Draw Near | Remember The Benefits (September 22nd, 2019) - Mike Armstrong

If you would be so great as to grab your Bibles right now and turn it to Psalm 103 as we continue in our series about uh drawing near to the Lord and how we've kind of launched and kicked off our uh fall here today and just getting ourselves, you know, drawing near to him, getting close to him.

That's what really what matters, that's what matters the most.

And so we want to make that our priority and do whatever it takes to get rid of the things that hinder us uh from getting into that place.

And uh, as you're getting your Bibles open there uh to these verses, I really want you to kind of think about something here uh for us uh for a second.

Think about something that you enjoy doing.

It could be anything, you got that?

Right?

If I were to ask you why you enjoy doing that thing or doing that activity, it could be something like, you know, going on a hike with your dog in the fall, right?

Maybe that's something that you really enjoy.

It could be playing around a golf with the boys on a Saturday morning or you know, cozying up under a blanket, a hot cup of coffee, and reading a book.

It could be shopping, right?

I mean, the list just goes on.

It could be anything that we enjoy doing.

If you were to explain to me why you enjoyed doing these things, right, you would probably describe the various benefits that you receive from doing them.

I receive benefits to my physical health when I get into the gym and lift weights.

Or I feel super relaxed at the end of a hard, long, stressful week when I just get into my basement, into my little office or my space and paint.

It literally could be anything.

The simple point here that I'm trying to make is that we do these things because of the very obvious and clear benefits to us.

We enjoy doing them.

Now, I think that as Christians here, it can be very easy, I think, for us to forget the many benefits of our salvation and being near God.

Right?

Because over the last couple of weeks, we've looked at how drawing near to the Lord is to be our number one priority, right?

The number one priority of our very busy and often very distracted lives.

Just last week we we looked at how our sin damages that, right?

It damages the intimacy that's to be there between us and Christ, which requires brokenness, right?

That we would be broken of our sin, that we would repent.

And hey, those are all good things, right?

These are all true and critical things that we absolutely need to address, but but sometimes I wonder if, in all the you know, kind of energy and attention and focus sometimes that we put into those things, and it's good that we do, you know, in all the hard work that those things are to go after, I kind of wonder if sometimes just as believers, we're you know, we're left feeling mostly burdened.

Right?

Do you feel that?

Do you feel like kind of dragging your yourself around and you know, I there's sin in my life, and you know, I there's so many things that are distracting me.

I don't know if I'm if I'm if I'm doing this well, and we we kind of carry that in in sort of an angsty, kind of we're down about it kind of way.

Right, to the point where the astounding benefits and just the joys of being near God uh can largely be lost on us, I think.

Really, what I'm getting at here is that being near to God is supposed to be amazing.

It's supposed to be this great thing.

There's just so much upside here.

Let's not forget that.

Okay, being uh a Christian will certainly have its share of hardship and pain and sacrifice and all that.

We're not minimizing that, right?

We're we're not trying to just you know put our fingers in our ears and just you know think happy thoughts and and try to imagine all of our problems melting away.

I don't think that that works here.

We live in the real world, right?

That's not it at all.

But let's let's also not minimize just how good it is to be saved, right?

How good it is to be near Christ.

And so today we're gonna remind ourselves of these things so that so that we're drawn even closer to the Lord, right?

So that we come in into even even closer and deeper intimacy with him and and listen, actually enjoy God.

Right?

Imagine that as a novel concept.

Well, listen, I want to read a couple of verses here that we're gonna be focusing on.

We're actually gonna spend our time in in Psalm 103, verses 2 to 5, but I'll just start reading from verse 1.

Psalms 103:2–5

Follow along.

This is what David says.

He says, 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 iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle.

God, as we come before you, we have already uh been reminding ourselves and been kind of thinking about your goodness and and getting our hearts and our attention and our focus back onto you, Lord.

And I pray that uh certainly this morning, but not just this morning, I pray that you know, every day beyond this, daily, we would just recognize how good you are, Lord.

I pray that we would recognize how good it is to be near you.

I pray that we would see so clearly the benefits of our salvation.

I pray that as we as we think about those things and they sink deeper into our hearts and in our souls, Lord, we would be filled with with joy, Father.

