be no more death because we are
forgiven and Then we're healed and we're healed
internally as well from the disease of death.
So our lives are redeemed from the pit We no
longer look forward to a day of punishment, but
a day of celebration and joy before the throne
of God, because we are forgiven and we have been
healed. And on that day, we will be crowned with
steadfast love and mercy. As children of God,
we're told in Galatians that we are sons, and
if we are sons, we are then heirs, we are royalty
to the throne of God. And we're given God's steadfast
love and mercy. Steadfast love is a key aspect
of the psalm. It's a Hebrew word, hesed. And
if you listen to Reformed and Presbyterian pastors
for very long, you'll hear this word come up
often. Especially as they go through the Old
Testament, they will always stop and pause. Because
steadfast love contains so much. Steadfast love
points to the covenant, the bond and blood, the
contract that we have between us and God. That
as long as we follow him and obey his commandments,
that we will receive his blessing. And it's actually
a covenant of grace because it's not us who are
doing the commandments. We do follow Christ,
but it's Christ who accomplishes the commandments
of God, the works of God, and allows us to walk
in them. So the steadfast love is an active and
an ongoing love. It's one that there's a close
bond, a contract tied to it. And with it comes
the mercy of God. And out of that steadfast love
and mercy being crowned, we are satisfied with
the good things of the Lord. The Lord satisfies
us in ways that we will never understand. There
are times when everything should be hectic, but
it's not. And there are times where even amongst
the chaos we can find some good. Because it's
the Lord who gives us grace and gives us mercy
beyond anything we can find. And finally, it's
out of all of these things that the Lord renews
us like eagles. He strengthens us. We're at the
250th anniversary of America. And of course,
closely tied to America is the bald eagle. Because
it's a symbol of strength. And maybe some of
you have taken time to go to Dollywood and they
actually have an eagle sanctuary, an eagle habitat.
And I remember going and seeing those eagles
for the first time, and I understood why America
had picked this bird as a symbol of strength,
or why the psalmist would pick this bird as a
symbol of strength. An eagle is bigger than most
dogs, and they can live for years. They live
30 or 40 years. And they soar through the sky,
and there's no other bird that can touch them.
And that is what the Lord does for us. We have
a heart of wickedness, of sinfulness, but he
takes it and he gives us a heart of life and
he gives us his strength, so that we can praise
him. But then the psalmist moves on here, talking
about the attributes of God, to now he's actually
going to talk about the works of God. He doesn't
just praise God for who he is, but what God has
done. And so we'll see that in verses six through
10. There's a national reflection. and praise
that David gives. David, after thinking on the
Lord, begins to think of Israel and what God
had done to the nation. He begins by saying the
word, the Lord works righteousness and justice
for all who are oppressed. If we were to simplify
this and make the translation a little bit more
literal, it would actually say God does works
of righteousness and works of justice for the
oppressed. This is an action phrase. And David
is thinking of Israel at this point, of Egypt,
thinking of this nation in captivity who are
being oppressed. They were in slavery, but then
the Lord freed Israel from Egypt and brought
them out of that place to be with them, to dwell
with them, to teach them his commandments. And
so the Lord found justice, but the Lord didn't
just find justice for Israel. He finds justice
for all the oppressed, all those who have suffered.
