Forget Not His Benefits

Good morning.

Today's scripture is from Psalm 103.

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 eagles.

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 toward 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 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.

This is the Word of God.

You may be seated.

Well, what day is it?

And in what month?

This clock never seemed so alive.

That's a uh song.

I have no idea.

It's very uh it's Sunday, I think.

It's wonderful to see you all on this Sunday in this um liminal space of the year where we have no idea where we are or when it when it is or what's happening or where you're supposed to be.

Uh if you are in school, you probably don't know when school starts again.

And if uh you in if you have to go back to work, who knows when you have to go back to work.

Maybe you're back at work now and it's just back to normal time.

If you're in retail, congratulations.

You've had no break.

You know exactly what day it is.

But thanks so much for joining us on this Sunday.

It's great to have a weekly Lord's Day where we anchor ourselves back in the worship of God who draws us back together again.

It's wonderful to gather together with you.

Uh, this is one of my um actually one of my favorite Sundays of the year.

It's it's uh typically a smaller Sunday.

It feels a bit uh close and more intimate today.

Uh the Dowdy children are being baptized, and so we've got a whole Dowdy fan club here, which is pretty fun uh to uh worship together with you all.

Uh but let's pray and then we'll move into our text for the day.

Holy Father, in the season of celebration, we pray that you would strengthen our hearts so that we might look at and celebrate and wonder and reflect on and remember all the benefits that we receive from you, Lord.

The wonderful benefits that have been secured for us by Jesus Christ our Lord, who forgives our iniquities, who heals our diseases, who crowns us with love and majesty.

Lord, this is a time of gift giving and gift receiving.

Lord, we have received the most unthinkably wonderful gift from you.

We pray that you would strengthen us to be able to receive such a weight of glory, such a wonderful good news, Lord, that our flesh, it's so good that our flesh wants to resist it.

But Lord, I pray that you would kill that part of our flesh and that we might be raised to new life in you, to be able to receive and wonder at these things that are too high for us, too wonderful for us to consider.

Lord, strengthen us that we might consider them and wonder at them this morning.

We lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So over the course of Advent, we spent time moving through a section of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, and we were looking at the offices that Christ executes as our Redeemer, and we saw that Jesus is our true prophet, our true priest, and our true king.

And if you continue reading on in the section that we moved through, then you'll hear about the effectual call that the Lord gives to those people that he draws to himself.

He effectually calls us.

Now, when I call my children, it's mixed results.

It's not always, my calling is not always an effectual calling where it does the work to make them come to me.

But when Christ calls his people to himself, it's an effectual calling.

You know, when the Lord said, Let there be light, he wasn't wondering, I wonder if my word will work this time.

And there might be some darkness.

When he said, Let there be light, the light shone.

And such is his call of us to himself, that it works in our hearts.

It's an effectual call.

And this effectual call works in our hearts by the receiving of the gospel.

What we receive, the catechism goes on to explain, are these wonderful benefits.

There's justification.

Justification means that you are legally made right with the Lord, that your sins are erased, that they are blotted out, and he counts you as righteous in his sight, not because of your work, but because of the work of Jesus Christ.

And then it goes on to explain our adoption.

Adoption means that you are counted in that number of the family of God.

You are in that number, the family of God, that we are treated as his sons, co-heirs with Christ.

We call God Father, and it's true.

And our sanctification.

Sanctification means that we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God.

It is the flesh is more and more put to death in our lives, and we are more and more enlivened by the Spirit.

And then we get to question 36, which I think is my favorite uh catechism question in the Westminster Shorter Catechism.

And it says this What are the benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification?

I think I like this question because I used to be a car salesman.

And so I like to describe the benefits of things to people.

I like to overcome objections, and I like to describe the benefits.

And so this is one of those where, like, okay, what's, you know, who benefits?

Qui bono?

What's the what's in it for me, you know, on the on this deal?

And this is where you lay that out.

This is where it's like, you want to know, like, great, the gospel, it sounds good.

