Remember the God Who Remembers You

1:01But this psalm is not just looking backward to things that God did hundreds of years before David was born or thousands of years before we were born. No, this psalm is considering what God is doing right now in David's life and right now in our lives. And friends, what God is doing is Marvelous. What he is doing is marvelous. It is so marvelous that it has to be acknowledged, it has to be celebrated, it has to be rejoiced over.

1:42It's so marvelous that half-hearted celebration, half-hearted worship, simply will not cut it. About 15 years ago, John Mayer wrote a song that he sang with Taylor Swift. It's called Half of My Heart. And in this song, he is singing about this man who is torn between loving his freedom and loving this woman. And he says in the chorus, I can't keep loving you with half of my heart. And at the end of the song, the listener is left wondering: is he going to give his whole heart to this woman? Or is he going to keep his whole heart for himself?

2:33And friends, in Psalm 103, we find that same idea applied to God. Are we going to give him our whole heart? Or are we going to give him half of it? Or none of it? God is so wonderful. His works are so amazing. We cannot go on loving him with half of our hearts. He's worthy to have all of our hearts. This is what David is saying in verse 1. Look there. He says, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. How David is talking to himself here. He's like, Come on, soul, come on, heart. God is worthy of more than this.

3:21He is trying to get himself to a place where he is worshiping God with all of his heart. He's saying, All that is within me, that needs to bless the Lord. That word bless means to praise, to bestow goodness or favor on another. And when applied to God, that word bless implies paying grateful homage, paying special respect and honor. David is not content with just saying the right words. And we talked a few weeks ago in Psalm 98 about the fact that Isaiah and Jesus both said of the people of God at various times, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

4:13David did not want that. We don't want that. We want to obey the greatest commandment, which is to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. But friends, it is difficult, maybe impossible. To love someone that you don't know. And even if you know someone, it's difficult to love them or to grow in love for them if you don't spend any time thinking about them, if you don't spend any time remembering their great qualities and the great things that they've done that made you love them in the first place.

4:56So, here in Psalm 103, that is what David is going to do, and that's what we're going to do. We are going to remember the God who always remembers us. So, that by remembering, we would be stirred up to bless the Lord. And also, we'd be stirred up to invite others to bless the Lord as well. So, here's how we'll do that. Put this outline on the screen for you. We're going to remember God's breathtaking benefits. We're going to remember God's compassionate character. And we're going to remember God's complete commandments.

5:38So, let's start and take time remembering God's breathtaking benefits. Look at verse 2. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Friends, all over scripture, we are told to remember the Lord. Lord, we are warned against forgetting the Lord and what he has done. I want you to look on the screen at what God spoke through Moses as the people were getting ready to enter the promised land. God says through Moses, take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today. Lest when you have eaten and are full, and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

6:46So God tells them ahead of time, be careful, don't forget me. I'm going to bless you. I'm going to give you houses and things. All of your nation is going to prosper. But be careful that when you begin to prosper, you don't become proud and forget me. But of course, if you've read the Old Testament, you know that's what the people do over and over again. In fact, hundreds of years later, we have a powerful illustration in the form of King Hezekiah. Look at 2 Chronicles 32.

7:22In those days, Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. And he prayed to the Lord, and he answered him and gave him a sign. But Hezekiah did not make return according to the benefit done to him, for his heart was proud. Therefore, wrath came upon him and Judah and Jerusalem. Just like God said. Friends, Hezekiah's problem is our problem. When we're at our lowest points, when we are desperate for help, when we know we can't solve our problems, we cry out to God.

8:03And God, in his grace and mercy, answers us. But once our problem is solved, once we're no longer sick, once we're no longer in financial need, once we've passed the class, we forget God. Our focus shifts from the giver to the gifts. So David tells himself and us, forget not all his benefits. And so in verses 3 through 7, David gives a representative sample of God's benefits to us. Seven benefits that we should meditate on often. So let's take time and walk through those briefly. Look at verse 3. First, David remembers that God forgives. All your iniquity. The first benefit is forgiveness. Iniquity is another word for sin, for missing the mark of perfection that God sets for us in His Word. And David remembers here that God forgives all of our iniquity. All of it. Not just our little sins, the things that don't seem like that big of a deal to us, the things that we just kind of count on anybody to forgive and overlook.