Lord, I pray that we would not just you know carry around the the the struggle, Lord, even though the struggle is is very much a real thing.

Lord, I pray that we would see that struggle and we would see the difficulty of sanctification and the difficulty of living in a sinful world in light of just your awesomeness.

Lord, in light of how good you are, in light of how good you are to us and and all of the amazing things that that we receive from you.

And so, Lord, help us to focus on these things today.

Lord, I pray that you would grow me.

I pray that you would grow our our church at rejoicing and just that there would be a sweetness in our soul about how how good you are, Lord.

Lord, help us though.

We we need help, Lord, and so we we look to you again.

We get our eyes on you, our uh our eyes on your word, and and pray, Lord, that your Holy Spirit would transform.

We pray that your Holy Spirit would take our hearts where wherever they might be individually here today and show us your goodness.

We pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.

Amen.

Now, I love how uh David uh puts it here uh in verse two.

If you want to take a look at that here with me, uh he says, Bless the Lord, O my soul.

Soul.

I love that, and how he says that.

I mean, the soul is you know considered the the deepest part of us.

And so he's saying, you know, bless the Lord, not just with empty phrases, right?

Not not just with with music or sound or or whatever, but but I want this to be from within, right?

That I want this to be from a from a real place, from from depth, from from within my soul.

I want to bless the name of the Lord.

He says, and then if you keep going, he says, and forget not all his benefits.

You've got a pen in your hand, you need to get that part underlined right there in your Bible.

Forget not all his benefits.

I mean, just last week, right, we talked about the importance of remembering, right?

And how we see that concept uh all throughout the Bible, you know, remembering God, remembering, remembering who he is, how amazing our our creator is, his nature, his character, his very essence, who he is.

Because I think sometimes we forget about these things, don't we?

And we forget, and we tend to we tend to emphasize maybe the you know the wrath of God and we think about that and we we kind of beat ourselves up about these things, and and and that's all true, but we're kind of forgetting the whole picture here, and and others of us, we we emphasize the love of God, and and we kind of we mistake the fact that God is a holy God as well, and he's a God of justice, and and sin is not tolerated, but we you know we're so focused on the love and all of that that we kind of we kind of forget the whole picture, and so we need to remember the Lord, who he is in in his entirety, and not just remember who he is, that's obviously the first thing, but remember the remarkable things that God has done.

Right?

You think about that all throughout human history, and you read just you know, page after page of this rich, deep history throughout the scriptures and their heritage and everything that the Lord has done in multiple points along the way in the Old Testament.

Uh that God's people are encouraged to go back and read through the book of the law and remember what God has done.

Remember how he rescued you from Egypt and He gave you the promised land, and He's done all these amazing things.

It's so important that we remember the Lord and what he has done.

And I mentioned last week as well how I personally, I've just been reading through the book of Lamentations lately, and I'm still there.

And here's what I read this week and what the author says in chapter 3, verse 21.

He says, But this I call to mind.

This I call to mind.

Right?

This is the the intentional act of remembering.

Right?

I I there was something that I remember learning once before.

I gotta stop and think, I gotta, I gotta recall, I gotta bring that back into the forefront of my mind and and my heart.

Right?

He's reminding himself of truth.

And because the author of Lamentations remembers the things of God, he goes on to say, Therefore I have hope.

Right, therefore I have hope, which is so great, right?

When we lose hope, maybe you've lost hope this week.

Oftentimes it's because we've just neglected remembering God.

We've neglected remembering who he is and what he has done, what he promises to do, what he is what he is capable of doing.

And when we do remember, when we do recall these things, hope begins to well up in our soul again.

And what else comes along with it?

Right?

Joy.

Right, joy, passion, like delight, all of that returns as as our hope is anchored into Christ again.

Now, referring to verse two in our passage this morning, a guy named Derek Kidner is a commentator.

He says that David is using his mind and memory to kindle his emotions.

I love that.

David's starting to get fired up here.

You can kind of tell as he's as he's writing this and as as we're reading this, he's starting to think through all the benefits, and we're just gonna go through a few of them here.

I would encourage you to read the whole psalm and look at how the benefits just extend far beyond these five verses here.

He's looking at his salvation.

He's like, man, how amazing is this?

