to be our text tonight. I can't cover the whole song, but I know Pastor Johnson has been when I've been here, been preaching through Psalms to encourage us as we may face very dark times and difficulties. We have those in individual level families and certainly this community, even churches, nations and so forth, and nations even so appropriate. So I chose Psalm 103 because I preached from it recently and thought that would be best for you and for me to try to do that, but I think you will find it certainly is a matter for personal strength to be able to face whatever the Lord is pleased to deal with, how he's dealing with us. So I trust it'll be right in line with what we've seen through your pastor here on Sunday evenings in the Psalter. So this is the word of God. Please give attention. It's Psalm 103. 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, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with goods so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who love him, or fear him, excuse me. As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field, for the wind passes over it, it is gone, his place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him and his righteousness to children's children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments. The Lord has established his throne in the heavens and his kingdom rules over all. Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obey in the voice of his word. Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers who do his will. Bless the Lord, all his works, and all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Well, for years, we've been memorizing scripture, at least some of us, not as many as I would like, and that may be true here at Trinity, too. I don't know, and I don't take a check to see how many actually are memorizing scripture verses, but we've been doing that for a long time in a lot of passages, and some years ago, we memorized Psalm 34, and that's one that's really stuck in my mind, and that's kind of unusual these days. I memorize it, and then next week, I can't remember it and have to keep it going over and over again, so we'll talk about that a little more later, but Psalm 34 has been, I've just been able to keep it there just about every night before I go off to sleep. At least I try to make a commitment to that, to say it in my mind before the Lord. And as I rehearse it, most every night, it brings to heart my need for repentance. Psalm 34 begins, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. Well, if you just hear that, say that, I think you could see why I say it should bring repentant hearts to the Lord, saying we need help. I believe we fall far short of this high standard. I mean, words like that in the scriptures should afflict us in some ways at all times. There's no room there for any kind of infractions at all. Even the parallel part of that verse, his praise shall continually be in my mouth. Well, I hope you can see why I say it. It's a good psalm, good verse to bring forth godly sorrow that you don't meet the standard that the Lord has set for us. Well, so you probably noticed the same, very similar in Psalm 103. Phrases like, all that is within me, kind of, if you're alert, you recognize that that's really deep, isn't it? All that is within me. It's troublesome to a sinful heart. Of course, I'd have to memorize Psalm 119. That'd be a challenge. I'd like to do that. That would be good. But in Psalm 119, I looked it up to see. Because I know over and over again it mentions a whole heart. And actually, it's found five times. Verse 1, 10, 34, 69, 145. A whole heart. I hope if you think about that as I have thought about it, That's deep waters for us as sinful people. Such characteristics seem just almost unrealistic and beyond reach, unattainable for us. And in ways, I guess you say they are, because it's perfection. When you think clearly about, in fact, most of the commands of scripture, you find that this is the case. One I should think about more often, but I do think about it often because I fail, I know I do, as a husband. Husbands, here tonight, you know, God has commanded us to love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, Ephesians 5.25. Well, I use that for marriage counseling every time I do marriage counseling. That's a high standard. That's a very high standard. Can you look in the scripture and see how Jesus loved his church? Well, do we husbands love our wives as Christ loved the church? Well, if that doesn't convict you, I'm not sure you're listening tonight. Maybe you're already falling asleep. There's something bad wrong. There's something missing there in our love for our wives. And so that's just the way we see it. And so we have such universal commands for every man, woman, and child to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength. Again, some of us have known that for all of our days. And yet, do we not fall far short of meeting the standard So the demand is, such demands are not just a good effort. That's the way we kind of think. It's if I just do my best, your best shot, or do as well as your neighbor does, or maybe better than your neighbor. But see, it's nearly nothing less than perfection that's required by God's commandments. I only really remember, I didn't do bad in school. I wasn't an A student. But I do remember taking a geology course in college. And we had this new guy that just got out of graduate school. And I really don't think he had a clue about teaching. And I think I made a 40-something on the first test. And I thought, man, I better drop this thing right now. This is not going to do me any good at all. I'm not going to make it. And my sweetheart there says, you better stick with it. What were the other people's grades? I said, well, everybody I talked