9:35No, He forgives all of our sin, all of our iniquity. And friends, David knows this as well as anyone because he was an adulterer and a liar and a murderer. So the first benefit is forgiveness. Second, look at verse 3 again. David remembers that God heals all your diseases. Healing is the second benefit. We just looked at King Hezekiah. He prayed to the Lord and God healed him from that sickness that would have led to death. If you've read the Gospels, you know that Jesus healed hundreds, maybe thousands upon thousands of people. In our own church, in our history, we have seen people healed from seizures. We have seen children healed of cancer. Cancer. We've seen adults healed of cancer. We've seen people set free from crushing anxiety and depression. We've seen those things. And Jesus promises that when he returns, he is going to establish the new heavens and the new earth. And when he does that, there's going to be no more sickness, no more crying, no more pain, no more mourning, no more death. Friends, God will heal all of our diseases in this life or in the next. Full healing is promised one way or another.

11:09Third, verse four. David remembers that God redeems your life from the pit. Redemption is the third benefit. We have such a great picture of Joseph in the book of Genesis. He's thrown into a pit by his brothers. He's thrown into prison after a false accusation from his boss's wife. And God redeems him. He redeems him out of the pit. He redeems him out of prison. And he makes him the second most powerful man in the most powerful nation on the earth at the time. God redeemed Joseph's life from the pit. And at the end of his life, Joseph stood before his brothers, their lives in his hands, and he said, You meant evil against me. Against me.

12:02But God meant it for good. God redeems us. Fourth, verse four again. David remembers that God crowns us with steadfast love and mercy. Love and mercy are paired together in this fourth benefit. Friends, we don't deserve to be crowned by God at all. We deserve judgment for our sin and rebellion against Him. That's what we deserve. But just like the Son in the parable, our Father puts a new robe on us and puts jewelry on us and welcomes us back into His home and into His loving arms. He crowns us with steadfast love and mercy.

13:04Fifth, verse five. David remembers that God satisfies us with good so that our youth is renewed like the eagles. Satisfaction is the fifth benefit. And what you need to understand is that ever since the Garden of Eden with our first parents Adam and Eve, they were tempted to doubt God. Goodness. That was what Satan came at them with. God is holding out on you. There is goodness out there apart from God, and you can get that by just disobeying what God says. He is keeping things from you.

13:44They believed that lie, and we have believed it ever since. But friends, God satisfies us, He's not holding out on us, He never withholds good gifts from His children. When earthly parents don't give their children things that they want, it's not because they don't love them, it's because they do, and they want what is best for them. It is the same with God. Sixth, look at verse 6. David remembers, the Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed.

14:25That sixth benefit ties together righteousness and justice. And you think about the people of Israel who were enslaved in Egypt for 400 years. We think about black men, women, and children who were enslaved or functionally enslaved for nearly that long in our own country. And God worked righteousness and justice for those who were oppressed. He sets captives free. We look forward to the day when Jesus comes to reign in perfect righteousness and justice forever, so there is no more injustice for all of eternity. That's what we look forward to. And finally, verse 7.

15:16David remembers that God made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel. The seventh benefit is revelation. You do not have to wonder what God is like. You don't need to invent a God. It is irrelevant what you think about God or what I think about God. What matters is what God has told us about Himself. He is a God who speaks. He is a God who reveals. He reveals Himself to us.

15:53And so, unlike so many other religions who are worshiping gods that they do not know and cannot understand, in the Christian faith, we are worshiping a God who has revealed Himself, as we learned last week in Psalm 19, through creation and everything that has been made, but who also has revealed Himself specifically and particularly and clearly through His word that He has spoken. Brothers and sisters, when we pause to meditate on these things, we remember just how breathtaking God's benefits. Benefits really are. And so David urges himself and he urges us: do not forget all of God's benefits.

16:42But we can't just say, okay, I won't forget God's benefits. That does not work, and you already know that. You know, when you meet someone new and you're like, this time, I'm going to remember their name. And you don't. You know, people always say to me, Pastor Alan, you're so good with names. Listen very carefully to me. I am terrible with names. I have a good system. When it comes to remembering God's benefits, that's what we need. We need a good system. Hope is not a system.

