Let us open the Holy Scriptures to Psalm 103. We'll read the whole Psalm, 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 forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases, who redeemeth thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies, who satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's. The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed, He made known His ways unto Moses, His acts unto the children of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide, neither will He keep His anger forever. He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust. As for man, his days are as grass, as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children, to such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them. The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom ruleth over all. Bless the Lord, ye his angels that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word. Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts, ye ministers of his that do his pleasure. Bless the Lord, all his works, and all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul. We're going to focus our attention on verse 14. For he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust. One very important part of a close relationship is knowledge. Not merely intellectual knowledge about another person, but knowledge of that person whom you love and who loves you. can be summarized best in the words of 1 Corinthians 13, verse 12, which describes the glory of life everlasting in the age to come this way. To know and to be known. To be known is to belong. To be known is to be understood. To be known by someone that you are close to, someone that you care about, is to know that they care for you and are there for you in the good times and the bad times, when life goes the way it's supposed to and when it spirals out of control or crashes. Someone who's going to be there for you and support you and care for you even amidst your weaknesses and your struggles. Someone who's going to reach out a helping hand when you fall down and help you back up. Someone who knows you. Part of what makes verse 14, our text tonight, so precious to the child of God is that it tells us, God knows. God knows you in that way. He knoweth our frame. He remembereth that we are dust. That says much about us, who we are, and it says even more about God and the character of the gracious covenant relationship He has established with us through Jesus Christ. It's these words that we're going to dig into tonight for the comfort of our souls and to help us prepare to come to the Lord's Supper next week. And as we dig into this text and lay hold of what these words mean, we will say and we will sing from the heart, bless the Lord, oh my soul, all that is within me, bless His holy name. The God who knows me and knows my frame. Our theme is He Knows Our Frame. And we're going to look at this under two points, which are the two halves of the text. Our first point is our frame of dust. We'll look at that description of us as human beings. And then we'll look at, in the second point, God's remembrance of us and what that means. God knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. To start off, let us see that this verse of Psalm 103 is the psalmist's and our confession concerning our own humanity. It is a humble acknowledgement of what we are as human beings. We are something much more lowly than what mankind usually likes to think of himself as. We're dust. Our frame. is dust. That's the parallelism here in verse 14. He knoweth our frame. Frame is parallel with the last word in the second clause of the verse. He remembereth that we are dust. Frame and dust, you can put an equal sign between the two of them. Our frame refers to Our build, our human constitution, what we are, the kind of creature, the kind of being that we are, our human frame. The word might bring to mind the world of construction. It's an illustration drawn from construction. The frame of a building is its structure that's built up upon a foundation. So, for example, in Ephesians 2, verse 21, where the apostle Paul is using a building, the temple, as an illustration, a figure for the church, the inspired apostle says, Our frame is what we are as human beings. It refers to our whole human nature. Body as well as soul. Now that word frame all by itself emphasizes to us the vast chasm of being that exists between us and God. That which has a frame has been created, has been built, has a beginning. We are creatures who have been constructed, you might say, by the divine architect and builder. So it is when we go back to the opening chapters of the Bible and we read of the creation of our race in Genesis 2 verse 7. And the Lord God formed man, framed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. There humankind was created in a special way. The human nature was created in our first father, Adam. And God, as it were, He created humankind in a special way. It was hands-on creation. Everything else God spoke and it came into being. But when it came to the human being, God formed Adam's frame from the dust of the earth. God framed Eve from the rib of Adam. same substance, possessing the same human nature, the same human frame, male and female, the first parents of the human race. A frame that is created. We are creatures. God is our creator. And our creator has framed us out of dust. That is the material, the stuff, the matter that we're made of. Literally, after all, Genesis 2 verse 7 says that God used the soil, the earth, the dust as the means to fashion the body and the soul and the nature of humankind. To use the words of the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 47, We as human beings are of the earth, earthy. And that description doesn't