to did pretty lousy. Well, that's the first experience I had of curving the grades. I think I ended up making 82 because of the curved grades. But you see, we tend to think of God's standard like that. It's like he sees the whole gang of us, and he takes the one that does best, which is not very good, and then he curves it for the rest of us. And we seem, if we fit in there, we're doing OK. But that's not the way it is according to God's word. And I pray that God would help us to see that clearly as we look at this command to bless the Lord oh my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name. As I said. You can see as David gives his self exhortation about blessing Lord is something that we need to hear and need to hear it often. But yet it brings great joy to our hearts as we as he gives us of his grace to to repent and to turn back again to seek to comply with what he is commanded and the way he intended us to live. As I said, just consciously repenting is something that I don't think we ever grow out of. Because we fall short again of the standard. Well, some other verses we have memorized, and I've been reviewing these here recently in Hebrews chapter four. You're familiar with these, I'm sure. Hebrews 4.14, since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast our confession, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. That's a great encouragement for us, and I hope it will be for you tonight. There's certainly no excuse for any kind of half-heartedness, but Jesus, you see, is a glorious high priest. He is our Savior. Indeed, Jesus, as John said, His blood cleanses us from all sin. 1 John 1, verse 7. Then you go on and read verse 8. Listen to these words. If we say, 1 John 1, 8, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not seen, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. So you see, we're on a very good standard when we recognize we have a priest who is in the heavens who intercedes for us. There seems to be, it seems to me looking at this psalm and overriding purpose by David in writing Psalm 103 to help us grow in our commitment and our ability to comply with this aspect of true godliness that is this matter of praising the Lord as it's translated from some Bibles, blessing the Lord. To bless is to praise, it's to give thanks, to adore, to honor, to exalt our gracious God. It's clearly a worship term. and life should be more given to worship, shouldn't it? It focuses our attention on God himself, the ever-blessed one who is worthy of blessing and praise. Note that Psalm 103 begins and ends with the same exhortations to us. In fact, it gets bigger and bigger, and it consumes all there at the end of the psalm, of all join with me as we bless the Lord. This must have been in David's mind throughout the psalm, as he repeatedly calls us to attentions that should encourage or motivate us to promote our blessing of the Lord. And I hope it'll help us tonight as we just briefly look at these things. In other words, these are reminders for us to take to heart, to encourage us to give our lives more to be filled with blessing and praise to our God. So what's the first thing we're gonna consider is what I just mentioned earlier. After making his intention of giving himself faithfully to blessing the Lord, David immediately gives his warning about what? Forget not. Forget not all his benefits. Full compliance with this Christian duty is impossible without effort. A determined effort is required to not forget. That's the one biggest reason for me to think it's time for me to retire because of my pitiful memory. It takes more and more effort to remember things that should be remembered. I said earlier, I don't know how many, I don't think there's as many as I'd like it to be of covenant folks that are memorizing scripture. And I don't know what the policy is here at Trinity, but I asked you to consider that. What duty are you given to memorizing the word of God? Hide it in your heart so you don't sin against the Lord. Or let me say it this way. Well, why wouldn't everybody be doing that? I can tell you why. One great reason is because it's hard. It requires diligence, it requires a steadfast faithfulness to be able to memorize anything that's worthy of memory. And so as we get older, it is more difficult, but like I say, the little children, you young folks, you can, and us as parents, grandparents, whatever connections we may have with little children, we ought to take advantage of that because it's quite amazing how quickly children can memorize. I was going to, in fact, when I preached at the covenant, I did use two of my youngest grandchildren as examples, but since they're here tonight, I might give them a big head. So I'll mention another grandchildren that's in Nashville. When they were little, they were just tiny then, and they memorized all Luke chapter two just by hearing it read every day of December. That's fascinating to me. how soon children pick up words and can memorize it. In fact, we were laughing about that. Some of our children, not too long ago, they were mocking the advertisements. You know, if you watch something on TV, you'll hear the same thing about five times. And before the day was over, they were here saying it word for word when they were going. And I didn't remember a word of it. I couldn't tell you a word they were saying. But his children has a unique ability to that. So we as older folks are encouraged that with our youth that they might learn God's word and have it in their heart as as youth. But for us older folks, I'm telling you, it's a struggle and we need to work towards that to give ourselves to it to to make ourselves think on God's word. It requires a consecration that we we find is not easy. It's not this difficult. And yet here he commands us, forget not