As you start to unpack this, look what I look what I get.

Look how great it is to be near the Lord.

He's reminding himself of these things.

And so that's what we want to do here this morning.

And as we do that, let's look at this first thing.

Three points.

Here's the first one Remembering all the benefits of my salvation draws me close to God.

I am first of all forgiven and healed.

Forgiven and healed.

And we see this uh very clearly in verse 3.

Take a look, speaking of God who forgives all your iniquity.

Iniquity is just another word for sin, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases.

Now, that word that you see there uh heals, right?

That can often refer to uh physical healing, right?

And and and that's very important and an amazing thing.

And we, you know, I'm sure we've all you know seen examples of and certainly heard stories of God healing people physically.

And we actually just talked about this in a lot more depth just a few weeks ago, actually, the very last message of our series in the book of James, I would encourage you uh to uh go back if you need a refresher on what that's all about.

We can talk about physical healing, but it can also be used metaphorically here to refer to the spiritual healing that God does in us as we're forgiven of our sin, our moral corruption.

All right, so just as God may and does heal a person of their disease, and it's right that we would pray for that and seek that and look for that, as right as true as it is that God restores people physically, right, so are we healed spiritually, forgiven of our iniquities.

Now, clearly it is of benefit to you and I that we have our sins, our iniquities, forgiven.

Right?

I think it's a pretty obvious benefit that we would have our diseases healed.

I mean, when you think about the gospel and you think about really the core of the gospel, it's that on the cross, Jesus suffered, right?

Jesus suffered the totality of God's wrath that was meant for us.

Right?

He took that upon himself.

And when you think about that, it it's also to say that before you trusted in Jesus by faith and repented of your sins personally, you and I was too, everyone, we were headed towards an inevitable appointment with God Almighty, where you and I would have been judged for all the sins that you and I have ever committed.

Okay, let me just say that that would not have gone well for us.

It wouldn't have.

Apart from Christ's work on the cross and and our our trust and that that was for us, apart from us trusting him by you know in faith, you and I have no leg to stand on in front of God.

Right?

If we think that we're gonna, you know, go before God at the end of all time and face him and say, well, you know, I did a couple of good things in my life, we're in for a rude awakening.

Because the the truth is our sin, no matter how much we've done or how little we've done, all of it corrupts us thoroughly.

And so we would have, apart from Christ, received, and rightly so, the full force, again, of God's wrath.

Right, of judgment.

But don't you love that?

But because Christ stepped in and again, he took uh all of that upon himself at Calvary there, you and I are mercifully forgiven.

Right?

The slate is is wiped clean, we are made new.

I don't know about you, but that's uh that sounds like a pretty good benefit to me.

I I I kind of appreciate that, right?

If you're into understatements.

Now here's the thing as you consider that and those things, don't just don't just try to remember the bare facts of the gospel, right?

Don't just try and remember the, you know, as though you're you're you're simply trying to itemize some information in your brain.

Like, I gotta think about the gospel, and oh yeah, you know, he on Friday he died and he was in the grave three days and then he rose again.

Like those are true and amazing details and and and clear and important.

But what I'm really getting at here is personalize this.

Right?

Personalize it.

You know, remember not just that God has forgiven you in some general sense, but but what that's actually looked like in your life as a person.

So think back, you know, uh uh to your own history, right?

Through your own testimony and your own growth as a believer.

Think through those specific sins and those issues that you've had that you've experienced forgiveness in.

Right?

And I'm not talking about just to go back on them and to continue to beat yourself up about that.

Right?

I think some of us are so geared to like, you know, flog ourselves kind of metaphorically or spiritually speaking, and and go back and beat ourselves up over things that Christ forgave us for like a long time ago.

Right?

That that's not the point of what I'm really getting at here.

It's not about flogging ourselves, rather, it's to emphasize the the the marvelous forgiveness that you've received in the various ways that you've received it.

Right, so that you can take joy in that again.

So that so that you can express your gratitude to the Lord.

Oh yeah, remember.

Remember what it was like back then.

And to see how I've been forgiven.

And that's not my sin is not held against me anymore because of what of what Jesus did.

Lord, thank you, thank you, thank you.

It's an opportunity for you to delight in your God when you remember what you have come through.

