Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

Psalm 103. We looked at the first 12 verses last

week. And today we're going to look at the rest

of the psalm. Psalm 103, starting in verse 13.

Last week we talked about the Lord's gracious

compassion and His love for us, even though we

were undeserving. That we rejoice in the fact

that God is slow to anger and rich in faithful

love and that he gives us grace that we are undeserving

of. And in this psalm, David is praising the

Lord. He starts the psalm off with praising the

Lord and he's going to conclude the psalm with

praising the Lord. And that's what we're going

to see in a few minutes. We're going to read

from 13 through the end of the chapter, but we're

only going to focus on kind of these first few

verses tonight. 13 through 17, but let's read

through these few verses and we'll pray and we'll

get started. Psalm 103 verse 13. As a father

Psalms 103:13

has compassion on his children, so the Lord has

compassion on those who fear him. For he knows

what we are made of, remembering that we are

dust. As for man, his days are like grass. He

blooms like a flower of the field. When the wind

passes over it, it vanishes and its place is

no longer known. But from eternity to eternity,

the Lord's faithful love is toward those who

fear him and his righteousness toward the grandchildren

of those who keep his covenant, who remember

to observe his precepts. The Lord has established

his throne in heaven. and his kingdom rules over

all. Praise the Lord, all his angels of great

strength, who do his word, obedient to his command.

Praise the Lord, all his armies, his servants,

who do his will. Praise the Lord, all his works,

and all the places where he rules. My soul prays

Yahweh. Let's pray. God, we thank you for this

psalm of praise, dear Lord, and I pray. that

we would be a people who would praise you tonight,

that we would see that we are not a whole lot,

dear Lord. We don't have a whole lot to offer.

We are sinners, God. But we thank you that you

love us anyway. And just as David had experienced

your grace and love, so may we experience that

grace and love and rejoice in it today. And I

ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. We talked

last week about the fact that God is so full

of compassion and love and that he cast our sins

as far as the east is from the west. And we left

off on that thought. And then David picks up

right here in this verse we see in verse 13.

As a father has compassion on his children, so

the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.

Now that's a beautiful verse for us to think

about. Not all fathers in this world are good.

There are many good fathers. There are some fathers

who perhaps don't have compassion on their children,

but I believe, generally speaking, fathers do

have compassion on their children. And when a

child comes into the world, that child cannot

offer you much, at least not in a physical sense.

The child comes into the world and... It can't

take the garbage out. It can't feed itself. It

can't wash your car. Eventually, at like 13 years

old, it can, and then you can get all kind of

good stuff. You can get them to bring you a glass

of water and anything else, and it's good. But

when they first come into the world, they are

really helpless, and they are hopeless apart

from you. They have come into this world, and

they can't offer nothing. Not only do they not

offer you anything, they take from you. They

take your sleep. You got to change stinky, dirty

diapers. You got to feed them. You got to rock

them. You got to buy clothes every other week

because they're just growing and growing and

growing and new shoes and new clothes. And it's

a lot. And here's this life form that really

can't give you anything in one sense, but it

gives you everything in another sense. It gives

you a blessing that is, I'm assuming, I'm not

a parent, that is probably beyond measure. that

is completely dependent on you. It can't offer

you anything, but you get great joy from knowing

that you brought this life into this world. And

so you are compassionate toward that child. You

say, I've got to feed this child. It's got an

earache. I've got to take it to the doctor. I've

got to make sure it gets medicine. I'm going

to sacrifice my sleep. I'm going to go without

things that I need. Because I'm not worried about

me, I'm worried about that child. And there's

a compassion that comes for a father, for a mother,

for a child. And this is the language that David

uses here. He says, As a father has compassion

on his children, so the Lord has compassion on

those who fear him. That's a phrase that we see

a lot through this passage. Those who fear him.

Now, those who don't fear the Lord don't seek

the Lord. Those who don't seek the Lord don't

follow His commands. They don't live according

to His will. They don't experience His blessing.

And fear is a powerful motivator. And we talked

about that on some level Sunday morning. We talked

about discipline. You get a whipping when you're

a child. You get a paddling from your teacher

or a whipping from your parents. And there's

a certain fear that comes along with that. Not

a fear that, oh, I never want to see him again.

