Amen. I trust that that is your testimony this morning, that it is well with your soul. If you have your scriptures, I would ask you to turn back to Psalm 103, the scripture that we have already read this morning at the beginning of this service. Psalm 103. It's from this psalm that we will take our morning message. Psalm 103, want to deal this morning in particular with the issue of the forgiveness of sins, a rich covenant blessing that is ours in Christ, the forgiveness of sins. So as we do so, I want to focus in particular on verses eight through 12 in this Psalm. So let's go back, I know we've already read the entire Psalm, but let's go back and read verses eight through 12, the focus of the message this morning. Psalm 103 verses 8 through 12. And let's give our attention to the reading of God's word. 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. May the Lord bless that short reading of his word to our hearts this morning. Let's bow for another word of prayer just before coming to the message. Let's all pray and ask for the Lord's help in the preaching and the hearing of his word. Let's all pray. Oh, Lord, our gracious God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for its absolute truth. We thank you that we're not coming this morning to man's thoughts or man's opinions or what might be the case. But, Lord, we thank you that we are coming to the authoritative truth of your word. We thank you for that reality. Lord, we pray that you would come now into this time, that you would fill me with your Holy Spirit, that you would take me beyond my own thoughts or abilities or efforts, that it would be Christ set before the people of God. by the power, the working, the unction of the Holy Spirit. Lord, we need you. We are a weak people. We are a frail people. We are a sinful people. So Lord, come now, fill me with your Holy Spirit, and speak the word to us all that we need to hear. Encourage those who are in Christ today, and I pray that you would bring those who are outside of Christ to faith in him. We pray these things for our Savior's glory. Amen. As a believer, do you ever feel weighed down by the guilt of your sin as you attempt to approach the Lord in worship? And maybe in coming to times of personal worship, when you just open the Word of God, come to a personal time of prayer, or coming to corporate worship with the people of God. But do you feel at times as if there's a weight of guilt upon your shoulders when that that joyful response to God's grace, that joyful response to his word would come forth from your heart and even flow out through your lips and song. But yet there's a weight of guilt upon your heart, upon your shoulders, that even the remembrance of past sin that keeps you from joyful worship. Know that that is often my experience as a child of God, that the weight and the guilt of past sin comes back to haunt me even in coming to the Word of God and coming to corporate worship. I believe I'm not alone in that experience, but the guilt of past sin does come back to haunt many of us. But thankfully, God's Word addresses such guilt in the experience of the child of God even here in Psalm 103. And here we have a glorious description, several glorious descriptions, in fact, of the forgiveness of sins that is ours in Christ. God's word does address the issue of guilt, the issue of the forgiveness of our sins. But in saying that, I wanted to offer one qualification before coming to the word of God this morning, the meat of the message. To experience guilt over past sin is real guilt over real sin is a blessing. In fact, it is the work of the Holy Spirit of God to convict men, convict the world concerning sin. That's the truth of John 16, verse eight. It is only right for the unconverted center, the one who is outside of Jesus Christ, to feel real guilt over real sin and over his over his unconverted, helpless state apart from God's grace. But what I want to address in particular this morning is the issue of guilt in the life of a believer who has confessed his sin, who battles sin, who hates that sin, but yet deals with the remembrance of that past sin, even in coming to worship and coming to read the word personally or in coming to worship with the people of God. I believe that this psalm holds much encouragement for us. We're not going to cover something New and revolutionary that we've never seen from the Word of God before this morning. We're going to see simply the truth of the forgiveness of sins a rich covenant blessing that is ours in Christ even in beginning this song the psalmist David recounts The amazing blessings that are ours as the children of God and foremost among these blessings is there in verse 3 who forgiveth all Thine Iniquities as he begins this list of God's blessings the psalmist First first of all, he lists this forgiveness of iniquities as such a rich blessing. I So that's what we want to focus on in particular later on down in the psalm verses 8 through 12 this morning, the forgiveness of sins, a rich covenant blessing. As we consider that theme this morning, I wanted to highlight two simple observations with regard to the forgiveness of sins. Two simple observations, and then we will seek with the Lord's help to apply those truths, to apply those observations to our lives as believers. So first of all, let's see simply that the forgiveness of our sins is rooted in God's unchanging character. The forgiveness of our sins is rooted in God's unchanging character. Who our God is dictates this glorious reality that our sins have been forgiven. Note in particular verses 8 and 9. We have several key descriptions here of the Lord's unchanging character that then gives us this tremendous blessing, the forgiveness of our sins. Verse eight, the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. And here, the psalmist David is hailing back to that description of Jehovah, that description of his Lord that Moses gave actually in Exodus 34 verses 6 and 7. There, Moses said this about the Lord. The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth. keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. And