17:33So a good system would be putting a reminder in your phone at 10 p.m. or 2 a.m. or whenever you people go to bed and setting a timer for two minutes and using that two minutes to remember all of the benefits that God has showered upon you that particular day. A good system would be putting a reminder in your calendar once. A week where you sit down, maybe with your journal, and you write out and think over the last week all of the benefits that God has poured out on you.

18:11Or maybe you set aside time once a year for a remembrance retreat and you don't have to leave, you don't have to go anywhere. Maybe you just set aside that time and you just sit outside on your patio or in your living room and you just think back over the past year and you remember all of God's benefits and you give thanks to Him for those things. Friends, however you do it, I urge you to create a system to remember God's breathtaking benefits. Because what you will find is that you will be more eager to worship with all that is within you when you do that, because grateful people offer grateful worship.

18:56And so we need to remember God's breathtaking benefits. Let's pick up in verse 8 and remember God's compassionate character. Verse 8: The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in 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 in the first seven verses, David focused on God's breathtaking benefits, but here he focuses on God's compassionate character. He has moved from what God does to who God is.

19:50We've heard this text read a couple of times now, and if you are familiar with the Bible, this probably sounds familiar, and it's because David is quoting from one of the most important moments in Scripture, Exodus chapter 34, when God reveals Himself to Moses. Let me set the scene here. The people of Israel have been enslaved in Egypt for 400 years. They've been oppressed that entire time. And this is what we find at the end of Exodus chapter 2. Look on the screen.

20:26And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel, and God knew. Just take a moment and look at that verse. God heard, God remembered, God saw, God knew. That one verse in the Bible is enough to get You through some of the lowest moments in your life. Friends, God hears, he remembers, he sees, he knows you in the lowest moments of your life.

21:18So from this point, God puts his saving power on display. He sends the ten plagues over the nation of Egypt. He parts the Red Sea and the people of Israel walk through it on dry land. The Egyptians try to follow them. God drowns them in the sea. God miraculously provides for them in the desert with water from rocks and manna from heaven. His power, his saving power is on display. And you would think that the people would learn to trust God completely, right?

21:56Oh no. Moses goes up on Mount Sinai to receive God's commands, and the people are like, what happened to Moses? I don't know. Let's make an idol and worship that instead. And they choose a baby cow. I can't figure that out for my life. They sacrificed unblemished lambs. If they made a golden lamb, I'd be like, well, you know, I could get there. But they made a baby cow, and I don't get that. But that's what people do. We make these crazy gods, and they start worshiping them.

22:26And so God is going to pour out his wrath on the people, and Moses intercedes. God hears his prayer and answers. And then Moses says, please show me your glory. It's the most audacious thing that anyone utters in Scripture. Please show me your glory. Look at how God responds in Exodus 33. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name, the Lord. And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.

23:11God promises to make all of his goodness pass before him. Did you catch that? God doesn't say, I will pass before you. He doesn't say, I will make my awesome power pass before you. He says, I will make all my goodness pass before you. Some of you need to hear that. Because your biggest question is not, does God exist? Your biggest question is, is God good? He is. He is the very Definition of goodness. Every good and every perfect gift that we have comes from Him.

24:11And so you move forward in Exodus 34, and now God is going to pass before Moses and proclaim his name. Look on the screen. The Lord passed before Moses and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. This is the goodness of the Lord. That he is a God of steadfast love. He is merciful and gracious. He's slow to anger. And so, friends, that's the background of Psalm 103. David is remembering this time in Israel's history when God miraculously delivered his people from slavery in Egypt after they had committed idolatry and God did not treat them as their sins deserved.

25:02David is remembering this moment when God revealed his compassionate character to Moses, and David is taking time to really meditate on it, to think through all of the implications of what it means that God is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. So what does that mean? Look at verse 9. It means that God will not always. Chide or keep his anger forever. Look on the screen at Psalm 30. For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime.

25:46Second, it means, look at verse 10, that God does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. You see, when someone wrongs you, you have two choices. You can make them pay for the wrong that they did to you, or you can forgive them. Those are the choices. But somebody has to bear the cost of the wrong, either the person that did it or you. That's what's required. We often make people bear the cost of their wrongs, either literally or figuratively through holding it against them, holding a grudge.