all those who need help. The Lord is their strength
and their shield. And David continues the thinking
of Israel. He says that the Lord made his way
known to Moses and his acts to the people of
Israel. This quotation here is actually almost
verbatim, word for word, from Exodus 34, which
follows the incident of the golden calf. Israel
had been brought up. brought up out of Egypt
through the Red Sea and taken to the mount. And
Moses goes up to the mountain to receive the
Ten Commandments and while Moses is away, the
children of Israel fall in the sin. They craft
a golden calf and they begin to worship and praise
it instead of the one true God. Moses comes back
down and he sees what is happening and he breaks
the tablets of stone over his legs. But then
Moses after that there's some rebuking of the
people but Moses ultimately intercedes for the
people and asked the Lord to continue to dwell
with them and for the Lord to show him his ways
for the Lord to show Moses his ways and Moses
has taken back up on the mountain to receive
the new copy of the Ten Commandments and God
tells Moses in Exodus 34 6 And the Lord passed
by before him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord,
a God full of compassion and graciousness, slow
to anger and plentish in mercy and in truth,
keeping mercy for thousands and forgiving iniquity
and transgression and sin, but will by no means
clear the guilty. And David here is going to
reflect on this phrase of Moses for the rest
of. the section here until the end of verse 10
and even a little bit into 11 and 12. Moses heard
that the Lord is merciful and gracious, that
the Lord is willing to forgive. The first commandment
is to have no other gods before you and the Israelites
did just that. They broke the number one commandment
and the Lord would have been perfectly just to
destroy the Israelites then and there. But no,
the Lord gave them mercy. He did not strike out
in anger and He gave them His grace, unmerited
favor. And He was slow to anger and He chose
to keep His covenant with them. Now we do know
that later in Israel's life that the first generation
would be kept from the promised land, part of
the covenant, but the Lord still was faithful
to their children and He brought their children
in. Because the Lord was slow to anger and he
gave them many many chances and he was always
faithful to his covenant But thinking of the
children of Israel the second generation David
said that the Lord will not always chide. This
actually means prosecute Say it's a legal term
to bring charges against The Lord does not always
bring charges against us even in our sin And
he does not keep his anger at us forever. And
that brings David to the conclusion that the
Lord does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor does he repay us for our iniquities. The
Lord knows that we will sin. We have sin in this
life that causes us to go against his law. But
he does not repay us accordingly. He will discipline
us, but so it's that we can love him more and
love him better. And most of all, he saves us
from death. We know from Romans 6 .23 that the
wages of sin is death. But the Lord and his son,
Jesus, does not give us that punishment, does
not deal with us accordingly. Now, sometimes
we act like the Lord does. We remember a sin,
maybe a lie, or maybe we forget to tithe or something
like that, and then the next month comes around.
and our car breaks down or a tree falls on our
house or something happens and we start acting
like the Lord is dealing with us according to
the sin. Even though we might have confessed
for getting to tithe. We hold onto it and we
cling to it and we think that there's consequences
coming out of this one situation of sin that
the Lord is just continuing to chastise us over.
But David tells us not to do that, to remember.
the goodness of the Lord that we are forgiven,
that when we confess our sins that we are forgiven
those sins and that the Lord does not hold them
against us. And then David moves on now to a
covenant reflection and a covenant remembrance.
He goes from just the nation of Israel to all
those who will come into relationship with him.
This forgiveness of sins and iniquities goes
out from Israel. For as high as the heavens are
above the earth, so great is the said fast love
to those who fear them. As far as the east is
from the west, so far does he remove our transgression
from us. It's not just those in Israel who receive
the forgiveness of the Lord. It's those who will
come to fear him, or who do fear him. and He
separates those who love Him, who follow Him
and believe in Him from their sins as far as
the east is from the west. And if you follow
that, if you're going from east to west to west
to east, it will just be one never -ending circle.
You will never reach the end of it. We will never
be able to find our sins again because the Lord
has separated them from us. And He does so because
He is a compassionate Father to His children,
verses 13 and 14. And the word compassionate
is actually God pities those who fear him. You
know, a good father or a good mother, parents
with kids, you'll understand this. That you watch
your little children, maybe as a baby, as they
try to pull themselves up on a chair for the
first time and stand up, but then they fall right
back down on their bottom. Or maybe they get
a little older and you see them start to reach
for food or reach for an object on a shelf, maybe
a toy. and they're not quite strong enough to
reach it and pull it down. Or maybe your children
aren't little anymore and they're adult children
and you're watching the decisions they make and
you're going, well, I wouldn't make that decision,
but I will walk alongside you. You have a level
of pity for them as they learn about life and
how things work. And this is how God treats us.
He understands that we do not know everything,
that we are always growing and learning and changing,
learning how to follow Him better. So he has
pity on us and he shows anyone who fears him
compassion He knows our frame he knows that we
are but dust from the very beginning and Adam
God created us out of the dust out of the dirt
Nothing special not gold or silver We were not
some angelic beings. We were made out of dirt
and given the breath of God God remembers this
and he shows us compassion. Man is temporal.
We're temporary. We have a birth date and we
have an end date. We have a day that we die.
Our days are like grass. We don't know what will
happen. We go through seasons and things change
just like the grass outside. Right now we're
in summer and the grass is green and it's beautiful.
