Preach A Message Of Thankfulness To Yourself (Psalm 103)
Here is the video of the sermon. If you’d like to read the text, just mosey on past this video and you’ll get there.
When I was a teenager, I remember going to see my Great Grandparents often. They stayed pretty active in old age, so I got to see his big and beautiful garden every year. He had fruit trees that he cared for. And she always had sugar cookies sitting on the counter that were delicious. We would sit in their living room and he would smoke Prince Albert in a Can and she would sit in her chair. And Hee Haw would almost always be on the television in the living room. And they would tell us story after story about things.
My Great Grandparents did not have access to motorized vehicles until they were adults and had children. They had a farm and hauled their produce around in a horse and carriage. They had an ice box when they were adults, which was essentially an insulated box that someone came around and placed a large block of ice in to keep items that needed to stay cold, cold. They owned homes without bathrooms and electricity. They still remembered party line telephones, which was basically a telephone line that was shared by neighbors, so that one could hear what was being said on the phone by your neighbor simply by picking up the phone. Their lives were exponentially harder than ours today in many ways, but they were much more grateful and thankful than most people today.
In this passage of Scripture, David recounts the many blessings that God has given and calls us to do the same. Let us preach to ourselves the many blessings that God has given to us and call upon others to do the same.
Preach To Yourself All The Benefits Of Being In Fellowship With God And Be Thankful (Psalm 103:1-5)
The very first thing we see in the text is “Bless the LORD, O my soul”, and that sets the stage for the entire Psalm (Psalm 103:1). The word “bless” here is a pouring out of praise as an act of adoration. And “O my soul” is David telling himself to do this.
You might be saying to yourself, “that sounds a bit weird”. Well, it might sound weird, but it is truly the sanest thing that you could be doing right now. We are not always thankful people. There are times when, due to circumstances in our lives, we lose sight of all the good things that God has done for us and given to us. But in those moments we must preach to ourselves and let ourselves know what we should be thinking.
David is preaching to himself, or telling himself to “bless the LORD”. And he continues with instructions for himself so that he can do the job well. He instructs himself to “forget not all His benefits” (Psalm 103:2). David tells himself not to forget all the benefits of being in relationship with the Lord. And David goes so far as to list some of these benefits, so he would be sure and keep them in the forefront of his mind.
The first benefit mentioned is that God forgives all of our sin (Psalm 103:3). What a glorious thought! I am a horrible sinner and I have earned for myself God’s wrath and God’s justice. And there is nothing that I can do to wipe away that stain. But God forgives all my iniquities through Christ.
God the Son took on human flesh and dwelt among us. He lived a perfect life on behalf of sinners so that they would be credited with His righteousness. He died on the cross and paid the punishment for sin. Three days later Jesus rose from the grave and had completely accomplished our right standing with God. And all those people who turn from ruling their own lives and trust in the Savior will have eternal life.
God forgives sin, and this is what is meant by the next phrase “heals all your diseases” (Psalm 103:3). Because that phrase is tucked in between two other phrases concerning eternal life, it seems that this is used as another way of discussing forgiveness. Though God can and sometimes does bring healing, this is a text that is discussing healing from the greatest of maladies and that is sin. We are wracked by the curse and illness of sin. It is the cancer of our soul and if allowed to run its course will deliver us to the pit of death. But praise be to God, He redeems us from that pit (Psalm 103:4).
God has forgiven our sin and brought us to Himself. He has crowned us with His love and mercy (Psalm 103:4). And gives us our heart’s greatest satisfaction, which is Himself. So that in the New Heavens and New Earth, and somewhat here, we are renewed. Though ultimate renewal will one day come, we are now ushered into fellowship with God where we find renewal and refreshing for our soul.
We live in a society filled with abundance and are not grateful and thankful for what we have. Ungratefulness seems to be the water in which we swim. Though W.C. Fields is not normally a man I would quote in a sermon, he did wisely say,
“Remember, a dead fish can float downstream, but it takes a live one to swim upstream.”
And if you are going to be a grateful and thankful person in this society, then it is going to take some effort. There will be a rush of ungrateful fish headed that other direction. Therefore, you are going to be swimming against the flow of the rest of the society.
You are going to have to preach to yourself. It will take effort to not be like everyone else.
You must preach to yourself the many benefits of being one of God’s children. He has forgiven you. God the Son took on human flesh and lived and died for your salvation. His blood was poured out for the forgiveness of your sins. He lived and died to bring us into fellowship with God.
You were lost. You were dead in your trespasses and sins. You were without hope and without God in the world and He caused us to be born again and receive this great salvation.
You were doomed for death and Hell, and you have been given eternal life.
Preach it to yourself. Don’t let yourself forget it.
