Psalm 103:1-4, 8-13
August 23, 2020
Dear friends in Christ, what moves you to say praise the Lord? Stop for a moment and think of the last time outside these church walls that you said “praise the Lord.” Perhaps, it was when the results of a medical test came back negative. Or maybe it was when the powerful summer storm, the derecho, moved off away from your community. Or it could have been the job offer that came when you really needed it. In such times you might well say, “Praise the Lord.”
I think that many of us do tend to reserve our “Praise the Lord” proclamations for those big events. Certainly, such occasions call for us to praise God for his good gifts. But there are so many other times when we could rightly say praise the Lord. For example, I woke up this morning. Praise the Lord. There is food on the table. Praise the Lord. I have something meaningful to do. Praise the Lord. The list of reasons to praise God goes on and on.
In our reading today King David writes a poem filled with reasons to praise the Lord. Let’s invest a bit of time thinking about this poem. Let’s do so with the obvious theme: praise the Lord. We will praise him for his spiritual blessings, and for his material blessings.
I
King David begins the poem with a self-exhortation. That is a prod, a prompt, a reminder to himself. He writes, “Praise the Lord, O my soul, all my inmost being, praise his holy name.” The word praise simply means to say good things about someone or something. If you praise a child, you say good things about that child. If you praise a product, you say good things about that product. David reminded himself to say good things about God. The praise was to come from his inmost being. Perhaps we might say “whole-heartedly.”
What would move David to praise the Lord? That is really the heart of the Psalm before us. David provides several answers. He begins with the most important one. David says that the Lord, “Forgives all your sins.” All the sinful thoughts, all the sinful words, all the sinful actions – God forgives them.
A bit later in the poem David used an illustration to highlight forgiveness. He says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” God removes, he takes away, our failures. Like the truck that may pick up our trash and haul it away, God has hauled away our sin.
How far away has he taken it? He did not just take our sin down the road and dump it in an empty lot. He did not take our sin to a landfill in the next county. No, as far as the east is from the west, that is how far God has removed our sin. What a striking picture.
Think of looking toward the east where the morning sun rises. Right now, the sun is about 94 million miles away. That is a long way away. Then think of looking west in the evening. Once again if we stop at the setting sun, it’s about 94 million miles. But why stop there? East and west just keep on going. The two do not meet. That is how far God has removed our sin from us.
There are many other beautiful pictures in the Bible that illustrate forgiveness. God blots out sin. God washes away our sin. God chooses not to remember our sin. God hides his face from our sin. These are but a few striking images used to highlight the concept of forgiveness. Please note, in each one God is the active agent. He forgives.
I appreciate the fact that David says that God forgives all sin. Not just the big ones, not just the little ones, not just the ones I am all too aware of – he forgives all sin. I wonder if there was a particular sin bothering David when he wrote this. Was the guilt of adultery weighing on his conscience? Did the murder of Uriah keep him up at night? Or was it a general recognition of his sinful condition? We do not know. Perhaps it is good that we do not know what was going on in David’s life. This way we truly can appreciate the word all. God forgives all sin.
God does not forgive by pretending it never happened. God does not forgive by changing the definition of morality from generation to generation. No, God is well aware of sin, and he does not soften his stance on morality. So how does he forgive? You know, he takes the sin of others onto himself.
That is what Jesus did. He took the sin of others onto himself. After living the only sin-free life, Jesus willingly accepted the guilt of others. He endured the punishment that should have been administered to others. This is how God forgives.
God forgives sin. To the average human being that fact just does not make sense. “God forgives my failures, that can’t be right. There must be some strings attached.” So says human reason. If you think of the various world religions out there, you realize that Christianity is different. It is unique. You see every other world religion demands that worshippers do something to please God, or to make up for past mistakes. That approach seems natural. But that is not how God operates. He forgives – no strings attached. This is a spiritual wonder. This truth moved David to say, “Praise the Lord.”
II
The premier blessing from God is his forgiveness. David rightly begins with that. But we do not want to overlook the other blessings in our reading. From spiritual blessings David goes on to highlight material ones. He writes that the Lord heals all your diseases. God does that in some amazing ways. Think of the wonderful immune system God has designed into the human body. Because of that system our bodies fight off illnesses.
God also heals our illnesses through the skill he has given to doctors, and through the power that he has packed into various chemical compounds. You realize that drugs fight off illnesses not because of the scientists. No, the scientists simply discover what God has imbedded in the drugs. Amazing!
God heals diseases. Let’s not forget that sometimes he answers prayers by producing a miracle. Many are the true accounts of folks who had given up all hope of a cure for some illness. Then in a miraculous answer to prayer, the disease cleared up.
