Bless God - Part 2 | Psalm 103:13-22 | Blake Jenkins

So this morning we're continuing with our series Summer in the Psalms.

And last week we began by looking at the first half of Psalm 103.

And my typical pattern is to do one psalm in a sermon.

But as I was going through and doing preparation, there was too much goodness for me to squeeze it into 35 minutes.

And so we're doing two weeks on Psalm 103.

And last week we were able to see at the very beginning in Psalm 103 that David, in writing this, he is talking to his soul.

And he is saying, Bless the Lord, O my soul.

All that is within me, bless his holy name.

And as we were able to hear together that this word bless in the original language of the Old Testament is connected to the verb to kneel.

And so as I was thinking on that over the course of last week, and then in this week, knowing that we were coming before, I was like, how could I capture a little bit of this, this idea of kneeling in praise, in gratitude, and thanksgiving?

And I get a little bit of a picture of it with my middle child Will.

Will and his older brother Thomas are really into Pokemon cards right now, okay?

Uh along with a lot of other folks in this world.

They're incredibly hard to get, right?

And you know, it's hard to find these cards.

But I have a secret place that I have found.

And I'm not telling any of you because then it wouldn't be a secret anymore.

But I have found a place that restocks on some of these cards on Thursday.

And Thursday, for me as a preacher, is my Friday.

And what I do is on my way home, I'll swing through this store on my way home on Thursdays, and I will go the people behind the counter know who I am now.

And I'm there and I'm like, Do you have any Pokemon cards?

And so they're like, yes or no.

I get some, I get home, and I'm so excited.

And because I mean there, you know, Will, he's excited out of his mind to be able to open these, but like I get there, and usually he's kind of figured it out.

Thursdays, I pull into the garage, the door thrusts open, and he runs out there, he's like, Pokemon! And I'm like, yeah, buddy.

And he is so excited.

And then it's usually something to the effect of he at this height, he just runs over, grabs my leg, and thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

And that's a picture, I think.

If I were to try to put an image on what does it mean for us to bless the Lord or to come adore on bended knee out of gratitude, out of excitement, hearts overflowing with thankfulness to God for what he has done.

Bless the Lord of my soul, all that's within me, bless his holy name, bless the Lord of my soul, and forget not all his benefits.

And we talked about those benefits at the beginning of Psalm 103 last week.

And just by way of quick reminder, if you weren't able to be with us, you can at least fill in these first two blanks.

We were able to see in verses 1 through 5 that we are to bless God's name as we remember all of his benefits, all of the things that he gives to us, all of the things that he does for us, and none of those are done apart from him.

He is the one who does all these things.

And then we saw next in verses six through twelve that we are to bless God as we remember all of his goodness.

All of his goodness, the ways that he has acted in redemptive history, in creation, even in the aftermath of the fall, in redemption in Christ, and going forward, looking, longing for the new creation, that we have every reason to praise the Lord, to bless his holy name, to grab and say, Thank you, thank you, thank you, God.

This morning, we will continue to see that there are three more reasons we have to bless the Lord.

And as we look at Psalm 103, would you join me as we pray?

Gracious Heavenly Father, as we come to your word this morning, I pray that you would give us eyes to see, God, that you would give us ears to hear.

God, we pray that you would speak.

For we serve your servants are listening.

As through Christ we pray.

Amen.

We see first in verses 13 through 16 that we are to bless his name as we remember all his compassion.

All his compassion.

Verse 13.

As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.

For he knows our frame.

He remembers that we are dust.

As for man, his days are like grass.

He flourishes like a flower of the field, for the wind passes over it, and it's gone, and its place knows it no more.

We're able to see in this portion of God's word that he is a compassionate father.

There in this world are some bad dads.

I could say up here this morning that he is a compassionate father, and some of you are like, that's not my experience.

What we want to be on guard against is doing theology from the bottom up and to say, This is my experience, and to project that onto God, but rather we need to see that the fatherhood of God pre-existed the created order.

That God has only and ever existed in a sweet and holy society of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that he is the paradigmatic father.

And as a father shows compassion on his children, so God shows compassion on us.

Any goodness that you have had or seen from an earthly father is only a small pointer to the ultimate goodness of our heavenly father.

And he is a compassionate father to those who fear him.

To those who fear him.

And we see that, those who fear him, those who fear him, those who fear him, three times here in Psalm 103 in verse 11 from last week, in verse 13 that we just read, and we'll see it again in verse 17.

And so what does that mean?

Well, it would not be helpful in this instance for us to go to Merriam-Webster's dictionary, right, and to look at what the English equivalent of the word fear is, and then put that next to God, the triune God, and to say that we are to fear him in that way.

No.

We've seen before in looking at God's word that the fear of the Lord is not man-inspired angst that leads to dread, but God-inspired awe that leads to devotion.

