Have you wondered what God really thinks about you?
Our greatest barrier to knowing God better may be how much
we know about how much God knows about us. We struggle with God because we feel
so bad about ourselves, and if we know the truth about ourselves, think of how
much more God knows us!
Perhaps there is no mystery in the universe so monumental as
God dying a death of shame to redeem mankind.
Sometimes we don’t want to pray or read the Bible or think
about God because when we look in the mirror, we feel like saying, “You’re a
big disappointment” or “You ought to be a lot better by now.”
We’ve all felt that way from time to time, and I imagine
that many people reading these words feel that way right now. It’s been a hard
week, or a bad month, and now we’re near the end of what seems like a painful year.
I think we run from God rather than to him because we know
our own hearts all too well and his barely at all.
I probably don’t need to spend any time convincing you that
you are a sinner. You probably know the truth about yourself all too well. But
it’s the other side that we need to talk about. We don’t know God’s heart very
well.
You probably know the truth about yourself all too well.
That’s where Psalm 103 can help us tremendously. Perhaps no
other chapter in the Bible so clearly reveals God’s compassion for his people.
He Loves to Help the Needy.
All those who labor for a better world and a more just society
and those who stretch out a helping hand–you have to believe this or you can’t
go on. The words of James Russell Lowell come to mind:
Truth forever on
the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,-
Yet that scaffold
sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God
within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
Are you needy? The answer is yes whether you know it or not.
You are needy and God is on your side. That’s a great place to start.
He Shows Mercy to Those Who Don’t Deserve It.
“The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger,
abounding in love” (v. 8).
Great attributes of God in this verse:
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The Lord is compassionate-He pardons us.
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The Lord is gracious-He gives us what we don’t
deserve.
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The Lord is slow to anger-He is patient with us
when we fall.
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The Lord abounds in love-He loves us more than
we can imagine.
There’s no fishing like fishing in the sea.
There’s no eating like eating at the king’s table.
There’s no love like God’s love.
When he saves, he saves completely.
When he forgives, he forgives all my sins.
When he sets free, we are free forever.
All the world tastes of his sparing mercy,
those who hear the gospel partake of his inviting mercy,the
saints live by his saving mercy,are preserved by his upholding mercy,are
cheered by his consoling mercy, and will enter heaven through his infinite and
everlasting mercy.
I like that! Six kinds of mercy in just one sentence. That’s
plenteous mercy for anyone who needs it.
He Tempers His Wrath.
“He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger
forever. He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our
iniquities” (vv. 9- 10).
Have you ever known anyone who loved to argue? We all know
people who love to keep a quarrel going because they are so angry. God is not
like that. He is willing to end the quarrel and welcome us back home. Sometimes
the real problem is that we want to keep fighting him.
He’s more ready to forgive than we are to be forgiven!
When we forget to pray, he remembers to feed us.
When we forge to give thanks, he sends us restful sleep.
When we idle in sin, he sends his Holy Spirit to convict us.
When we refuse to give, he keeps on giving still.
When we fall, he lifts us up.
When we disappoint ourselves and others, he still calls us
his children.
God even blesses those who don’t believe in him.
He Forgives All Our Sins.
“For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is
his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far
has he removed our transgressions from us” (vv. 11-12).
My sins can never come back to haunt me again.
Never the twain shall meet. The farther east you go, the
farther you are from the west.
That’s the magnitude of God’s love. Here is great good news
for all the sinners of the world. When God forgives, he removes our sins, he
lifts them up, he takes them away, and he puts them so far away from us that we
could never find them if we searched for them for a thousand years. They are
gone forever.Even Satan can’t bring them back.
In his sermon on these verses Jim Nicodem says that God has
. . .
A long fuse - “slow
to anger” (v. 8),
A short
memory-"does not harbor his anger forever” (v. 9),
A thick
skin-"does not treat us as our sins deserve” (v. 10), and
A great
heart-"so great is his love, so far has he removed our sins” (vv. 11-12).
I’m glad we have a God like that He Understands Our Weakness.
“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has
compassion on those who fear him” (v. 13).
When an earthly father has done his job well, he makes it
easy for his children to believe in their Heavenly Father.