What do I get?

What's in it for me?

Listen to some of the stuff you get.

This is quite the stuff.

Here's the answer.

The benefits which in this life, that's the one you're in right now.

You can experience it from your chair.

The benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification are assurance of God's love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace, and perseverance therein to the end.

So what do you got going for you in this life?

I know one thing I got, I got assurance of God's love.

Assurance of God's love.

Can you believe these are even written down somewhere?

Peace of conscience.

I got a peace of conscience.

What might that be like?

You can have it in Christ.

Increase of grace.

It's just, you like the amount of grace you got?

I like the amount of grace I got.

It's good.

I like it.

I wouldn't, I wouldn't trade any of it.

I got more coming.

It's going to increase as this life goes on.

Joy in the Holy Ghost.

Joy from the from the Spirit of God dwelling in you.

You have this now.

These are the benefits which accompany and flow from your justification, adoption, sanctification.

But is it going to go away?

Am I going to walk away from this?

The Lord gives you perseverance therein to the end.

It's that time of year where we where it's like this week.

About three or four days out from Christmas.

You're with your family still, or there's still family in town, or uh, or you just got it just got away from your family for better force.

And there's been a lot of celebration so far.

You know, you've had big dinners, big meals.

It's incredible the amount of I don't drink it's not like you know in July where I'm like, where do you have any eggnog around here?

I've had so much eggnog the past couple of days.

A lot, it's the most like cream and sugar I've drunk.

Probably maybe all year.

And I get to a point, and I this may be familiar to some of you, where you're like, I'm kind of done celebrating.

I kind of I'm a little worn out.

It's a little too much celebration.

Uh and I start and I start where I'm like, I kind of want to listen, I could kind of use some sad music.

Do you ever feel that?

You ever get to that point where I'm like, man, I kinda like, it's like Megan's like, what do you want to watch?

I'm like, can we watch like Donnie Darko or something?

We watch like, I want to watch something like Melancholy and Strange and where we finish it, and it's like, um, life, you know.

So hard because I'm worn out from the celebration.

So this is so here's what I want the this week to be.

This is or what I want to do for us today.

I want to, I want to, we're we're too weak.

We don't, we, we don't know how to we keep we can't celebrate long enough.

We can't celebrate in accord with the good news that we've received.

This is like, this is like the, you know, last week at BUDS, and you're like, I'm ready to ring the bell.

I don't want to celebrate anymore.

I got my celebrations all worn out.

Well, it's time to, it's time to buck up a little bit.

We've got to cowboy up.

Because the news that we've got, we're gonna have to become folks that can celebrate.

We're we're talking when you're done, when you're out of joy, you're done with joy, you're done with gifts.

It's like I'm I we got home and we unloaded our gifts yesterday, and I was like, all I want to do is move through our house and throw every other item away.

I'm done with receiving.

I'd like to purge.

Well, there's more coming.

There's more to receive.

The reason we wear out from our celebration, from the depth of joy, it's not because we're we're so strong that we need to get back to enduring the pains of this life.

It's that you're too weak.

We're too weak in our flesh to celebrate, to rise to the occasion of the joy that we've been given.

And so I this week we're gonna we're gonna look at one of the one of, we're we're gonna count the benefits.

We're gonna move through Psalm 103 and we're gonna look at the benefits that we've received.

And we're gonna trust that the Holy Spirit will strengthen us to be able to remember and celebrate and enjoy the benefits that we've received in this life.

And folks will look at the church and they'll be listening to their, you know, like sad music.

And they'll look over at the church people, and they'll be listening to all this happy music still, and they'll be like, what's going on with these people?

And what they'll see is that those folks are strong to celebrate.

They've been given a supernatural ability to receive joy.

We need to practice this.

It doesn't seem like you need to practice receiving.

You know, it seems like that would just come natural.

Like, oh, I really need to practice because I might get what I want.