That we are to love and have a healthy respect and fear of God.

We're able to see that there is a type of fear of God that is manufactured by men to control people.

Look at verse Isaiah 29, 13.

And the Lord said, Because this people draws near to me with their mouth, and they honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and the fear of me is a commandment taught by men.

That it's just manufactured, it's external, it's trying to conform behavior, that this right here, the lips can spew honor without love in the heart.

But rather, this fear of God is an inspired awe that leads to devotion.

We're able to see in Deuteronomy chapter 10, verse 12, the fear of God and the love of God are often used interchangeably to express the kind of motives that should animate and empower our obedience.

Deuteronomy 10:12

Look at this.

And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and soul.

You see how all of these are put together side by side?

That fearing him, walking in his ways, loving him and serving him are all showing us how it is that we are to relate to our God, our compassionate father.

And he is a compassionate father who remembers that we are dust.

He remembers that we are dust.

This harkens back to Genesis.

Do you remember there in the creation account when God first formed Adam?

He formed him from the dust of the ground.

He remembers that we are dust, that we are formed from the earth, and that our days are like grass.

We flourish for a time, and then we are here no more.

But that does not mean that it is the end for us.

We sang it in our very first song this morning, Christ our hope and life and death.

Like as we look forward unto the grave, what will we sing?

Christ He lives, Christ we lives.

And what reward will heaven bring?

Everlasting life with him.

For the believer in Jesus, death is not a period at the end of the sentence, but rather is a glorious comma.

That we will continue on to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

I believe Jesus in those words that he said to the thief on the cross there to his side.

When he looked at him and said to him, in love and in compassion, today you will be with me in paradise.

Yes, our days here are temporary, but these are not all that we have.

Jesus, he goes, he goes to prepare a place for us.

And Jesus, he has made a way for us to come into his presence, into the presence of the Almighty, and to call him Father.

The presence of our Father, our compassionate father.

Some of you might be familiar with uh Ben Sass.

Uh Ben Sass, he is the former senator, U.S.

state senator from the state of Nebraska, and more recently the president of the University of Florida.

Uh so for some of our Gator fans, right, uh is Ben Sass, president of the university.

Ben Sass, I mean, known for an incredibly sharp wit, keen mind, and genuine love for the Lord.

And Ben Sass, this last November December, December of 2025, was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer at the age of 54.

And Ben, in conversations with his pastor, and as much as he's able to, in spending time with his family, he has been, as some have remarked, dying in public.

He has been very open and honest in reflecting on his mortality and on his days being like grass.

And then in one of these interviews with Ross Daltett for the New York Times, in this interview, there's just a slice that I'm going to show you for it this morning.

He answers the question: what is it that can keep you going on these difficult days?

Go ahead and watch the screen.

Do you think you're ready to die?

I don't feel ready, but I have confidence that when Jesus says to the disciples, he didn't want to be identified as the Messiah yet, keep these crowds away.

You know, don't tell about the water interwine miracle.

But he says you can't keep the children from me.

And we're told that we get to approach the Almighty, we get to approach the divine and call him Daddy.

I'll be Father.

I know that that's what I need.

Ben sorry.

Ben Sass says, When the storms of life hit, the only thing that can get you through, the only thing that is not sinking sand is to be able to call the Almighty Daddy.

To come to the Father in the name of the Son.

That is the true refuge.

We flourish for a time, we're here one day, we're gone the next.

But the confidence that we can have, that we can call out to the Lord of all creation, the maker of heaven and earth, the great redeemer who has done away with sin, that we can look to him and we can call him Father.

That this is the access that Jesus has secured for us so that we can come before his presence without fault and with great joy.

Saying, no matter what is going on in my life right now, no matter what I have endured, no matter what is yet to come, I have this confidence.

I have a compassionate Father who loves me in Christ.

And I have a future with him.

And so we together we bless his holy name as we remember all his compassion.

And next, we are to bless his name as we remember all his hesed.

H-E-S-E-D.

Verse 17.

But the steadfast love of the Lord, the Hesed of the Lord, is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him.

And his righteousness to children's children.

To those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments.

In verse 4, in verse 8, verse 11, and verse 17, we have this word, these words right here, this steadfast love.

The steadfast love of the Lord.

Verse 4, 8, 11, and 17.

In this word, this steadfast love, it is the word in Hebrew, Hesed.

In this word, it's translated in different places is loving kindness, loyal love, steadfast love, covenant love.

You know, it is hard to contain the full weight of this word in our English translations.

This is an otherworldly kind of love, an everlasting kind of love.

One of my favorite ways to be able to grasp the sense of it is from my favorite children's Bible, the Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd Jones.

That in that book, Sally Lloyd Jones, and capturing the Hesed, the steadfast love of the Lord, she calls over it again and again and says his never-stopping, never giving up, unbreaking, always and forever love.

