Psalm 103
Blessing the Lord God 

August 13, 2000


Last Sunday my sermon had to do with what this psalm teaches us about the Covenant of Grace. I am coming back to it to see it as an example of "blessing" the Lord, as it says in v.1. You will remember that two weeks ago I spoke from Psalm 84 on loving the public worship of God. This 103rd Psalm is part of what it means to worship God. Worship involves some other things but what this psalm calls "blessing" the Lord, is a serious beginning on a theology of worship. The NIV translates it as just another word for "praise" but it is a much richer word than the word halel, "to praise." More about that presently. 

Think about two things this morning: what it means to "bless the Lord" and the areas that the Psalmist mentions in his doing so. 

I. THINK ABOUT THE FIRST OF THOSE THINGS: THE MEANING OF "BLESSING THE LORD." What does it mean: "Bless the Lord, O my soul?" 

    1. We more often think about God blessing us than about our blessing God. This is an unusual word in Hebrew. The word is barac. There are about 175 occurrences in the O.T. About a third of them agree with this psalm that it is something that one does to the Lord. One "blesses" the Lord and here in this psalm the worshiper exhorts himself to do so, speaking -- as it were -- to his own soul. 

    When it is used about humans it means "to make happy" or as we would say in the popular lingo "to make lucky" or "fortunate" and it usually has to do with God's actions to man. But obviously, when it is directed toward God it cannot mean to make him who is infinite in his wisdom and goodness and truth "happy"; much less "lucky" or "fortunate". 

    2. What it does mean to bless God? 

    Well, the way it is used here in this psalm it partly means thanking him in response to what he has done for the individual who is doing the blessing. This is very clear, especially in vv. 2-4. It is clear that the Psalmist is heaping praise upon the Lord in response to something the Lord has done for the psalmist -- thanking the Lord. This is something that N.T puts strong emphasis on in many places such as Paul's exhortation to "give thanks in all things" presumably on the reasoning that, as James says, "every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights." 

Now do you have an obvious need to cultivate thanksgiving to God? Are you deficient in this? It tends to flow out of a theology that sees God as absolutely in control. We use words like "lucky" and sometimes try to avoid the pagan "lucky" by using "fortunate", which means the same thing. We use words like this to comment on making a green traffic light when we are in a hurry or to approve of the rain having stopped just when we were going out. But we know that all things are under God's sovereignty. And we ought to cultivate thanksgiving to God for what is thankworthy! We ought to grow beyond the stage of small children who only ask their parents for things and never praise them or thank them. Many Christians live in perpetual infancy in their relationship to the Heavenly Father. Do you frequently "bless" God, by thanking him in your formal prayers and also in your uttered and unuttered prayers offered up spontaneously throughout your day and night? O, let us remember to bless the Lord and forget not his benefits. 
    3. And in another way blessing God is used in a way that has to do with magnifying God; complimenting him; and admiring him. This is a kind of thanksgiving, but it is more than thanksgiving for personal favors received but a thanksgiving for God himself. It is a rejoicing in the fact that God is God in all his magnificence and divine beauty. 
Here is something that takes more than just the common decency to thank a benefactor for a gift. Learn from this psalm this thing that is unique to divine worship, the blessing of the Lord that he is who he is. And let it become a part of your personal prayers and of our prayers of worship which we usually offer up as a congregation in our morning service. Hymns are vehicles for this blessing of God but so is the spontaneous worship of a heart that loves and admires the God who has saved it. Learn to do this in your personal worship. 

II. NOTICE CAREFULLY THE AREAS IN WHICH THE PSALMIST DOES THIS BLESSING OF GOD, THIS ENTHUSIASTIC THANKSGIVING. 

    1. You will notice that there are 4 areas for which the psalmist blesses God. And in each case he relates the thanksgiving to some attribute of God that brought about the particular blessing. 

    How different is this from the way that many people in our culture are thankful. I remember in a Thanksgiving newspaper article a reporter asked 6 people on the street what they were thankful for. Five of them gave fairly trivial answers -- things like puppy dogs and teddy bears. One lady -- perhaps a Christian -- said that she was thankful for all the Lord had done for her. It would have been nice if at least one would have filled in the details and talked about the sorts of things the Psalmist was thankful for. What would you have been likely to have said you were thankful for if you have been one of the persons interviewed? 

    Of these 4 sections of this psalm, the first one also serves as an introduction and the last one serves as a conclusion. You will remember that these psalms were the ancient hymns of the Hebrews and so it is fitting that here there should be a beginning and an ending. 

    Now notice the 4 things. 

    2. The first of them is his blessing God for life. 

    For the redeemed person that always centers on eternal life, spiritual life; but , of course it has serious ramifications having to do with life here and now too. But it is seemingly eternal life that he primarily speaks of and blesses God for: It is about life in heaven and in the secondary sense about life in the here and now. We are not supposed to find this in the O.T. but it is here and in numerous other places too. Those who have said that the O.T. saints were a purely earthly people didn't agree with David -- or with Jesus and Paul, for that matter. Notice "vv.1-5." 

    V.2 "benefits" -- the whole category of spiritual blessings that God brings into the lives of believers is in view. But it is also about temporal blessings. Do you ever make verbal lists before the Lord of all the things -- one category at a time -- of the things for which you are thankful -- of his "benefits"? It is a wonderful way to develop the prayer of thanksgiving; it is a wonderful way to alert yourself to just how much God has blessed you and favored you. 

