Coleman Ford, Assistant Professor of Humanities at Texas Baptist College, preached from Psalm 103 in SWBTS Chapel on October 31, 2024.
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
Well, friends to the saints gathered in MacGorman Chapel here on the campus of southwestern seminary. Grace and Peace be to you from our Lord Jesus Christ. Why do I say saints? Because that’s what you are, friends. You are a saint to the living God. And as Dr Dockery reminded us, that this day, we are deep down in our identity, in our hearts, as Saint, and you can trust in that today, fact that’s going to be a big part of what we talk about. And what a softball to me. What a softball of a psalm on Reformation Day, Psalm 103, as I was telling Dr McKellar, If I miss this, I don’t deserve to be here, but it is a joy to be here. It’s a real treat to be a part of the Southwestern Community.
But I want you to do this before I get started, I want you to look around. Don’t be weird. Take your finger on the back of your chair, on the floor, maybe a wooden piece, and just go like this. Just swipe your finger. Everyone do it. Hold up your finger. What is on your finger, human remains, more specifically, dust, whether you can see it or not, my friends, the microscopic remains of humanity are all around you in your dorm rooms, there’s other things there on your car dashboards, and some of you clean your dashboard. Dr McKinney, and for those like me, on the dusty bookshelves of your seminary office, dust human remains. Why do I say that?
Not because it’s October 31 I’m not trying to be weird and creepy. There’s other ways I could do that, I guess. But I want us to remember that we friends are finite people. We’re forgetful. We forget that we’re finite. That’s how finite we are. We’re also this. We’re fickle, as I tell my kids back home, sometimes you’re being a fickle pickle. But in reality, I’m the fickle pickle. We are fickle and friends, this psalm reminds us that though we forget the things of the Lord, he doesn’t forget us. In fact, that’s the title of our sermon today from Psalm 103 is that God remembers the forgetful. And so, as we approach this Psalm, I want us to think about again the truth of our finiteness, and this is why David wrote Psalm 103, imagine David coming behind you, putting his hands on your shoulders, whispering in your ear, do not forget. Do not forget the benefits of our God.
Psalm, 103, is that comforting, yet convictional reminder that the Lord’s faithful love. Love is always with his people, even when you and I forget. So, friends, I just have two observations for you today. Someone say two you’re awake. Thank you. Two observations from this psalm. First one is this. I’ve already mentioned it, we too often forget the wonders of God, of our God. Yet the second one is related, the God of wonders remembers us. So, while we forget the wonders of God, the God of wonders remembers you and I. That’s this psalm. Let’s look a little bit closer at this psalm, Psalm 103 begins, not in an abstract way, not in a convoluted way, but in a very personal, intimate manner. What does it say? My soul, bless the Lord. Forget not his benefits. It ends my soul Bless the Lord.
This is what I love about the Psalms friends. It invites us to talk to ourselves. You’re not weird, you’re not crazy if you talk to yourself, at least in this way, the Psalmist gives you permission to do that. The great church father Augustine continues that in some of his works, like the soliloquies and his confessions, these conversational sort of soulish type discussions that are drawn straight from this psalm and other Psalms, we can have a conversation with our soul, the Psalm is inviting us to do that. And here’s what the psalm does. It invites us to look forward, and then it swings a lamp in the darkness, in the dark corners of our soul, the Psalm is there, giving light, beckoning us, imploring us this way, this way to life, this way to the light. This is what the Psalms do. But here’s what happens often. When we go into our soul, we find that darkness and we’re tempted to stay there? Anyone tempted to stay in the shame, in the fear?
That’s what happens, and not only that, not only that, Satan meets us there and whispers the subtle lie that he has whispered from the very beginning of time. Did God really say? Did God really say that you’re loved? Did God really say that his mercy is never ending. I don’t know. That’s what Satan whispers. And if we’re not careful, and if we don’t listen to what David is saying, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we will succumb to those things. So this is why the psalmist reminds us and begins to help us amplify the grace and the mercy of God in those moments. And so, as we begin to consider Psalm 103, we need to remember that it is a healthy reminder to shake ourselves into remembrance, to get us back into the groove, so to speak, of seeing God and the mighty things that he has done.
