Forget None of His Benefits! - Part 2

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Well, I do want us to return again this morning, as we finish up the Thanksgiving holiday week, to the issue of thanksgiving, and specifically, I want us to continue our study of Psalm 103 that we just read together a moment ago in the scripture reading. Let me just remind you of the overall message of this psalm – as we discovered last week, this psalm reminds us that the only right response to who God is, and to the blessings that we receive from Him, is praise combined with thanksgiving. That's the message of Psalm 103; it's a favorite of mine, probably of many of us as well.

Last Sunday, we began to study this psalm – we started where David begins, in verses 1 and 2, with a call to personal praise and thanksgiving. A call to personal praise and thanksgiving – look at verses 1 and 2. First of all, we see the expression of it, "Bless." The Hebrew word is to praise, combined with thanks; both of those ideas, mixed together – we are to praise Him and express our thanks to Him. And notice the object of our praise is Yahweh – the word Lord in all caps is God's personal name, the only true and living God. Praise has to be directed to a person – to be true thanks, it has to be expressed to the person to whom these things are owed, and it's Yahweh. The source of this thanksgiving, notice, like David, is our soul – it's not enough to voice it, it's not enough to be involved in external praise and thanks; it comes from our soul. And notice the passion of it – "all that is within me." But this doesn't happen accidentally – instead, it has to be intentional. Notice the resolve of David; it has to be the resolve of our hearts – "Bless the Lord, O my soul." We have to call ourselves to do this. And then, verses 1 and 2 include, as well, the basic categories of praise and thanks – you'll notice, in verse 1, "His holy name;" that is, God's character; and then, in verse 2, "His benefits;" all of the countless benefits that we enjoy from God's hand. Those are the categories for personal praise and thanksgiving.

Now, we went on from there to look at verses 3-5, where David unfolds for us five great reasons for personal praise and thanksgiving. Five great reasons – and I'll just list them; if you missed last week, go back and catch up, because there's such richness here – but here's what should compel our praise and thanks. He pardons our sin and guilt, He restores and sustains our health, He preserves our lives, He initiates and sustains a relationship with us, and He fills our lives with good. There is plenty to consume our praise and thanks.

But today, we come to the third division of this psalm, beginning in verse 6 and running all the way down through verse 18, and this third division teaches us three more great reasons for praise and thanksgiving – three great reasons, now, for corporate praise and thanksgiving. You see, verses 1-5 are filled with singular, first-person pronouns, "me" and "my" – but in verses 6-18, David changes to the plural first-person pronouns "we" and "us" and "our." In this section, David encourages all believers to join their voices with him in praise and thanks to the Lord – it's as if the first five verses are a kind of solo, in which David rehearses what all of us could sing, but he leads us out, and beginning in verse 6, we all join together as a congregation to praise the Lord together. You'll notice that these verses are addressed to a specific group – notice the end of verse 11, "those who fear Him;" the end of verse 13, "those who fear Him;" and again, in the middle of verse 17, "those who fear Him." These verses are not for everybody who's here this morning; if you're here this morning and you have not repented of your sins and believed in Christ, this is not what you can expect from God – this is only for "those who fear Him." What does it mean to fear Him? Ultimately, fearing God, in biblical terms, is a willingness to repent of your sins and to put your faith for rescue, for deliverance from those sins, in Him. This is clear even in the Old Testament – in Psalm 31:19, the psalmist writes, "How great is Your goodness which you have stored up for those who fear You," and then listen to how he defines it, "those who fear You, … for those who take refuge in You." You see, fearing God is to turn from your sin and to go to Him for refuge from what your sins deserve, for Him to save you and rescue from what your sins have earned. So, verses 6-18, then, are a call to every true believer – if you're a believer in Jesus Christ this morning, this is for you; a call to join in this magnificent song of praise and thanks.