But at times weeds come up and then we have to
put fertilizer on it to make it green again.
And so there's days of blessing, but then there's
even days where, you know, as the weather gets
colder, the grass turns brown and it looks different.
And that's how our lives are. Some days there's
days of blessing and days of mercy and it's beautiful
and things are going well. And then there's days
where maybe we're stuck in a particular sin.
We're temporal. We're even called a flower of
the field. Flowers of the field can be beautiful.
But they can also be food for animals. Or if
you think back to Hurricane Helene, those flowers
can be ripped out of the ground and misplaced.
They can be tossed to and fro by the wind and
forget where they belong. But the Lord is in
contrast to this. When we're temporal and we
have a birthday and a death day, the Lord is
eternal. He is from everlasting to everlasting.
And his covenant is from everlasting to everlasting.
He tells Abraham this in Genesis 17 seven, I
will establish my covenant between me and you
and your descendants after you throughout your
generations for an everlasting covenant to be
God to you and to your descendants after you.
and then thinking of Christ to accomplish the
forgiveness of sins, in Hebrews 1320, the writer
says, now may the God of peace, who brought again
from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd
of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant,
equip you with everything good, that you may
do his will, working in us that which is pleasing
in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be
the glory forever and ever. Amen. What the writer
of Hebrews tells us there is actually essential
to what the psalmist is saying here because the
psalmist will go on and say that all those who
keep the covenant the Lord will give his righteousness
to. But it's Christ who actually helps us keep
the covenant. It's by his spirit. It is the spirit
working in us that causes us to be pleasing in
the sight. And that's true whether it's Old Testament
or New Testament. The Lord has always given his
spirit to help believers keep his covenant so
that the Lord can be faithful to it. And the
Lord is not just faithful to us, but he's faithful
to our children. The righteousness of the Lord
goes to our children's children, all those who
remember his commandments. And we can have confidence
in this and we can praise the Lord for this because
the Lord has established his throne in the heavens.
It is above all, it sees all, it knows all, and
his kingdom rules over all. There's nothing that
God does not have his hand on. And so David returns
to praising the Lord after this reflection to
a final praise. And it's almost identical to
the beginning, but instead of just his soul,
he begins to include others in it. He begins
with the angels, the mighty ones who do his word,
the faithful angels that sit before the throne
of God. The psalmist is commanding them to bless,
to praise the Lord, to be thankful for all that
he has done. They're the highest beings that
we can think of outside of God. And then David
moves to blessing the Lord, all his hosts. This
is all of creation. God created all things just
like he created man. And now David is commanding
this creation to praise the Lord, to praise their
creator because he is good, he forgives and he
heals and he works righteousness. And David includes,
the psalmist includes the ministers in this,
the believers before the throne of God who have
done his will and been faithful and are standing
face to face with their creator. But the word
ministers here also includes us. who are faithful,
we're commanded by the psalmist to come in and
praise and to bless the Lord and to remember
all that he has done. Bless the works, bless
the Lord all his works in all the places of the
of dominion. We are to praise the Lord everywhere
we go. Everything in the Lord's dominion is to
praise him. And then David concludes with telling
his soul once again to bless the Lord, oh my
soul. By doing this David is almost starting
the cycle again He can go back to verse 1 and
recount the works that God has done in Israel
and the forgiveness that he gives by his covenant
it's a never -ending cycle of praise and We should
model this in our own lives today, but even as
we go out from here We should constantly reflect
on the works of the Lord and be driven to praise
him I want to say that one more time, because
if you get nothing else from the sermon, this
is what I want you to remember. You should constantly
reflect on the works of the Lord and be driven
to praise Him. In doing the psalm, I was reminded
of an old hymn. Count your blessings. And I think
it's fitting for this psalm, but also for the
events today. The very last stanza says, are
you ever burdened with a load of care does the
cross seem heavy you are called the bear count
your many blessings every doubt will fly and
you will be singing by the days go by so some
days like today it's very easy to see our cup
of plenty and other days it's much harder but
what we're told is to reflect on the lord and
to praise him and the lord will strengthen us
and the Lord will forgive us and give us his
grace so that we can praise him and be in fellowship
with him. Let me pray.