Jesus Christ addressed his disciples with revolutionary words after the resurrection. And among the best words that he shared come from John chapter 20. And before we go to Psalm 103, if you would turn there just for a moment. And let's be reminded of the privilege Jesus bought for us by dying for our sins and rising again. John chapter 20 and verse 17. Jesus said to her, Do not cling to me, for I have yet ascended to my father. But go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my father and your father, and to my God and your God. I am open to being shown otherwise, but I believe we search the pages of the Old Testament in vain to find any individual believer saying to God, You are my Father, with the perhaps exception Psalm 89 where the psalmist says he shall cry to me. You are my father my God and the rock of my salvation Everywhere else in the Old Testament in all the praises of the Psalter all the narratives of people praying Praising crying out to God once in a while. You'll hear the group saying our father Something has changed with the cross and the empty tomb. And that thing is described various ways, but among the best descriptions of it are. The letters, the Holy Spirit inspired letters of Paul, where he says, Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, Abba, Father, wherefore you are no longer a servant but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. Or Romans 8, But you have not received a spirit of bondage again to fear, but a spirit of adoption, or some translations say, a spirit of sonship, by whom we cry out, Abba, Father. You see, the atonement, the blood of Christ, the satisfaction that Christ made, the propitiation that He made, has opened the door for the Holy Spirit who, among so many other things, the Comforter, the Paraclete, the Counselor, is the Spirit of Sonship. who teaches us to call God Father. Now, we catch echoes or shadows of this in the pages of the Old Testament. You may remember that it's 2 Samuel chapter 7 where the house of David or David himself comes and says, God, it's not right for me to dwell in the house of cedar while the ark of God is in curtains. I'm going to build you a house. And God says, no, I'm going to build you a house. I'm going to build you a kingdom and your son will be my son. I will be his father and he will be my son. These are among the sure mercies of David, to which we'll refer a bit later. Now, This passage that we have before us, this Psalm 103, is a little bit like a dessert at Bennigan's called Death by Chocolate. Death by Chocolate is chocolate ice cream. That's good enough, isn't it? Chocolate ice cream with Twix candy bars frozen into it in an Oreo cookie crust. with little marshmallows, bits of fudge, and almonds mixed in with a chocolate shell with a side of melted fudge to pour on it. And you might say, that is too much chocolate. I can't take in. I don't have enough taste buds to take all that in. But it's good. If you're going to die, this is a good way to go. And this passage of scripture It's so rich that we really could spend so much more time on it. And so, there will be, when we come back to it again in the life of our church, which I'm sure we will or we've come back to it in our songs, we'll find more to talk about here. But in Psalm 103, the psalmist teaches his soul and the angels, how to bless God as a father. Now, again, I've already made mention of 2 Samuel 7, where at some point in his life, King David is given this promise that his son would be God's son. And I mentioned Psalm 89 sings about that. David, your son will say, he shall cry to me, you are my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. Psalm 89 26. David gets it, although Psalm 89 is not by David. Psalm 103 is. We're not told at what point in his life, from what point in David's life this Psalm emanates, but I think there's evidence that it's a bit later in his life because he speaks of deadly diseases. He speaks of all his iniquities. He speaks of being rescued from the pit. And so I believe this comes from a bit later. But if you would, here with me, these 22 verses of this lesson to David's own soul. 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 iniquities, who heals all your diseases. who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. The Lord executes righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the children of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding He will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy towards those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. As a father pities his children, So the Lord pities those who fear him, for he knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust as for man. His days are like grass as a flower of the field. So he flourishes for the wind passes over it and it is gone. Its place remembers it no more. But the mercy of the Lord. is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children's children, to such as keep His covenant, and to those who remember His commandments to do them. The Lord has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all. Bless the Lord, you His angels, who excel in strength, who