26:30But that's not what God does. He forgives. He chooses to bear the cost of our sin himself and not hold it against us. This is exactly what the prophet Isaiah said that God was going to do through his suffering servant, the Messiah. Look on the screen at Isaiah 53. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed forever. Iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned, everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

27:22God does not deal with us according to our sins. And so, to drive that point home, to drive it into our hearts, he gives us three illustrations. Look at verse 11: For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him. Friends, how high are the heavens above the earth? Immeasurably high. If you took off in one of Elon's rockets, which I gather are going to be built down the street now, if you took off in one of Elon's rockets and it didn't explode, you would die long before you reached the end of the heavens, the edge of the universe.

28:18That's how great God's steadfast love is toward us. Look at verse 12. As far as the East is from the West, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. How far is the East from the West? Infinity far. It doesn't matter how far you go to the East, you will never get to the West. It doesn't matter how far you go to the West, you will never get to the East. That is the point. That's how far God has removed our sin from us. Infinity far.

29:05Verse 13. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. Every good earthly father shows compassion to his children. His heart breaks when their hearts break. He treats them better than they deserve when they sin. And God is a perfect father. Why does God treat us like this? Why does he not deal with us according to our sins, which is what we deserve? Look at verse 14. For he knows our frame.

29:58He remembers our frame. That we are dust. God does not deal with us according to our sins. He removes them as far as the east is from the west because his steadfast love and compassion for us are immeasurable. He does all of that because he remembers. He remembers that we are dust, that we are made from the ground and that we will return to the ground because of our sin and our rebellion against him. So, friends, in addition to remembering God's breathtaking benefits, we should remember God's compassionate character because that moves us to bless the Lord with all that is within us.

30:44Let's wrap up in verses 15 through 22, where we will remember God's complete commandments. Verse 15: 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 its place knows it no more. A few years ago, I went through the book The Intentional Father with a group of men from our church. It was a transformative experience. I highly recommend that you read it. I would even more highly recommend that you do it with a group of guys from our church. It was an awesome experience. Each one of us came up with a plan for a discipleship plan for our children. And part of my plan included taking my children to a local cemetery. And we spent maybe 30 or 45 minutes just walking around and noticing, looking at when people were born and when people died, reading the epitaphs and what people said about that person.

31:59And then we went across the street and got a drink and sat down and reflected on what we saw. And we noticed that plenty of people lived long lives. They lived to 70, 80, or 90 years old. But lots and lots of people in the college station cemetery did not make it to 20, did not make it to 30. Did not make it to 40. The Apostle James calls our life a mist, a vapor. It is here today and gone tomorrow. And David is thinking about the brevity of life because he was just thinking about our sin and our need for forgiveness. That leads you to think about death and standing before God in judgment.

32:52David just said in verse 14, for he knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust. Those are God's words from Genesis 3, for you are dust. Dust and to dust you shall return. And so, thinking about all of that, the brevity of life, the reality of death, the certainty of God's judgment, that can make us anxious. So, look what God says to us through David in the next verse, verse 17. But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting.

33:34Friends, our lives are a vapor, a mist that is here today and gone tomorrow. But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting. Paul affirms in Ephesians chapter 1 that God set his love on us before the foundation of the world. Jesus taught, as we sang about earlier today, that no one can snatch us out of his hand, that we are secure in his love. That is great news. And that news sounds so great because we've just meditated on our sin and the brevity of our lives. So the steadfast love of the Lord is wonderful news.

34:22But the question is: who receives the steadfast love of the Lord? Look at verse 17 again. 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 commands. The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all. Friends, David says the steadfast love of the Lord rests on those who keep his covenant and remember. Remember to do his commands. When Jesus gave the great commission, he said, I want you to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

35:20Why is that? Well, at one level, it's because when God says something, that settles it. He commands, we do it. But in Scripture, it's so much more than that. And if you think back to last week, Psalm 19, what Pastor Micah preached, David affirms that God's commandments revive our souls and make us wise and rejoice our hearts and enlighten our eyes. So we need to remember God's complete commands, but not just because God said so. We need to remember God's complete commands because our heavenly Father, whose steadfast love is from everlasting to everlasting, issued every single one of the commands in the Bible for our good so that we would flourish in the world that he created us to live in. That's exactly what David says about God's commands in Psalm 19. Remember this verse? Look on the screen. Moreover, by them, his commandments, is your servant warned? In keeping them, there is great reward.