merely apply to this physical body, our physical flesh, but that describes our entire nature, body as well as soul. God created us as human beings very unique. We are both physical and spiritual creatures. We have a physical body and we have a soul, that spiritual part of our being. And the connection between body and soul is something so very mysterious. We are creatures, as it were, with one foot in the earth and another foot in the spiritual realm. And yet, nonetheless, our whole human constitution, our whole human frame is an earthy frame. We were created to live in this earth. Our senses are tuned to this earth. Our eyes see the things of this earth. Spiritual things are invisible to these eyes. Spiritual things are hard to understand, and that's why God, accommodating our earthliness, speaks to us so often using pictures and images and figures in his word. Because the earthly, the earthy, is that which is most tangible to us. We are creatures whose frame is of dust. And now that description of us as human beings, that confession which the text puts upon our lips, reveals the attributes of our human nature. That theological term attribute, you remember, is a characteristic. God's attributes are his perfections, the perfections that belong to his divine being. Our human frame has attributes, characteristics, and the word dust brings them out. We human beings are so very limited, so very weak in comparison to our Creator. Frail. In fact, the verses that follow our text highlight that. As for man, his days are as grass, as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more. Those verses highlight especially two things. Number one, the weakness and frailty of our dust frame. like grass, a very tender plant that is easily stomped to the ground, its blade easily cut, or a flower created to be beautiful and yet it so easily fades. And along with that weakness and frailty is the fleeting character of our frame. It quickly passes away like the grass and the flower that grow up and flourish for a little while but then fade and wilt and die. It was not so in the beginning. Man's frame as created by God in the beginning was not subject to the power of death and corruption. But now that brings out yet another dimension of our human weakness now as fallen creatures. Sin. Sin has corrupted our nature. and we are broken on the inside. We have that corruption that clings to us. On account of sin, we are subject to death and decay and corruption, and that's the misery of our fallen human condition. That is our frame. We are creatures of dust, and as fallen creatures, Apart from the sovereign grace of God, dust we are and to dust we shall return." What applications can we glean from this now? Number one, the first phrase of the text, this confession that the psalmist puts on our lips ought to elicit in our hearts proper, godly, and God-glorifying humility. Humility. The doctrine of creation should always humble man. For the doctrine of creation shows that great chasm that exists between us and God. It sets before us the majesty, the power, the glory of God as our creator, and the smallness, the limitedness, the frailty of us as creatures who are utterly dependent upon Him, the God in whom we live and move and have our being. We are creatures of dust. with an earthy frame. And this truth is so important because it brings us back to the ground, when we are so often inclined to be puffed up and lift ourselves up in pride. It's the story of humanity, isn't it, since the fall? Ever since man's proud rebellion against God, his hearkening to the lie of the devil, his decision that he can determine for himself what is good and evil, he will be like God. The story of humanity is pride, sinful pride, and self-exaltation. And so humankind builds their kingdoms apart from God, builds their kingdoms based upon their own wisdom, Man has all sorts of delusions of grandeur. The simple words of this text pop that inflated balloon of human pride. This is who we are. We're dust. And no matter what man invents, no matter what man is able to do, from an external point of view to make life in this world seem a bit better, he will always be dust. And nothing he can do can prevent him from turning again to dust. Humility, humility before God. In our English language, it's fitting then that the word human and the word humble, human and humble, have the same root word which is humus, soil, earth. Humility is what grounds us and keeps us in touch with reality. Humility is knowing ourselves for who we are as we are before the face of God. Humility, humility, humility stands close to the heart of the Christian's life of holiness and thankfulness before God. How often does God speak in His Word that He resists the proud but exalts and takes pleasure in the humble. Let us be a humble people. And let that humility translate into how we carry ourselves towards one another, how we speak, how we treat one another. The humble man does not view himself as the center of the universe. The humble man does not view everyone else as being there to serve him. And so in our homes, in our marriages, in our church life, humility humility, which is the only soil in which true love can flourish, and from which springs service and compassion and care. Think of the parable of the Good Samaritan. The priest and the Levite, they were proud, self-righteous men, and so they had no time and no care for that wounded man on the side of the road. But the Good Samaritan was a humble man. Secondly, being mindful of our dust frame should lead us to recognize our own meager strength, so that in every dimension of this life, We turn to God and we rest and rely upon Him and we put our trust in Him and we seek from His hand the provision of all of our needs. We look to Him for our daily bread and we