But David does more than just call us to praise and thanks – he gives us, in this section, three great reasons that all who fear the Lord should praise and thank Him; let's look at them together. The first reason for our corporate praise and thanks is found in verses 6-8, and it is God's unchanging nature. God's unchanging nature – he's going to remind us of who God is by nature, and that that serves as the cause for our praise and thanks. Now, David points out, to begin with, in verse 6, that by nature, God is the Savior of sinners. By nature, God is the Savior of sinners – notice verse 6, "The Lord performs righteous deeds and judgments for all who are oppressed." Now, as soon as you read that verse, you could be moved to think that's just talking about God in a general sense; that is, God is a rescuer, a deliverer of the oppressed in a general sense – He rescues us from the troubles of a fallen, broken world, including the oppression that can come in such a world. That's possible – and that is true, by the way; that concept is found throughout the scripture – but, because the next two verses, verses 7-8, are from the time of the Exodus, this reference in verse 6 is likely referring to God's specific act of redeeming His people from Egypt; the great Old Testament picture of God as a redeeming God. And this concept of God as a spiritual redeemer from sin becomes clearer as this psalm unfolds – we find out that God is a redeemer who rescues His people from sin in verses 9-10, and He rescues them from death in verse 17. So, God – think about this – God, in His unchanging nature, is a redeemer, a rescuer; God not only rescues those who are in desperate trouble because of their sin, but He delights to rescue them. He is, by nature, a redeemer, just as He proved in redeeming His people from Egypt – so, God is, in His unchanging nature, a redeemer.

But there's a second aspect of His unchanging nature here in verse 7, and that is, He is the source of revelation. I love this – look at verse 7, "God made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the sons of Israel." Now, right away, if you are biblically literate, you understand that that verse points back to Moses' request of God, in Exodus 33:13, where Moses says, God, "I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways" – and then, in Exodus 33:19, God responds, "I Myself will proclaim the name of the Lord before you." In other words, Moses said, God, reveal Yourself to me, and God said, I will. You see, one of the greatest reasons for our praise is not only that God is always a redeemer, but that our God is also always a communicator! Imagine if God existed in solitude, if He never opened His mouth, if He never shared anything with us about Himself, how desperate our condition would be. But that's not the nature of our God – He has made Himself known to us. He's done so in the creation – Romans 1, look out at the creation, you can see certain things about God.[SR1]  He's done so in providence – Paul makes that point in Acts 14; we noticed it last week, where he says, God filled our hearts with joy and gladness and food [SR2] – some of us more than we needed this last week. But who was behind that? It's God – and in His providence, He's revealed His goodness; the good things you enjoyed this last week were an expression of the character of God. He's revealed Himself in your conscience – you know that He is just and righteous, that He cannot tolerate sin, because He has, according to Romans 2, woven into your very being the substance of His law, so that you know what's right and wrong, and your conscience screams at you when you violate it.[SR3] 

God has revealed Himself in so many different ways, but He has revealed Himself in that general revelation, for which we can give Him thanks, but we can especially be thankful that He's revealed Himself in what theologians call His special revelation; that is, God has revealed Himself in and through the word written and the word incarnate, Jesus Christ. Hebrews 1:1[SR4] , "God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways," there's the word written, "in these last days has spoken to us in His Son," there's the word incarnate – and through, of course, His apostles, we have the rest of God's written word. Think about that for a moment – the God who created all things is a communicator, and you hold in your hand the book that He Himself spoke through His prophets and apostles of what He wanted you to know about Himself – He is the source of revelation. As Francis Schaeffer expressed it so well so long ago, "He is there, and He is not silent." There's a reason to give Him thanks.

A third part of God's unchanging nature is that He is the sum of goodness. He is the sum of goodness – that's the message of verse 8. You remember again, back in Exodus 33, Moses asked God to show him His glory, and you remember what God said? I will – I will "make all My goodness pass before you."[SR5]  You see, God's goodness is God's glory; His goodness is captured in His self-revelation to Moses in Exodus 34, and it's quoted here by David, as it is a number of times throughout the Old Testament. Look at verse 8 – this is right from God's own mouth in Exodus 34, "The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love." God is the sum of goodness. I wish I had time to really unpack all of these wonderful perfections of God – I don't in this message, but if you weren't here when I did the message, God's sermon on His name, a series of messages, or you can pick up the little book on it, God's Sermon on His Name from Exodus 34, there's so much to learn here, but let me just give you a brief review.

