The Benefits of Believing God Part One

Summer in the Psalms

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

July 30, 2023

The Benefits of Believing God Part One

If you have your bibles, turn with me to Psalm 103. We’ll have the verses on the screen for those who prefer to follow along that way. I love this psalm because it’s all about how good God is to His people. God is good to us because God is amazingly, consistently, thoroughly good!

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! ² Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, ³ who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, ⁴ who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, ⁵ who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's. Ps. 103:1-5

Let’s pause there and pray.

As we read these first five verses, it’s important to keep in mind who David is speaking to. He’s not talking to the Lord, and he’s not talking to us (at least not directly). David is speaking to himself. He lets us in on the conversation he is having with his soul!

We all talk to ourselves. I had to google that just to make sure, just in case it’s just me that does it, but it’s normal for people to talk to themselves. Now if you’re hearing voices in your head you may want to see a doctor about it, but talking to ourselves – even at times out loud – is totally normal and can be helpful. Talking to ourselves can focus us, motivate us, and help us process difficult feelings.

But we need to be careful about what we’re saying to ourselves. It’s easy to get into a habit of negative self-talk: “You can’t do that, why even try?” or “You’re useless, you’ll never amount to anything.”

Negative self-talk can also deflate our faith: “Why pray about it? God doesn’t hear your prayers.” “God doesn’t care about you.” “If God was good, why did He allow such and such to happen?”

So this isn’t really part of the message but I’m going to throw this in for free: be careful what you say to yourself. Don’t be constantly speaking negativity to yourself and don’t allow your self-talk to be filled with doubt and unbelief towards God.

David sure isn’t. He is speaking to his soul – the deepest part of him, his innermost being, and he’s saying bless the Lord. Praise the Lord, speak well of the Lord. And don’t do it half-heartedly, do it with all you have within you – bless the Lord!

And don’t forget His benefits. In this context, forget not isn’t about his memory, it’s about his faith. Remember – have faith, live in the confidence of – the goodness of God and the benefits of believing in Him.

Benefit #1 – He forgives all your iniquities

This is the #1 benefit for sure – forgiveness is what we need more than anything. But let’s take a moment to consider what David is saying and who he’s saying it to.

When David writes, “He forgives all your iniquities”, who’s he talking to? Every human being who has ever lived? Is everyone’s sin forgiven? If so, based on what? Let’s remember that David is speaking to himself so even though he uses the word “your” he’s not speaking to an audience, he’s speaking to his own soul. Remember, soul, the Lord forgives all your sins.

Now this verse by itself isn’t meant to answer the question of whose sins are all forgiven but when we read it in the context of the entire Bible, we realize that Jesus came to give his life on the cross to pay for our sins so that we could be forgiven and our part is simply to believe.

²¹ But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. ²² This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. ²⁵ God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. Rom. 3:21-25

Everyone who believes in Jesus Christ as their Savior can claim this benefit as boldly as David does: He forgives all your iniquities. But before we move on, consider the scope of this promise. All our sin doesn’t just include the sins we committed in the past, or the sins we’re committing now. All your sins, means all the sins you have committed, are committing, or will commit in the future.

If you truly believe in Jesus Christ there is no sin you will ever commit that God hasn’t forgiven you for. Just as important as knowing that our guilt and shame for past and present sins has been forgiven is knowing there isn’t some sin in our future that we don’t even know about now that God won’t forgive us for.

Someone might say, “doesn’t that give us a blank check to sin?” Yes and no. Yes, in that sometimes a blank check is exactly what love gives. I say to my kids, “I will always love you and accept you as my son/daughter. There’s nothing you could ever do that would make me stop loving you.” That’s a blank check.

There are things they could do that would make me incredibly sad, that would break my heart. But there is nothing they could do that would make me stop loving them.

Someone might say, wouldn’t it be wiser to say, “I will love you as long as you do this and don’t do that…” Wouldn’t that provide them with motivation to stay on the straight and narrow. But it would be the wrong kind of motivation: a “I will love you as long as you do such and such…” motivation. It would speak the wrong thing over our relationship: I love you as long as you perform up to my expectations. So I give my kids a blank check.

But it’s really not because when we believe in Jesus, the Holy Spirit writes the law of God on our hearts so we don’t want to sin recklessly and when we do sin we are convicted. If someone can live in flagrant sin with no conviction or repentance, then they haven’t really been regenerated and haven’t believed with a saving faith.

Allow this to sink in: if you believe in Christ one of the benefits God lovingly bestows is that He forgives all your sin. Past sin. Present sin. And future sin. All forgiven.

Benefit #2 – He heals all your diseases

What does it mean that God heals all our diseases? There are some faith healers who teach that it’s God’s will to immediately heal everyone. All you need is enough faith. On the other end of the spectrum are those who don’t believe God heals today.

I believe the biblical answer is that for all those who believe, God heals all our diseases – but not all in the same way or time frame.

• God heals instantly and miraculously. We see that many times in the Bible, but especially in Jesus’ ministry. He healed the blind, the lame, the leper, the deaf, the mute. And the reason the gospels give is that his heart was moved with their afflictions. God hasn’t changed. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So we should pray and believe God to heal and sometimes that healing will be instant and miraculous.
• God also heals through a slower process of improvement. We see a bit of that in the case of when Jesus spit on a blind man’s eyes and asked him if he could see. The man replied, “I see men as trees walking around.” Partial healing. Jesus placed his hands on him again and the man could see clearly. Now, if in Jesus’ ministry there could be a process – even if only a few moments long – then certainly we can experience healing as a process of improving. Often this process of healing includes the God-given ability of the body to heal itself. When we get sick, our bodies do amazing things to get back to health. God is the One who made our bodies to fight sickness. He heals all our diseases.
• When we go to the doctors and they treat our illness, I am incredibly grateful for their expertise and medical knowledge, but God’s involved in that healing too. Several weeks ago many of you kindly prayed for me when I was bitten by a tick and had Lyme’s Disease.
• In psalm 42 David was very sick – on his deathbed – and prayed for God to graciously heal him. God did, but there was a period of time that David was sick and then he wasn’t.

Benefit # 3 – He redeems your life from the grave, crowns you with love and compassion, and satisfies you with good

⁴ who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, ⁵ who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's. vv. 4-5