do His word, heeding the voice of His word. Bless the Lord, all you His hosts, you ministers of His, who do His pleasure. Bless the Lord, all His works, in all places of His dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Now this is some of the most famous language in scripture. Let me just ask for you to be honest with yourself and with the Lord and say if that language seems like pie in the sky and the by and by or just so much church talk or stained glass language because you haven't experienced that I believe God has given us this portion of his word to say, if you don't know God to be this kind of father, this is available to you. For this reason, Isaiah 55 says, ho, everyone who thirsts. This is the language of the guy hawking peanuts at the ball game. As we've said before, ho. Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And you who have no money, come buy and eat. And then skipping down to verse 3, he says, I will make an everlasting covenant with you, the sure mercies of David. In other words, that relationship with God that David had that caused him to say something like this, you can have it too. And if you don't have it, you're missing out that purpose for which you were born. This ought to be my story. This ought to be your story. And notice that the psalmist addresses himself. Isn't it fun to read other people's mail? Occasionally I discover that my email has been read because I get there and it's already read. I don't point any fingers, but it happens everywhere I go. My email has already been read. Well, it's almost like the psalmist is allowing us to read in on his own heart's communication with itself. Now, the outline that does not appear in your bulletin is that we teach our souls to bless God as a father. And the first point in the outline is, first of all, for his acts of grace. Verses 1 through 7. This is the psalmist talking to himself. Now, you talk to yourself, too. I sometimes hear it on the basketball court where some of you will walk away saying, stupid, stupid, stupid, or something of that nature. Or you'll mutter to yourself about how badly you were wronged on the softball field or whatever it was. We talk to ourselves in situations great and small. But notice that the psalmist here is talking to his own soul. And remember Hebrew poetry functions so often where the second line illuminates the first or where he says something and then he says it again. This is where preachers got this idea to tell them what you're going to tell them and then tell them what you have to tell them and then tell them what you told them. This is what the Psalms do. They repeat themselves. They layer thoughts and they teach us that way. They illuminate things. And he says, bless Yahweh. Oh my soul or literally he says bless my soul Yahweh. Baruch Yahweh. Now you've probably heard of some of our messianic brethren in Dallas have a church called Baruch Hashem. Blessed be the name and when you heard Pastor Drake at the Passover Seder Baruch Adonai, blessed be the Lord. And I know that some of us, people that I am in fellowship with, believe it's wrong to pronounce the name Yahweh. I respectfully disagree with them since it's written in God's Word for us. But this is literally what it says, bless my soul Yahweh. It's pointed out in the commentaries. that almost every time where God is the object of blessing, what follows is the relative pronoun, who, and a verb. It's never left void of content. It's always, blessed be the Lord, who has done A, B, C, D, E, F, and G, and on through. And that's what Psalm 103 does. Yahweh Baruch my soul Yahweh who and the first seven verses are full of these acts of grace now I Don't know if you think of yourself as a doxological person Let me raise your hand if you think of yourself as a okay. I'm teasing you doxological just means that you glorify God But I know some people in this church who I think of as doxological people because they are grateful people. And they're constantly turning the conversation towards the Lord and towards His Word. And I don't know if you're accustomed to thinking of people that way. You know, as human race, we're very good at complaining. But when grace takes hold of a person's life and a believer grows a little bit, they become doxological. They become God-directed. And if you talk to them long, you'll find out that God's at work in their lives. And it might show up in a note that they write to you, a Facebook post. But they turn the conversation towards how good God is. I stand convicted by this passage of failure in this regard so often. I need to say, hey, soul, inmost person, bless Yahweh. Bless Yahweh. Now, you know, my favorite whipping boy these days is the smartphone, so let me beat on him a little bit more and say I'm convicted in recent days of my prayerlessness in general compared to other times. And part of that prayerlessness is praiselessness. So I need this psalm and maybe you do too. to say, I need to bless the Lord. By the way, I can't help but fast forward to the end. Did you notice that at the end, this guy has the chutzpah to exhort the angels? No doubt in my mind that when we stand here and