The Benefits of Believing God Part Two

Summer in the Psalms ‘23

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

August 6, 2023

The Benefits of Believing God Part Two

Today is the second part of the message The Benefits of Believing God from Psalm 103. I was amused to look back and see that last year I preached five messages from Psalm 3. Psalm 3 has eight verses and I preached five messages on those 8 verses. I didn’t remember that and it surprised me – but all that to say we could easily preach five messages from Psalm103, which has 21 verses, but I’m going to wrap it up with just two.

The first five verses call us to remember the benefits that God bestows on His people. Verses 6-18 describe the character of God, who God is. Before we unpack it, it’s important to realize how badly we need this description of God’s character to counter the misrepresentations of God’s character all around us.

Do you know what the first sin recorded in history is? The first thing that might spring to mind is disobedience. Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s clear command not to eat of the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That is man’s first recorded sin.

But it wasn’t the first sin. The first sin to be committed in the garden was slander. The serpent slandered God’s character to Eve. In response to the serpent’s question did God say not to eat of the tree, Eve told him that God said not to eat (or touch) or they would die.

The serpent responded “you surely won’t die!” –openly contradicting God and essentially saying God lied to them. God is a liar. The devil goes on: “for God knows that on the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God.” Your eyes will be opened…you will be like God…and God doesn’t want that. He is jealous. He wants to hold you back from being all you can be. The tree is good…but God isn’t.

Jesus said the devil is a liar and the father of lies. Lying and deception is his native tongue and he speaks it well. His first lies twisted and distorted God’s character and he is still doing that today. Satan slanders God’s character so that we think wrong thoughts about who God is and so that we don’t trust God.

The Bible is God’s revelation about man, sin, redemption, and most importantly, the Bible reveals to us who God is. The Bible isn’t exhaustive – we’ll be learning new things about God for all eternity. But the Bible is accurate – everything God reveals to us about Himself in this book is 100% accurate. Psalm 103 tells us so much about God’s character and why we can trust Him with our lives.

The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. Ps. 103: 6

One of the big questions people ask is, “if God is good, why does He allow so much bad stuff to happen?” Why did God allow slavery? Why does He allow corrupt people to prosper and honest people to struggle just getting by? The devil loves to fuel these loaded questions in order to form a view of God as either powerless, uncaring, or evil.

In Amos 5 God speaks through the prophet His hatred of all the oppression and injustice going on in the courts and He says that there is coming a day – the Day of the Lord – when “justice will roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (Amos 5:24)

The day is coming when those who perverted justice and those oppressed by injustice will all get justice and righteousness. God will settle all scores and give justice. The problem is that none of us do justice perfectly and none of us are righteous by God’s holy standards. When we stand before God on Judgement Day, none of us will measure up by our own works. That’s why Paul says in Phil. 3 “I want to be found in Christ, not having a righteousness of my own, but the righteousness that comes from God through faith.”

The day is coming when righteousness and justice will roll down like water, and on that day we don’t want to be standing in our own righteousness and justice, we want to be found in Christ, having his righteousness imputed to us.

⁷ He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel.
⁸ The Lord is merciful and gracious,slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
⁹ He will not always chide,nor will he keep his anger forever.
¹⁰ He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. Vv.7-10

The psalmist is quoting from Exodus when God passed by Moses and allowed him to see God’s goodness. What this says about God’s character is that love is the natural posture of His heart. Love, mercy, grace, compassion, flow naturally and bountifully from God. Anger doesn’t. Don’t get me wrong, anger is a vital part of God’s character because it’s a necessary part of His love, but God’s anger is His response to sin. Anger isn’t God’s natural state of heart. It has to be provoked. Love doesn’t have to be provoked, God is love. If there were no sin in the world God would have no anger.

When Christians or non-Christians act like God doesn’t get angry no matter what we do, they are distorting God’s character and misrepresenting Him. But when we stress God’s anger as if that’s the defining trait of God, we also misrepresent and distort His character. God is love. God gets angry. His

love lasts forever. His anger but a moment.

