Introduction
I often read Psalm 103 to the people I visit when conducting pastoral visitation, because it’s a wonderful psalm about all the good things which God promises to do for his people. And so, in the midst of our troubles, we can take hope, because the God we worship promises to forgive our sins and to heal our diseases and to redeem us from the pit of death and to crown us with love and compassion in his presence for ever. And our God is compassionate and gracious and slow to anger and abounding in love. And his love for us is great; and he has compassion on all who fear him. This wonderful psalm reminds us that we have a wonderful God who goes good things for us. And it reminds us why we should praise him. And, of course, all these benefits become ours because of Christ our Saviour, who has made peace for us with God by his self-sacrifice on the cross.
The psalm begins with David exhorting himself to praise the Lord for all the good things God does for his people. Then he recalls God’s loving-kindness and goodness to his people, Israel. And the psalm end with David calling on all of creation to praise the Lord.
Verses 1 to 5
And so, we turn to verses 1 to 5 where David exhorts himself to praise the Lord.
In verse 1 David addresses his soul and tells his soul to praise the Lord. By addressing his soul, he’s talking to himself. He’s telling himself what he must do. And he expands on what he means by his soul in the second line where he refers to ‘all my inmost being’. So, every part of me should praise the Lord. All that is within me should praise God. I should praise God with mind and heart and will and with all of my being.
And David tells himself to praise ‘the Lord’. Since Lord is in capital letters in the NIV, then that tells you that he’s using God’s special covenant name, which speaks to us of God’s commitment to his people. And so, this is the God we are to praise with all of our being: the God who has bound himself to us with a promise to be our God and to save us from our sin and misery.
David also describes him as being holy. God is holy because he is separated from everything else. He alone is God, our Creator and Redeemer. He is unique. He’s the only God and he deserves our praise.
In verse 2, David repeats the exhortation to his soul to praise the Lord. And then he adds that he must not forget all of God’s benefits. That is, he must not forget to praise God for all the good things he does for us. Notice that David refers to all of God’s benefits. In verse 1, he referred to all of his own inmost being; now he refers to all of God’s benefits. So, he must remember to praise God with all of his inmost being for all of God’s benefits. And so, what benefits does he mean? What good things does God do for us?
David lists some of them in verses 3 to 5. First of all — and this is the foundational benefit — he forgives all your sins. There’s the word ‘all’ again. God doesn’t forgive only some of our sins; he forgives all of our sins. He pardons us for all that we have done wrong and for all our shortcomings. He forgives our big sins and he forgives all of the little sins. He forgives them all. And this benefit is foundational, because once we have been pardoned by God, and have peace with him, then we can expect all these other good things from the Lord.
And so, secondly, he forgives all our diseases. There’s the word ‘all’ again. And since David uses the word ‘all’, then I think he must be thinking of what God will do for us in the age to come. Because of Adam’s sin in the beginning, this present age is marked by sorrow and sadness and by disease and death. Our life in this world is full of troubles and trials and sickness. But in the new and better world to come, there will be no more sorrow or sadness or disease or death, but perfect peace and rest and happiness for ever. God will heal us of all our diseases in the life to come. And in the meantime, he heals us from some of our diseases by sending us doctors and other medical professionals with the knowledge and expertise and desire to help us.
Thirdly, God redeems our life from the pit. When David mentions the pit, he’s referring to the pit of death. And God preserves our life from the pit of death by keeping us alive. When we’re in danger, he rescues us. When we’re sick, he heals us. He therefore keeps us alive. However God redeems us ultimately, or he delivers us, from the pit of death by giving us eternal life in his presence. And so, when we die, our bodies are laid to rest in the ground, but our souls go to be with the Lord in heaven. And then, when Christ returns, our bodies will be raised from the dead and re-united with our souls and we will live with the Lord in body and soul for ever and for ever. Death for the believer is no longer a dark pit to be feared, but it’s the doorway into God’s presence.
And there, in God’s presence, he will crown us with love and compassion; and he will satisfy our desires with good things; and our youth will be renewed like the eagle. And so, in the life to come, we will be full of love and compassion. That is to say, we will be made perfect. And in the life to come, we will not feel that we’re lacking anything. We’ll have all that we need. And while we often feel tired and weak and old in this life, our old tired, weak and broken bodies will perfectly renewed in the life to come, so we’ll feel that we can soar like an eagle.
This is what God has promised to do for his people. And therefore, praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Verses 6 to 18
In verses 6 to 18, David recalls God’s loving-kindness and goodness to his people, Israel.
