A Dynamic Relationship with God | More Than Religion | Pastor Joe Coffey

Psalm 103

Of David 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 inequity,

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 your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed.

He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel.

The Lord is merciful and gracious,

slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

He will not always chide, nor

will he keep his anger forever.

He does not deal with us according to our sins,

nor repay us according to our iniquities.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

so great is his steadfast love towards those who fear him.

As far as the east is from the West

so far does he remove our transgressions from us,

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 is gone.

And its place knows it no more.

But the steadfast love 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.

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

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.

Hey everybody, welcome to Christ Community Chapel.

My name is Joe,

I'm one of the pastors here, and I'm glad you've come.

If you're seeing me on the big screens

because I'm out in the tent preaching or I'm in the gym,

but I'm so glad you're here as well.

All right.

This is the fourth and final message of our series More Than Religion.

And we're looking at Psalm 103.

The Psalms, for the most part,

are collection of prayers about what we experienced during life.

If you are struggling with doubt or fear or stress or anxiety or shame

or guilt or anything you are experiencing, there's a Psalm for you.

This psalm is a little bit unique and that it's not about anything specific.

It's really about a way to approach life.

Which means then, that it's a psalm for everyone.

It's a Psalm for you, and it's a Psalm for me right now.

You know, Pastor Zach and I work hard at preaching.

We want to try to take the truth of Scripture

and make it applicable and beneficial to your life.

But we also know that the

the half life of a sermon is probably pretty short, like by tomorrow

you'll remember maybe a couple stories about next week it's gone.

And I'm not,

I'm okay with that,

because I really look at preaching, like giving you spiritual nourishment.

Like, you may not remember what you ate 4 or 5 days ago,

but you would remember if you hadn't eaten anything.

So Zach and I look at this like we're trying to give some spiritual nourishment.

But if you want this to last longer, there's a way,

and the way is when you wake up tomorrow.

If you will just read the first five verses of Psalm 103, and then

you read it every day for the next week until it kind of you begin to memorize it.

It can actually have the power to change the way you experience life.

Here are the first five verses. This is what it 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 his benefits.

Who pardons all your iniquities, who heals all your disease,

who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you

with loving kindness and compassion, who fills your life

with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle.

I've been doing that for the last three weeks or so,

and the reason that it has the power to actually change the way you experience

life is the the number one problem that any of us have in staying

close to God in relationship is that we forget.

We forget you.

I said that the Psalms are mostly a collection of prayers, and they are.

This one was written by King David, and he's actually talking to himself.

He's reminding himself of what is true.

It's like he's he's driving an anchor into the ground that will help him

if he goes for any storm that's coming his way.

And what he's saying is, I want to remember the truth.

There are three things. These are my three points.

He says. Remember God's gifts.

Remember God's character.

Remember God's power.

Remember God's gifts.

God's character, God's power.

First, remember God's gifts.

This is what he says right off the bat.

Bless the Lord, O my soul.

Forget not all his benefits who forgives all of your iniquity.

Thank.

Forgiveness was one of those things for King David that was first and foremost.

And if you know the story of David,

you know that he was doing really well and then started to make some mistakes.

And those mistakes led to him committing adultery and then murder.

Okay.

Those are big.

If you take

the Ten Commandments and you pick two, you do not want to break in your lifetime.

Those would be the two.

He does them both, and he is crushed by the guilt and the shame.

And then he experienced experiences forgiveness,

which is just remarkable.

But he still says, don't forget, don't forget.

I think, how could you ever forget?

Like if I had a crushing debt, like my mortgage

was just just killing me and somebody came and paid off my house?

It seems like every time I walk into my house,

I would, I would remember and I just be going, oh, man, this is so good.

I'm dead for you.

This is unbelievable. What a gift, right?

But I know myself well enough that I'd forget after time.

And I was trying to think, why do I forget about forgiveness?

And maybe you're like me.

The reason I think I forget is that I've never done anything really, really bad.

Like I haven't killed.

I haven't murdered anybody yet, you know?

But I

was thinking, if God were to make a tape,

like a highlight tape,

kind of of Joe Coffee at his worst, like one of those political ads,

that's a negative political ad where, you know,

at the end of like, 30s, you're going, man, that guy is awful, right?

I don't know how long that tape would be.

I know this, that if that tape

went up on the big screens right now, in ten minutes,

there'd be nobody in this room, but you'd all be leaving and just going.

That that guy is awful.

I don't know why I ever listened to him in the first place.

Forgiveness is God saying, I take that tape

and I wipe it clean.

There's something just remarkable about that.

Even if you feel like you've never done anything really,

really bad, you have a tape like that.

And the first thing that David says is, don't ever

forget the wonder of being forgiven.

Right?

Then he says this.

He goes on and he says, who crowns you with steadfast love?