sing, praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him all creatures here below. Praise Him above, ye heavenly hosts. That above is not saying, praise Him higher than the heavenly hosts, than you praise them, because we shouldn't be praising them anyway. It's actually addressed to the angels. It's actually a paraphrase of Psalm 103. Praise the Lord, you His heavenly armies. Now, far be it for me to think I have anything to teach supernatural personalities of that stature. But if He can do it, we can too. And so it's interesting that perhaps we, sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, have a vantage point on being saved that the angels lack. For whatever reason, he takes it upon himself to spend two or three verses at the end saying, praise him above you heavenly hosts. Why? For his acts of grace. Baruch, Yahweh, who? And let's go through this list just a little bit. Baruch Yahweh, O my soul, and all that is within me, His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits. Now, this is a curious word, benefits. It is a rare word. But when you hear the word benefits, you think of a contract. I have this job. I work at Starbucks. I work it. Krispy Kreme, there's a job with benefits right there. I have benefits. And you know, the translator is really tapping into something that's not coincidental, that this is the language of recompense, of reward, of payback, of a word we don't use very often, of requital, getting back. I don't know what your best investment is. Maybe you had the foresight to invest in Apple 20 years ago or Texas Instruments. But here's a better one. Here's payback. Here is recompense. Here is return on investment. Here is a contract, more than that, a covenant with benefits that pay. You know anybody else who has a contract with these kind of benefits? Well, let's look at them. What are these benefits? And he says the same word again in verse 10. He hasn't paid us back the way we deserve, he says in verse 10. But what are these benefits? Well, beginning in verse 3, who forgives all your iniquities? The word iniquities means perversities. It means crookedness. It means that we're bent people. And praise God for that word, all. Which sin is it that won't be forgiven? It is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, which those leaders who had just said that Jesus' works were the works of Satan had just committed, and disowning Him and denying Him. but every other sin will be forgiven." The benefits that David was aware of in this covenant he had with God included the forgiveness of all sins. Now, I don't know where you would rank the order of the benefits you have from God, but I think if we take a good look in the mirror and know ourselves for who we are, we would start here, wouldn't we? He loves me despite me. I remember hearing a mailman walk into a barbershop and the barber who was a little bit of a profane man said, well, how you doing, Mike? I'll never forget the mailman's response. He said, God loves me despite me. He knew this. He forgives all my crookedness. All of it. All of it. David knew some crookedness in his heart, some perversity, some vile things. who forgives all your iniquities. Doesn't that put paid to a lot of bad theology? Doesn't it give your conscience something solid to clamp down on? What though the accuser roar at ills that I have done, I know them well and thousands more, but Jehovah findeth none. I know, you know you're a sinner. And the accuser comes and lays out your resume of bad moments. You could probably say, I know a few more that you've forgotten here. But the one whose opinion matters has forgiven me of all iniquities. Praise the Lord, my soul. Bless the Lord, O my soul. By the way, this word bless is a little bit different. When God blesses people, He imparts life and health and favor. When we bless God, it's almost a way of saying praise with content. Thanksgiving with content for which the thanks is given. Bless the Lord give him praise and tell the reasons why he forgives your iniquities these acts of grace go on who heals all Your diseases this word diseases is a dread disease It's the word used of the man whose intestines were coming out I forget what sad scene in the Bible that comes from but it's this word for for awful disease it is the worst kinds of diseases that we have now I There's no adverb here that says when this healing comes. I believe God reserves the right to say when that healing comes. Some of you have had the sundial turned back like Hezekiah and got 15 years more of life that you hadn't expected. And sad to say, some of us, the sundial gets turned forward and we get 15 years less. That's above our pay grade to say. But I do know this, the root of all my disease was dealt with at the cross. And so everything from my tooth decay to bad eyesight to deteriorating arterial state has been dealt with at the cross. And He heals of all diseases. And among us are those who right now could say, Bless the Lord who healed me from cancer, from this threat to my life, from meningitis, or whatever it was. Bless the Lord, O my soul, who heals all your diseases, now and future. Verse 4, Third act of grace, who redeems your life from