Earthly fathers-however imperfect-point us upward to our
Heavenly Father. When an earthly father has done his job well, he makes it easy
for his children to believe in their Heavenly Father. Our children learn that
we do not worship a god of stone or an empty idol or a remote deity or an
impersonal machine in the sky. We serve a Father God who knows our weakness and
loves us anyway.
The Great Physician knows our weakness and understands our
fears. And when we can’t go on, he carries us on his back.
He Remembers That We
Are Dust.
“For he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are
dust. As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the
field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no
more” (vv. 14-16).
Here is a truth we all understand, especially in this season
of the year. Yesterday’s green leaves soon turn brown. It is an inexorable law
of nature that the green leaves of spring end up in a pile on your lawn. Why do
the leaves lose their green? There is a scientific explanation having to do
with the loss of green chlorophyll, but that simply means the leaves are slowly
dying. Their beauty comes from their death.
Who remembers each leaf? Not the tree. One by one the leaves
fall to the ground where they disintegrate and return to the soil from which
they came. No one names them or numbers them or even thinks about them.It is
the way of nature, the way God arranged the changing of the seasons.
If that’s all there is, if we are here today and gone
tomorrow, if that’s the end of the story, then there isn’t much hope. But let
me share something with you. If you don’t have anything else to be thankful for
this year, here’s something you can hang your hat on. Our hope is not in man or
in anything man can do.
Our hope is in the everlasting God!
He Links Us With
Eternity By Linking Us With Himself.
“But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with
those who fear him, and his righteousness
with their children’s children- with those who keep his covenant and
remember to obey his precepts” (vv. 17-18).
Our hope is in the everlasting God!
There is nothing we can do about our frailty. We come from
the hand of our Creator stamped, “Fragile: Handle with care.” We are like the
dust devils that blow across the desert. We make a big scene and then suddenly
we disappear. Try as we might, we can’t cancel our humanity. Nothing can change
what we are. Vitamins and exercise and clean living may slow down the process.
Positive thinking may improve our mood. But for all of us, the end is the same:
Ashes to ashes,
Dust to dust.
Psalm 103 offers us one strong ground of comfort that lifts
us up above the transitory nature of this life. It is the “but” of verse 17,
the blessed “but” that changes everything. That one word offers an eternal
contrast between the fading flower and the everlasting God, Our mortality and God’s eternity.
There is beauty for ashes.
That one word-that little “but"-stands at the
demarcation between this life and the next. Here is our real hope of life that
never ends.
God’s tender mercy.
His unfailing love.
His abounding grace.
Someone has said that life without Christ is a hopeless end,
but life with Christ is an endless hope. And this endless hope is not only to
us but to our children’s children.
We are richer than we think, we are more blessed than we
know, and we have more than we realize.
In a transient and passing world where everything fades
away, we have the promise that we are linked to the future even after we are
gone by the faithfulness of God to our children to our children’s children.
This, too, is the mercy of God.
Take Me to the Cross
What is Psalm 103 telling us? We are richer than we think,
we are more blessed than we know, and we have more than we realize. We frail,
mortal sinners are rich in the mercy of God.
And we have found that mercy–or rather, that mercy has found
us-in the cross of Jesus Christ. During one of Billy Graham sermons told the
story of a patrolman on night duty in a town in northern England. As he walked the streets, he heard a
quivering sob. Shining his flashlight into the darkness, he saw a little boy in
the shadows sitting on a doorstep and tears were running down his cheek. The
child said, “I’m lost. Please take me home.” And the policeman began naming
street after street, trying to help the boy remember where he lived. He named
the shops and the hotels in the area but the little boy could give him no clue.
Then he remembered that at the center of the town there was
a church with a large white cross that towered above the rest of the city. The
policeman pointed to the cross and said, “Do you live anywhere near that
place?” The little boy’s face immediately brightened up. He said, “Yes, sir.
Take me to the cross and I can find my way home.”
Go to the cross and you will find your way home to God.
All that we believe, all that we have, all that we hope for
is found in the cross of Christ. Go to the cross and you will find your way
home to God.
Are you weak? So am I.
Are you needy? So am I.
Are you guilty? So am I.
Are you frail? So am I.
Are you like dust? So am I.
And God says to us, his weak, needy, guilty, frail, dusty
children, “I know you through and through, and I love you anyway. Come to me.
Rest in me. Make me your Rock.” God’s mercy in Christ is more than enough for
all of us.
Amen.
