BIG IDEA

True worship, at its essence, is blessing the LORD with a soul saturated with the blessings of the LORD. Here we see David preaching to his own soul to bless the LORD with a soul full of the blessings of the LORD. 

In worship, we give to God what he first gives to us. He pours his abundant blessing upon us, filling our soul with them. And we in return bless his holy name! Think of our worship of God like a young child who asks his father for $10 so that he can go buy his father a birthday gift. And then he gives to his father the gift that his father gave him money to buy. So when our worship is lethargic and weak (not performance), it is not mainly a willpower issue. It is mainly because the well of God’s blessings is running dry in our souls. 

Well, Psalm 103 is a huge help to us, because it shows us the essence of worship and gives us a template for worship. This amazing psalm shows us three things: 1) The Object of Worship, 2) The Heart of Worship, 3) The Fuel of Worship. Let’s jump in. 

THE OBJECT OF WORSHIP

It may seem obvious, the object of our worship is God, right? Well, maybe not. I think this is a good reminder for us. This psalm relentlessly draws our attention to the Lord. Eleven times it points to the Lord’s proper name: LORD or Yahweh which means “the self-existent One”. Our worship is given to the Triune God who has always existed. The omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Lord of the universe. In worship, we don’t elevate ourselves. We elevate the LORD. 

THE HEART OF WORSHIP

True worship starts with an inward reality. True worship; worship that is in spirit and truth comes from a heart that is full of God, satisfied in God, glad in God, rejoicing in God. So David starts and ends the psalm like this:

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… (v. 1-2)

Bless the LORD, O my soul! (v. 22)

David, a man after God’s own heart; a man of worship, is talking to his soul and he is commanding it to bless the LORD. To bless the Lord is to speak to and about the Lord in ways that bring him honor and glory. It is to sing praises to him and magnify him in song. And remember it starts in the soul. Spurgeon wrote about this psalm: “soul music is the very soul of music”. The externals of worship - singing, clapping, kneeling, raising hands, lying prostrate, shouting for joy, dancing, and so forth are to come from the inward reality of a soul lifted to God. Psalm 25:1-2 says, “To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul. O my God, in you I trust.” You can hear David positioning his heart - he does not want to go through the motions. It must be the same for us! Before we lift our voices or our hands, we want to lift our souls to the LORD. 

The kind of worship that is external only, Jesus calls vain. It’s hypocrisy. Jesus quoting the prophet Isaiah said, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. In vain do they worship me.” It’s lip service, not heart service. Lip service and nothing more. We don’t want to do that. 

Whether we are mumbling words as Luke or Alissa leads us in singing, or raising your hands, shouting, kneeling, etc. If it doesn’t come from a soul rejoicing in, lifted up to, or prostrate before God, it’s vain.

So true worship needs to begin in the soul. And let’s face it, sometimes our souls are sleepy and lazy and need to be aroused. As Spirit-indwelt children of God, we are no longer slaves to the whims of our sleepy souls. David aroused his soul by saying, “Soul, bless the LORD.”

But David doesn’t stop there. He says, “and all that is within me, bless his holy name.” Literally, with all my insides or inward parts. Some use a phrase, “from the bottom of my heart.” David wants to bless the Lord from the deepest part of him, from the bottom of his heart. David wants to give God all that he deserves. 

If we would have a heart of worship like David, we need to learn to speak to our souls like this. We need to call ourselves to bless the LORD. And we need to stop saying, “well, I’m just not the singing type,” or “I don’t really get into it very much.” We need to learn this precisely so that when we don’t “feel” like it, we can encourage our hearts in the Lord. So the heart of worship blessing the LORD from deep within. But then David begins to pour fuel on his soul in order to inflame worship.

THE FUEL OF WORSHIP - Forget NOT All His Benefits

Verses 3-19 is David dumping gasoline on his soul so that it is inflamed in white-hot worship of the LORD. And it starts with this exhortation to himself in verse 3: “and forget not all his benefits.”

After David calls his soul to bless the LORD - to magnify the LORD, he says “and don’t forget his blessings” That’s the problem, isn’t it? We forget the blessings God poured upon us. And when we forget the blessings of God, we are in trouble. We backslide. Our souls run dry. 

Why did the Israelites keep wandering into idolatry? They forgot! Deuteronomy 6:4-13. David knows the history of his people and how quickly they would forget and wander away from the Lord. So he stirs up his memory. He doesn’t want to forget. So in verses 3-5, David wants to load his soul with the blessings of God by reminding himself of them. There are FIVE statements and each begins with “Who” because they are actions of God: 

Who forgives all your sins, 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...

So David says, “Soul, look at all these blessings God has given to you, bless the Lord.” And then enumerates them. Let’s do the same. 

Bless the LORD, Who forgives - “who forgives all your iniquity” (v. 3a)

God forgives. And he forgives not some or most of our sins, but all of them. What a reason to bless the Lord; he forgives all your iniquity (sin). 

Verse 10 makes it clear why this is such good news: “He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.” Our sins against God are not petty crimes, but even the slightest one is cosmic treason worthy of the death penalty. So I hope you understand that if you are a Christian, saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, you are always doing better than you deserve? If God dealt with us according to our sins, we would justly endure his eternal wrath. But he does not thus deal with us, praise his name! He forgives all your sin. And verse 12 tells us just how decisively our sins have been dealt with:

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

If you were to measure from the east side of Ankeny to the west to determine God has removed your sins - not very comforting. If you measured from east to west across America (3,000 miles), still not overly encouraging. But what’s the point being made here? East and west go in opposite directions and never meet. Where is your sin? Your sin is gone. It is gone forever. This reminds me of this great scene in Pilgrim’s Progress (the place of deliverance, his burden, ascends the hill and sees the cross and tomb, the burden falls, tumbles into the tomb and he sees it no more, angel: “Your sins are forgiven”).