Notice verse 8, He is "compassionate." This is a warm, emotional word that describes a deep love for the helpless, rooted in a natural bond, like that a mother feels for her children. In fact, God says this in Isaiah 49:15, "Can a woman forget her nursing child?" Answer that question in your heart for a moment – "Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb?" God says, "Even these may forget, but I will not forget you." God sees our weakness and our vulnerability, and His great heart shares our struggles, and He acts on our behalf – He is compassionate. Notice verse 8 says He is "gracious" – I love this truth about God – He is gracious. What that means is, there is a perfection that is part of the nature of God that delights in doing good and treating with favor not only those who don't deserve it, but those who deserve exactly the opposite. God finds joy and delight in doing good to those who deserve exactly the opposite of good – that's grace. Verse 8 adds He is "slow to anger" – literally the Hebrew is, He is long of nose; I appreciate that, He is long of nose. What does that mean? It means it takes God a long time to get hot. It takes Him a long time to get hot – He isn't quick to inflict punishment on those who deserve it, but He is extremely patient. He is just and He will bring justice, but He delays justice to give people time to repent. Verse 8 concludes, He is "abounding in steadfast love." Abounding means to have an abundance, to have more than enough – God has more than enough lovingkindness; the Hebrew word is chesed. I don't like the translation lovingkindness; the Hebrew word has two equal ideas; one of those ideas is a profound love that's found in the deepest of human relationships, and the other idea is a tenacious, stubborn commitment to love that person. So, love and loyalty, both of those ideas together; that's why some translations render it steadfast love, others unfailing love. It is a long-term, unfailing loyalty by one member of a loving covenant relationship toward the object of that love – this is our God.

But don't miss the key that unlocks David's meaning here – look at the verb tense change. Go back to verse 7 – God "made known," in the past, "His ways to Moses" – when did that happen? Well, it happens in Exodus 33-34, and that happens in the year, approximately, 1445 B.C., fourteen hundred and fifty years before Christ; that's when He made it known. But notice verse 8 – David quotes it, and he says the Lord, not was, but the Lord is. You see, David writes this psalm toward the end of his life, about 950 B.C., about five hundred years after God revealed His name to Moses – and David says that's who He was, and that's who He is five hundred years later. And, folks, we sit here today, three thousand years after David wrote this psalm, and the Lord "made known His ways to Moses," and "the Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love." This is His unchanging nature. The first great reason for our corporate praise is God's unchanging nature – He is the redeemer of sinners, He is the source of ongoing self-revelation, and He is the sum of goodness.

But there's a second reason for our collective praise and thanks here in this psalm, verses 9-14, it's God's unchanging ways. God's unchanging ways – think of verse 8 as the spring from which verses 9-18 flow. In fact, you could say that verse 8 is his quotation of what God said to Moses, and verses 9 and following are David's commentary on God's self-revelation. Because God is good, verse 8, this is the predictable behavior that we can expect of Him toward us who have believed in Him. That's what the word ways means in verse 7 – it's an interesting Hebrew word, it's a word that literally describes ruts cut in the ground, either by feet treading over the same path again and again, or by a wagon wheel cutting over the same path. Those ruts that are formed are the ways – but it came to speak metaphorically of our predictable patterns of behavior. Those things we do again and again and again – those are our ruts; those are our ways. Well, here are God's ruts; here are God's ways. First of all, in verse 9, because He is slow to anger, He is quick as well to be reconciled. He's slow to anger, it takes Him a long time to get hot, and guess what? He cools off in a hurry – that's what David is saying. He's quick to be reconciled; verse 9, "He will not always strive with us" – the Hebrew word strive is a courtroom term; it means to sustain a complaint or a case against someone. God rightly has a case against us, but He doesn't continue to maintain that case – and notice verse 9 goes on to say, "nor will He keep His anger forever." That is a very interesting Hebrew word; in fact, the Hebrew verb translated keep anger is also used; the same verb is used in Leviticus 19:18. Listen to it – "you shall not … bear any grudge against the sons of your people." Bear any grudge is the same Hebrew word as keep anger. "But you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord." You see, God commands us to love others, and one way we love others is by refusing to hold on to our anger over past offenses; we are not to hold grudges – and here, in Psalm 103, David says we're to do that because that's just like God. God doesn't keep anger; He doesn't hold on to grudges. Christian, when we sin against God – and sin we do – He doesn't hold grudges. He doesn't hold grudges – Micah 7:18, "Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession?" Listen to this – "He does not retain His anger forever." He doesn't hold a grudge – what does He do instead? He pardons. He pardons.