destruction. That's the big word from the book of Ruth. He is the one who acts as my wealthy uncle, my kinsman redeemer, who rides to the rescue. Some of us wish for a rich relative. Here's the word. He redeems you. from the pit, is the word we have translated destruction here, from destruction. He redeems your life, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies. Loving kindness is that favorite word, hesed, which means God's steadfast love. Your translations may say mercy, loving kindness, steadfast love, faithful love, I think is how the NIV renders it. who crowns you with loving-kindness." Now, the word crowns means in circles. Now, it is rightly translated crowns, but don't lose that idea of being surrounded. Turn to Psalm 512. Similar language and may be helpful in understanding what it means to be crowned with loving-kindness. If that sounds like it might hurt to get crowned by something as big as that Hebrew word, Look at Psalm 512. Psalm 512 also, same writer, David, saying this. Psalm 512. For you, O Lord, will bless the righteous with favor. You will surround him as with a shield. The word surround is the word for crown. So catch that piece of it. When you're crowned with something, it encircles you. Now, go back to Psalm 103. What does God encircle us with? Our heads, the word head is not here, but He encircles us with His loving kindness, His loyal love. Now, many times being surrounded is not a good feeling. In warfare, it's bad to be surrounded. But in this case, isn't it wonderful to know that whether I walk north, south, east, or west, I'm going to bump in to God's faithful covenant love? Now, in case we say, well, that's not my life experience. Do you want to consider what David had been through even before the kingship? His best friend dies full of Philistine arrows on Mount Gilboa in 1 Samuel 30. He has to live on the run, and camping is great, but not for years when someone's trying to kill you. The king of the country tries to impale him with a spear for doing the right things, And he's lost his wife. His wife has been taken away from him. And maybe your resume compares with that in severity. But this guy who had been through those things and the worst was yet to come, the loss of four sons, in part because of his own sin. the sword not departing from his house. That's pretty stern discipline. David says, you've chastened me severely but have not delivered me over to death. This is the guy who says, you've surrounded me with your loving kindness. And for those of you who are maybe new in the Christian life or not as old as the rest of us, what a wonderful prospect to think whether I go to that place of testing, Texas A&M, Or whether I go to that city on a hill, Bryan College in Dayton, Tennessee. Or whether I go east to Bob Jones. Or whether I get a job right out of high school. With all these benefits, I'm going to run into the loving kindness of the Lord. God's not going to bless sin. But this is that promise that the house of David had my loving kindness. I will not take away from him as I took it away from Saul. And so David, not content to say he's crowned me, he's encircled me with loving kindness, says he's encircled me with tender mercies. The acts of grace keep pouring out. Verse five, who satisfies your youth? with good so that, I'm sorry, satisfies your mouth with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagles." Now, one commentator has said that the psalmist had in mind the molting of birds and their growing of new feathers. I don't know how he knew that, but that kind of leaves me kind of cold. You know, the idea that, yes, just like birds grow new feathers, so will you. That's not an encouraging thought. But the thought of being able to soar like an eagle is a little more inspiring. And the psalmist says, Saul, talking to himself, remember that this is the God who forgives all iniquities, who heals your diseases, who encircles you with loving kindness and tender mercies. Earlier he says, your gentleness has made me great, Psalm 18. This is the same God who says, He satisfies your mouth with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. These acts of grace give us cause to praise. By the way, this is one of the benefits of journaling. This is one of the benefits of pausing to write down what the mercies of the Lord are in your life. Some of you have just come off a mountaintop experience of various kinds. Maybe it was seeing the Lord work on a mission trip. Maybe it was seeing a child born into your family or a grandchild. Maybe it was being in a play, or getting the job, or getting the college acceptance, or getting a raise, or some unlooked-for favor. Did you know that if you don't really make a point of it, you'll forget God's benefits, what He pays you back for being in His family, for being faithful to His covenant? Write it down. Take pains to remember and forget not his benefits. And that's what the psalmist is doing. Verse six, the Lord executes righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne, yet one stands behind the shadows, whoever cares for his own. Now, Is it not true that sometimes justice seems to limp a little bit? It