This is beyond this is beyond the the news of the gospel, the news of who God is, what he's done for us, it's beyond getting what you want.

This is more than you could ask or imagine, is what you've received.

So let's call that to mind this morning.

That's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna be like the navy seals of joy.

You know, we didn't ring the bell, we stuck it out.

Those folks can enjoy.

That's what we're gonna look at this morning.

So we're gonna do that by looking at our benefits, remembering to remember our benefits in Psalm 103.

Psalm 103 2 says, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.

You gotta talk to your soul to do this.

David teaches us this in the Psalms.

Bless the Lord, O my soul.

This isn't, you know, a little encouragement.

He's not saying, My soul is blessing the Lord.

He's saying, Soul, bless the Lord.

Bless the Lord, O my soul.

That's what we're that's what we're gonna do this morning.

He says, and forget not all his benefits.

Man, we easily forget the benefits of the Lord.

I think we have like a nervousness, a trepidation about really meditating, really receiving the depth of the benefits that we get from the Lord.

We're like, man, if I think about that too much, then I might not, I'll lose my edge, you know.

There'll be something that I won't be able to really hold on or to really endure.

No, no, don't forget the benefits of the Lord.

I think there's uh uh we're we're reminded of this in uh throughout Deuteronomy.

Moses is telling the people of God before they, right before they enter the promised land, he's like, don't forget.

Don't forget the wonders of what the Lord has accomplished for you.

You know, don't forget the night before the Passover.

You know, don't forget what the slavery was like back in Egypt.

Don't forget the wonder of you being rescued under the blood of the Lamb.

Don't forget the parting of the seas.

Don't forget the water and the wilderness.

Don't forget that while you were wandering around in the wilderness that whole time, there's just bread coming down from heaven for you.

You can't forget the benefits of the Lord.

Now listen to these, listen to these benefits that there are.

In Psalm 103, verses 3 through 5, it says, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who satisfies you with good, so that your youth, oh, I I skipped one, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, I don't want to skip that.

Psalms 103:3–5

Who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

Look at all those yours.

Your iniquity, your diseases, your life, your you are crowned with steadfast love, who satisfies you with good, so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.

I think there's two pitfalls with our remembering of the gospel.

One of them is to over-personalize to the neglect of the reality that this is news of a kingdom.

And the center of the news of the kingdom is that this is about the king's glory.

And so we we over-personalize and we think the gospel is just a story of personal salvation, it's just a story of individual salvation.

That's one pitfall.

To the neglect that this is about the king's glory, that's the center of the story.

That's one pitfall.

The other pitfall is to de-personalize the gospel.

To see that this is just, this is just some generic news.

You know, that that is the proclamation, the statements of some world religion, without the personalizing of it.

Because you should read these use.

What David is teaching the congregation to do is he forgives all your iniquity.

And then what you think is he forgives all my iniquity.

Mine.

It's forgiven.

This is the news that we have.

Think of your iniquity.

My iniquity is waiting for me in the morning.

You know, my wife wakes up earlier than me, and her alarm will go off.

And on many mornings, her alarm goes off, and I don't wake up.

Instead, I just sit there and I just toil in my brain.

You guys know about, you ever done anything like that?

And my and it's just like a list of iniquities that are that I'm toiling in, that I'm that I'm like trying to wrestle through or consider, or and it'll be other people's voices, people who have who have noticed my iniquities in the past, shame on them.

And those will be drawn drawn to my mind.

The Lord has forgiven all of my iniquities.

That's what the Lord is.

We have to remember, remember to personalize, to receive, to have the courage, to receive how good the news is, how good the Bible says that it is, to be able to receive such a thing.

Your iniquities are forgiven.

He heals all your diseases.

And you think, well, that one's taken a bit longer, but it's sure to happen.

It's sure to happen.

In Christ, it is sure that you will live out the vast majority of your existence in a glorified body that gets younger and stronger every day.

We get tastes of this because although we wither away physically as our time goes on, our youth is renewed.