I think that the love of God is something that, you know,

you'll be watching a sporting event.

You see somebody who has a sign.

John 316 you think, oh, I know that verse.

For God so loved the world.

Yeah. God loves me.

And I just want to slow you up a little bit,

because the fact that God is love is so huge.

If if you take the most powerful being in the universe and you get to pick

the the central quality of that most powerful person

being in the universe, you could not pick a better thing than love.

Like, I was thinking about all the science

fiction movies where aliens are invading our world.

They never come in love.

You know, it wouldn't be a very long movie, but I think if you could choose

to have the basic quality

of God, you would choose love.

And that's what the Bible says he has.

If you have a single person in your life whose central disposition to

you is love, you want to be close to that person.

Like I have grandchildren and they feel like that about my wife.

They call her Gigi, right?

They know that her disposition toward them is just pure love.

They can feel it.

I was in the kids area a while ago and one of my grandsons came up to me.

I picked him up my arms.

He goes, hey, Papa, we're going to Jesus house.

You should come.

I was like,

I live there.

He didn't even know

what he was doing.

Was like a very basic kind of evangelism.

What he was saying is, listen, being close to Gigi is the best.

You should get yourself some of that. Papa,

can I tell you something?

If you're here because somebody invited you.

That's why

they're saying I know that

God's basic disposition to you is love,

and to be close to him is the very best.

I just want you to get close to him.

You can get yourself some of that through Jesus.

And that's the second thing.

Then the the third gift that he says, he verse five says,

who satisfies you with good.

The version that I memorized says, he fills your life with good things.

He filled.

Every good thing that you have ever experienced is because God gave it to you.

Do you know that it's so easy to forget?

You know, when my daughter, one of my daughters, was a teenager,

she was getting kind of uppity.

And I remember telling her at one time, listen, everything you have,

it's not yours. It's mine.

Like the car you drive, you think it's yours?

That's my car.

The phone you're looking at that you're holding right now.

My phone. The clothes you wear.

Those are my clothes. They just fit you right.

You don't have to.

I mean, you kind of figure out why my grandkids prefer my wife.

Yeah.

Every good thing that you have ever experienced

is from the hand of God.

That's just true.

You know, I was thinking, you know, he says this forgives all your iniquity.

Who heals all your diseases?

I remember when I read that for the first couple of times

I was thinking, but what about the diseases?

He doesn't heal?

But then I turned it around and I thought, you know, every single thing I have ever

my body has ever healed of is only because God did it.

I played basketball in college.

My roommate was also on the team, and I remember one time he popped his

he sprained his ankle. It was it was a bad sprain.

If you've ever done that, you know, they blow up big like big and purple.

And he was laying on the bed and he couldn't get out of bed.

And I went to a Christian college.

And there was a guy on our floor who was very much into prayer.

And so he asked Joel, do you want me to come in and pray for your ankle?

And Joel said, sure.

So every night this guy would come in and he would lay hands on Joel's ankle

and he would pray for his ankle to get better.

And after about two and a half weeks, it it got better.

And I remember we kind of laughed because we said,

you know, a sprained ankle gets better in about two and a half weeks,

you know, without prayer.

But I was wrong.

The only reason I sprained

ankle ever gets better is that God makes it so.

You only heal your body.

Nothing heals itself.

If there's a designer.

He designed it to heal.

I was reading a book about the wonders of the human body, and I read a chapter

about blood clotting, and I'll just make this quick.

You know, you a human body is a pressurized system.

That's why you have blood pressure, right?

We are like balloons walking around, you know, a balloon.

If you have a tiny pinprick in a balloon, it will it will bleed out of it

may take all night, but in the morning it's done.

The only reason you don't bleed out, you haven't bled out yet in your life

is because your blood clots, which is a a wildly complex 14.

It's it's a 14 stage cascading system that allows your blood clot.

I learned that in the book.

You are alive to if you live out today,

it's because God did it.

Every good gift and it's so easy to forget.

So the first thing the psalmist says, we're going to change

just the way you experience, you're going to get close to God.

You want to stay close to God.

Remember God's gifts,

right?

Forgiveness, love, every good thing.

Then he says, Remember God's character.

It's what he says next,

the Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed.

He may know in his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel.

The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.

He mentions two things right there if you caught it, he mentions

justice and mercy.

Those are like if you take love and break it

apart, it breaks up into justice and mercy.

If you know how water breaks up into hydrogen and oxygen, you take love.

You break it up. It's justice. Mercy.

Justice is love. Spread out.

Mercy is what you have to have.

If you're going to love an imperfect being.

And what the psalmist says, God has both and he holds both.

But the hard thing is to hold them both in the same hand.

You know, there's a story in Exodus chapter 34

Exodus 34 · chapter mention

where Moses is up on the mountain with God, and he asked God.