But how, Christian? How can you and I experience that kind of forgiveness of God, as believers? I love the way Proverbs puts it – Proverbs 28:13 says, "He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper" spiritually, "but he who confesses and forsakes them will find [God's] compassion." If you're willing, Christian, to confess your sin, to acknowledge it as sin, and to turn from it – if you're willing to leave that sin and not hold on to it as something you want to nurse and enjoy, but you're really willing to say, God, I don't want that in my life – then you will find God's forgiveness and compassion. He's quick to be reconciled. And if you're here this morning, and you're not a Christian – you've never repented of your sins, you've never believed in Jesus Christ – let me tell you this morning that, regardless of how often or how badly you have sinned against God your Creator, if you will repent of your sin, if you will confess that sin, and express a willingness to turn from that sin, and if you will trust in His provision for your rescue, the Lord Jesus Christ, God is more than willing to be reconciled to you; He's easy to be reconciled with. In fact, I love the way Jeremiah the prophet puts it in Jeremiah 3:12 – He's talking about unbelieving Israel, and he says, "'Return, faithless Israel,' declares the Lord." There's repentance – return! "'I will not look upon you in anger, for I am gracious,' declares the Lord. 'I will not be angry forever. Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the Lord your God, … and have not obeyed My voice,' declares the Lord." That's repentance – it's humbling yourself and coming before God and saying God, I have prostituted all of Your good gifts, I have sinned against You, my Creator, I deserve nothing from You – but here I am, pleading for Your forgiveness. God says, you do that, and you'll have pardon.

Isaiah 55 – turn there with me – Isaiah 55 is, I think, the clearest invitation to salvation in the Old Testament. Isaiah 55 – he begins, saying in verse 1, look, you don't have to have anything to buy this; you can't buy salvation. Come "without money and without cost." So, what do you do – how do you get salvation and spiritual rescue from God? Verse 6, "Seek the Lord while He may be found, and call upon Him while He is near." In other words, this is faith – this is saying, I believe God is good, and that God will respond to my pleas for help and salvation; this is faith in Him. And then, repentance, verse 7, "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, let him return to the Lord, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God," notice this, "for He will abundantly pardon." Listen – if you're willing to put your faith in God through His Son, Jesus Christ, and to turn from your sin, then you will experience abundant pardon. You say, that just seems too good to be true – well, God expected that response, and so, look at the next verse. "'My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,' declares the Lord. 'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.'" God says, listen – you may hold a grudge, but I'm easy to be reconciled; if you'll turn from your sin, you'll believe in Me, then I will abundantly pardon you.

Years ago, I read the story of a young Brazilian girl named Cristina – she left her home and her little village for the big city of Rio de Janeiro, and what she thought would be a better, brighter future in life. But her mother Maria knew otherwise – her mother Maria knew that Cristina's life on the streets of the big city would eventually lead only one place, to drugs and prostitution. So, the mother, Maria, traveled into the city, and there she spent all that she could afford to spend on photos of herself. And before she was forced to return home, she left those pictures of herself scattered through the worst parts of the city – and on the back of each of those pictures, she wrote a brief note. A few weeks later, after Cristina's dream had become a nightmare, she was walking through a hotel lobby – and there, unexpectedly, her eyes fell on a familiar face, a photo of her mom. The author says, "She walked across the room and removed the small photo – written on the back was this compelling invitation. 'Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn't matter. Please come home.'" And she did. When I read that story, my mind goes to the biblical story that Jesus tells in Luke 15 of the prodigal son – it's the same story. God, the Father, has a son who rebels and leaves, and takes everything good that the Father has supplied, and prostitutes it, lives in rebellion against the Father – that's a picture of you and me. And then, the son, this prodigal comes to himself one day and realizes he's thought all wrongly about everything – about God, about himself, and he gets up and he goes back home. And how does the father in that parable respond to the returning prodigal? He runs to meet him – that's God describing Himself and His response to the repentant sinner. This is God's predictable behavior – He's slow to anger, and because of that, He's quick to be reconciled.