praise and thank Him for it. Because it wasn't my hand that made that happen and brought that bread to me. Yes, I labored. Yes, I worked. But that was but a means in the hands of God through which He was pleased from His fatherly hand to give me my daily bread. the needs of our souls for all of salvation, trust in the Lord. Us creatures of dust and sinners beside, our frame is incapable of saving itself. The meager strength of our dust frame is utterly insufficient for our perseverance into the end. The humility that flows from recognizing that we are creatures of dust leads us not to despair, but to wholehearted trust in the God who reveals himself in the gospel as our loving Father for Jesus' sake, who cares for us, and whose almighty everlasting arms are there beneath us to lift us up and to strengthen us, and whose overshadowing wings are above us to protect us. Knowing that we are dust, leads us to trust in the God who is not dust. Consider the words of Psalm 18, verse 12, which describe God's frame. Now, I speak as a human being there. Technically, God has no frame because he has not been framed. He is the uncreated creator. Nonetheless, thinking in terms of a frame, what God is like, Psalm 18 verse 2, The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my strength, in whom I will trust, my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. The complete opposite of what you and I are. And now you see as Christians redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. Even though we are dust. In him we are strong. This is our God. Who is the rock. We humans are not made of iron or stone, though sometimes we act as though we are. But our God is the rock. And when we are weak, He is strong. Such a beautiful thing. In fact, It is precisely when we are weak that God makes manifest the glory of His power and the sufficiency of His grace in such stunning ways. Think of the beautiful words in 2 Corinthians 12 where the Apostle Paul speaks of that. And so he says, I even glory in my infirmities. Not that he takes some perverse pleasure in suffering, but he glories even in the midst of hardships and suffering and bearing burdens that his dust frame cannot bear of itself. Because in his weakness, God's power is all the more magnified. And in marvelous ways, He finds that that power and that grace of His faithful God, who is His rock, who is His fortress, His deliverer, His strength, His buckler, the horn of His salvation, His strong high tower, is enough. It keeps Him. It supports Him. And carries Him. And bears Him up when He can't bear his burdens. By faith we tap into the strength of God, which is the strength that moves mountains we could never move ourselves. So, being mindful of our human frailty, let it lead us to humility and lead us to cast ourselves upon our God in trust. In all of life, When you're going through a hard time in the family, when there's strife, when there's division in the church, when you've fallen on hard economic times and finances are tight and worry surges up in your heart, remember your God who is there for you, who will help you, your deliverer, your rock, your high tower. What do horses and chariots have? What does man have? Nothing. They're all dust. But the I am that I am is a rock that will never move. But now, everything that we've talked about thus far isn't really the main point of the verse. The main point of the verse is that this frame, this frame that we've just looked at and that we humbly acknowledge is my frame of dust, weak, frail, fallen. God knows my frame. For he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust. That's the main point of the text. And that is what the psalmist is relishing in, exalting in. The fact that God knows his dust frame. That God remembers that he is a creature of dust. God knows. Of course he does. He knows because he's the one who framed us. He's the potter who formed us as clay into vessels fit for his purpose. Of course he knows us because he is the all-knowing God. He knows all things and all of his creatures inside and out. But there's more to what the text is saying than that. It's more than God's knowledge as creator or God's omniscience. But the psalmist is bringing out the intimate, covenantal knowledge of love. We all readily grasp the distinction there. Think of a dear friend, or a loved one, or spouse, or child. You know them. That means much more than knowing their hair color, their eye color, their favorite hobbies, what they like to do on the weekends, etc., etc. Those are just the external facts. That's just surface level. To know them is to know them as a person, to know their heart. And that's God's knowledge of us. He knows us in the deepest, most intimate way. And it is a knowledge of love, a knowledge that moves him to compassion for us as creatures of dust. That's the idea of remembering. When the Bible speaks about God remembering, It doesn't mean that God forgot something. Children here, maybe you wonder that. You read in the Bible, God remembers, and you think to yourself, how can that be? Because God never forgets anything. And you're right, God can't forget. He knows everything. When the Bible says God remembers, it's not that he brings back to mind something that had left his mind. But it means that He bears something in the forefront of His mind. God remembering means that He holds before His eyes. He keeps in His mind. He knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. That means God unchangeably bears in mind, holds before His divine eyes. The fact that we are weak, frail creatures of dust. And holding this in the forefront of his divine mind, he deals with us according to that knowledge of who we are and the kind of creature that we are. Weak, poor creatures of dust. He takes that into account. And so when