Because our sanctification in the Lord, you know, Jesus, throughout his ministry, he's never telling kids, look, kids, you gotta be more like adults.

You gotta you gotta think more like adults.

You see how your, see, look at your poor parents, child, on Christmas morning.

You're over here playing with these toys.

Your parents are over there thinking, why did I spend all this and the credit card is gonna come up in the at the end of this next month?

Maybe I can figure something out here.

You should, and Jesus doesn't come in and he says, See how your kid, how your parents are so stressed, little boy?

You need to be more like that.

You need to be more like your parents are in this season.

That's not what Jesus says.

He's encouraging over and over again.

You see, look at look at the child.

Look at their faith.

Look how they just receive.

You know what kids do on Christmas?

They just receive.

Even the gifts that my kids bought for their siblings.

I'm gonna let you in on a little secret.

JT, I'm gonna let you in on a little secret.

I bought those.

All they did, even their giving was receiving.

And you know, and uh I can see it in JT's face right now.

My son right in front of me right now.

He's completely unbothered by it.

We this is what our that that's the do you see that that's the renewal of our youth.

In Christ, we our youth is renewed.

So that more and more, as the days go on, although you know we we get old and Die and we live three score and five or four score and ten or whatever the Gettysburg address that we sing in that song.

There's whatever that whatever that is, we uh although we age and we wither, our youth is renewed because we can receive more and more like children from our Father.

Because it becomes more and more true in our spirit that all of this is from him.

And as we grow in maturity, we we look at all the little nooks and crannies and all the corners of our lives that we think are really ours, that really belong to us, we see that was his too.

Was all of grace.

It's been all of grace the whole time.

He redeems your life from the pit.

Now there's a glorious sort of macro version of this where the pit of death we will be rescued from because of the resurrection of Jesus.

That when you die, you can know you'll rise again to eternal life with our Lord.

And there's all the normal little ordinary pits of your life that you've been rescued from, that he's pulled you out of, where you've been in too deep and you can't get yourself out of it, and you can't imagine a way that you could be brought through.

You all have stories like that.

And he's brought you through.

He has brought you through.

He is the God who does that.

He's not gonna stop being like that towards you.

He's not, you're not wearing out his ability to redeem you from the pit.

You may be in a pit right now.

A pit in your career, a pit in your marriage, a financial pit.

Well, he's redeemed you from those things.

You've got to remember those.

You should turn them into stories.

And you should tell those stories to each other.

Those are good stories.

Getting the whole Bible is just a series of close calls, near misses.

You know, I promise you, you'll have a you'll have a son, he says to Abraham and Sarah.

And then they're really old.

You know, they're too old.

They're in a pit of being able to have a son.

And then, whoa, man, God works it, and they they give birth to a son.

Joseph, he gets in a real pit, and he's actually put in a pit and then sold into slavery.

And it's like that, man, that was a close call.

If he wasn't sold to that person at that time, and if he didn't then get put in the jail by that at that time, then he doesn't become, you know, the second in command of the great the greatest empire in the world at that point.

You know, think of him telling that story.

It's like, what was your career track into becoming the second in command of Egypt?

He's like, I gotta tell you, it's a wild story.

It's an amazing story.

I got this coat once and things seemed great, and then I ended up in a pit for my brothers, my own family.

And it seemed like all was lost.

But it wasn't.

It wasn't because God, you know what, because I'm a child of God and He rescues us from pits.

You may be a bruised reed right now.

You may be a smoldering wick right now.

Take confidence.

If you're a smoldering wick right now, then I good things are coming.

I have no I have no hesitation in saying that.

If you're if you're a smoldering wick in Jesus Christ, good things are coming.

Because he can't resist smoldering wicks.

He he doesn't quench them.

Bruised reeds, oh man, he finds those irresistible.

He he he binds them up and they they heal.

They they grow to flourishing.

He loves those things.

It says he crowns you with steadfast love and mercy.

I don't even really know what that means.

Crowned with steadfast love and mercy.