There's a second predictable pattern of behavior here, and it's in verses 10-11 – because our God abounds in steadfast love, He doesn't give us what we deserve. Verse 10, "He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities." The Hebrew word for sins refers to our acts of disobedience as a repeated failure to keep the divine standard. The word iniquities refers to our sins as intentional deviations from God's path, and the legal guilt that comes with that. You see, although you and I, as believers, fear God, we trust in Him through His Son, we still sin – but David reminds us here that God doesn't deal with us according to what our sins deserve; verse 10, nor does he reward. The Greek word reward is literally to repay; He doesn’t repay us according to our iniquities – why? Verse 11, "For," because, here's why, "as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him." The heavens – in the Old Testament, the heavens often refers to where the stars are in the nighttime sky. What David is saying is that the only way to measure God's steadfast love for those who fear Him is to go outside on a cloudless night and look up and see the stars – and the distance of those stars from the surface of this planet, that is a measure of the greatness of God's steadfast love for those who fear Him. The closest star in our night sky is the star Proxima Centauri, which is, they tell us, 4.3 light years away – that doesn't mean a lot to those of us who are not as scientifically oriented, so let me just illustrate that for you. Light, you understand this, light travels at 186,000 miles a second, just to give you a picture of the speed – that means, in one second, light can travel around this entire planet seven-and-a-half times, in one second. But even traveling at that speed – if you go outside and you put your telescope up against the sky, the light that you would see tonight from Proxima Centauri started from the surface of that star 4.3 years ago, in the summer of 2019, even traveling at that remarkable speed. You see, what David is saying, and what God wants us to get, Christian, is that God's steadfast love for us simply cannot be measured – the only way to even compare it is to say, go outside on a cloudless night and look up at the stars; that’s how great His steadfast love is, for those who fear Him. That's why He doesn't give us what our sins deserve, because of His steadfast love.

There's a third way of God here in this passage, in verse 12 – because He is gracious, He doesn't credit our sins to us, but to Christ. Because He's gracious, He doesn't credit our sins to us, but to Christ – verse 12, "As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us." This Hebrew word transgressions is another word for sin, but it describes our sins as acts of rebellion against our rightful King, as criminal acts – but for those who have trusted in Him through His Son, God has removed our transgressions and the guilt of those transgressions from us. Notice what David says, "As far as the east is from the west." There's a sort of surface-level meaning to this; if you lived in the ancient world, and you wanted to describe something that was beyond reach, you would use the two horizons, where the sun rises and where the sun sets; it's that far. But there's something more here, something even more intriguing – I've pointed this out to you before, but you know, if he had said north and south, that would be a problem, because if you travel north on this planet, you eventually reach the North Pole, and guess what? You start traveling south – north and south meet at the North Pole. But if you start traveling east, you never reach west – you see, it's an infinite distance, east and west; they never meet. That's how far God has separated our transgressions from us – in theological terms, He no longer credits our sins to our account; He's removed them from us in that sense. David describes this in Psalm 32:2, "How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not" credit the guilt of his sin. Instead, God satisfied His justice by crediting the sins of every believer to Christ on the cross, and then treating Jesus as if He had committed those sins. You say, He removed our transgressions – where did they go? And the answer is, they went in Christ's account, and on the cross, He got everything that I deserve for my sins. This concept is clear in the Old Testament – Isaiah 53; if I had time, I would take you there – Isaiah 53, again and again, he says He has caused the guilt of us all to fall on the Messiah; he says He bore our iniquity, He's called our "guilt offering", He was the Lamb of God sacrificed to save the guilty.

But God not only credits our sins to Christ on the cross, He also credits Christ's perfect righteousness to us – 2 Corinthians 5:21, both sides of this double imputation; God made Christ "who knew no sin to be sin" for us. You see, believer, on the cross, God took every sin you have ever or ever will commit, every single one of them, locked in the mind of God – He took them, and He put them in Christ's account, and for those dark hours on the cross, God treated Jesus as if He had committed those sins, so that He could be just and still forgive you. But that isn't all He did – "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." You see, on the cross, God credited my sins to Christ and treated Him as if He had lived my sinful life, so that forever, He could treat me as if I had lived Jesus' perfect, sinless life. It's like we sing so often:

He, as though I, accursed and left alone,

I, as though He, embraced and welcomed home.

In grace, God doesn't credit our sins to us, but to Christ.