But preach it to your kids as well. They need this badly. For instance, your children will watch kids open toys and play with them online today and become the most dissatisfied little people on Earth. Limit their access to that stuff and if it makes them ungrateful turn it off. Move them to see the many wonderful thing that they have. Move them to see the many wonderful things that God has done for the salvation of sinners.
Preach To Yourself The Goodness Of God And Be Thankful (Psalm 103:6-14)
We are now moved to look at the character of God and His dealings with His people. And this is also something we are incredibly grateful and thankful for. It is also something else that we often need to preach to ourselves. The Lord works righteousness for His people, those who are oppressed and have had injustices acted upon them will find safety in Him. That is who He is and that is what He does.
The phrase” He made known His ways to Moses” should immediately call to mind what might be one of the most famous and memorable passages of Scripture found in the Old Testament. Moses asked to know God’s ways and to see God’s glory.
“Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” … Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” 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. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” And the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”” (Exodus 33:13, 18-23 ESV)
And God made Moses know His ways in the next chapter.
“The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”” (Exodus 34:6-7 ESV)
This is no small thing that David is here discussing. He knows that “the Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed” because of who God has revealed Himself to be. Because God is all that He told Moses that He is, David can trust that God is going to be compassionate toward Him. And something else reveals this same message to Him as well. And that is all that God had done for the people of Israel (Psalm 103:7).
If one considers God’s faithfulness to His people through the years, the goodness of God toward His people is plain. Most assuredly the calling of Abraham, the rescue of God’s people through Joseph, the salvation from slavery, the plagues, the Red Sea, the wilderness wanderings, the giving of the Law, the battles in Joshua, Gideon, and more all point to God’s faithfulness. In all of these stories, and more, it doesn’t take long for us to see God’s faithfulness. In many different times and many different ways, God was faithful to his people. And this helps us to see more clearly the character of God and His love for His people.
This story of God’s nature and character leads David to a rather obvious conclusion, a conclusion that should give us much hope.
“He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.” (Psalm 103:10 ESV)
Over and over the history of Israel proves this very thing, as does the story of Moses. They were grumbling, ungrateful, and sinful people, but God did not deal with them according to their sins. And God does not deal with us according to our sins.
Though we have earned for ourselves God’s wrath and justice, He gives to us grace.
“For as high as the heaves are above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west so far does he remove our transgression from us.” (Psalm 103:11-12 ESV)
That is how massively God loves His people. And that is also how far God has removed His people’s sins from them.
Take some time here because this is something you will need to preach to yourself time and time again. God loves and cares for His people. He has a history of that. That is who He is and that is what God does. And this should move us to be incredibly thankful for who He is and what He does for us.
Simply put, God is good and He loves His people. He knows that we are frail people who could not last without Him. But He has compassion on us (Psalm 103:14). He knows how weak we are. He knows our infirmities. He knows our frailty. He loves us anyway and He is compassionate toward us.
We are not only thankful that God gives us all of the benefits of being His people. We are also thankful and grateful that God is who He is and loves us the way that He loves us.
God revealed Himself to Moses in what many theologians state is the greatest revelation of Himself in the Old Testament. That is, when God passed by Moses, He revealed more of His nature and character than was ever revealed before Jesus. And that revelation of Himself brought great thankfulness and comfort to David. And it should to us as well.
So, dwell upon the attributes or characteristics of God. Note the many names that God is given in the Scriptures and think on what those names mean. Grab a book like A.W. Tozer’s “The Knowledge of the Holy” and ponder the attributes of God. Dwell upon who God is and you’ll soon find yourself thankful and grateful because God is God and no one else is.
And we have an even fuller revelation of the goodness of God than was given even to Moses. We have the full revelation of God’s goodness in Jesus Christ. We see God’s love, compassion, grace, and mercy in Jesus Christ. We see the great lengths that He went to bring us into fellowship with God. We also see the great lengths that God went to make to remove our transgressions from us.
Let us be thankful because of who the Lord is and how He relates to us. We are His children through the life, death, and resurrection of His Son.
Preach To Yourself Your Dependence Upon God And Be Thankful (Psalm 103:14-19)
I remember getting angry about something stupid when I was a teenager. I told my parents that I was going to leave. Without flinching Dad told me that he would put my stuff out on the porch for me.
That did something to me. It made me realize how very dependent upon my parents I was. At that moment I sat down in my ugly orange chair and thought about what it would cost to pay rent, electric bills, water bills, trash, and groceries. And suddenly I realized that I was not yet able to handle living on my own. And I would argue that this sudden realization jolted me into being more grateful for all my parents did, though I did not always show it.
The same thing can happen to us concerning the Lord if we are not careful. We can begin to think that we are getting a lot of stuff done on our own without Him. But that is never the case.
Verse 14 serves as a transition to this idea. God remembers that we are but dust. This is obviously a reference to our creation and where we return, from dust and to dust. And the next few lines discuss the brevity of our lives. We are like grass or summer flowers. Our days are short and we only flourish for a little while (Psalm 103:15-16). The imagery is of our passing away as the wind passes over us. Like summer flowers, we are only in bloom for a short time. It takes us time to grow, then we flourish, then we die when the cold comes. It’s a statement on the brevity and frailty of human life.