You remember your forgiveness and your healing.

And then really to take it even a step further than all of that, I think this is really important too.

Right?

Be intentional to remind yourself that Christ hasn't just forgiven past sins, but that his blood covers your future sins as well.

Right?

Maybe you've you know come to church before on a Sunday and you've been so encouraged by something you've heard in the word or something that you've sung or by something someone has said to you in the various relationships that you're building here.

But you kind of left here being like, oh man, like I know that tomorrow I'm gonna wake up and I'm still gonna struggle, right?

And I know that the day after that I'm still gonna sin, I'm still gonna fall short of his glory, not just today, but but after that.

And maybe you've kind of felt like, ugh, just kind of the heaviness and the weight of all of that, and and pretty down about it.

Well, remember that those sins are forgiven, right?

Not just your past sins, not just the ones you're dealing with today, the ones that you will deal with tomorrow, and the day after that, and every day that you live.

I love Hebrews chapter 10, verse 12.

Hebrews 10:12

It kind of explains this to us.

It teaches us this.

It says, but when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, so that's referring to you know past, present, and future sin.

When he had done that, he sat down at the right hand of God.

While it might seem like a like a rather obvious thing or kind of really low-lying fruit here, that there's benefit to having our sins forgiven.

Intentionally calling to mind the details and remembering things, like, man, remember how cold and and numb I was to the Lord back in those past seasons?

Remember I just didn't care?

Remember I didn't see, and remember I just continued to go down this wrong path?

Right?

Remembering those things and recalling the sweetness of being wiped clean and having this renewed purpose again in life and this deeper joy, it'll stir up your emotions now in a right way where you're passionate and you're excited and you're joyful, and and all of that will motivate you to want him again and all the other things that tend to vie for your attention, they start to kind of melt into the background.

I'm like, I want the Lord again, I want to I want to go after this, this intimacy, this drawing near.

Now, it's kind of incredible to think that we're not just forgiven and healed, though that is amazing on its own.

We could preach entire series on that, uh, that topic, and it would be certainly far more than you and I deserve.

But even just according to this psalm, there are even more benefits here.

Take a look at this second thing.

Remembering all the benefits of my salvation draws me close to God, I am redeemed and crowned.

I'm redeemed and crowned.

Look at verse 4, look what it says.

It says, God again, who redeems your life from the pit.

Now, there's absolutely an overall, you know, kind of spiritual, you know, red redemption thing in mind here when David says this, right?

We've all been, we've all been rescued from the pitfalls of sin and all that that entails.

We've already talked about forgiveness, and so that would be included in here, certainly.

We've already talked about the judgment uh that we were all headed towards and the wrath of God that was pointed at us before we received what Christ did on our behalf.

Right?

You think about hell that was awaiting for us, an eternity spent in that, separated from God, weeping, gnashing, gnashing of teeth.

I mean, we've been rescued from that pitfall.

Right?

We've been redeemed from all of that and and elevated to it to a new position and you know, c you know, complete new life through the resurrected Christ.

Which means what?

Well, it means that now we have the hope of complete resurrection for ourselves.

Right?

That's an incredible thing.

You think about the promise of new.

Glorified bodies.

Right?

It feels like every single day.

I'm only 38 years old.

I can't imagine what it will feel like physically to be like in my 50s and 60s.

Like every day I wake up and there's like, oh, that doesn't feel right.

Right?

That aches.

That's swelling.

There's some inflammation over there.

Oh, that's acute.

Oh, that's dull, right?

I can't wait to have a new glorified body.

That redemption, that's gonna be pretty sweet.

To know that I won't carry these limps around?

I mean, some of you are dealing with it way worse than I am.

Are you not looking forward to that?

Just the physical component of that alone.

Right?

Then you think about the eternity of enjoying this glorified body that doesn't sin, that isn't tempted by sin.

There's gonna be no anger, there's gonna be no issues whatsoever.

And not just for like a thousand years, for all time.

And we're not just gonna be alone, kind of enjoying that selfishly, we're gonna be with God enjoying that.

I can't wait for that resurrection.

I can't wait to see him face to face.

We have that hope now.

Amazing to think about the benefits of our salvation and and kind of again this overarching, kind of wide-angle lens perspective type way, right?