David describes a fourth predictable pattern of God's behavior in verses 13-14 – because He is compassionate, He treats us as His children. Because He is compassionate, He treats us as His children – verse 13, "Just as a father has compassion on his children, so Yahweh has compassion on those who fear Him. Verse 8, "The Lord is compassionate," verse 13, He shows that compassion – and He shows it toward all, other passages tell us – but, specifically here, He shows it especially to "those who fear Him." And what does this kind of compassion for those who fear Him look like? Verse 13, "Just as a father has compassion on his children." Now, that's a problem for some people, because maybe you had a terrible human father – and even the best of human fathers are flawed. John Calvin writes this, "God is compared to earthly fathers, not because He is, in every way, like them, but because there is no earthly image by which His unparalleled love toward us can be better expressed." It was Christ Himself, our Lord, who insisted that this is how we think and refer to God, remember? He said, "Pray, then, in this way, 'Our Father, who is in heaven.'"[SR6]  Years ago, early in my Christian life, I was grappling with this concept, and I came across my favorite quote on this issue. It's by Andrew Murray – I don't recommend everything he writes, but I love this quote; listen carefully. "'Our Father' – we think of it as a figure borrowed from earthly life, and only in some faint and shallow meaning to be used of God. We are afraid to take God as our own tender and pitiful father; He is a schoolmaster, or almost farther off than that and knowing less about us; an inspector who knows nothing of us except through our lessons. His eyes are not on the scholar but on the book, and all alike must come up to the standard." Murray writes, "Here is the starting point of holiness – in the love and patience and pity of our heavenly Father. God loves you not because you are clever, not because you are good, but because He is your Father."

How does God's compassion as a father cause Him to act toward us who fear Him? Verse 14, "For He Himself knows our frame, He is mindful that we are but dust." Of course He does, right? Genesis 2, He made our bodies, the human body, out of the elements of the earth, out of the dirt, and then He breathed into it and made man a living soul.[SR7]  God knows us – He knows our frailties, He knows our limitations; as one author put it, "This embraces our temperament, our understanding, the strength of our fears, even the violence of our temptations." God knows everything there is to know about you; He understands your weaknesses and limitations, He knows that you're just, your body is just dirt, just a piece of dirt that He has molded and fashioned into the person you are. He knows all of your weakness – and in His compassion, He still treats us as His children.

So, we've seen two great reasons for corporate praise and thanksgiving – verses 6-8, God's unchanging nature, and verses 9-14, God's unchanging ways. But David concludes by calling us to one third and final reason for corporate praise and thanks, and that is God's unchanging love. God's unchanging love – verses 15-18. David makes this point by a powerful contrast – first, in verses 15 and 16, he describes our brief lives. Our brief lives – he presents a beautifully poetic but tragic picture of the brevity of human life; he compares us to wildflowers. Verse 15, like wildflowers we sprout and flourish – "As for man, his days are like grass, as a flower of the field, so he flourishes." You understand this, living here in North Texas; we see it with the bluebonnets – but in the spring in Israel, after the winter rains, the brown hills turn emerald-green, and wildflowers spring up everywhere. They seem to come up in a day and then they blanket the hillsides in brilliant color; they're filled with energy and life and physical beauty. That's a beautiful but poignant picture of human life – but verse 16 tells us that, also like the wildflowers, we quickly wither and die. You see, within a few short weeks in Israel, the weather turns hot, and the scorching winds off the desert to Israel's east begin to blow – verse 16, "When the wind has passed over it, it is no more." After the winds come, those dry desert winds, the wildflowers wither and die. Verse 16, "And its place acknowledges it no longer" – this draws a picture of standing on those now-barren hillsides in early summer, when the flowers have disappeared without a trace. David's point is that our lives are so extremely brief that they're like wildflowers gone in a single season – we're like annuals; here today, gone tomorrow. Like wildflowers, it's not long until there's practically no trace of us left.