that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children under the third and fourth generations. So David here is echoing what Moses has already declared about this covenant God, that he is merciful, that he is gracious, that he is long suffering. abundant in goodness and truth. So let's think about one by one these descriptions that we have here in Psalm 103 verse 8. First, our God is merciful. He has not given us what we so richly deserve. What do we so richly deserve? We deserve in ourselves by nature. We deserve judgment. We deserve hell for our sins. But God has mercifully spared us that judgment. He has spared us much misery in this present life and even that eternal punishment apart from himself. He is merciful. He has not given us what we deserve. but we also find that our God is gracious. That's the next description of our God in verse eight. He has wonderfully bestowed upon us many benefits and blessings, which we did not begin to deserve. So you have mercy over here in which God does not give us what we deserve. But on the other hand, we have his grace by which he has given us so much that we do not begin to deserve. So two sides, as it were, to that same coin. And once again, at the beginning of the psalm, the psalmist lists all these blessings, all these benefits that are ours because of the graciousness of our God. Verse three, who forgiveth all thine iniquities, the particular focus of the message this morning, but also who healeth all thy diseases, who redeemeth thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies. Again, verse five, who satisfieth thy mouth with good things. So all these blessings point us to the graciousness of God. The fact that he has given us so much that we did not begin to deserve. He's gracious. He's also slow to anger. That's the next description there in verse eight. He is not though though men and women by their sin continually provoke him. continually sin, continually violate his law, yet he is slow to anger. Yes, his anger will come upon sin and upon sinners. We know that from the scriptures. But yet that anger, that wrath is slow and falling upon guilty sinners apart from Christ. He is patient, he is long-suffering, he is slow to anger. And that final description that we have in verse eight is that he is plenteous in mercy. Another way of translating this last phrase is that he is abounding in steadfast love, or he's abounding in covenant love. His love for his children is unconditional love. It's love that's not dictated by our performance, by the way in which we obey, but it's steadfast covenant love irrespective of our performance. This is who our God is. We have this forgiveness because he is gracious, merciful, slow to anger, plenteous in mercy. We have a couple more descriptions of the character of our God in verse 9. He will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger forever. And this is true in particular of God's relationship with his covenant people. He will not always chide. Yes, he will scold his children. Yes, he will discipline us, as we know from Hebrews chapter 12. Our God as a loving father does rebuke us. He does chasten us. But even in that chastening, in that discipline, he does it as our loving father. He does it to bring us back to himself. As Spurgeon said, he cannot endure, our God cannot endure that his people should harbor sin in their hearts. He disciplines us so that we might come back to that communion and that fellowship with himself. But he does not always chide. Even in the chastening and the discipline that he brings into our lives, there does come an end to that. It is not a continual thing for the child of God. In relationship with this covenant God, There is an end even to that chiding and to that chastening. And that last description says he will not, neither will he keep his anger forever because of the work of Jesus Christ, that God's anger toward us has been turned aside by the work of the Lord Jesus at Calvary's cross. So we've walked through these many descriptions here of God's changeless character, his steadfast love toward us. But certainly in the general context of Psalm 103, these attributes of God's unchanging character shine out that much more greatly, that much more brightly when we realize what the psalmist has just said in the general context of the psalm. Note verse seven. He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel. Think about that for a moment. In the context of the psalm, David is talking about the mercy of the Lord, the graciousness of the Lord, the fact that he is slow to anger, but he has just spoken of the way in which the Lord made known all these things unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel. The children of Israel, if you remember, their history, they were marked by disobedience and by continual unbelief. If you remember just a brief history, even in the time of the Exodus, they came out of the land of Egypt, freed from Pharaoh, they come to the Red Sea, And here they see the Red Sea before them, the Egyptian army coming up behind them, and they immediately despair. They say, we should have remained in Egypt. We should have remained there where at least we had food, at least we were safe there. We should have stayed behind in Egypt. But what does God graciously do? He graciously intervenes, opens the Red Sea before them, causes them to pass through on dry land, and then destroys the Egyptian army behind them. You come again to the children of Israel in the wilderness. You would have thought that they would have learned their lesson at the Red Sea Crossing, but they come to the wilderness and they lack food. And they say, well, the Lord's brought us out here to starve. You know, there's nothing to eat. But once again, God graciously intervenes and rains down manna upon them and meets that graciously, meets that need. And you would have thought that would have been enough. But then they become thirsty and they moan and groan to Moses that the Lord has brought them out there to die of thirst. But again, time and