does. I talked with a hairdresser a few weeks ago, a couple weeks ago, who said that in a single day, she sat on the grand jury in Dallas, downtown Dallas, she decided 80, she was part of deciding 80 cases, 80 cases in one day. I have a hard time believing that her batting average was 1,000. talked with another friend who is a civil judge. And he said that he is involved in making financial judgments as a civil judge in a circuit court from seven in the morning till six at night. And they're dealing with cases from three years ago. That's a bit slow. But, you know, we even hear the souls crying out in Revelation, how long, oh, Lord, how long, oh, Lord, until you work out this justice that you have promised? And yet the psalmist, who was the victim of injustice himself, of being falsely accused, and maybe you know what it's like to be wrongly vilified or to be thought ill of wrongly, says, Lord, this is one more of your acts of grace. You execute righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. You made known your ways to Moses. and your acts to the children of Israel. Point number two, he changes gears and says, Lord, not only your acts of grace, but your fatherly character. And here's where I think we have extra something appropriate on Father's Day. You know, before we leave this first point, if you were writing this psalm and you had to list seven things like he just did, for which you would bless the Lord. What would be your conclusion to this sentence? Bless the Lord, O soul of Barb, O soul of Breanne. Bless the Lord, who, soul of Keith, who has done, what would you fill in the blanks with? Can I encourage you to do that as a homework assignment and turn it in in triplicate to Pastor Drake? and have that non-inspired, but still blessed Psalter of your own. Bless the Lord who did this for me. I don't want to forget His benefits. I want to take a risk and say, if you have followed Jesus, you have a list every bit as good as this to fill in specifics on. And sometimes we doubt that. We sat last weekend at a funeral with parents who were bearing a 19-year-old son. And the first song that they sang was, Is He Worthy? And the verse says, do we feel that the world is a darkened place? Do we feel that our hearts are broken? And the answer in the song is, yes, we do. Yes, we do. Then the course goes on to say, is anyone worthy? Is anyone whole? Can anyone take the seal and break the scrolls? And those parents pointed to the Lord and said, he is worthy. He is worthy. If we don't have a psalm where we say, bless the Lord, oh my soul, it's that we're out of touch with reality. It's that we have this, what have you done for me lately attitude towards God. It's that we're obsessed with the things that God has said no to or wait for or not yet about. Not to deny that the pain is real. We have plenty of other psalms where the psalmist says, I'm hurting, they're winning, where are you? There's plenty of that language in the honesty of this altar, isn't there? But we have a psalm to sing as well. On Father's Day, do you bless the Lord, fathers, for the children He's given you? I bless the Lord. For Faith Elizabeth, Jonathan Keith, and Mary Ruth. gifts beyond anything I deserve. Fathers, bless the Lord for those gifts. So freely given of these children who, wonder of wonders, one day walk around calling you daddy. Who are these people and why do they keep calling me daddy? It's one of my favorite lines. This is a gift of God. He launches in in the second stanza to God's fatherly character. He will not always strive with us. Friends of ours said that they found themselves in this litany with their son of always griping at him about his wrongdoings. Ross, quit doing that. Ross, quit doing that. Ross, stop it. Ross, Ross. And, you know, someone with perfect pitch, tell me what note that is. It's a foul note. It's a minor key. And, you know, of course, the more you raise your voice, the more minor you get probably. But they were constantly chiding their son. And I don't wear anybody out. And by the way, fathers, when you do that, you part company with the Heavenly Father because He does not always strive with us. We part company, dads, when we hold on to grudges and are implacable. We won't make peace. If you see a tiny splinter of daylight to bury the hatchet, bury it fast in case that chink in the armor doesn't open up again. He doesn't jive. Why do I? He doesn't always strive. He doesn't always gripe. Aren't you glad that God doesn't harp on your faults endlessly? I give Him plenty of fodder to do that, but He doesn't do that. Just interesting about this word, he does not keep. It's an interesting word. Turn back to Leviticus 19.18. The best commentary on scripture is scripture. Look at Leviticus 19.18. Right after manned to not be partial, nor honor the person of the mighty. Don't take a stand against your neighbor. Verse 17, Leviticus 19, 17. Give you a moment to get there. You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your brother, nor bear sin because of him. This same word is used of not holding on to a grudge. against your brother as is used here in Psalm 103. God doesn't hold on to our faults. He lets