So, while the Psalms invite us to look in, while the Psalms invite us to talk to ourselves a little bit, we also need to remember something about our culture, we are so easily distracted. My friends, I saw some of you, you’re looking at your phone. You’re taking notes. I get it. That’s fine. You’ve got the Digital Bible. That’s cool. Thank you, Nick but we’re distracted by these things. We so easily give ourselves over to the fickle fancies of our culture. And what does that do that causes us to not deal with the deep things of our soul. We turn up the volume, we keep on swiping and all the while our soul withers, our soul decays for lack of introspection. So just on this first verse alone, beloved, consider looking within your soul and. Doing business there. David invites us to do that, and so let’s do business with our soul. You all ready? Wow.
Okay, well, let’s accept this invitation from the psalmist and begin looking into this soul-ish language that he uses. I can just imagine that David, this bedraggled man looking at his soul again, writing to himself, thinking about himself as he constructs this psalm, reminding himself to remember like a man looking at his worn-out face in a mirror, look upwards, he says, but what do we make about this soulish language here. So, the Hebrew, the nephesh word that’s used here, is more than just this immaterial aspect of our life. It’s more than just this sort of can’t describe it. It’s sort of in there. It’s this little blue creature that’s kind of walking around. Anybody get that reference? Thank you. Pixar, it’s more than that. What is it? It’s your entire being. Is what the psalmist is trying to say. Your nephesh is everything within you. It’s every atom, it’s every DNA strand. It’s every single cell with the mitochondria working to declare, bless the Lord O my soul and forget not his benefits. It’s not just this little squishy thing, it’s everything within you.
When was the last time? When was the last time I sat down and remembering the benefits of God, cried out, bless the Lord. O my soul, if I was sitting in the Fireside Room of Naylor, which I often am, and some of you who are studying and reading the books that we assign you and crying over them, and you just heard someone in the corner. My soul. Bless the Lord, you’d probably call campus police or slowly back away into the hedge, right? You wouldn’t be thinking about here’s someone who’s remembering the benefits of his god who saved him, but this is what David is calling us to do, to consider everything about the Lord, His infinite grace, His beauty, to quiver and tremble at the thought of who our God is, and then say, My soul Bless the Lord.
Forget not his benefits. So, on this Reformation Day, my challenge is not to scare someone, but sometime throughout this day, sit silently, ponder the things of the Lord, and seek to cry out, bless the Lord. O my soul and what do we make of this word bless? That’s a weird word. How do we bless God? I’m the one that needs the blessing, right? I’m the one who’s deficient. Clearly, I’m the one who needs lots of different things. God is the one who blesses me, right? Well, certainly that’s a very prominent way that God, in the scriptures, Acts. The word itself talks about the way that God blesses His people, but specifically in this Hebrew word Barak, it is talking about us kneeling before God, showing reverence to him, a posture of praise, a posture of worship.
When we bless, we recognize He is God. I am not bless the Lord. So, when we bless the Lord, we show the reverence that’s due Him. We humble ourselves before Him, we cherish him, we honor him. This is how we can bless the Lord, and here’s what we need to think about. As David continues to remind us, he’s behind us, his hands on his our shoulders. He’s saying, don’t forget. And then he takes our head and slowly tilts it upwards. Verse three, He forgives all your iniquity. He heals all your diseases. Well, the first part of that verse makes sense. We’re Protestants. We believe that that’s great. That second part, though, heals all our diseases. Beloved there are people in this room whose diseases are not healed, as I prayed over you this week, I’ve considered those who have loved ones who are suffering. In a hospital bed, who have lost loved ones this year due to a ravenous cancer. And so, David says, heals all your diseases.
Who are you, David? How can you say that you don’t know my life? Well, here’s what we do know about David, right? He’s not just saying this to fit in a fancy verse that makes sense in his prose. He’s not saying this because it’s sort of a general truth. He’s understanding this very specifically, and in fact, he has an occurrence in his own life where healing was withheld, wasn’t it? Just look Second Samuel 12, as the infant that was born to him through Bathsheba is laying dying. What is David doing? He’s crying out to the Lord. He’s fasting. He is crying over his guilt and the things that have led to this occurrence. He knows that he’s God’s the healer. But what does God do? He withholds his healing power? So, the text says, David washed himself, he praised the Lord, he got up, he accepted his responsibility, and he continued to seek to live faithfully. And so what does this text tell us, yes, there will be times where specific healing is withheld. But that does not mean God is less capable, nor does that mean that God is not who he is and ceases to be who we believe him to be.