his benefits. to remember these things that we might bless the Lord. It takes mental energy, I guess I would call it. And I think sometimes I'm unplugged. It's a requirement for us to bless the Lord, to think about the Lord and, as he says, his benefits. So what do we learn from the scripture about these benefits? Well, you have the whole history of redemption. One that's always fascinated me is here a man getting ready to be stoned. He's giving his final words of testimony in Acts chapter 7, Stephen's speech. Read Stephen's speech and see how he just goes through just with ease the whole history of God's working through Abraham and how he made the people of Israel his own. Well, the Bible has revealed that to us, of course, all the stories of scripture. We've been studying through the book of Judges on Sunday evenings, and those things are wonderful for us to know and to think about. Like we're in Gideon, we're with Gideon right now. It's been so encouraging to me to see again how Gideon was sent forth to be God's instrument, but it was all by God's strength and his provision. You remember how he cuts down his army from 32,000 to 10,000 to 300? Why? that God would be the one that was praised. See, all these things that we learn from the Bible, as we think about those things, we see how it applies to us. And we bless the Lord for that in his working. So all the scripture that we have given to us are for such good purposes. Not to forget, our gracious Lord has demonstrated his love and kindness to us. And then I think we can also think about even our own experiences. You know, there again, I think, maybe Ann won't get upset at me, I think she remembers when she was born, but I, honestly, I just, it's like I have a large blank. I don't remember anything when I was younger, and that's, it disturbs me sometimes when I think about what I don't remember about things, but some of that may be my own fault by not recalling instances particularly that God is worthy of praise, and I'd encourage you to do that. Even you young folks, as a grandparent, I see that the only reason you ever make it to be adults is God's preserving grace and mercy. And so maybe your parents even tell you about things that you did that really wasn't very smart. And yet God spared you. He protected you. And so in preparing for this, again, as I did a few weeks or months ago when I preached this, I started thinking about it in my own life and just tried to rehearse things when I know that God had his I'm here because God protected me and kept me, just like I was preserved to be able to hear the gospel and to learn about Jesus. Forget not his benefits, he tells us, to consider and meditate, give thanks. I, well this time I'll just rehearse one little quick instance, it was quick for me, but it was my, this is after I grew up and left home, but my neighbor's son was killed on a farm tractor by, had a chain dangling on the back and he made a sharp turn, the chain caught the lug of the tire, whipped around and hit him in the head and he died, just a teenager. So that was very distressing for all of us who love that family. But I remember as a, I guess I was a teenager, I was driving a tractor and had about a quarter and a half of wood pulling it down the highway and was going down a hill. So I thought, you know, this thing would go a lot faster if I just take pushing the clutch. Well, some of you know what happened. That wood behind me, it went faster and faster and faster. Then I knew I couldn't allow the clutch. That wasn't going to work. So I just knew I had to sit it out. Those wheels, I know I had to be going 50 miles an hour every time I got to the bottom of the hill. It's just God's mercy. that I didn't lose control. It was just crazy. I thought about that God preserved my life. It was clearly, he didn't want me to die. He kept me. And you know, if you start thinking about your life in light of the benefits, his blessings, his provision for you, you can do the same thing and bless the Lord because he is the one who has kept us through all of our days and all the many things, sometimes not very smart things that we have done. In fact, I mentioned this to Pastor Johnson when I was here, I believe the last time I'd read this devotion where it mentions, and I preached through Genesis, but I just didn't remember this verse. And again, maybe it's just my memory, but Genesis 48, 15, some of Jacob's last words to his family when he's given his blessing. And in Genesis 48, 15, we read, And he blessed Joseph and said, the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has, and this is what really the Lord struck my heart, has shepherded, has been my shepherd all my life long to this day. You know, that's true for you too. The one who has been your shepherd all your life long to this very day. Bless the Lord for all his benefits, just not only in terms of the scripture and all that God reveals of himself, but even in your own experience of his grace and mercy in keeping you. How has God shepherded you all your long life? Forgetting all his benefits, he tells us. And for some of you, that's been quite a number of years. For others of you, it's been very short. But examine your own history, I encourage you. Give your life tonight as an evidence of God's worthiness of blessing. Who did you, who brought the gospel to you? From whom did you hear the gospel? How did God make his sweet message of Jesus saves to you? And on and on it goes. I remember a communicants class I was attending and I was just a little boy. And for some reason the Lord lets me remember that the pastor was standing on a stool and he was raising his hand up to heaven and he was teaching us children something. I remember that to this day. That man was trying to teach me about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Shouldn't