He says, God, I want to see your full goodness.

I want to see all of you.

And God says, you can't see all of me.

That would melt your face.

So I will stick you in the cleft of a rock,

and I'll go by you and you'll see just a glimpse.

But then this is what he hears as God goes by,

says the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there.

Proclaim the name of the Lord.

The Lord passed before him

and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious.

There it is slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping

steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.

That's mercy.

Then he says this, but who will by no means clear the guilty,

visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children,

and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.

That's justice.

And the big question is, which one do I get

if I have that that tape?

That's the very worst of Joe Coffee

do I fall into he does not let the guilty go unpunished?

Or do I fall into the mercy where he forgives iniquity?

So we're Christian.

This is where Christianity has the only logical answer.

I think of any religion because Christianity says you can.

The only way it can do both is you have to have someone to stand in the middle.

Who is Jesus

who says, if the guilty must be punished, I will be punished for the guilty.

Then the guilty will receive mercy.

It just makes so much sense that for me, I need a God who has both.

I need a God who's just.

Absolutely you do to write.

Fairness is important to me.

Justice is important to me.

But I need a God of mercy, and only Christianity gives me both

because of Jesus who stands in the middle and says, I'll take the punishment

of the guilt that he deserves so that he can receive mercy.

The psalmist says, don't forget God's character.

And finally he says, don't forget God's power.

I'm just going to give you two.

Verse 17.

It says, but the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting.

You know, I got married when I was 21.

We just celebrated their 46th anniversary.

And a lot of you know that because I gave a shout out to my wife

in the pre-service video a couple weeks ago.

I don't know how many more anniversaries I'm going to have,

but I know this there won't be enough,

right? It just won't be.

If I may have 50, 60, 70,

it's not going to be.

And I say that not because I'm a romantic.

Although my wife was here last service and I said I was romantic,

it just wanted to get those points.

But I say that because we all realize that, you know, that

deep down, to be loved til death do us part is wonderful.

But it's not enough, right?

That's why there are so many popular songs

that have to do with Love That Lasts forever.

I just find that fascinating.

I actually asked ChatGPT,

who knows everything I said, how many popular, not religious songs?

How many popular songs talk about everlasting love?

This is what it says.

It says there's no exact number, which I was shocked by because ChatGPT

usually gives me an exact number, he says.

Music databases log hundreds of thousands of tracks on this theme.

I asked for, for for ten years

of popular songs that say everlasting love.

It said there are hundreds of thousands.

You know why?

There's a little verse tucked away in in Ecclesiastes

that says, God has placed eternity in the hearts of men.

You long for someone to love you

not just till you die, but forever.

And here the psalmist says, you have a God who is so powerful

it can love you from everlasting devil lasting.

There was a commercial years ago.

I don't know if you're old enough to remember it.

It was for iced tea and it was it.

It like had the nest T plunge, which was a man who would be staying

and be a hot day.

He would grab an iced tea,

he'd be standing at the edge of a pool and he would take a sip.

And as he did, he would fall back and just into the pool.

It was all refreshing.

You know, the best thing about dying is going to be for me

is that the moment I die will be

plunged into the everlasting love of a God who has loved me

since I was in my mother's womb, and will never stop loving me.

Such is the power of God.

And then he says this.

He says, the Lord has established his throne

in the heavens and his kingdom rules.

Overall,

I love that

that you know, when when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the angels announced,

Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace.

Jesus taught us to pray, pray thy kingdom come, thy will be done.

And then at the end of the New Testament it says, someday every knee will bow

and every tongue will confess that Jesus is the king.

And when that happens, there will be what the Bible calls the Genesis,

which is a renewal of all things in the world, will finally

be everything we wanted it to be.

It will be what it's supposed to be, because it will be under the rule of God.

The power of God is from everlasting to everlasting.

The love of God is from everlasting to everlasting.

Because God is who.

Don't forget, don't forget.

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

Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul.

Forget not his benefits.

Who pardons all your inequities, heals all your diseases, redeems

your life from the pit, who crowns you with loving kindness and compassion,

who fills your life with good things so that your youth is renewed.

Like the eagles.

You want to be close to God.

You want to be close to him.

Remember.

Remember his gifts. Remember his character.

Remember his power.

There's nothing better than being close to God.

Would you pray with me?

Father in heaven, thank you for this Psalm.

Thanks for reminding us.

I need to be reminded all the time of who you are, what you have done.

I pray that this day, tonight will be a night that you will remind all of us.

I pray for those who are here, who are just now starting to

to want to come to your drawing them to you.

I pray that they will make that step, because there is nothing better

than being close to the God whose disposition toward us is one of love.

Thanks for your gifts, for your character, for your power.

We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.