Let me run away from home. A fear that, man,

I got in trouble at school and I know I'm going

to get a whipping when I get home. And you just

kind of dread that. There's a certain fear there,

but that fear is a powerful motivator to say,

okay, I better do what my father or mother says

because there's a certain respect there. And

there's a real fear there. It's not just a reverent

fear. There's a real fear like, if I do this,

I'm going to get in trouble. And the Lord shows

us plenty of examples through Scripture of His

people. not being obedient to him. And God kind

of hands them over to their enemies or lets them

wander in the wilderness for a while. And that

type of discipline has a way of getting our attention.

And the point is, is that God wants us to know

that, look, I love you. The reason I'm telling

you to do these things is because I love you.

And when you don't do them, I allow these things

to happen to you. I discipline you in this way

so that you will fear me and think twice about

it and keep my commands. And that's the idea

that we see David acknowledging through this

psalm. God wants us to be people who fear him.

Not that we walk around just scared to death

that God's going to strike us dead. But there

is a certain fear there that one day we will

have to answer to the Lord. And David says, the

Lord has compassion on those who fear Him. Those

who fear Him keep His commands. Wisdom comes

from fear to some extent. And we see that echoed

here throughout this psalm. Listen to what it

says of us, though, in verse 14. For He knows

what we are made of, remembering that we are

dust. We are dust. God made us out of dust. I

mean, there's really not a whole lot that we

can offer God. What in the world can we do for

God? Just like that baby we talked about. That

baby comes into the world, and there's really

not a whole lot that we can do for God. I mean,

God created everything. He created everything

that there is, and He can create anything He

wants to create, things that we could not even

comprehend or imagine God could create. And isn't

it pretty phenomenal that of all the things that

God could create, that He created us. He created

humanity out of dust. He didn't make us out of

gold and diamonds. Like, we think about these

things as being valuable. Like, if we were going

to make something valuable, what materials would

we use? We would use the finest materials we

could find. And yet God took the dust of the

earth and look at you. Look at your grandchildren.

Look at your children. Is there anything more

beautiful in all of the world than that? Now

there's some beautiful stuff in the world. Beautiful

stuff. Trees and mountains and ocean and waterfalls.

And it is so beautiful. But is there anything

more beautiful than a child coming into the world?

I suspect probably not. If you think of something,

you can tell me afterwards. You can pull me aside

and say, I'll tell you what's more beautiful.

My new car I got. Well, I think you're wrong.

I don't think there's anything more beautiful

than a life that's created. And God didn't create

us for any reason that He's going to call us

to do some work or enslave us or anything like

that. God created us, or at least I believe God

created us. Because God is a God of love. And

I don't think love is much good if you don't

have anybody to share it with. And God created

us. And there is something unique and there is

something special about humanity. Something special

in that God created us, but not anything special

in that we can do anything for God other than

love Him. God wants to love us and He wants us

to love Him. And that's a beautiful thing. And

so there's nothing spectacular about us. There's

nothing that we can go before God and say, God,

I'm so awesome. I'm bringing this to you. I'm

deserving of your forgiveness. David's already

said we are undeserving of God's grace. Yet God

bestows that on us through Jesus Christ because

he loves us. Listen to what he says in the next

verse. As for man, his days are like grass. He

blooms like a flower of the field. When the wind

passes over it, it vanishes, and its place is

no longer known. What are we like in the grand

scheme of things throughout the history of the

world? We're like grass. It's unremembered by

everybody that's come before us and will come

after us. Nobody's going to remember who you

are in 100 years, probably. Probably. Maybe somebody

in your family will have a family tree. They'll

see your name on a page somewhere or on a screen.

But it's likely nobody's going to remember who

a single one of us are. Lord willing, maybe Enterprise

Baptist Church will still be here. A hundred

years, it may not be. Nobody's going to remember

us. We're like grass that's here today and going

tomorrow. Guess what? It's springtime. If you

hadn't already, you fitting out to cut your grass.

How many blades of grass have you chopped down

in your lifetime? How many of them do you remember?

I'm going to guess zero, unless maybe you got

a piece of grass in your eye or something that

you had to dig out and it was painful. Like,

chances are, you don't remember any of it. You

chop it up, millions of blades of grass in a

lifetime. You don't remember it. It's here. It's

gone. It blows to and fro when the wind comes.