despise those benefits. And I hope you will take it to heart. We may never know all the ways in which the Lord has shepherded us, of course, because many of his provinces we can't interpret by the scripture in terms of exactly what the intentions were, but. I think we'll have better insight in eternity that will be forever blessed in the Lord. when we're able to see what all that he's done for us and his glory. Dave reminds us then the Psalm, for instance, verse seven, he says, make known his ways to Moses. So that encourages us, this whole written word of God, his acts to the people of Israel. Of course, all this is about everything that God has done, the Bible, all the Bibles for us as believers. And so we think about those things and never get bored with the scriptures. Learn and see how he has cared for his people and provide for us, and especially sending his own son, the coming of Jesus, coming close to Christmas again, thinking about the coming of Jesus, his perfect life, his death, his burial, his resurrection, his ascending on high, his reign now at the right hand of God. All these things we can meditate upon him. Bless the Lord, oh my soul, all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Well, not too long ago, I preached from Psalm 45, and I'm not sure what the Psalms Pastor Johnson has preached from, but just maybe wanna turn there and just look at a few of these verses. It talks about over and over again the great works of God. 12 times in this Psalm, he mentions the works, the wondrous works, the mighty acts, the deeds of God. Like verse four, one generation shall commend your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts. You talk about encouraging, that's encouraging to me when I look around us and see the world we're living in. Or verse 10, Psalm 145, all your work shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your saints shall bless you. Just like we have here. They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom and tell of your power to make known to the children of men your mighty deeds and the glorious splendor of your kingdom. You see, you've been privileged to have the Bible and to read it and have it preached and to teach it in many ways, all kinds of things in which we can just soak in what the scripture teaches us about our God, to bless the Lord. Verse 15, 17 of Psalm 145, the eyes of all look to you. I love this. The eyes of all look to you and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand and you satisfy the desire of every living thing. Are we given to worry? Well, yes, I can be at times. The Lord is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works. He hands out his hands and he feeds all of his creatures. I've read, I don't remember, but you know how much it takes to feed a whale? How do whales survive? Well, they eat a lot. Who provides for whales? It's the same for you and for me. Of course, much more so for you and for me. But for all of his creation, such a beautiful picture of his mighty deeds, his wondrous works. Do you bless the Lord for all of his works as you have grown in your knowledge and understanding of the Bible? Are you better equipped to bless the Lord because of such? Well, I was thinking about Judges again. I had a note here. As you come to the time of Judges, it's such a sad time in history, so I thought it'd be good for us maybe to stay through the Judges. But in Judges 2.10, we see some, there's a failure at the very beginning. It says, there arose a generation, another generation after them, after Joshua's generation, who did not know the Lord or the work that he has done for Israel. We may be living in a day like that where it's such pitiful knowledge of the scriptures, but surely it's not the case for you, is it? You not only know it, but you teach your children, your grandchildren the word of God, you live the word of God, seek to do that. Well, blessing the Lord, oh my soul. Now, the second thing I want to say, so don't forget that. Now, the second thing I want to mention, and this is where I'll basically end, is what are some of those mighty works? Well, he lists them out, and the first thing he speaks about here is forgiveness, who forgives all your iniquity. Now, you might want to circle the many alls, all, all, all, he says, like verses one to three several times, verses 21, 22. We have many needs, but none are greater than forgiveness. None are greater than forgiveness, that the Lord takes away our guilt, our iniquity. And that's through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ, of course. So after telling us not to forget, he reminds us of this particular virtue of God's mercy and grace. He forgives our sin. Well, it may be possible to have such a seared conscience that you don't remember the last time you really felt guilty for sin. I hope that's not true. If it is, I hope the Lord uses even my mentioning it as a warning to you because you're in trouble. If you know nothing about guilt for sin, that you have transgressed the commandments of the Lord, whether it be just your mental fault, your words, your desires, And so, yes, there may be some who know so very little about real conviction of sin and godly sorrow, as I said, that that's one reason I think I remember Psalm 34 because it's a good reminder to me that I was made to bless the Lord. And yet some days I go through and I lay down at night and I go through Psalm 34 and I think, Lord, I didn't do very well at that today. But that's a blessed thing to have conviction of sin. The Lord still works in your heart. I hope that's true for you. Because I just pointed out, the standard is perfection. And I assure you, you haven't arrived. And so what's the consequence of that? It's conviction. You recognize you fall short. And you need a Savior, and you