It's against that dark backdrop that David reminds us, for us who fear the Lord, that's not the end of the story. For those who have come to know their Creator through the life, death and resurrection of His Son, there's a far more important reality than our brief life, and it's God's eternal love. Verse 17, "But" – here's the stark contrast – "But the steadfast love of Yahweh;" this is God's steadfast love, His chesed, His unfailing love. And who has come to enjoy God's unfailing love? I want you to notice how David describes the objects of God's eternal love here in this passage – first of all, he describes them in verse 17 as those that God unconditionally, graciously chose to love in eternity past. Notice how verse 17 puts it – "the steadfast love of Yahweh is from everlasting" – you see, in eternity past, God decided to love those whom He would then adopt as His children. It's exactly what Paul says in Ephesians 1:4, the Father "chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world" – and then he adds this in verse 5, "In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself." The love of Yahweh is from eternity past. The same love that moved God to choose us, to set His love on us in eternity past – that same love will always be set upon us. Notice what he says in verse 17, "The steadfast love of Yahweh is from everlasting," from eternal past, "to everlasting," to eternal future – or, as one author puts it, "If you look back to vanishing point, if you look forward to vanishing point – from vanishing point to vanishing point, the steadfast love of the Lord is there." I love the way Paul puts it in Ephesians 2:7; he says God saved us by grace, and then he says this, "so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus." God not only has a plan for your life here, He has a plan for your future, and that is to lavish you with His steadfast love forever, "from everlasting to everlasting." It had no beginning, it'll have no end – as one author puts it, "There was never a period in the past when it was not the purpose of God to save His people, and there will never be a period in the future when it will be said that His saving mercy has ceased." "From everlasting to everlasting."

But notice the second way that David describes the object of God's love – not only those God chose, but the second half of verse 17 and verse 18, those who fear and trust God. Verse 17, "on those who fear Him" – this is our response of faith to God's initiating eternal love. Oh, and by the way, God continues His faithfulness even to "children's children," to grandchildren – I don't have time to unpack all of that; again, go back and listen to God's sermon on His name. But this isn't a promise that every child of every believing person will be saved; it's rather that God will continue His faithfulness in the generations to come, and He will, in fact, save many. But how can we know if we truly fear God, if we're included in this great promise? Well, the answer is in verse 18, here's how you know – "To those who keep His covenant;" that is, those who enter into a relationship with God, who love God in response to His love; and who "remember His precepts to do them," who obey His word. Christian, if you fear God in that way, you enjoy God's unchanging love.

The last stanza of this hymn, in verses 19-22, is simply a call to universal praise and thanksgiving – I'm not going to walk through it in detail. You'll notice, though, in verse 19, there is a reminder of the extent of God's rule; it's everywhere, and the next few verses say that means everywhere, God should be praised. The angels, verses 20-21, should praise God; the entire creation, the beginning of verse 22, everywhere that He rules – and then it ends in verse 22 by saying every individual believer should offer praise and thanksgiving. "Bless the Lord, O my soul!" Why – why should you join your voice with other believers to praise and give thanks to this God? Because of His unchanging nature – He's the same yesterday, today and forever, He is a Savior of sinners, He is the source of revelation about Himself, He is the sum of all goodness. Because of His unchanging ways – He is quick to be reconciled, He doesn't give us what we deserve, He doesn't credit our sins to us, but He credits them to Christ, and He treats us as His own children. And finally, because of His unchanging love – "from everlasting to everlasting" is the steadfast love of the Lord on those who fear Him. Believer, I want you to see that you will never run out of reasons to praise and give thanks to your God. Let's pray together.

Father, thank You for this magnificent psalm. Lord, for those of us who fear You, who have repented and put our trust in You through Your Son – Lord, I pray that You would fill our hearts every day with praise and thanks for Your holy name, for those things that are true about You, and for Your countless benefits to us. Father, may this psalm become a favorite expression of our praise and worship to You, even as it was for David, and as it has been for believers for three thousand years since. Father, I also pray for those who may be here this morning who have not repented and believed – Lord, help them to see that You are easy to be reconciled, quick to be reconciled, if they will humble themselves, acknowledge their sin, and come to trust in Your Son; may they do so even today. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

 [SR1]Based on Romans 1:19-20.

 [SR2]Based on Acts 14:17.

 [SR3]Based on Romans 2:14-15.

 [SR4]Tom says Hebrews 1:2 here, but he begins by quoting Hebrews 1:1 first.

 [SR5]From Exodus 33:19.

 [SR6]Matthew 6:9a.

 [SR7]A paraphrase of Genesis 2:7.