We are we are redeemed by God.

And I think it's also good for us to zoom in a little bit on some of the specifics in our lives and again recall to mind and remember how the Lord has redeemed you and I from the pit in the different ways that He has.

We already talked about remembering how we've been forgiven.

Well, how has the Lord rescued you?

How has he redeemed you out of the pit?

For some of you, it's been in your marriage.

Perhaps your marriage was just going like all bad, and it was dark and it wasn't good, and you played a part, your spouse played a part.

Maybe it was all you, I don't know, but you've seen the Lord, and just in his mercy and in his grace, he reached in, he began to rescue you, he pulled you out of the pit of that, and you started to communicate better with your spouse.

You started to extend forgiveness because you realize, oh, Christ forgives me as well, he's gracious to me.

I don't figure it out overnight, and so neither is my husband or my wife, and so I gotta be patient with them as Christ is with me.

And and through all of that, you see your you you see the Lord kind of pulling you out of this pit in your marriage.

Maybe he's redeemed you from the pit of abuse.

Right?

Sadly, that is the story that some of us have.

It could have been emotional abuse and just the family culture that we lived at, just a lot of yelling, a lot of putting down, it could be even worse, it could be physical abuse, it could be sexual abuse.

And you've gone through that and you've seen some very, very dark days.

But you can also point back to how the Lord has restored you or he is restoring you.

And again, there's some element to this, certainly, that we're all a work in progress, and you know, none of us have really arrived really at anything.

But the Lord has redeemed and he is redeeming you, and you've seen him heal.

And that bitterness that was there, and that anger towards your abuser or abusers has softened, you've been able to extend forgiveness to them even as Christ has forgiven you.

And you can look back on that and you make, man, that was a pit.

The Lord rescued me out of that.

It could have been a could have been an addiction.

Right?

It could have been drugs, it could have been alcohol, it could have been pornography.

You're like, man, those days were were brutal and awful, and man was I cold, and man was I stubborn, and man was I so lost, and the Lord reached in and he's forgiven and he's putting me on a new path.

Maybe he's transformed something like an eating disorder in your life.

Perhaps it's been something like your anger.

You're a miserable person, and the Lord has softened softened you.

Something like laziness, and you're just wasting too much time, and you're like, no, what?

Now the Lord, I got purpose now.

The Lord has called me to live for Him and to be His ambassador no matter what my career is, no matter what my scenario and circumstance is, I'm gonna go after this.

Perhaps He's redeemed you from the pit of just being so so self-righteous.

Right?

And maybe you don't have all of those instances and those examples that I just shared of some of the difficulties that other people have gone through.

And, you know, if you're really honest, and if the Lord has, as the Lord has softened you, you've seen that man, I you you've walked into rooms before and just thought you're the you're the best person there.

And there's this self-righteousness, there's this arrogance, and you know, why couldn't people be more like me?

And you're hard on people.

But you can also look back and you can see how the Lord has pointed that out.

And he's softened you, he's rescued you out of the pit of pride and self-righteousness.

Listen, if you and I are truly saved, we will see some of that dramatic transformation where the Lord just throws down the rope ladder and just rescues us out of that pit.

You know, again, understanding that we're, you know, sanctification is a lifelong process and we're all still growing in a lot of this.

But do you ever just kind of think back on what it was like to be in those seasons and those situations?

And do you remember with joy the redemption that God has worked in your life and how through all of it He's like, He's drawn you closer to Him, and you're like, I just want I just want to be with Him.

It's so good and so beneficial for us to just consider the awesome things that God has done in us, right?

Again, those specific examples that you have as a person of just transformation and redemption in our lives, and and how all of that, of course, is all part and parcel of the fact that we've been redeemed from a from a salvation standpoint.

Now I love the second part there of verse four, referring to God, of course, again, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy.

Isn't that amazing?

See, I look at this as, you know, God doesn't just redeem us out of the pit, only to bring us, you know, back to where we were right before we fell into it.

Right?

He actually goes way beyond all of that.

He actually, he actually crowns us, it says.

Okay, put it this way.

Imagine with me for a second that you found yourself under just a crushing amount of financial debt.

Let's just throw out a number and say it was a million dollars.