God heals diseases. Ultimately, he does so in heaven. The book of Revelation tells us that in heaven there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. All problems of this life, including illnesses, will be a thing of the past in paradise. There God will perfectly heal all health issues.
David is not finished yet with his list of blessings. He says that God redeems your life from destruction. I understand that to mean that God protects his people from various calamities. God certainly had spared David from destruction.
I wonder if David thought about the battle against Goliath. The giant, seemingly invincible solider, stood on the battle field. Goliath laughed at the untrained youth lined up against him. But God rescued David. God redeemed his life.
Perhaps David thought about that. Or perhaps he thought about the various times when he was camped out in the battle field surrounded by enemies. About such times David wrote, “I lie down and sleep; I wake again because the Lord sustains me. I will not fear the tens of thousands drawn up against me” (Psalm 3:5-6). Time and time again God protected David.
From God’s protection David moves on. God satisfies our desires. That is, he provides plenty of food. God satisfied David’s desires. As king, David had plenty to eat, probably the best food available. When he sat down at the table it was not just a crust of bread and cup of water set before him. No, the king could eat whatever he wanted.
The food strengthened him. It renewed his youth, or vigor. David used the illustration of an eagle. The eagle has long been a symbol not only of freedom, but of power. After a hard day of work, a good meal renewed the strength of the king.
III
In our reading, David reminds himself of a number of blessings: forgiveness, good health, protection and food. Surely this is not an exhaustive list. From this list of blessings David moves on to answer the question “why.” Why would the Lord forgive him? Why the good health, protection and food?
David answers that in verse eight. The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. With this verse David takes us back to the day of Moses. In fact, he mentions Moses in verse seven which is not printed in your bulletin. David goes back to Moses because God passed in front of Moses proclaiming who he was – the God of love, compassion and forgiveness.
Love, compassion, forgiveness they are the essence of who God is. That love and compassion are at the heart of why God forgives. He does not offer forgiveness based on how sorry people feel about what they have done or said. God does not offer forgiveness because people try hard to make up for what they have done. No, God’s forgiveness simply flows from his nature. He is loving and compassionate, therefore he forgives.
His love and compassion move him to provide all those other blessings David highlighted. Mercy moves him to heal. Compassion compels him to protect his people, and provide for his people. The blessings that came down upon David all flowed from the good intentions of the Lord.
When David thought about this, he was moved to praise God, to acknowledge that every good and perfect gift came from above. I find it interesting that David reminded himself to praise God. He told himself, “Do not forget all his benefits.”
I’m sure that for David, just like for anyone else, it was all too easy to forget. How quickly people begin to take God’s blessings for granted. People think, “Of course, he will forgive me. Of course, he will protect me and feed me.” And how many folks really ponder their good health until it is not so good! Being the sinful human being that he was, David had to remind himself to praise God for these blessings.
Application
Friends now it is time to apply these words to our lives. Which of us can deny that God has been good to us? He forgives all our sins – the ones we are well aware of, and the ones we never even realized we committed, the big ones that plague our consciences and the little one we dismiss with a shrug. God forgives all our sins. He hauls them away as far as the east is from the west. Oh, what good news this is for us!
Not only is that true, but he protects us from all sorts of calamities, he heals our illnesses, he puts food on our table every day. Why? Because he loves us! This is the thing that amazes us. This the thing that moves us to cry out: Wow, I can’t believe this! It’s just too good to be true. But it is true. As counter-intuitive as it may seem to be, God forgives us and blesses us with no strings attached.
Like David we want to respond with praise. We want to say good things about the Lord. We do so here in church. We do so in our homes. We do so at our places of employment. We do so in other social settings. Our lives are a constant song of praise to the Lord. Or at least that is the goal.
Perhaps there are times when we, like king David, need a bit of a reminder. Remember in this poem David does tell himself to praise the Lord. He tells himself, “Don’t forget.” Like David we too need a bit of a reminder. Our nature is just as lazy as his was. We forget, or take for granted God’s blessings, just as much as did David. Oh, how happy we are that he forgives all our sins, even the failure to praise him.
Perhaps we should each begin a journal of praise. By that I mean take a few sheets of lined paper, or a little notebook, jot down one thing each day for which you can thank and praise God. Praise him for forgiving a specific sin. Praise him for the clothing in your closet. Praise him for the gift of friends, children or grandchildren. Praise him for the masks which protect your health. Praise him for the bounty on the dinner table. Each day list one new thing for which you can praise the Lord.
Dear fellow followers of Jesus, do you find the words, “Praise the Lord” regularly passing over your lips? Or do you reserve that phrase for the big events in life? King David reminded himself, and he urges us, to acknowledge the many ways God has been good. Praise him for his daily forgiveness. Praise him for all other daily blessings. May God the Spirit move us to praise the Lord. Amen.