have a great high priest, as I said, who's in the heaven, who you may receive grace and mercy to help in time of need. And so, just look here at Psalm, verses 11, 13, 17. I overlooked it when I was reading, I said love, but fear, fear, fear. Is there a place for fear in a Christian's life? Of course there is. He is the Almighty. We transgress His word. We come to Him through the means that He's given us, through His Son, the Lord Jesus. Now sins come in many packages. It's interesting that David uses three different words here that describe iniquities, verses 3 and 10, sin, verse 10, transgressions, verse 12. In fact, originally, I thought, well, I'm just going to look up all the words that would indicate sin, and I'm going to deal with that. Well, I found out real quick that was going to be very overwhelming for one sermon, maybe 10 sermons, because I found at least 14 words, seven in each language, Hebrew and Greek. Just imagine going through the whole Bible and just studying all those words that indicate about our failures, our transgressions, our iniquities, as it says here. So it comes in many different packages, and the Lord describes it as best as he needs to have it here in the scriptures. In other words, sin has many faces, but they all make us guilty before God, and we need a Savior. Whether it be our feelings, our experiencing, our recognizing, whatever, owning, true guilt then, we need a Savior. And we're not saved by repentance. I hope you realize that. You're not saved apart from repentance. Repentance is a gift of God's grace, just like faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But there is a call to repent when you transgress. And that leads to blessing the Lord because he forgives all our iniquity, cleanses us from sin. We are encouraged in the psalm then to seek forgiveness because that is, look at verse four, that is a result of God's work, his redemption. As he cleanses us from sin, he has sent his son, the Lord Jesus. And indeed, the whole of salvation is found in a right relationship with God. Look at the references, steadfast love, that's chesed in the Hebrew. That's a wonderful word of God's covenant loyalty. He's always faithful to his word. And it's translated, New American Standard was loving kindness, almost always. And in the ESV, they go steadfast love, or mercy. Here's in Psalm, verse four, verse eight, verse 11. We just memorized Psalm 57. In fact, that's what we're doing now, is memorizing some of the verses in the Psalms that have this word loving kindness or steadfast love. Here's one that we just memorized, Psalm 57, 10. For your steadfast love is great to the heavens and your faithfulness to the clouds. What a beautiful picture. It's just beyond anything we can imagine. It's a steadfast love of our fateful Redeemer. Bless the Lord, folks, because He is worthy. Well, look at this psalm real quickly here. Some of the results of the forgiveness. He will not always chide. That's the word for quarreling or contend. Very interesting, I keep mentioning about Judges, but Judges 6, where Gideon goes at night, you know, because he's afraid, and he tears down all the altars to Baal. And they said, bring him out, we're going to kill him. And his father says, are you going to contend for Baal? Can Baal not take care of himself? Which is an amazing thing. His father's the one that had the statue there, this idol. but he was convinced it was wrong and sinful. Does Baal need someone to contend for him? That's the word we have here. Contend. He will not, will you contend for, what was it? You will always chide or contend. Or look at verse nine, nor will he keep his anger forever. Verse 10, he does not deal with us according to our sins nor repay us according to our iniquities. Now after I've just laid such a heavy burden on you, I hope I have, I've tried to. You need a savior, but you have a savior. His name is Jesus. Does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. Hallelujah, how can you not bless the Lord? Look at verse 12, as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. Someone said this years ago to me, and I've said it so many times, I've probably said it here sometime, but, you know, I never said, you know, you look at the globe, and you go north to south, and you go north far enough, you'll start going south. But if you go east and west, how far will you have to go to start going west? You can go forever. It's always east. There's no distance here from, he removes our iniquity from us as far as the east, east, and the west, absence, never to meet. Gracious love of our Lord. And then we have this incentives or to seek reconciliation and forgiveness. Just just a shortness of life. Look at verses 13 to 15. Here you got. Excuse me. He knows our frame. He remembers that we are but we are dust. Verse 14. 15, as for man, his days are like grass. He flourishes like a flower with a field. The wind passes over it and is gone. His place knows it no more. How often the Bible presents our life. It's just a breath. It's a vapor. And you know, you might live. In fact, I've been ministering to people a lot older than I am. Well, a lot of them are gone, glory to God. So here I'm getting old. I am old or whatever. I don't know. I'm older, certainly. I've never met anybody that said, you know, I've lived such a long time. I should ask Mr. Campbell. He's probably the oldest in here now. I bet Jim wouldn't say, no, I've lived such a long time. Now you look back on life, it seems like it's gone. So that's an incentive for us to bless the Lord while you have opportunity to bless. You young folks, I just pray the Lord will burn your heart to be a part of this all your life. Because life is brief, goes quickly. And we don't know how long we're going to live. But you contrast that with the steadfast love of the