them go. Verse 11. I'm sorry, verse 10. He has not dealt with us. There's the same word translated benefits or payback in verse 2. He's not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities. Do we ever take secret delight in somebody getting what he deserves? Well, God over and over again is better to us than we deserve. This is his fatherly character. Verse 11, for as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward those who fear him. Now, David lived in the days before the Hubble Space Telescope, but you science buffs out there, what's the closest spiral galaxy to the earth? Okay, I had no clue I looked this up. The closest point in the heavens, or at least the galaxy that looks like our galaxy, is the Andromeda Galaxy. There is a galaxy called something like Canis Dwarf, which sounds like a Chihuahua. Canis Dwarf Galaxy is closer, but it's not a spiral galaxy like ours is. It's closer. It's only 25,000 light years away. A light year, I believe, is 5.88 trillion miles. That's what a light year is. So 25,000 of those is where Canis Dwarf is. If I had this right, the Andromeda Galaxy, which is a spiral like ours, is 200 million light years away. Now, I don't think the psalmist had those numbers at his disposal. I didn't have Google to look that up. But he knew a thing about the heavens. He knew some things about the vastness. And he said, as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his mercy towards those who fear him. Now, we are not to fear God in a slavish, terrorized way. But we are to fear him. This is the garden variety word for being afraid. And when it comes to God, I think it's only right for us to tremble in the presence of the Being who made all things, who knows our hearts, who knows the end from the beginning. I can say this respectfully, if you don't fear Him, there is a foolishness if you just don't know with whom you're dealing. You know, you're setting yourself up for an interview like the Book of Job. Where were you? Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? You who know so much about my justice, enough to want to take me by the lapels and demand an accounting of things, let me ask you a few questions. There is a proper fear of God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Psalm 34 says, fear him, you his saints. There is that right fear. And it's a synonym really for worship. It's a synonym for a reverent awe that we should bring to worship. That is the prerequisite. By the way, in case you're wondering what your part of the contract is, Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him for righteousness. But there is an obedience. There is a worship that comes out of that faith. And so the psalmist uses that language here. Verse 12, here's more of his character. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. Do you hear that verb tense? Has he removed? Now, you may not know grammar from your grandpa, but do you get the time of when that removal of your transgressions took place? Is that something that hopefully should, might, supposed to happen? No. This is perfect 10. This is accomplished action with continuing results into the present. This is a redeemed person saying, I have a covenant with God, which has resulted in my sin being forgiven. Do you think that, you know, some people said, you know, Paul kind of had this lawyer mentality. He kind of came up with this idea of being justified. Horse feathers that that is so false. This is here. He is saying, I know what it's like to have my sins removed and to be dressed in a righteousness not my own. He sings about it in Psalm 32, blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin. That didn't come out of Paul's pharisaical training. That came out of the heart of God. He's removed. And so we bless him for that. Keep going. He, as a father, verse 13, pities, and this is the word for compassion. He shows compassion to his children. He pities those who fear him. He knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. Dad's... I don't know what leaps out to you about your children when you look at them. But one thing that ought to leap out is they're small. Do you have compassion on them the way God does? By the way, when you look at your children, do you remember to yourself that they are your offspring or they're yours that God has put into your family sovereignly? And do you remember their frame? You know, sometimes I think we dads, we are very much into problem solving and we want to fix things. But sometimes what children need is compassion when it can't be fixed. When they broke your neat little figurine and you tried to superglue it, but it just won't get back to normal. Or when something happened and there is no making it right. They need you to remember that as a father pities his children, so Yahweh has compassion on those who fear Him. Why? He remembers our frame. He knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. Wow, look at verse 15 and 16. As for man, his days are like grass. As a flower of the field, so he flourishes. The wind passes over it and it's gone, and its place remembers it no more. The St. Louisans are crowing this week because their hockey