He satisfies you with good.

You've received a lot of good.

You know, that's what the holidays are.

Like all that eggnog and stuff, it's all good.

And I bet half of you, maybe more than half of you, one of the experiences of Christmas, one of like the risks and the dangers of a celebration like this, is that in the midst of it, you start thinking, I can't even enjoy this.

I can't even like what could what if I can't enjoy this, do I have any, is there any hope for me at all?

Do I have any capacity?

It's one of the dangers of good days.

And they can be, it can be a terrible feeling, a horrible experience.

When you're in a good day and you can't enjoy it, that's a sharp, that's a sharp barb.

And then your your spouse or friend or something that says, like, why are you in such a bad mood?

Things are great.

It's like, that doesn't really help.

I know they're great.

I know I should be enjoying it.

What's the it's a terrible thing?

And we we learned earlier this year as we move through Ecclesiastes that the ability to enjoy a good thing, to be satisfied by a good thing, is like a separate gift from the Lord.

There's the good thing itself.

You may or may not be able to enjoy that, but the Lord is able to give us good things such that we are satisfied by them.

That you could receive a good thing and like it.

That's like a miracle.

That's a miracle.

The Lord does that for you.

He gives you good gifts and he satisfies you with him.

He's the only one who can really do that.

He satisfies you with good.

Look at the love that is shown to you.

He really shows, he crowns you with steadfast love and mercy.

I'll take a shot at what how we could know this or receive this more.

Crowns you with steadfast love and mercy.

Imagine you want to be loved, you know.

Think of you're looking for a job and it's been months, and you you're wondering, like, am I ever gonna get a job, you know, because of the money that comes from it and the you know what it's like out here.

And so you're looking to get a you're looking to get a job like this, and you walk into an interview, and when you're imagine this, you you walk into an interview and it and it goes well.

And you walk out and you're, you know, finishing your coffee or whatever, and you're standing in the lobby, and the receptionist turns to you and says, you know, they really loved you.

They really loved you.

And you think, oh, it's such good news.

It's such good news.

If they, if they, if these people that I need the job from, if they really loved me, then that means there's like a there's a hope here, there's a future here, there's provision here, there's care here.

Now, um imagine, here, imagine here's something that you can know.

God, this is much higher of a potential boss.

God crowns you with steadfast love and mercy.

Now, what might that feel like?

What might it be like to know that?

Then I he'll provide for me.

He'll care for me, he'll see me through, he'll be with me, he won't forsake me, he'll hold fast to me.

Some of you are thinking and assessing your lives right now, and you've got uh you've got um uh strong lists of reasons that that things can't work and that they they simply won't go right, and they're they're impossible to solve dynamics, they're impossible to solve family dynamics or financial dynamics, or even within yourself, you know that there are these sins that are plaguing you so much that you you just know there's no way out of them.

But what here's what you're forgetting when you're making that assessment.

You're forgetting the power of God and his depth of love towards you.

If you add that, that ingredient, into any mix, whatever the cocktail is that you formed of the of the reasons for despair, I don't care what it is.

If you add in the depth of God's love for you, and you consider who he is and what that means, then you look at that situation and you think, Oh, I can hope in this.

I can hope in this.

Such is what it means to be crowned in his love and mercy.

In verses seven through nine, it says, 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.

Here we see the patience of God towards us, because he goes right to that generation of people under Moses, who the Lord shows just unceasing patience towards this group of people.

He they say he saved them, and yet they live out their time in the wilderness in repeated rebellion against him.

But he also tells Moses his name.

And he says, the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

He is patient with you.

His patience is not wearing out towards his people.

His patience doesn't wear out towards you.

It says he will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever.

You haven't gotten on his bad side, where the Lord is going to hold this perpetual grudge towards you.

He doesn't always chide.

Chide is like a it's like a legal term.

It's where he's like constantly appealing the decision.

You know, he's constantly keeping you tangled up in the court and never allowing it to actually resolve or come to an end, or never allowing a decision to finally be arrived at and moved on.