This is his everlasting love.

This is the love with which you are loved in Christ.

And this love, it's not like the worldly kind of loves that are in bad country songs and in pop music and raunchy novels.

This is not like the covenant-breaking love where someone can make promises or vows on this day and then revoke it the next.

That his love, his covenant love, his steadfast love in Christ is on you.

The steadfast love of the Lord is on those who fear him.

That he loves you in his Son Jesus.

And Chad Byrd, he is a Lutheran Old Testament theologian and one of my favorite Hebrew scholars.

I just absolutely love his writings, and uh he's very active on social media.

And honestly, you don't get too many like Old Testament Hebrew scholars that are active on social media, right?

Um it's not really the target demographic, uh, not where they usually show up, but he does a lot of short form content that's very encouraging and edifying to the church.

And here is a short video where he revels in the Hesed love of God.

Go ahead, watch the screen.

Is there one Hebrew word that encapsulates who God is and how he acts toward us?

Yes, there is.

It's the Hebrew word chesed.

This word has been translated as covenant loyalty, loving kindness, faithful love, graciousness, mercy, all these various English words, but none of them are really adequate to translate what chesed is.

Trying to compress it into one English word is like trying to catch a waterfall in a cup.

Chesed is truly untranslatable love.

It's no holds barred mercy.

It's the kind of fidelity that will be faithful to us, even if it cost him the lifeblood of his son.

Chesed is the kind of love that chases us to the ends of the earth and places us atop the shoulders of God, rejoices, dances all the way home.

If there really is one English word that captures what chesed is, it is Christ Himself.

He is the chesed of the Father made flesh for us.

That Jesus is where we look and where we can see the most tangible, visible expression of the steadfast love, the chesed of God.

We can see this in the New Testament letter in 1 John.

And as we look there at 1 John chapter 4, at verses 7 through 11, I'm gonna read it very slowly for us and call to attention and to show us how Jesus is the steadfast love of God.

1 John 4 · chapter mention

Look at verse 7 there.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God.

And whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

Anyone who does not love does not know God.

Because God is love.

In this, the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him.

In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation, the sacrifice, the wrath absorber for our sins.

Beloved, if God so loved us, we should also love one another.

This is love.

Not anything that this world would try to pawn off, not the cheap counterfeits, not the slogans or bumper stickers, but this is the real, this is the stuff that real love is made of and that we have seen manifest at the cross.

That self-sacrificial love, that covenant-making, that covenant-keeping kind of love, that love that doesn't wait, but that love that initiates, that love that takes on, the love that seeks the better for the other, all of this we have seen in Jesus.

And this love we will sing of forever.

One of my favorite hymns, it's called The Love of God.

And there, in that last hymn, or that last uh verse of that hymn, it's a picture that's painted that talks about just how big the love of God is.

Because I'll tell y'all, there's sometimes I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on how big the love of God is.

And then he blows my mind again and again.

It is it is so small, my mind is so finite, my limits are very much exposed.

But here in that last verse of the hymn, it says, The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen could ever tell.

It reaches to the highest star and into the lowest hell.

And then there at the end it says, Could we with ink the ocean fill?

And were the skies of parchment made?

Were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe?

By trade to write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry, nor could the scroll contain the whole though stretched from sky to sky.

Do you see it?

Do you feel it?

We cannot contain the reflection on the goodness of the love of God.

It is bigger than you could ever dare fathom.

And it covers over all our sin.

That he loves us with an everlasting, a Hesed kind of love.

We bless his name as we remember all his hesed.

And then finally, verses 19 through 22.

We bless his name as we remember all his rule.

Verse 19.

The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.

Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word.

Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers who do his will.

Bless the Lord all his works in all places of his dominion.

Bless the Lord, O my soul.

He is ruling from his throne today.

That he that is surrounded and worshipped by the angels.

These angels, these ministering spirits are mighty, they're obedient, they're active, and they are his.

They are loyal to him.

And what began at the very beginning of Psalm 103 is kind of a personal call to worship of bless the Lord, O my soul.

Now, David is looking up to all of these heavenly bodies and is saying, Bless the Lord, oh you his angels, you mighty ones who do his works, like calling in the creation, calling in the cosmic to be able to join in blessing and thank you, thank you, thank you, God.

And King David here at the very end is reflecting on the even greater king.

And in his life, David was at his best when he sought to reflect that one true king in his rule.

And I serve him.

For all of these reasons.

For his benefits, for his goodness, his compassion, his acid, his rule.

And it made me think back to a time in David's life that we're able to see in 2 Samuel, where all of these words kind of swirl around and pop up again and again.

It's one of my favorite stories in the Bible.

I've shared that with some of you here before, and it's the story of Mephibosheth.