team managed to out-thug the other hockey team and win the Stanley Cup. But who won it last year? Nobody knows. Who won the Super Bowl last year? Okay, you're from Texas. You know who won the Super Bowl last year. But you don't know who won it three years ago. Even the most famous human beings are so quickly forgotten. That's not God's character though. Look, verse 17. But the mercy, this is Chesed again, the loyal love, the steadfast love, of Yahweh is from everlasting, from the ages to the ages, on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children's children, to such as keep His covenant, and to those who remember His commandments to do them." Again, sometimes the hymn writers say it so well. What's our response to this covenant? It's to trust and obey. The mercy of the Lord is from age to age. Do you think the psalmist had any idea of life after death? Don't be deceived into thinking that, oh, yes, the Jewish people, they got that idea from the Babylonians. That's what some skeptics will tell you. They got that while they were in Persian captivity. No, they didn't. David has this in 1000 AD. It's on the first page of the Bible, lest ye eat of the tree of life and live forever. Here it is again. It's in Psalm 17 where the psalmist says, those who have their portion in this life, but I'll be satisfied when I awake with your likeness." This is what the psalmist is saying. Lord, your faithfulness to me outlasts the grave. Bless the Lord for this. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Lastly, the psalmist blesses Yahweh for his sovereign faithfulness. One verse on that subject, verse 19. Yahweh has established His throne in heaven and His kingdom rules over all. Now, there are some people who take God's sovereignty as an excuse to say, well, it doesn't matter what I do. No, that's never the way we should respond to God's sovereignty. The way we respond to God's sovereignty is by saying, as bad as my decision making may be, As wrong as I can be, as blind as I can be, God's sovereignty has the final word. begin my tongue some heavenly theme and speak some mighty thing, the boundless works or mightier words of my eternal King." Listen to this verse of that old hymn. His very word of grace is strong as that which built the skies. The voice which rolls the stars along speaks all the promises. Do you understand that the same voice that said, save him, save her, is the same voice that spoke Andromeda, that spoke Pleiades, that spoke Orion? That's the same voice that said, save him, save her. We celebrated D-Day last week. And yes, the story behind saving Private Ryan is true. A man lost both of his brothers in the field of battle in the same week. And the US Army Joint Chiefs of Command said, that last brother will not die. We are going to get him out of there at whatever cost. That's a pretty impressive thing when the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the United States military forces say, that one won't die. But a mightier voice. has said, chosen in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blame before Him in love. And so the psalmist says, bless the Lord, O my soul, His kingdom rules over all. For His acts of grace, for His character as a father, for His sovereign faithfulness, bless the Lord, O my soul. Now he's going to talk to the angels. Now personally, I think sometimes Christians get a little bit carried away with their angelic speculations, and that's not new. The Colossians had that problem a little bit. But he is addressing them and saying, praise him above you heavenly hosts, verse 20, who excel in strength, who do his word, heeding the voice Bless the Lord, all you His hosts, you ministers of His who do His pleasure. Bless the Lord, all His works in all places of His dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Creation praises God. Why not us who know how to speak? Your cat praises God in his own way. Aren't you a bit more articulate? Can't you be? David is Bless Yahweh. Oh my soul not least Because he sent his son to die for your sins So that you would have the privilege of calling God father behold What matter of love the father has bestowed on us? We should be called the children of God. Let's pray together Father thank you for how you are slow to chide and swift to bless. Thank you for the love which from our birth over and around us lies. Lord of all, to thee we raise this our hymn of grateful praise. Father, thank you for our human fathers who have loved us and done so much for us that we have been slow to be grateful for. Father, thank you for the pale way in which they show us you. Help us to honor them appropriately today. Father, your word says, render to all their due honor to whom honor is due. And thank you for these who loved us before we were old enough to know what they were doing. And I pray that you would encourage them today. Father, we thank you that you, in your grace, invite us into this relationship where we may know for ourselves these acts of grace, your fatherly qualities, and your sovereign faithfulness. Thank you that you finish what you start, and we pray these things in Jesus' name, and all God's people said, amen.