If you are in Christ, your sins have been removed as far as the east is from the west. They are not yours to bear any longer. How can this be? Christ bore them in his body on the cross, carried them to his tomb, and left them there - they are gone forever. 

My sin, O the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin, not in part, but the whole. Is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. Praise the LORD, Praise the LORD, O my soul.

We are to worship as forgiven - completely forgiven people! Bless the LORD - Who forgives all your iniquity. But there’s more.

Bless the LORD, Who heals - “who heals all your diseases” (v. 3b)

We know that God is a Healer. Jehovah Rapha, the Lord our Healer (Exodus 15). And he heals all our diseases. Notice, this is not a suggestion. This is not conditional. This is the absolute truth for all of his people. So we need to understand what this means and what it doesn’t mean. 

Physical healing - We believe in a God who heals, right (Carmen)? But we also understand that healing in this life is always partial - in eternity it is full and complete. Jesus came and healed the sick. Many of whom would get sick again and all who would eventually die. So there is partial physical healing now. But in the future, we will receive full and complete healing. At the final resurrection, these mortal bodies, prone to weakness, decay, sickness, etc. will put on immortality. He heals all our diseases!

Spiritual healing - healing for our souls, through sanctification. The damage sin has caused to our souls is enormous. All of our sins are forgiven, but the sickness of the soul because of sin is another thing. We need our love for sin and hatred for righteousness to be healed. That’s what Christ came to do! That’s the deep soul healing he blesses with. Listen to Peter:

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. (1 Peter 2:24-25)

See that connection? By his wounds you have been healed. In what way? Dead to sin, alive to righteousness. Bless the LORD - Who heals all your diseases! But there is more… 

Bless the LORD, Who redeems - “who redeems your life from the pit.” (v. 4a)

He redeems your life from the pit. 

The picture here is of a deep pit with steep sides for catching a lion or an enemy. In other words a pit you, if you fell in, could not get yourself out of. This could be describing various troubles we find ourselves in - we can fall into a pit we are unable to get out of. But I think it’s more likely describing death. OUr lives are redeemed from the pit, as in the grave. These bodies are going into the grave. The only way they aren’t is if Christ comes first. In Romans 8:23, Paul speaks of what we look forward to when he says that right now we, “groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for… the redemption of our bodies”. 

Our bodies are going to be redeemed. And O, what a blessing! Paul describes this transaction that takes place when our bodies are raised from the pit of the grave at Christ’s second coming, when he says, 

What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. (1 Corinthians 15:42-44).

This is the final hope of the Christian - to experience the final victory of Christ’s resurrection when he returns and our bodies are raised in glory and power. Bless the LORD - Who redeems your life from the pit. And here’s another blessing. 

Bless the LORD - Who crowns you with steadfast love (v. 4b)

Who crowns you with steadfast love. 

It’s a kind of coronation. The Lord puts a crown on our heads and the crown is his steadfast love. Steadfast love is God’s faithful, loyal, committed, covenant love. Love that will not let me go. Psalm 23:6 says, “Surely goodness and steadfast love shall follow me all the days of my life.” Lamentations 3:22 says, “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases.” This is God’s covenant, committed, faithful love. 

But the psalm goes further. Verse 8 says that the LORD’s steadfast love is “abounding”. And this abounding love is contrasted with his slow anger. It seems God is reluctant to be angry, and his covenant love comes quick and full toward his children.  Verse 10 describes the LORD’s love this way: “As high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him.”

And this love is stable, durable for it reaches from one eternity to the other. It is without end. Verse 17 says “But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him.” The Lord crowns us with this love. Praise his name! Bless the LORD - Who crowns you with steadfast love.

Bless the LORD - Who satisfies you with good (v. 5)

Who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

He satisfies or fills you with good things. Good things. We need to be careful we don’t fall into the ditch on either side of the road. On one side is the ditch of our unsanctified ideas of what is good. Whatever may “feel” good in the moment or what may feel good according to our sinful desires. No. But the other ditch is the idea of good from the standpoint of an unhappy, overscrupulous killjoy. Good means broccoli and kale, early bedtime (because that’s good for you). No. 

In the original, it says, “Who fills your mouths with good things…” The picture of being at a banquet with a spread like you have never seen before. Remember what Jesus said, “If you being evil parents know how to give good things to your children, how much more will you Father in heaven give what is good to those who ask him.” The Father loves to give us good things. The purpose of this good is so that your “youth is renewed like the eagle’s”. So that we get a spring in our step. We are strengthened and renewed with spiritual energy.Bless the LORD - who satisfies you with good...

Wow, praise God from whom all blessings flow. We’ve just looked at some of the rich blessings of God. The person who will not lift their souls to God in grateful praise is a miserable, complaining, ingrate whose heart is dry as a bone. That was all of us at one time. But praise his name he transforms miserable, ungrateful, complaining sinners into forgiven, happy, full-hearted worshipers - forgiven, healed, redeemed, crowned, satisfied worshipers. 

These blessings I’ve enumerated this morning, and every other one - they all come through Christ. Every single one. We need to be about the business of reminding ourselves - in the power of the Holy Spirit of all that God is and has done for us in Christ. And then, bless the Lord with a heart full of the blessings of the Lord!