Right?

Some of you have knowing nods right here of the story of Mephibosheth.

It's a beautiful story.

You just can't say his name five times fast, right?

You'll stumble and trip over your words and the syllables and everything.

But if we were to do a little bit of a Hebrew history lesson, King Saul was the first king of Israel.

And King Saul had a son, Jonathan.

King Saul, throughout the course of his reign, had abandoned following the ways of the Lord and tried to do certain things on his own.

And the Lord was taking the kingdom away from him, even though he was still in the position of authority.

And Saul, again and again, thinking that, oh, I know how these things go.

We look at all of the nations around us.

My rule will pass to my son Jonathan.

Well, David, the little shepherd boy David, David who killed Goliath, is in and around Saul's household, playing music to soothe the troubled king, a warrior, and a best friend to King Saul's son Jonathan.

And in the course of time, it is revealed that the kingdom is not going to be going with Saul any longer, and it's not passing to Jonathan, but rather David has been anointed.

He will be appointed King of Israel.

And Saul, he's trying to kill David.

He's trying to pin him to the walls with spears.

He's hunting him like an animal.

But Jonathan, whereas you would think Jonathan would see him as a rival, that Jonathan would see him as a threat to his fame, his security, his livelihood, his prestige, and would want to cut him down.

No, he doesn't do that.

But rather, he makes a covenant with David.

And he says, Will you please show loving kindness?

Will you show Hesed to my house after I'm gone?

And David enters into covenant with Jonathan.

As time unfolds, King Saul and Jonathan, they die in battle on the same day.

And David eventually is brought in and is elevated as the king of Israel.

And the thing about it is, a lot of folks know how these kind of regime changes go, right?

It's not just in modern times, but goes back really as old as humanity.

Whenever there are these changes in rule like this, there is usually bloodshed that follows.

Why?

Because typically the new monarch wants to remove any other threats against his rule.

And so one of Jonathan's sons, Mephibosheth, is in hiding.

He's in Lodibar.

Where's Lodibar?

In the middle of nowhere.

Nobody knows.

He was off the grid, in hiding, trying to preserve his life.

But David, once he gets into the kingship, he brings forward one of the servants and he says, This is there anyone still left of the house of Saul that I may show him loving kindness, that I may show him Hesed.

And Zeba the servant says, Well, yes, there is still one, Mephibosheth.

And he is lame in both of his feet.

We learn a little bit earlier in 1 Samuel that Mephibosheth, in hearing that his grandfather and father died, like Mephibosheth's nurse picked him up and fled the city, and in her haste dropped him and was lame in his feet, both feet from that day forward.

Most likely dropped and broken his ankles, and they did not heal properly again, and he could not make right use of them, and either walked around on crutches, crawled, or was carried everywhere that he went.

He learned that his grandfather, his father, were no longer in rule and that his legs had been taken from him all in the same day.

And he is off in hiding, and now a summons comes.

King David wants you to come before him.

And Mephibosheth, he knows how these things go.

Tying up loose ends, making sure that all threats, potential threats, are eliminated.

And so Mephibosheth heeds the summons of the king and comes in the presence of King David.

And David looks at him and says, Mephibosheth, because of the covenant that I made with your father, I restore to you this day all of the lands that are due you and your family.

And you will have a seat at the king's table for the rest of your life.

Like Mephibosheth, who thought that in coming before the king that this was his execution, that this was the end for him, he comes expecting the absolute worst, but rather he comes in the presence of the king and says, No, you're not just set back up on neutral ground, but I am going to heap blessing upon blessing upon blessing on you and your life.

Why?

Because of a covenant that I made with someone else.

And the hesed that I have seen from our Heavenly Father.

And so too for us.

That we are like Mephibosheth.

That we, enemies of God, children of wrath, estranged from Him, rebellious in sin, a part of a different regime, now have been brought near.

And we are now accepted and blessed and loved with a covenant-making, covenant-keeping, hesed love of the Father through the Son, applied to us by the Holy Spirit.

And we now have every reason, every reason to bless the Lord.

We bless the Lord, O my soul.

All that is within me, bless his holy name.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all of his benefits.

Let us pray.

Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you.

We thank you for the compassion, for the Hesed, for your heavenly rule over all.

And we thank you that we see this most clearly in your Son, our Savior.

God, if there are any here this morning who do not know that compassion, they have never felt or experienced or walked in your love or bent the knee to your rule, I pray that today would be the day of salvation.

That's what it is.

Salvation.

From the tyranny of the devil, from the weight of sin.

And God, the slavery we feel to ourselves.

So we pray for your freedom that we would walk in freedom, that we'd walk in your love, and your life, in your love.

We thank you, Lord.

And we have every reason to bless your holy name.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

So, church family, we'll move into a time of response in this last song.

Let's stand.