36:38Oh, friends, keeping God's commands is not drudgery. Keeping God's commands is beautiful and wonderful because it is the way that we might flourish in the world that God designed and made for us. He gave his commands for our good. Remembering and doing them is the wisest thing that we can do. So we remember God's breathtaking benefits, we remember his compassionate character, and we remember his complete commands. And what does that lead to? Let's end in verses 20 through 22.

37:15Bless 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. In all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Friends, David begins and ends this psalm by telling himself, bless the Lord, O my soul. But in view of everything that he has just remembered, David cannot help but call everything else in all of creation to bless the Lord also.

38:00He calls on the angels, the whole host of heaven, to bless the Lord. Notice that that command of obedience that continues here, who do his word and who do his will. And then David calls on all of God's works, that is, all of his creation, to bless him. Friends, all of God's creation does that. The sun and the moon and the stars, the earth and everything in it, it was created to bring glory and honor to the Lord. God declared it very good. And David, who has freshly been reminded of all of his blessings and freshly been captured by the glory of the Lord, is committed through remembering to bless the Lord with all that is within him.

38:50Friends, our days are like grass. They are here and then they are gone. Our only hope is the steadfastness. Love of the Lord. But his steadfast love rests on those who do his commandments. And if you've ever read the Bible, you know there's a lot of those. 613, to be exact. There is no one who keeps all of those commands perfectly every day. And God's word is very clear: if we keep the whole law, but we fail at just one point, we're guilty of all of it. Because one lawgiver gave the entire law.

39:42And that means that we're all guilty. But the good news here is that Psalm 103 points us to one who did keep all of the law perfectly every day of his life, and that is Jesus of Nazareth. When he began his ministry, he said, I didn't come to abolish the law, I came to fulfill it. Every day of his life, he did everything that God's law required. And that made him an acceptable sacrifice in our place. He offered himself on the cross in our place and for our sins so that we could offer acceptable worship to God through faith in him. Apart from Jesus, who is the mediator, who is the bridge between heaven and earth, we have no way to be able to offer. Acceptable worship to God. We might want to bless the Lord with all that is within us, but we can't do it because we're sinful. But Jesus comes to redeem us, He comes to heal us, He comes to offer us new life through His perfect life, His death and His resurrection from the dead. And so, friends, if you've not put your faith in Christ, you cannot bless the Lord with all that is within you, no matter how much you might want to, because you need a mediator, you need a bridge to heaven, you need a way to offer acceptable worship to God.

41:07And Jesus is the only way, He is the way, the truth, and the life. And so, we urge you to put your faith in Him today. Friends, if you already trust in Christ, Psalm 103 is a call to remember, to remember the God who always remembers you. Look at this verse from Isaiah 49. Let this minister to your heart. Can a woman forget her nursing child that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.

41:49Brothers and sisters, God has not forgotten you, and He will never forget you. He is a compassionate God who has poured out His love on you. You, His everlasting love, His steadfast love, and that should stir you up to bless the Lord with all that is within you, and also to stir up everyone else in your life to bless the Lord with all that is within them as well. Let's bless the Lord with all that is within us. Let's pray, Father. We do want to bless you with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

42:30And a moment's reflection reveals just how far short we fall of that goal. We confess that we have not done those things, but we want to. And so we pray that you would help us to remember, to remember your benefits, to remember your character, to remember your commands, and by remembering those things, turn and offer you the praise that you deserve, the worship that you deserve. God, we pray that we would be a worshiping people, not just on Sunday mornings when we gather together, but throughout all of our life, that we would live every day and every moment of every day as worshipers.

43:30We don't want to offer our praise, our blessing to lesser gods, lesser things in our life. We want to offer it to you. And so we pray that you would fill us with your Spirit and help us to bless you with all that is within us. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the Sermon Audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.