This is also a statement on the complete dependence upon God for our life, breath and everything. Our lives are brief and short, but God’s love is steadfast and everlasting. Our lives are short. We did not choose the life we would have. And we did not choose the place that we would live. We also don’t choose the length of our life. It is God who sustains us through our life, we are completely dependent upon Him for all of the things we receive in this brief life.
Though our lives are brief, God’s love is not. His love and care over His people reaches from generation to generation. And some of you can look back over your lives and see the faithfulness of God from generation to generation. Some of you can recite story after story of God’s faithfulness to love and care for your families and your church. But for some reason we don’t think to apply this to the future.
I have been in church service after church service with men faithfully preaching God’s Word and barely heard a word about passing the faith down to my children. Do you even think about what the faith of your Great Grandchildren would be like? Do you consider how you pass the faith down to your children? Do you consider that you are training your children to pass the faith down to their children, their children’s children, and hopefully their children as well?
Once you become an adult, sign after sign smacks you in the face that tells you that your life is temporary. For some of you it is hair color change, hair loss. For some of us it is deaths in our families. Whatever the flashing lights are, we find out over and over that we will not live forever and that we are not as independent as we think we are. Despite all of that, God cares for us. He knows how temporary we are. He knows how prone to infirmity we are. He even knows how prone to sin we are. But He loves us and cares for us.
We need to remind ourselves of our frailty and our dependence upon God for everything. While we are dependent upon Him for everything, He is dependent upon no one. And it is God who provides for us everything. Preach that message to yourself daily and you will find yourself to be more grateful and thankful in no time. If we are going to be people who are thankful, then we need to understand that we didn’t do it all.
We didn’t earn our salvation. And we didn’t provide food for ourselves. By God’s hand we have everything we have and will live the life we live. This doesn’t mean that we don’t work for our food, but it does mean that God put us in a time and place where we could. He also provided us the ability to work. And a job was made available for us at the right time. Food was also available at the market. The farmers were able to produce food, the weather was right, and the soil was good. Simply put, you are not as in control as you often think you are. And so, you need to realize your frailty.
And we need to pass this faith of ours down to the next generation. It’s not enough to drop your kid off at church and have them taught at church. God’s faithfulness is not just to us but to coming generations as well. This is something that is supposed to be worked into the very fabric of your family.
I am trying to give the parents in here a start and guidance on that sort of thing. And I would like to help more if I can. And the reason is that this is so foreign to us that we often times do not know where to begin.
I did not grow up in a home where the Bible was taught and some of you, if not most of you, can say the same thing that I did. When we buck the family trend, we are attempting to be faithful and raise our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. There are discussions that can be had on the back of bulletins. We have a family guide for Advent. This is important. It’s part of who we are as God’s people. And I want to equip you for this, but you must implement something at home.
We are but dust. God has given so very much to each one of us. And we see His faithfulness to us and long to see that faithfulness in the generations that come after us. So we raise our children up in the fear and admonition of the Lord trusting that He is faithful and will care for us and them.
Preach To Everyone And Make Others Thankful (Psalm 103:20-22)
This preaching is not to be done to ourselves alone, but we are to call others to join in the chorus of praise. And here David calls upon the angels to bless the Lord (Psalm 103:20). He calls upon “the hosts”, that is all the people of God to bless the Lord (Psalm 103:21). Everything and everyone on all the Earth is to bless the Lord (Psalm 103:22). There is a crescendo here of praise and adoration to the Lord. And the ending is somewhat unexpected.
We end as we began.
“Bless the LORD, O my soul!” (Psalm 103:22 ESV)
We are to declare the glory and goodness of God over the Earth. As His people, we are to shout the glorious testimony of His grace in our lives. Thanksgiving is not a one-day affair for us. It is something that we do at all times.
This may sound insane but a simple change in the way we view life and the way we express life to others could change things profoundly.
We are asked, “How are you today?” I don’t know about you, but I usually just say, “Fine.” I should be telling everyone that the Lord has blessed me tremendously.
We tell people of something good that has happened to us and we should begin that by giving credit to the Lord for what He has done. And here is my point, We should be people who live lives of gratefulness and thankfulness in all of our life, and everyone should know it.
Conclusion
We live in an incredibly ungrateful and unthankful day. Being a thankful people is going to be difficult, but it is something that we should do. The Lord has blessed us tremendously, and as His people we know it. He has give us our homes, our families, our food, our jobs, and most of all He provided for us this glorious salvation. He has brought us to Himself through the finished work of His Son.
Let us be a thankful people who tell other people about the glorious wonders of our glorious Lord.
R. Dwain Minor