You're a million dollars in debt, and there is just flat out no way that you can pay this back, and and there's all the panic, and there's all the pressure of all of that, and how am I gonna crawl out of this?

And it's gonna take a miracle.

That's a big number for me to kind of think through, a million dollars.

Now imagine a person, uh a friend, comes to you and just kind of quietly pulls you aside and and just says to you, you know what, I know about your situation, and I wanna give you a million dollars to help you, to really get you out of debt.

Can you imagine the Jubilee in that moment for you?

How incredible would that be to know that this person, just in the kindness and just a gift, they you don't have to pay them back for it.

There's like, you know what, God has blessed me, I want to bless you, I want to help you with this.

How amazing would it be to have a million dollars from a friend?

But now picture this.

That person, that friend, comes to you, and instead of offering you a million dollars, they say, hey, listen, I want to give you a hundred million dollars.

Anyone can do this in my life if you feel like it.

But can you imagine that?

So they're not just bringing you out of the red and back to zero, back to even.

They're putting you 99 million dollars into the black.

You'd be thinking, oh man, this is way beyond anything that I can even wrap my head around.

I, you know, I'm my family is gonna be taken care of for generations.

Like this is this is a blessing here.

Well, really, all of that is just a simple way of kind of seeing and understanding what God has done for us.

Right?

He doesn't just redeem you from the pit that you fell into by pulling you up out of it and then placing you back just on the ledge, right where you were before you fell back into it in the first place.

Right?

He brings you out of that pit and then he places a crown on your head.

He's like, You're crowned.

Right?

He goes abundantly beyond getting you back to square one.

He generously, lavishly places this amazing crown, it says, of steadfast love and mercy on your head.

Now, when you think about a crown, I think I think it signifies things like royalty.

Royalty, honor, privilege.

All of those things speak to our spiritual status in God's eyes.

Right?

This is how He this is how He looks at you, this is how He sees you, this is your identity now.

But again, it's not just any old crown, it's a crown of steadfast love and mercy.

Do you see that there?

We wear, so to speak, God's steadfast love.

Meaning his love doesn't waver, right?

He doesn't give you his love, but but really he's gonna see how you do tomorrow.

And if you don't perform well enough for him, he's I'm gonna pull that back.

Right?

My my my love is conditional on your performance.

That's not what it is, it's it's steadfast.

Right?

It's it's it's it's never, it's not something we can earn, it's something we simply receive.

Same with his mercy.

That's yours to wear as a crown now.

God is pleased to extend both his love and his mercy to you and I.

Again, I've been kind of referring to Lamentations 3 a bunch of times already, even today.

Here's verses 22 and 23.

It says this the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.

Never.

His mercies never end, never come to an end.

They are new every morning.

Great is your faithfulness.

Right?

These are just a few of the astonishing benefits that we receive as those who've already received so much.

Right?

We've been given Christ, God's only Son.

We've been given salvation through his blood.

And as we think about that and remember these awesome things, it it draws us again into a place of even deeper intimacy, just closeness with him, a richness to all of that.

Final thing here, third thing.

Remembering all the benefits of my salvation draws me close to God.

I'm satisfied and renewed.

Now it's wild to even think about how this gets better, but it actually does.

Take a look at verse five.

It says here, the God who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.

What a wonderful thing to be satisfied truly in Christ.

Do you find that that's true of your relationship with him?

Do you find yourself satisfied in him?

Perhaps you've experienced those moments before where there's just deep-rooted.

There's so much satisfaction there in my soul, and it's and it's and it's led me to just enjoying the benefits of the Lord, and I love being close to him.

Right?

That is, of course, something worth fighting for for us.

Because we often find ourselves so easily satisfied by other things.

Now, I'll just be clear here.

That's not to say that good things in life aren't good gifts from God, meant for our enjoyment and satisfaction, at least on some level.

That's true.

God gives us all kinds of things that we can enjoy.

Right?

The cottage that you have, that's a blessing from God.

He has given you that.

Steward it well.

We can enjoy things like rep soccer and the different musical gifts that we've been given.

These are really, really good gifts from God that do satisfy us, at least on a certain level.

But listen, we should also keep in mind how Romans chapter one describes us as a people who easily worship and serve the creature or created things rather than the creator.