Some of you are like that in your relationships.

Every little thing that happens, you you think we've got to get to the bottom of this.

Don't get to the bottom.

Just what you what you need to do is you should just forgive.

And then you should just receive forgiveness.

Don't just keep things tangled up in some court of appeals.

Don't be perpetually chiding.

Don't be perpetually chiding yourself.

Don't be perpetually chiding the ones that you love.

Be like God.

Because what God does, he's got a lot of dirt on you.

And he could use that constantly to be chiding you, to keep you tangled up.

You think you, you know, overcome the sin, and then you discover that there were like 10 sins beneath that, that this one was just masking all of them.

You think you've overcome the sin, and then this growth of pride comes into you from overcoming this.

And it's like, see, gotcha, gotcha.

And the Lord could be constantly chiding you over those things.

And he doesn't.

He doesn't.

He doesn't chide.

His anger is but for a moment.

Even his anger is for your good.

That is what the Lord is like.

Verses 10 through 12, listen to this.

He says, He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.

Let's just settle, let's just settle in on that for a second.

He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.

Many of you think that the most important factor in your relationship with the Lord are your sins and your iniquities.

It's not the most important factor.

The most important factor in your relationship with the Lord is how the Lord determines to treat you.

And he doesn't treat you according to your iniquities.

He doesn't repay you.

He's not storing things up that he might enact his vengeance against you.

Instead, what what your iniquities deserve, here's what a just response would be.

Here's your iniquities before this perfect, holy, and just God, the giver of life.

He'll destroy you for those, and he'll suffer you eternal punishment in hell.

Well, in Christ, here's what he does.

In Christ, he says, that's what it would be like to treat you according to your sins and according to your iniquities.

Here's what I'm going to do: I will suffer the pains of hell.

And you will walk free in my righteousness.

And you think, well, what did I do to deserve that?

And God says, I'm not really interested in you being the main factor and how I relate to you.

It's like I sort of the perks of being God is he's like, I kind of like to do things the way I want to do them.

And I'm going to be the main decision maker in this whole deal.

And as the main decision maker in this whole deal, I'm going to treat you how I want to treat you.

Well, what's he like?

How does he want to treat us?

He wants to lavish his grace and mercy on his people.

He wants to take the pains of the punishment that we deserve upon himself, so that we might, as a free gift, receive the wonders of eternal life with him and eternal glory.

That we might have assurance of his love.

Right now.

That's what he wants to do.

And he does what he wants.

Praise God.

He lives in the heavens, he does what he wants.

Praise God.

That's good news for you.

As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him.

As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him.

What is the steadfast love of God like toward those who fear him?

It's like what David does, is he's like, all right, everybody, look up and down.

You see it up.

Imagine you're outside.

Suspend your disbelief.

And you look up and it's like, how high are the heavens?

Very, very high above the earth.

The heavens are very high above the earth.

That's like his steadfast love.

He's like, okay, now that you've looked up and down, I want you to look east and west.

Look side to side.

As far as the east is from the west, that's how far he's separated.

His sins, your he's removed your transgressions from you.

They're gone.

As far as the east is from the west.

It means if you were to keep going, if you were to keep looking for the if you keep heading east, you never stop heading east.

Have you ever noticed that?

It's very different from north and south.

You ever keep heading east, you're just gonna keep heading east.

You ever keep heading west, it's never like, well, you're heading east now.

No, you just keep heading west.

You here's the point.

You can't get to them anymore.

Your transgressions are removed.

He's done it.

He's done it.

Now these these wonderful heights and these un unsearchable distances then come then come crashing into this familial proximity in the Psalm.

Where he says this in the next verses in 13 and 14, as a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.

You know how a father shows compassion to his children?

I know what it goes on.

He knows our frame.

He remembers that we are dust.

You know, I know what my kids are like.

I know a lot of times they're just hungry.

They're just tired.