he lays burdens upon us, Even as He does so, He is sensitive to our human frailty, knowing our creaturely needs. He provides from His fatherly hand our daily bread, and sometimes much more besides. Even though He is the God who has no such need, who does not eat or drink, who does not depend on anything else to give Him life, for He possesses the eternal fountain of His own being within Himself. And yet he's ever mindful of the kind of creatures that we are. And so he condescends, he stoops down to us on our level. That's what the Bible is. It's God coming to us and speaking to us in our own language, using our words, using our human concepts, using earthly pictures and images. Just like you parents, when you sit down and read to a young child, perhaps you open a picture book and you tell the story to the child using the picture book in love, knowing the frame of your child, the level of maturity that that child has right now. You stoop down to their level. That's what God does to us, his creatures of dust, redeemed sinners. mindful of our human frailty, we say, is the Lord our God above. The Lord's Supper, the Lord's Supper is given to us because God knows our frame and remembers that we are dust. He takes the message of the Gospel, which is proclaimed to us from the Word, the Word that we hear, and He takes that same Gospel message and in the Lord's Supper He sets it before our eyes. He brings it to our hands so we can touch it. He places the Gospel upon our tongues so that we can taste it. Because we, earthy creatures that we are, experience and understand and know through our senses. And so God accommodates our senses in the Lord's Supper. And He gives us the visible, touchable, tasteable Word alongside the Word that is proclaimed and received by the hearing ear of faith. because he knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust, and bearing in the forefront of his mind the kind of creature that we are as his beloved children, he deals with us accordingly. The ultimate manifestation of that is, of course, what the Lord's Supper pictures. The coming and the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. The central mystery of the gospel that ought to stir our hearts, to sing, blessed be the Lord, every time we hear it. To rescue us fallen creatures of dust. God the Son left the glory of his heavenly abode, laid aside the divine honors that are his by right, and took to himself a frame of dust, conceived, born, laying in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes. His earthly flesh, maturing and growing and passing through all of the stages of development that each and every one of us pass through. He was made man, truly, really, fully human, as human as you and I are. God in the flesh. There. is God knowing our frame and remembering we are dust, and in mercy sending His Son to enter into our dust, to clothe Himself with our dust nature, to become a dust creature. That in His assumed human flesh He might suffer and die upon the cross, suffer His frame to be broken, and His blood to be spilled, as the perfect, all-sufficient sacrifice for the sins of God's people, to wipe our sins away and to earn for us everlasting righteousness and salvation, the full healing of our brokenness, the redemption of us from our fallenness. and to lift us up, creatures of dust though we are, to the heights of glory, to live with Him in covenant communion for eternity future. The resurrection that we recently commemorated on Easter Sunday showed us the exaltation of our dust frame through the finished work of Jesus Christ, our victorious Savior, who not only died in our weak dust frame, but emerged victorious out of the grave. He took away the curse that said to us, to dust you are, to dust you shall return. He bore that curse away and he arose from the grave, the dusty grave, with new immortal life. He did not shed His human flesh, but His human flesh was transfigured and glorified. And we shall be like Him. This earthly frame, redeemed by Christ, body and soul, is destined for glory. This earthly frame shall house immortality. This earthly frame shall live with God in glory and life and joy forevermore because of what Jesus Christ has done. Our God knows our frame, remembers that we are dust. And so, a couple of concluding applications. This truth that God knows our frame and remembers that we are dust is a truth that should frame our understanding of who God is. He knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. Those words tell us more about God then they tell us about ourselves and they have a lot to say about us. Think about it. One would expect a God who is so exalted, who is so glorious, who possesses life and immortality within himself, who is eternal, not confined by time but exalted above time, who is omnipresent, Exalted above space, who needs no other, but possesses all within himself. You would think that such a God would be distant, removed, uncaring, unconcerned with the likes of us dust creatures. And yet, though God is all of that, infinitely exalted above all that is called creature. He makes it His business to know you and to remember your frame and as a Good Shepherd to lead you through the entire course of this life, protecting you, watching over you, comforting you with His rod and staff. The Good Shepherd who knows precisely how to tend to each of His sheep. Shepherd who is gentle and kind. who does not despise the sheep in their foolishness, in their weakness. He knows their frame. And yes, even though those sheep, even though those sheep wander wayward, and those sheep are foolish, and those sheep get themselves into all kinds of trouble, and those sheep do at times provoke His just displeasure, nonetheless, He loves those sheep. does not despise them. This truth should frame how we