In verse 6 David tells us that the Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed. He means the Lord does what is right and just for them. So, when the Israelites were oppressed by the Egyptians, God rescued them. And therefore, at that time, God made known his ways and his deeds to Moses and to his people. He made known to them that he is a God who saves. And he made known to them that he is compassionate and gracious and slow to anger and abounding in love. His compassion is his mercy. It’s his kindness to them. And since God is not only compassionate, but gracious too, then he’s willing to help his people even though we don’t deserve it. What the Israelites deserved for their sins and shortcomings was to be condemned. But because of his grace, God rescued them from their captivity. And since he’s slow to anger, then he’s very patience with his wayward people. And his steadfast love for them is abundant.
Verse 8 recalls what the Lord revealed to Moses about himself after the golden calf episode. Since the people had turned from the Lord and bowed down to an idol, they deserved to be destroyed. But since the Lord is compassionate and gracious and slow to anger and abounding in love, the Lord did not destroy them and agreed to accompany them as they made their way to the Promised Land. And though we sin against the Lord continually, and fall short of doing his will, he does not condemn us either. Instead he pardons us and he promises to remain us with always while we make our way to the Promised Land of eternal life.
In verse 9, David says that the Lord will not always accuse and he will not harbour his anger for ever. He may discipline us for a time, but he will not destroy us, because he does not treat us as our sins deserve nor repay us according to our iniquities. If he did, there would be no hope for any of us, because all of us have sinned and fallen short of his glory. But he not does treat us according to our sins, but according to his compassion and mercy and his patience and steadfast love.
His love, David tells us, is as great as the heavens are above the earth; and he removes our transgressions from us as far as the east is from the west. So, we’re to think of the greatest distance possible: the distance between the heavens and the earth or the distance between the east and the west. You can’t reach up from the earth and touch the heavens. You can’t reach across from the east to touch the west. So, it’s a great distance. And God’s love for us is great like that. And because of his great love for us, he removes our sins from us and puts them as far away from us as possible. And so, he will never punish us for them, because they’re gone for good.
And just as a human father loves his children, and is good and kind to them, so God our Father is good and kind to us. That is to say, he is good and kind ‘to those who fear him’. David referred to fearing God in verse 11 as well where he said that God’s love is towards those who fear him. To fear God means to worship him. And so, he’s referring to God’s people. If you’re one of God’s people, if you worship him, then you can count on God’s love and compassion. They are for you.
And then, in verses 14 to 18, David compares the brevity of our life with God’s everlasting love. So, God our Father knows us. He knows how we were formed. He remembers that we are from the dust of the earth and will return to dust one day. Therefore we are weak and mortal and our days are like grass or flowers. In Israel, grass and flowers would spring up in the morning because of the dew, but they would shrivel up and die in the heat of the day. In other words, they did not last. And we are like them, because we will not last. We are weak and frail and mortal. Our life is short. But the Lord’s love for his people is from everlasting to everlasting. It never ends. He always treats us according to his love and righteousness. And his covenant commitment to his people does not run out, but it continues down through the generations.
Verses 19 to 22
The psalm ends with David saying that God has established his throne in the heavens and his kingdom rules over all. In other words, the Lord our God rules from heaven over all. Therefore the heavenly host of angels should praise him. And all his works — all that he has made on earth — should praise him. Heaven and earth should praise the Lord. And I should praise the Lord.
Conclusion
We should praise the Lord, because of all the good things he does for his people. He forgives our sins; and promises to heal our diseases; and to raise us from the dead; and to bring us into his presence where we will soar like an eagle. He is compassionate and gracious towards us and slow to anger and abounding in love. And he doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. Instead he removes them from us as far as the east is from the west. And he’s able to remove our sins from us, because of Christ our Saviour, who has paid for our sins with his life. Because of Christ, we have peace with God and can expect all these other good things from God. What we deserve from God is his wrath and his curse, because none of us has kept his covenant or obeyed his precepts perfectly. Like the Israelites, we sin against him continually and we don’t love, trust and worship him as we should. We have therefore fallen short of doing his will. But Christ has paid for our sins with his life. And so, God removes them from us; he takes them away from us; and instead of giving us what we deserve, he gives us what we don’t deserve, which is all of the good things which the psalmist has mentioned from our forgiveness to our complete renewal in his presence. And so, we can take hope, and find comfort, by remembering how wonderful our God is and by remembering why he deserves our praise. Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.
Sermons and Stuff 