They're their grandparents don't guard the amount of sugar that they should have.

Or screen time.

And so they just become these insane creatures.

But I know their frame.

I remember.

I remember what they're like.

And so I treat them like that.

I try to.

And that's just that's just a regular old regular old dad.

Just regular old dad having having kids.

That knows like they're just hungry.

We've got to get them somehow, we need to get them to eat some protein in their life.

That it might regulate them.

But they don't.

Now, uh think of how little I know of my children as compared to what our Heavenly Father knows of us.

He knows, like when he's handling you, he's handling you and he's like, I know these are just dust.

He knows.

And so he treats you like that.

And what does he do to the to the this dust that he loves and breathes his life into?

He's not trying to pound it back into dust again.

It's not the way he treats you.

Instead, in Christ, he says, I'm gonna take this dust and I'm gonna raise it up to an eternal glory, so that it will raise eternally in the heavens with me.

It will reign alongside me in the heavens.

That's what that's what I'm gonna do with this dust.

It's hard for us to imagine elevating such a lowly thing to such a highly place.

But these things are not difficult for God.

Not for him.

He treats you according to your frame.

He lavishes you with steadfast love.

Verses twenty through twenty-two.

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.

At the end of this, it's a chorus.

You know, in David writing this psalm, he's like the conductor, telling all their parts to come in at just the right time.

You know, they do this.

And he says, Bless the Lord, you, his angels, and the heavenly chorus of angels comes in.

The heavenly chorus of angels.

It's singing.

It's singing right now in the heavenly courts.

They're proclaiming in the presence of God, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.

Heaven and earth are full of his glory.

They're proclaiming this, and they come in, and it's this glorious song singing.

They remember the benefits that they receive from the Lord, his glorious presence.

The wonder of his grace towards them in creation, that they join in his divine council, that they go and share the wonderful message to the people.

All his hosts, his ministers who do his will, the vast host, the heavenly army that the Lord commands, it comes in and it sings alongside just in time.

Bless the Lord, all his works.

You know, we hear that the uh mountains will shout, the trees will clap their hands.

This is the glory that will be received from the Lord, that all creation will sing in coordination with glory to the Lord if they remember his benefits, you know, and they they sing.

Some of the the butterflies will be like, if I were a butterfly, I'd thank you, God, for giving me wings.

And all the butterflies will be like, and we are butterflies, and we love our wings that we got from the Lord, because they recognize this was all a gift, has been from the beginning.

And then the final one bless the Lord, oh my soul.

Do you have the do you have the strength by the Spirit to receive such good news?

To sing the song of praise that He's given you in Christ Jesus To be called into that heavenly chorus and sing your part But I just thank you, Father, for making me me.

I'm just a guy.

I'm just a girl.

But he has given me a part.

And the part sings of his glory.

Because look what he's given me.

Crowned, he's separated my sins from me on the cross.

Crowned me with love and majesty.

He even gave you he even gave you pit stories to tell.

You may be in one right now, but in Christ, you know this is this is a story you'll tell later.

Yeah, I was in a pit.

Things were bad.

It was rough out there.

And then he got me out of it.

We sing his praise.

Assurance of God's love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace, and perseverance there into the end.

Let's pray.

Father, we confess our weakness.

We confess our inability to be satisfied by what is good.

We confess our retreat away from the joy that you offer in order to find comfort in the more familiar, more accessible melancholy.

Lord, we pray that you would strengthen our hearts to receive the joy that you've given to us.

Lord, open our eyes to see you.

What more could we need to know of you, to want to come close to you?

Because he who did not spare his own son, but delivered him over for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things?

That the sins that we have committed in our rebellion against you, that you have removed from us as far as the east is from the west.

But God shows his own love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Lord, on this side of Christ, seeing the price that was paid and the depth of love that is shown to us on the cross, the hope of resurrection that we have, we know more than David knew when he wrote this psalm.

Lord, thanks for these good gifts.

Let us not forget your benefits.

We lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.