view God. We're to view Him the way the psalm describes Him. Verse 8, this is who God is. This is who He is to us. He is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide, neither will He keep His anger forever. He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him. And on the Psalm goes. Sometimes, We conservative Reformed Christians, because of our good and proper emphasis on the holiness of God and the reality of His inflexible justice, those are biblical truths that must be maintained, sometimes we can make the mistake of thinking of God as cold, distant, unsympathetic. After all, He is inflexible and uncompromising when it comes to His justice. He is perfectly holy, absolutely righteous. Yes, that is true. Yes, that is true. He is not a God who can wink at sin. And every sin against His Most High Majesty must be punished according to the demands of His justice. It must be so, and it is good that it is so. If it were not so, God would not be good. But the God of inflexible justice, of absolute righteousness, who maintains holiness and must punish sin according to His law, God who gave Christ for poor lost sinners such as you and me. And now when you come to the table next week and you see that broken bread and that poured out wine and you receive it, look at it not just with these earthly eyes but look at it with the eyes of faith and see in that picture The love, mercy, and grace of God in Jesus Christ. The Lord's Supper is a window into the heart of God. And in the Lord's Supper we see He knows our frame. He remembers we are dust. He is not a cold-hearted, distant, unsympathetic God. He is the God who is most fully revealed in Christ, who in love for you, believer, went to the cross, went to hell on the cross to rescue you so that you could live with Him for endless ages to come. That's who God is. So beloved, let this truth frame how we view God. Let us adore Him and tremble in the right and proper way before His august majesty, His holiness and His righteousness. But that trembling is not the servile fear of someone who is terrified of an unpredictable tyrant. Our God is our compassionate, gracious Father who knows our frame and remembers we are dust. A second application, suffering saint, burdened saint, anxious saint, depressed saint, wounded saint. Take this truth into your heart It is a truth that brings comfort to you in the midst of your suffering. It's not a magic cancel-all-affliction pill that you can swallow. There's nothing like that in Scripture. We often want there to be, we wish there was. God, in His mysterious ways, usually doesn't work that way. He leads us through the valley. because he has work that he's doing in the valley, lessons he's teaching us in the valley. And sometimes in the darkness of the valley, we can't see it, we can't understand, it's so hard, the burdens are so heavy. But in those times when you can't understand and the burdens are so heavy, don't let go of this truth. Remember, he remembers you. He knows your frame. Though the dust frame often groans and creaks under the weight of the burdens laid upon it, He is with you. He will hold up your frame. He will keep you in His fatherly hand. Lean on Him and follow His lead. The Lord, who is, again in the words of Psalm 18 verse 2, your rock, your fortress, your deliverer, your strength, your high tower. Look to Jesus Christ. Even in those times when we can't make sense out of anything else going on in our life right now. We can't make sense of God's way with us. This is clear. Christ came for me. And so great is the Father's love that He redeemed me with the blood of His own Son. Let us ground ourselves upon that truth. And so, struggling, suffering, sad, downcast, anxious, depressed believer, come to the table, come to the table. And by God's grace, may this sign and seal of the gospel give you encouragement as you see, hear, God's heart for you. And so as we come to the table, Let us examine ourselves. Let us acknowledge our dust frame. Let the proud, let the impenitent, let the haughty, let the self-righteous stay away. You don't belong at this table, so long as you continue in such sins. But you who examine yourselves and see your sins, how often you fall. And you're moved. You cry out to the Lord, Father, have mercy upon me, a sinner. You who see your own human frailty and are humble before your God, don't be afraid to come. Come. This supper is designed and given by God for you. It is a means of grace intended for the weak, struggling sinner. It is a means of grace intended for the suffering, downcast saint. It is a means of grace given to encourage and to comfort and to strengthen our faith. Come. Come with confidence. Come to taste and to see that indeed the Lord is good. So good. He knows your frame. He remembers that you are dust. So He stretches out His hand to you. In His provision, His grace, is ever sufficient, now and forevermore. Amen. Gracious God and Heavenly Father, bless this word to our hearts. We thank Thee for the window that this word is into Thy own heart. Give us the eyes of faith to see through that window and to take heart To be encouraged, to be comforted. Knowing that when we are weak, thou art strong. And though we are dust, thou art the rock. And though we are fallen and broken and sinful and would head and plunge ourselves into destruction of ourselves, thou hast reached down from heaven in grace in the gift of thy Son Jesus Christ and rescued us and redeemed us. And as our good shepherd, thou art guiding us and leading us. And nothing can pluck us from thy hand, not even our own stumbling, our own falling, our own waywardness. Nothing can overpower thy mercy, which is from everlasting to everlasting. And so encourage us with this word and use it to prepare our hearts eagerly to come. to the supper.