We recognize that God is the healer of all diseases, the only one who could possibly bring healing, and we praise him for it. And if nothing else, we hold on to two truths, that the disease of our soul has been healed, that the sin that has corrupted us has been removed. And then also we look forward to a new heavens and new earth, where there is no more pain, there is no more tear, or our God will bring full healing. So yes, we can declare God is the healer. He heals all our diseases. But where does the psalmist go from here? Here he lists all the ways that God refreshes and revives his people. Read with me, the Lord executes acts of righteousness. Verse four, he redeems life from the pit. He crowns with faithful love. He satisfies you with good things. Your youth is renewed. Do not forget his benefits. Bless the Lord O my soul. And then from here
Oh. Psalm, David. He takes the canon of his prose and he aims it at your heart, and then he lights the fuse. Here’s what he says, The Lord executes righteousness and justice for the oppressed. Bam, load the cannon. He’s revealed Himself and His ways to Moses, his deeds to the peoples. Boom, load the cannon. He is a God of compassion, Grace, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, kapow, load the cannon, the greatest grace, bomb is coming, friends. Verse nine, he will not always accuse us or be angry forever. He has not dealt with us as our sins deserve or repaid us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His faithful love toward those who fear Him, as far as the east is from the west.
So far has he removed our transgressions from us? Cow, I feel like you missed it, friends, you. I feel like the missile did not land on its intended target here, because what you are now supposed to do is cry out my soul. Bless the Lord. Forget not all His benefits, friends, he is not angry with you. Can I say that again? He is not angry with you. What else who he has not dealt with us the way that we deserve. Instead, what has he done? He has shown us immeasurable riches of kindness and grace and what do we do? We forget. We go on our way. We leave here in 1015, minutes, hit the dining hall, cram for the next thing, and we forget. I forget, but here’s the one on a Reformation Day that ought to stick out above all else. Verse 12, as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us?
How far as the east from the West, it’s gone forever. But here’s what we do, we think God has just sort of tossed it over there. And what we do is we think, Oh, it might come back. I need to do a few things, and I need to have a few postures. I need to I need to wear some certain things and look a certain way, and talk a certain way, raise my hands a certain length and height, and I hope they don’t come back. As far as the east is from the west. Your sins are incapable of wagging their decaying finger in your face anymore. God has removed them from you, friends, if you hear nothing else from me this morning, and it’s quite possible that you won’t, please remember this, God does not deal with you According to your sins, but according to His love you are more loved than you could ever Fathom or imagine. You are not a filthy sinner anymore, but a sanctified brother, sister, son, daughter, adopted into the family of God, do not wear the badge of sinner anymore. Friends instead proudly display the banner of Saint. You are a saint of the living God, and what do we do? Well, I would be sinning myself if I did not have a juicy Martin Luther quote for you this morning.
And there’s some juicy ones, so I’ll save the more juicy ones for the after party, or whatever it is after this what that is, there’s not one. Here’s what, here’s what Luther says about this psalm. In particular, the Psalmist sets forth God as a most kind father toward us. Here’s a very Luther quip, who are nothing but a lotham sore full of sin, and is not dealing with us according to our sins, but treating and protecting us according to His infinite grace and mercy as dear children, yet so that he will have us to keep his covenant and his counsel, that is, to believe in Him, to fear Him, and to have him for our God. So what the great reformer is observing here is helpful for us as we consider. Lord. This next aspect of the Psalm is that God has rescued and adopted us into His family for His glory, so that we would keep His commandments. And the psalmist knows this.