again, the Lord graciously intervened, gave them water out of the rock. Each time, Israel reacted out of disobedience, out of unbelief, but God graciously demonstrated His faithfulness and His graciousness. But before we begin to beat up on the children of Israel too badly, we have to remember ourselves and our own experience and realize that God has been merciful and gracious and slow to anger toward us. But yet we, so often, do we not react in unbelief? Do we not react in disobedience so much of the time? Yet, what is the truth that this psalm is teaching us? Our God is merciful. He is gracious. He is slow to anger. He does not always chide. He's plenteous in mercy. All these things are true of our covenant-keeping God. So the forgiveness of our sins is rooted in God's unchanging character. But as we think of that, we have to hold these attributes of God, the fact that he is merciful, the fact that he is gracious, the fact that he is plenteous in mercy, abounding in steadfast love, if you will, we have to hold these things in balance with the reality that our God is holy, that as Habakkuk tells us, that he is of purer eyes than to behold sin. We also know from scripture that our God is infinite, blazing holiness, that he cannot tolerate sin. So how can we make these truths about God to me? Excuse me. How can we balance the truth that our God is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, all these things, with the reality that our God is holy, that he has a purer eyes than to behold sin? God cannot just sweep our sin under the rug. He cannot pass over it. He cannot ignore it. Our sins must be dealt with. So how can God be merciful and gracious toward us and yet deal with our sin? Because we know from Scripture we are a dreadfully sinful people. All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. We have all gone out of the way. We are a sinful people. How can we find forgiveness as a sinful people? How can God balance that attribute of mercy, attribute of grace, with the reality that he is a holy God of pure eyes than to behold sin? And the answer, beloved, leads us to that second observation for this morning. And our second observation that we're going to note is that the forgiveness of sins is not simply rooted in God's unchanging character, but the forgiveness of sins is rooted in the atoning work of Jesus Christ. The forgiveness of our sins is rooted in the atoning work of Jesus Christ. And as we look at verses 10 through 12, we have several amazing descriptions of the forgiveness of sins that point us forward to the atoning work of Jesus Christ. These things are only true, can only be true because of the atoning work of Jesus Christ on our behalf. The only way that God's justice can be satisfied and yet that he can remain merciful and gracious is found in the crosswork, the finished crosswork of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so that's what we're going to note for the rest of our time this morning. note verse 10, speaking of God, the psalmist says, he hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. And what a rich truth we find here. Though we have long provoked our God by our disobedience, by our sin, by our unfaithfulness, yet he has not dealt with us according to those sins. He has not rewarded us according to those iniquities. And why is that? The answer is found in the crosswork of our Lord Jesus Christ. God has not dealt with us according to our sins, beloved, because he dealt with Jesus Christ according to those sins. And he has not rewarded us according to our iniquities because Jesus Christ bore the full dessert of all of our sins on the cross of Calvary. If you want a text that's absolutely clear on this point, you read Romans 3, verses 24 through 26. Verses that are very familiar, but set before this truth in such a clear way. Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say at this time, his righteousness, that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." And so what's the point of that passage, Romans 3, 24 through 26? The point is that through the propitiation or the atoning work of Jesus Christ, God may both be just and yet at the same time be the justifier of him that believes in Jesus. And how is that possible? It's all found in propitiation. It's found in the atoning work of Jesus Christ and bearing God's wrath. And propitiation has to do with a turning away or the appeasement or the fact that Jesus Christ absorbed the full desert, the full wrath of God against our sins. That's the teaching of Romans three there. The reality is that God has not dealt with us after our sins or rewarded us according to our iniquities, because Jesus Christ was made sin for us. He bore the full desert of our sin, the full wrath of God that we so richly deserved. Second Corinthians 521, such an encouraging verse to all of us, the reality there, He, the God the Father, hath made him, Jesus Christ his Son, to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. How can it be true that God has not dealt with us after our sins because he made Jesus Christ his Son to be sin for us? And Christ, in his atoning work on the cross, bore the full wrath of God that our sins deserved. Look also. At verse 11, we have another description here of the forgiveness that is ours in Christ. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. And here the psalmist overwhelmed by by the forgiveness that of his sins that he had. He rejoices in the greatness of God's mercy toward him. For as high as the heaven is above the So great is his mercy toward them that fear him. And I don't know if you've, you probably have, you've walked out on a starlit, a clear starlit evening, and you've looked up at the sky, you've seen those stars just spread across the sky. Have you felt your own tininess? Have you felt how small you are in comparison to the greatness of this scene? So here the psalmist in recounting the forgiveness of his sins, he rejoices overwhelmed by the forgiveness of God, as great, as high as the heaven is above the earth, so great is God's mercy toward him that fears him. This is the greatness, the depth of God's mercy in removing our sins from us. and the psalmist rejoices in the greatness of God's mercy. When we remember how great our sins were, how greatly we have failed our God, but yet how much mercy he has shown us in Christ, that same reaction should flow forth from our hearts, from our souls, rejoicing in the greatness of the mercy of God to deliver our souls from hell. And then finally, we see another description of forgiveness, the forgiveness of our sins, in verse 12 of this psalm. I love this verse, as it highlights, as far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. It's very simple knowledge about our globe. But if you were to think about traveling north or traveling south, if you were traveling north, you would eventually, of course, cross the North Pole, at least hypothetically. And then you would be going south, would you not? So there would be a point at which you would reach the furthest point north. If you're traveling south, that would be the same. But the psalmist uses this expression, as far as the East is from the West, to highlight the greatness of the forgiveness of our sins. If you started going West and you continued going West, you would never really reach the furthest point West, would you not? You would just keep on going and going. The same thing is true about going East. In that sense, you could say that the distance from East to West is infinite. So the psalmist is saying, our God has removed our transgressions an infinite distance from us as far as the east is from the west. To quote one modern theologian, when God uses this metaphorical expression describing the extent of his forgiveness of our sins, he is saying that his forgiveness is total, complete, and unconditional. He is saying that he is not keeping score with regard to our sins. And what an encouragement that is to us. Our God is not keeping score with regard to our sins. Why? Because our sins have fully been dealt with on the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. He bore that wrath of God once again, removed them for us, so now there's nothing but a full, free, unconditional forgiveness of our sins. Reminded of the words of the hymn writer, my Savior's obedience and blood hide all my transgressions from you. Isaiah 38, 17 gives us another glorious description, a glorious metaphor of this truth of the forgiveness of our sins. There, Isaiah says, Thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. And by doing this, God chooses to not remember our sins against us. But think about how the prophet Isaiah articulates that truth. Thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back." It does not say that God forgets our sin, or just as a feeble, aging old man would forget something, that God has forgotten our sins. No. The prophet Isaiah says, you've cast all my sins behind your back. You've chosen to not hold those sins against me. The forgiveness that is ours, it's not that God somehow forgets our sin or just sweeps them under the rug. But he takes those sins and he actively cast those sins behind his back, not holding them against us. Because once again, Christ bore them at Calvary. Isaiah 43, 25 provides yet another description of this forgiveness. I, even I, says the Lord, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. God has blotted our sins from his record. Our sin debt, as it were, if we articulate it that way, has been fully canceled. Christ's blood has washed away, has canceled the entire debt of our sins. So the forgiveness of our sins, as we saw, first of all, it's rooted in the unchanging character of God, who God is. These truths about God, about our covenant keeping God dictate our forgiveness. But also we see the atoning work of Jesus Christ at play in our forgiveness as well. It's through his atonement, his propitiation and turning away the wrath of God. It's through him that our sins have been removed. So these are the two observations theologically that we have seen from the text. But it's not enough to simply know theological truth floating around in our heads. We must have that truth applied to our lives. So how can we take these truths that we have just seeing from the text, how can we apply those things to our lives so that we can grasp this great forgiveness of our sins on a daily basis? Because once again, guilt is an issue for the believer. There's a daily battle even with guilt. When we remember our sins, those sins come up against us. Let's think about how to apply the truth of the forgiveness of our sins to our daily experience. So first of all, in applying this truth, I want to urge you to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. I urge you to the cross. Daily, make full confession of your sin at the foot of Calvary. First John 1.9 is a most helpful text in doing just this. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Note here that God is both faithful and just to forgive us our sins. And is that not a rich truth for us? God, yes, is faithful to forgive us, but he's also just to forgive us. Think of that. God's justice cries for our forgiveness now as believers because of the work of Jesus Christ. When we were apart from grace, apart from God in our sins, His justice cried for our condemnation. It cried for our punishment, for our eternal separation from God and hell. But now, since we have been pardoned by the free grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, because our sins have fully been paid for, God's justice has been satisfied, and it cries for our forgiveness. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. Reminded once again of the words of Top Lady in his old hymn, payment God cannot twice demand. First at my bleeding surety's hand and then again at mine. There's one payment and that payment has been made by the Lord Jesus Christ. So I urge you to the cross. If you're dealing with that, the setting center, the remembrance of even the sins of the past week, I urge you this morning, believer, to the foot of the cross of the Lord Jesus. Secondly, remember your union with the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 8, 1 says this, there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. If you are in Christ today, you are in that saving union with him. It's not that God just once forgives our sin and then puts us on the Christian life and we're supposed to go it alone and do our own way. No, he puts us in union with his son. That means he sees us in union with the Lord Jesus Christ. All the power of Christ, all of his victory, all of his accomplishment is ours because we are in him. There is no condemnation to us because we are in union with the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember that truth as well. Third, rejoice that the forgiveness of your sins, which the Lord has provided, is for all your sins, past, present, and future. There's a quote, a fairly lengthy quote from John Calvin. Typically in homiletics class, we were encouraged not to have long quotes in the sermons. But this quote, in studying for this message, was such an encouragement to my own heart that I couldn't help but put the whole thing in the notes. So I'm going to go ahead and quote this entire comment by John Calvin. But I believe it really sums up this reality that the forgiveness of our sins is for all our sins, past, present, and future. And commenting upon verse three, who forgiveth all thine iniquities, John Calvin said this. It is not some or many of thine iniquities. This would never do. If so much as the very smallest iniquity in thought, word, or act were left unforgiven, we should be just as badly off, just as far from God, just as unfit for heaven, just as exposed to hell, as though the whole weight of our sins were yet upon us. Even if one of our sins is left unforgiven, we're just as bad off as if all of our sins were left unforgiven. But back to Calvin, let the hearer ponder this deeply. It does not say who forgiveth thine iniquities previous to conversion. There is no such notion as this in scripture. When God forgives, he forgives like himself. The source, the channel, the power and the standard of forgiveness are all divine. When God cancels a man's sins, he does so according to the measure in which Christ bore those sins. Now Christ not only bore some or many of the believer's sins, he bore all. And therefore, God forgives all. God's forgiveness stretches to the length of Christ's atonement. And Christ's atonement stretches to the length of every one of the believer's sins, past, present, and future. The blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin. What cause for joyful thanksgiving and worship to God? The forgiveness that our God has given us is for all of our sins, not one left for us to atone for. They've all been paid. by the precious atoning blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. This, if there ever was a cause for worship, this is a cause for worship. This is a cause to bless the holy name of our God because all of our sins have been forgiven. And lastly, forgive others. If you have experienced this glorious forgiveness through Jesus Christ, then we all ought to extend forgiveness to one another. If we have been as poor filthy beggars, if we have been forgiven the whole weight of our sin, all of the violations of God's holy law, then what is it to forgive those hurts, those insults, those smaller things, one among the other? Yes, others may hurt us. Others may offend us. but let us forgive others because we have been forgiven such a great debt. Let us not be stingy in extending that forgiveness to others with the cross screaming in our ears of the full forgiveness that is ours in Christ. Let us be genuinely forgiving of one another and those hurts and offenses that are caused one of another. And may we pray for grace in order to do that, because it's something that only grace can accomplish in our hearts. The forgiveness of sins is an amazing gift, one purchased at such high cost, the shedding of our Savior's blood for our sins. If you have never experienced this forgiveness, the forgiveness of sins, if you've never known what it is to be pardoned, to be fully acquitted by the Lord God through the work of Jesus Christ, then I urge you today to come to Christ. Don't try to clean up the record. Don't try to to make your way to God on your own efforts by just coming to church and and going through the motions, or by baptism, or by obedience, or any other way, come to Christ. Come to Christ today. Only He can remove that load of sin that you are bearing. I urge you to rest alone upon Jesus Christ as He is freely offered to you in the Gospel. Don't bring your own efforts or your own good works. Bring your sin bring yourself rely upon Jesus Christ once again freely offered to you and the gospel There's a full and free forgiveness through the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Lord take these truths From his word and apply them all to our hearts for his own namesake. Let's all bow for a final word of prayer Let's all pray Oh, Lord, our gracious God, our eternal Heavenly Father, we thank you for the forgiveness of sins. We thank you that it is true that you have forgiven all our iniquities for those of us who are in Christ. Lord, this is such a precious truth. Drive it home to our hearts. I pray that we would daily live in awareness of this glorious reality. Lord, I pray that you would drive this truth home to all of our hearts. For those who are apart from Jesus Christ, who have never come to him by faith, I pray that you would do the work in their hearts that only you can do, that you would save them by your grace, that they would experience this glorious forgiveness that is only found in Jesus Christ. Lord, bless your word to our hearts today. Help us to live for you today, to keep your day holy, and even to come back this evening rejoicing in all that our Savior has done. Lord, we pray that even when the voice of man is silent, that your Holy Spirit would take up the word and continue to apply it to the hearts of all those who have heard your word. Help us now. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.