We just had a little tornado come through here.

Trees, big, big trees that have grown for decades.

Wind comes, boom. What does it say? It talks

about the wind. Blows them over. They're done.

There'll be firewood in somebody's stove and

they'll burn up and that'll be the end. A tree

that was here today that we knew that was there,

we say, man, I hate that big old tree fell. Five

years from now, nobody will even remember that

tree was there. It's here today and it's gone

tomorrow. That's what humanity is. That's the

point that David is trying to make. When the

wind passes over it, it vanishes. Its place is

no longer known. But yet God loves us. We look

at a blade of grass, we don't think anything

of it. To us, it's worthless. We are a people

who are made of dust. We are a people who are

here today and gone tomorrow. But in the eyes

of an eternal God, we are precious in His sight.

So much so that He sent Jesus Christ to die on

a cross for us. That's pretty phenomenal. That's

pretty special that you'd send your only son

to die. For a sinful people who, by all accounts

that we would measure as humans, is pretty worthless.

But we are not worthless to God. God created

you. You were knit in your mother's womb. God

knew who you were. He knew who you would be.

He knows every hair on your head. He knows how

many there are. For some of us, it ain't that

hard for Him to keep count. But whether it's

one or whether it's a thousand or whether it's

a million, God knows everything about you. And

you are special to God. And there are a lot of

people in this world that are lost trying to

find their way and they feel so worthless. And

maybe there are some of them here tonight or

maybe there are some of them listening online

and they need to know, you need to know that

God loves you and you are worth something in

the eyes of God. That He created you. That He

didn't just create you to go to and fro and fear

of the world and stress. All these things, He

created you so that He could love you and so

that you could love Him and so that He could

love you as a father loves his child and be compassionate

towards you and give you strength and hope. And

He does that through Jesus Christ. So even though

we are here today and gone tomorrow, we were

created by an eternal God who wants us to share

in that eternity. We may have had a beginning,

God wants us to have an eternity through Jesus

Christ. It says in the next verse, but from eternity

to eternity, the Lord's faithful love is toward

those who fear Him. Boy, that's good to know.

We are short -lived in this world. We come, we

go. People here know us. A few years, we'll be

forgotten. But God says, I won't forget you because

I created you. And I want to spend an eternity

with you. God loves us and we are worth something

in the eyes of God. And the way that we fully

understand God's love is through Jesus Christ.

That if we would repent of our sins, if we would

realize that we have nothing to offer God but

that Jesus Christ offered his life for us, that's

grace. There's nothing we have to offer God.

God says, I want you just to come to me. I want

you to accept the gift of grace in Jesus Christ.

Have you done that? Have you asked the Lord to

forgive you? Have you trusted in Jesus Christ?

Have you realized that your life is worth something?

No, we're not deserving of God's love, but that's

why it's called grace. And David knew that. David

was a godly man, but he was a man who sinned

greatly. And he knew he wasn't deserving of God's

love, but he had experienced God's love. And

David penned this psalm, and he starts it with

praise, and he ends it with praise. May we rejoice

and praise the Lord tonight. Let's pray. God,

we thank you for these good words. I pray, God,

that you would help us to know that we are special

in your sight. We may not feel special. Our life

may be full of trouble and we may feel worthless

at times, dear Lord, but if nobody else has ever

showed us or told us or let us know that we are

worth something, I pray, God, that everybody

here tonight and everybody listening online will

know that they are worth something in your sight,

dear Lord, that your word speaks of the fact

that you created us, that you love us, that you

care for us. And so, God, I pray. that we would

all find hope in Jesus Christ tonight, that we

would know that we have value in your eyes, dear

Lord, not because of anything we can do, God.

We don't have a whole lot we can offer you. The

only thing you want, dear Lord, is for us to

love you, for us to love you and to seek you

and just to follow your commands, dear Lord,

so that you can bring about goodness in our life,

dear Lord, to just walk in faith to you. And

I pray, God, that if there are any... who do

not know Jesus Christ, if they had put their

faith and trust in Him tonight, that we would

all rejoice in You. And I ask these things in

Jesus' name. Amen.