The Psalmist knows there’s other ways of life, aren’t there the way of life, the way of death, the one who does not meditate upon the Law Day and night, he’s like the what someone says, the chaff at the wind drives away. But the one who belongs to the Lord, the one who has the mercy and the love and the kindness of the Lord, we are now able and willing to follow those life giving commandments that He’s given us, to walk in the manner, walk in the path, walk in the things that He has given for his people, to do so while we are the beneficiaries of great, amazing, cosmic truths, we ought to walk in those we ought to obey in his precepts, the Lord’s faithful love is towards those who fear Him, those who fear and his righteousness is towards the grandchildren of those who keep his covenant, who remember to observe his precepts. My soul Bless the Lord.
Why is that good news? Every one of your you want to follow something, your bread, to worship someone. The psalmist says, This is where true life is found in following the precepts of the Lord. And the expression is not well once you have great grandchildren, sorry, deals off. That’s not what that’s not what David means. He means this continues forward for God’s faithful people. God is the one who shows the love. We are the ones who respond with faithful, humble obedience, because remember friends, we are finite, we are frail, we are fickle. We need direction. We need good things to do and to follow, which is what the psalmist helps us understand in verses 15 through 16, man, his days are like grass. He blooms like a flower the field, and when the wind passes over it, it vanishes, its place is no longer known. Here’s why that is good news. That means the promises of God are not dependent upon you and I. How could they be? We are dust. God is forever.
But here’s the good news about the dust. The dust is loved. The dust is being redeemed. So you and I, though we vanish, though we are no longer known. At some point temporally, we have a God, verse 17, from eternity to eternity, whose faithful love is towards us, His righteousness and verse 19 has established His throne in heaven. Heaven’s not going anywhere. In fact, at some point, it’s coming down to us. And so when we confess that his kingdom rules over all we confess that we have a God who is eternal, who will finally do the thing that we are longing for, Which is why we cry out Bless the Lord. Verse 20 all his angels Bless the Lord. Verse 21 all his armies, all his servants, bless the Lord. Verse 22 all his works in all the places where he rules, which is everywhere, bless the Lord friends, the god of galaxies that we have not yet discovered, has said, you belong to me. You’re mine now. You.
We are part of my kingdom, and so while we forget his blessings, we forget his loving kindness, we forget his immeasurable mercies, the God of the universe does not forget us, please, friends, this day, remember this good news that we are thinking of this idea of his righteousness applied to us. Where do we get this? How do we have this? How can we how can we own this song today? Well, who’s the one who redeemed our life from the pit by going down into it, who’s the one that crowns us with faithful love and compassion because he received a crown of thorns. And who’s the one who the world thought would just deteriorate into dust. It rose three days later to show that that dust is coming back, as Dr Williams has reminded us to say, who is that person? Jesus? How can we own this psalm? Jesus? We’re getting there. We’re almost done.
So, when we think about Psalm 103 friends, we need to remember that the Son has fulfilled the promises that are given to us in Psalm 103 he has walked in our dust. He has gone down to the pit, and he is the one who is ruling over all whose throne is established and will be established forever, and he’s the one that says, you belong to me. So, as we think about this psalm, as we think about the stirring that David is seeking to give us in our souls, may this day be a day where we bless the Lord and forget not his benefits and that we would labor to have Christ as our own.
This is what the Puritan preacher Richard Sibbes once prayed, Lord, I am a wretched sinner, but I should take you away and take away Christ. If I should despair, I would make you know God and make Christ know Christ, if I should not accept of mercy, For Christ is given to me, and I labor to make him my own by laying hold of him friends, we too often forget the wonders of our God, but the God of wonders never forgets us. So may we lay hold of Christ that we might continue to receive his benefits and to declare in the deep recesses of our soul, bless the Lord. All that is within me. Bless the Lord.
Let me pray God, Most Holy, Most Gracious, Father, Son and Spirit, you three are the one true God, and through your work, we receive all the benefits, all the blessings in the heavenly places. The father of light is the giver of good gifts, and so as we consider in the depths of our soul that every atom of our being would cry out, bless you, Lord, may we not forget your benefits. May we not forget your loving kindness to your people, that through the power of your Spirit, you have made us saints of the living God, so that we might be a people for your own possession, and that Christ as the head of our body, would rule with love, with righteousness, with justice. And so Lord, may we not forget. May. We remember all your benefits help us to do that by the power of your spirit this day we pray in Christ’s name, Amen.