We often desire and focus on, get wrapped up in and obsess over the gift, right?

The good gifts that God gives us as opposed to the giver himself.

Right?

But do we realize that we've been wired by God to find our true satisfaction, our deepest hope, our deepest pleasure in Him?

Right?

Can you say that this has been or or is becoming as you grow in Christ?

Is this becoming your experience?

Or if you kind of consider your life and you think about all this, would you admit that, you know what, I'm not that satisfied in God?

I'm not.

I want other things.

If that's the case, are you willing to work through that?

Are you willing to invite the Lord into where your heart is at?

Are you willing to look for finding your deepest satisfaction and significance in Him?

Will we do our part in that?

Is there a willingness in you to do the things that we've just like kind of talked about in this series already?

You know, making him the number one priority of our hearts as we kind of surrender everything else and kind of give those things over to him.

Because those things tend to vie for the throne in our hearts, don't they?

Will we humble ourselves when we see that things aren't as they should be in our hearts and in our lives?

And will we allow God to break us and lead us to a place of repentance and confess our sin, our pride, our our idolatry, all of those things.

They always promise satisfaction.

But have you learned, have you realized, have you seen that they just never deliver on that promise?

Ever.

There's kind of a surfacey pleasure that we get from it, and sometimes it feels like it's deep, but it's not nearly as deep as being near God.

My true soul-level satisfaction is only found in Him, in His goodness.

He wants to give you that.

It's a benefit of your salvation.

It's an immense benefit.

We're called to pursue that.

We're called to enjoy that.

Now I love that last part there in verse 5.

How it describes, yeah, like a further benefit of being satisfied in God's goodness.

It's that our youth is renewed like the eagles.

Right?

When we're satisfied in the Lord Jesus, it's just amazing how our youthful vitality seems to return.

Have you seen that in older generations who, you know, they they've just served the Lord and they're close to him and there's a sweetness in their soul about that, and their life isn't easy by no means, and it's hard, but you can just see that their hope is in Jesus and they want to be near him.

And even though the burdens are there, it doesn't seem to crush them.

Because they're just, they're they're pressing in him.

They have like this youthful kind of joy lightness about them.

Man, I love that.

I hope that I'm there and not just crusty and miserable when I get older.

I think there are absolutely spiritual and physical components to all of this.

As you're close to the Lord and he grows you, your heart wants it, then I think it just impacts us physically.

I've seen people just come alive as the Lord just breaks through in their heart and they they give over their lives to him and they just throw themselves into serving him and showing people the love of Christ.

And as people get older, they don't they don't slow down, and and then they think, you know, I want maybe I'm gonna retire and maybe my vocation is gonna change, but I wanna go hard through the tape, through the finish line here.

I don't want to just kick my feet up and co spiritually, it's because their youth is renewed like the eagle's.

The eagle is a picture of just effortless and endless stamina and strength, which is exactly what you and I need to be faithful disciples of Christ to the very end.

Man, what a benefit of knowing Christ.

What a benefit of our salvation to know that God will inject you and I with like a this eagle-like renewal of youthful zeal as we're drawn closer to Him.

So listen, church, remember the benefits of your salvation.

Think about those things.

It'll allow you to enjoy your relationship with God so much more.

It will draw you to just want Him more, which ultimately will stir up your heart of worship.

You will give Him praise, you will give Him glory.

And I mean that's exactly what we see here in this psalm in David's heart.

He you know starts there uh with worship.

We're kind of going backwards here.

We looked at what the benefits are, which are gonna stir us towards worship.

David's thinking about worship, and then he starts thinking about all the benefits.

It's fine to go either direction with that, but look at verse one again.

I'm just gonna read it in the first part of verse two.

He says, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me.

Bless his holy name.

Bless the Lord, oh my soul.

That's what we want to do right now.

John and the team are gonna make their way up here and we're gonna sing that very thing.

Let's sing with joy.

I want to pray for you now.

I want to pray for myself as well, that we would be known as a church that has that youthful zeal, that has that joy in Christ that is not always so quick to talk about how hard life is, though it is.

But that we would be as quick to remember what Christ has done for us and all the good that we get from him.

Let's pray for that right now.