Lord from everlasting to everlasting, verse 17. God wants us to see in our lives, from one generation to the next, and again, for you children, this is so important, his righteousness to children's children. Now that's my grandchildren. Children's children, isn't that what that is? Yes. I want my grandchildren, I want your grandchildren, all your grandchildren, to love the Lord and bless his name together with us, because we'll be forever, if we're trusting him, forever and ever doing that together as a family of God. Your children's children. God and his rule and his kingdom. Look at verse 19. The Lord established his throne in the heavens and his kingdom rules over all. What joy to know that the Lord reigns and he'll be reigned Wednesday morning too. Remember that. Look at our country and the mess we're in. God's not going to remove himself from the throne. And how thankful we are for that. Now let me close by just remind you, it's all about blessing the Lord and giving him thanks. And we could look at the next point he mentions this for, you know, he forgives our sin, but he also heals our diseases. And we have some very critical situations in our congregation at Covenant right now, so I don't do this lightly. As we think about the Lord, the one who heals our diseases, focuses mostly on, most of our time has been spent about forgiveness. But he goes on and mentions this, and I wanna close with that one because I think that's important as well. I remember Dan Hankins, Elder at Covenant, most of you know him maybe. He was in graduate school, and he said he had this kid that thought he'd get by without much study. And he remembered him saying he was taking this as graduate school now, so he was going to take this course on the human cell. Now, some of you, Dr. Schroeder, certainly you'd be a case. He said, well, it's just a human cell. How hard can that be? And he almost failed the course. Well, how much is there to learn about a human cell? Well, I'm telling you, I don't know a whole lot, but I know it gets pretty deep. When you have doctors that are given to just the retina of the eye, specialists in these things that are just so complicated that a man could give or a woman could give their life to study in just an aspect of the human body. I mention it because of the complications and how wonderfully we're made in terms of the Lord, the one who heals our diseases. As I said, it's complicated. I was reading, in fact, I just tried to read an article just preparing for this this week on just clotting factors about blood clotting. That kind of stuff just fascinates me in many ways. Way over my head, I could talk to Dr. Schroeder and he could straighten me out, I'm sure, but do you know how complicated that is, just how blood clots? And how many of you, now that my skin's so thin, I seem like it's clotting every other day. I got a skin place somewhere, and it's God's kindness to allow. He heals your diseases. In other words, if you get better, if you live, it's because he's the one that does it. You need to remember that. When you have a strained muscle and it gets better, it's God's one who heals our diseases. And so I just want you to remember that and bless in the Lord because, well, since I've called Dr. Schrader's name already twice, because he's a doctor here and has given his life to study the human body and help all of us in our medical needs. He said once to me, and if I don't have this right here, you can correct me, but Carl, I can treat you, but only God can heal you. I bet he said that to some of the rest of you, hasn't he? It is so true. God forgives our sin and he heals. Our diseases. He is the one that makes things work. Well, I hope this and especially the gift of salvation in the forgiveness moves every one of us here from you youngest folks to the oldest folks here. As you read the beginning of this song, bless the Lord and then let us pray with David as he concludes as he just makes it universal and blessing. Look at the end of the song now as we close. Verses twin 22 your angels. We sang that earlier Samuel as we in the order of worship. Praising the Lord his angels his mighty ones who do his word Obeying the voice of his word all his hosts his ministers who do his will all his works in all places of his dominion bless the Lord As I said, that's what he made us for And what we do so I pray he'll help us as we begin a new week this today and go to our callings tomorrow There is much deeper than just getting the job done is to bless the Lord and what he's given us to do, and to honor him as his children. Well, I'll just ask you this in closing. Will your voice be missing, or were you glad to join in with all the choir in blessing the Lord with us? That's my desire for you. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for this psalm and how it is convicting. The Lord does bring us to our knees to humble ourself and acknowledge that we fall short of your standard. But Lord, we thank you for moving our hearts to grant us repentance, and we might come to be cleansed and made whole, have our sins removed as far as the east is from the west, but Lord, to continue to give ourself, to live for you, to make our lives count for your glory, Lord, to seek to bless you, to praise you, to honor you in what you've given us to do. Please help us to do that more and more for Lord, for that reason we were made. and we pray you would help us in that, and that you would forgive us and cleanse us. And Lord, perhaps there is someone here who, they could care less about this. Lord, that you might move their hearts, you might bring the conviction to their soul to see that they are wasting their short lives. Lord, please give us of your grace. Pour out your spirit upon us, for we need your help. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.