If this is hard for you to do, try making a list with pencil and paper and list 10 or 20 or 30 things, spiritual and temporal for which you are truly thankful. Do this often and it will stimulate your prayers and your love for the Lord. 
    V.3 -- "iniquity" here perhaps refers to our fallenness and imperfection. God puts up with us, amazing grace that it is. How remarkable when we see our own slender capacity for putting up with those who come into our lives. How remarkable that the God who is "infinite eternal unchangeable in his wisdom" puts up with us. This is a thanksgiving for the theology of salvation and for the truth of sanctification. 
How poor the average Christian is because he so little understands the truths of justification, regeneration and adoption. "He forgives all your iniquity!" 
    V.3 -- "diseases". This is not speaking about what we call sickness but the diseases of the soul . 

    V.4 -- "the "pit" here in the RSV is a poor choice of a word. It is not sheol -- "pit" but shahath -- which means "destruction". "Who redeems your life from destruction," who keeps you from destroying your life and its potential. 

    O how blessed is our God and Savior who has so often kept us individually from destroying our lives through sin and disobedience and ignoring of his will. Most of us can profoundly relate to this. Can you think of 2 or 3 or 4 times in your life when you might have destroyed it as far as any usefulness to the Lord is concerned. But God was merciful in his love toward you! 

      "V.4b" -- The love and mercy of God have a redeeming effect on the soul of the believer, healing it now and into eternity itself. "v5." Isn't this a wonderful description of the effect that Christian belief and obedience has on our souls during the days of our pilgrimage? It is true no matter if our physical lives are charmed or filled with difficulties. It is a matter of profuse thanksgiving to God for this redeeming love which is the attribute of God that is conspicuous in this section. (Notice this. For I told you that in each one of these four sections of thanksgiving the thankworthy thing was related to a specific attribute of God.)
    3. The second section is a blessing of God for the interactive aspects of salvation -- the results of our regeneration, justification and progressing sanctification. It corresponds to God's attribute of mercy and grace. "vv 6-9." 

    Notice the most (with perhaps the exception of Isa 53) explicit descriptions of personal salvation all of the O.T. 
     

      "Vv.8-10" "v. 11" His love for the believer is compared to an immeasurable distance

      "v.12 " The effects of justification are compared to an infinite distance, for if you go east, you never will arrive at west. 

      "v.13" The tenderness of an earthly father's heart (in the best of all human experiences) is a tiny approximation of the Heavenly Father's patience for the person he has justified and who stands in the righteousness of Christ, imputed to him. 

Do you often thank God for your salvation--your justification and for the ongoing results of that justification in your experience? More than you thank him for your car, for your vacation this summer, for your possessions? Do you rejoice in your salvation? 
    4. In vv 14-18 there is blessing of God for his constancy. 

    This is based upon God's immutability --his eternal changelessness --and upon his eternity. 

    ("Vv.14-18".) For those of you who have been Christians for a long time, consider how much your view about secular things-- politics, aesthetics, your vocational interests, you hobbies-- have changed in those years. But how remarkable, that you still believe on the Lord. And in a hundred million years into eternity it will still be so ("v.17a"). 

    God is in covenant with his children and they ought to claim their children in that covenant and train them and commit them to that covenant from their earliest gestation. Give your children to the Lord and discipline and train them as if you were doing so ("v.17-18"). 

    5. Finally there is a section blessing God for dominion. This is based upon his omnipotence. 

    The doctrine of God's omnipotence -- his sovereignty -- sometimes causes us intellectual difficulties trying to figure out how it interacts with human choice and actions and how it is related but we ought to start out with a strong view of God's omnipotence and adjust our view of man's actions to God rather than the reverse, which is often the case. 

    How wonderful it is that God is in control of this vast universe which he has made and has blessedly covenanted with his children to take care of our souls and lives and welfare and to preserve us unto his Heavenly kingdom! "vv19-22"

Whatever you do; however your work out your view of psychology and history; you must keep in mind: 
    "The Lord has established his throne in the heaven and his kingdom rules over all." 
In the dark days of civilization you must keep in mind:
    "The Lord has established his throne in the heaven and his kingdom rules over all." 
When God allows you to go through an especially large degree of failure or disappointment you must keep in mind:
    "The Lord has established his throne in the heaven and his kingdom rules over all." 
If you were to take a sense of the nature of religion from this psalm, what would be the sense of its focus? -- the present life or eternal life? -- the body or the soul? -- the material world or the concerns and person of God? What would be its focus, it priorities? What about the focus of your life and its priorities? -- the present life or eternal life? -- the body or the soul? -- the material world or the concerns and person of God? What would be its primary focus, it priorities? 

And before I stop, may I ask you about your praise life, your worship life. We find it hard before God to achieve the excellence and the eloquence of vv20-21. But we often borrow the words themselves to express our beliefs before God. (There are, by the way, at least 3 hymns based upon this psalm.) But what we can do in our worship and prayer is reminisce on how God has worked in our lives forgiving our iniquity, healing our spiritual diseases, redeeming our soul from progressive destruction, crowning us with steadfast love and mercy, satisfying and renewing the youth of our soul like the eagle's. And we can confess the grace and steadfast love of the Lord that, by his justification (imputing our sins to Jesus and Jesus' righteousness to us) he has removed our sins from his view (insofar as he is judge) as far as east is from the west. And we can rejoice in our own experience as our physical lives race to their conclusion and as we increasingly see ourselves a speck of dust with every new piece of information about the fantastic size and complexity of the universe we can see our eternal souls protected and preserved in his "steadfast love which is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him." 

Let us learn to bless God not only for things in the matters of the physical and social world but include that and major on thanksgiving and the activity of the "blessing of God" for our knowledge of God, for our standing with God and for our blessedness with him forever. Let us pray for a revival of thanksgiving in our church and in our individual lives. But for more than thankfulness for personal favors received. Let us pray for one another that we may excel in blessing God for all that he is and does. 

Bless the Lord O my soul;
And all that is within me bless his holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.
Bless the Lord O my soul. 

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