The psalmist then attempts to give us the measure of God’s love, forgiveness, and compassion.

¹¹ For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; ¹² as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. ¹³ As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.¹⁴ For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. Vv.11-14

How high are the heavens above the earth? How far is east from the west? You never come to the end. You can “measure” the heavens upward and go on and on forever. How far the east is from the west can’t be measured because they are opposite directions and can go in their opposite directions forever.

This hits us where we live because I don’t think most of us find it hard to believe that God is loving or forgiving. The challenge emotionally is can He love me? Can He forgive me? Of course God loves beautiful, lovable people who have it all together but mess up once in a while, the question is can He love a mess like me? Of course God forgives people who sin a little bit. But I know how constantly I sin.

We feel like we are in danger of exhausting His love or His forgiveness. So God gives us a measurement and that measurement is infinite. We live in His love and the only way we could get to the outer borders of His love and cross the line out of His love is to travel beyond the heavens. In Christ God has separated us from our sin, removing our sin from us so that we’re heading eastward forever and our sin is hurtling westward forever so that our sins and our identity have nothing to do with each other.

It's interesting that when he comes to God’s compassion, rather than use an infinite measurement, he makes a comparison that is closer to home and more intimate. Compassion is an intimate emotion. It means drawing near, so we need an intimate measurement and the psalmist uses the compassion a father shows to his children.

A good father cares for the needs of his children, and if a child has special needs, that father has all the more care and compassion for them. Nothing gives a father greater joy than the joy of their child. We moved our son to Rochester on Tuesday this week where he started his new job and I admit I was a bit emotional for the next couple days. But he called us on Wednesday and he was doing well and very happy and it made me so happy to hear how well he was doing. Our heavenly Father finds joy in our well-being, and He draws even closer to us when we’re hurting or needy. Jesus said it is our Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom. He finds happiness in our happiness. He draws near to us to care for our needs and feel our pain and sorrow.

Notice one phrase used twice: to those who fear him. God doesn’t want us to be afraid of Him, that’s not the kind of fear He’s looking for. He is looking for those who love Him and walk in daily awareness of Him. Those who put God at the center instead of sin and worldliness. When we sin, we confess and ask forgiveness. We seek to obey His word. We care more about what God says than what people say or the culture says or the world says. We reverence the Lord.

These three beautiful attributes, love, forgiveness, and compassion, bend God’s heart towards us not just in our best moments, but more importantly in our worse moments. God, who is infinite in power and majesty, knows that our frame is but dust.

¹⁵ As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; ¹⁶ for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. ¹⁷ But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,and his righteousness to children's children, ¹⁸ to those who keep his covenantand remember to do his commandments. Vv. 15-18

We are dust and our lives are so temporary and the wind passes over the little flower of our life and we’re gone and soon no one remembers we were ever there…and that could be really depressing except that God knows our frame, He knows our weakness, He knows the brevity of life, and He offers us something that is forever: His love. His steadfast love which is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him (there’s that word again) and His righteousness to our children’s children. I claim that as a promise: the good covenant He has made with me through Jesus Christ will rest upon my children and my grandchildren (and beyond).

God reveals who He is and He is good. Our brief little flower-lives can have everlasting, forever meaning because we anchor them to He who is eternal. And we do that through putting all our faith and trust in His Son, Jesus Christ who came to give us forgiveness of sin and eternal life as a gift.

The final revelation about God in this psalm is about His rule and kingdom.

¹⁹ The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all. ²⁰ Bless the Lord, O you his angels,you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word! ²¹ Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers, who do his will!²² Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul! Vv.19-21.

Bless the Lord for His kingdom rules over all. Powerful angels bless His name. The hosts of heavenly beings that do His well, bless His name. His works and His rule bless His name. And then David ends where he began. He looks into his own soul and says, bless the Lord – Yahweh, the Great I AM – bless the Lord, o my soul!