Raleigh
Bible Study Materials
PRAISE THE LORD, MY SOUL
Psalms 103: 1 - 22
26 Nov 2023
Message
PRAISE THE LORD, MY SOUL
(Psalm 103:1-22)
“Praise the LORD, my soul, and forget not all his benefits…” (v. 2)
Last week, we celebrated Thanksgiving Day. It was a good time for us to remember God’s love and grace, and praise him. Psalm 103 was written by David. David is filled with praises to the LORD. The Psalm includes personal praise, communal praise, and heavenly praise. As we study this Psalm, may God help us to remember his grace and benefits for us, and may we also praise the LORD with all our hearts, souls, and strength!
I. Praise the LORD, all my inmost being. (vs. 1-5)
Look at verse 1. “Praise the LORD, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.” David begins and ends the psalm with the same words: “Praise the LORD, my soul.” Here the word “praise” is translated as “bless” in many versions. When God blesses us, it is the action of pronouncing good things upon us. When we bless God, it means to “adore with bended knees.” It is to worship, glorify and honor God with thanksgiving.
David told himself to praise the LORD. He speaks to himself again saying, “…all my inmost being, praise his holy name.” David summons all his inmost being—all that was within him: his heart, mind, soul, and strength to praise the LORD. Who is the “LORD” that we should praise him?
First of all, David praises God’s holy name. God is holy. His being is separate from all creatures. He is our Creator, who gave us life. Every living thing is obligated to give thanks and praise the LORD. In Isaiah 6:3, surrounding his heavenly throne, angels called to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” (Isaiah 6:3) God is worthy of our praise and wholehearted love. We are created to the praise of God. When we praise God, we are truly happy. On the contrary, if we do not praise the LORD, we inevitably praise and adore something or someone else, which is idolatry. If we do not praise the Lord, we easily find something to complain about. We must not praise idols or complain. Let us summon ourselves to praise the holy God like David, “Praise the LORD, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.”
Second, David praises the LORD because of what God had done for him. Look at verse 2. “Praise the LORD, my soul, and forget not all his benefits…” Here all God’s benefits mean God’s gifts and blessings bestowed upon us by his grace. We don’t deserve his benefits, so all the blessings, small or great, are Gods’ grace. But we human beings are so forgetful of God’s blessings. Rather, our sinful tendency is to remember something bitter, sorrowful, or painful that leads us to complain or be depressed. These are the very things that are good to forget! David mentions the benefits for which he personally praises the LORD in verses 3-5. “…who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”
Let’s think about each of the benefits David mentions. He begins with, “who forgives all your sins.” Sin is mankind’s fundamental problem and an incurable disease. It breaks our relationships with God and with others and leaves many wounds in our lives. Furthermore, Satan, by using the power of sin, enslaves, tortures, and kills people. So, the forgiveness of sins is most urgent and essential for each of us to restore our relationships, be healed from various wounds, and be liberated from the power of Satan. No one can solve this sin problem on their own. But thankfully, God forgives all our sins, no matter how big or serious they may be. God has done it through Jesus Christ our Lord. Praise the Lord who forgives all our sins through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ! Forgiveness is a continued act; he is still forgiving, as we are still sinning and repenting. This gives us all enough reason to daily praise the LORD from our souls.
The LORD also “heals all your diseases.” After forgiving us, the LORD does not leave us as we are, in our sicknesses. He is also our Healer, our Great Physician. The Lord heals our sicknesses, in body and spirit. The LORD heals some of bitterness or wounded relationships or selfishness. He heals us from immorality, laziness, and addiction. The LORD continually leads us to grow in Christ’s image and bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Praise the Lord, who heals us and is transforming us into healthy, holy children of God.
David continues, “…who redeems your life from the pit…” The LORD redeems our lives from the pit. Here the “pit” symbolizes deadly situations with no way out like the grave. God rescued David from many critical situations throughout his lifetime: as a shepherd boy from bears and lions, as a fugitive from King Saul, and as a soldier from his enemies. In our lives, the pit can be temptations, failure, despair, or depression. Or it may be a crisis in our health, finances, or relationships. As its extreme, the pit is the eternal condemnation and destruction that every sinner was supposed to justly receive. But by his mercy and grace, God saves our lives from the pit through our Lord Jesus Christ. Praise the LORD who redeems our lives from the pit!
The LORD not only forgives, heals, and redeems us; he also crowns us with love and compassion. The LORD crowns us as heirs of his kingdom. Like the prodigal son who went from the pigpen to be restored as an heir in his father’s house, we have each been called out of darkness into his wonderful light and became royal princes and princesses of his kingdom. (1 Peter 2:9) God has given us true honor.
Verse 5 reads, “…who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” God knows all our necessities and provides us with good things. He listens to our prayers for our needs and provides good things for us. The good things include our basic blessings of food, clothes, and shelter. Other good things may be an education, job, or promotion. Spiritually, the good things may be godly friends and family, a mission to devote oneself to, or the word of God that truly satisfies our souls. Most of all, the Bible teaches us the best gift that God gives us is Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the source of living water and quenches all our hunger and thirst fundamentally. In him, there are all good things that we desire. With these good things that come from the Lord, our youth is renewed like the eagle’s. In Christ, the weak become strong, the timid become courageous, and the desperate find hope, so that we can serve God without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. (Luke 1:74a-75) Praise the LORD, who forgives all our sins, heals all our diseases, redeems our lives from the pit, crowns us with love and compassion, and satisfies our desires with good things, even though we don’t deserve any of his benefits! Let’s not forget all of God’s grace toward us. Let our praise and thanksgiving to God be our basic attitude and lifestyle!
II. Praise the LORD, all his heavenly hosts. (vs. 6-22)
In verses 6-22, David’s praises to the LORD reach beyond his personal dimension to communal, global, and universal dimension. Look at verse 6. “The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.” There are so many oppressed and needy people around the world. The LORD is mindful of those like widows, orphans, and foreigners who have no human protector or provider. The Israelites were once oppressed by Pharaoh in Egypt. God heard their cries and delivered them by his mighty hand through his servant Moses. After the deliverance, in the wilderness, Moses asked God, “Now show your glory.” So, God revealed his glory to Moses. As he passed in front of him, God proclaimed his glorious and divine attributes. (Exodus 34:5)
Verse 8 is the main content of this proclamation: “The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.” The Lord himself declares that he is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. Many people who know the Bible only superficially complain that in the Old Testament, God is too merciless and harsh to approach. But if we carefully study the Bible, we can know that God’s compassion and love are the repeating themes throughout the Old Testament and the Bible as a whole. Let’s think more about the glorious characteristics of God that are proclaimed in this passage.
First, God is compassionate and gracious. To be compassionate literally means to have a deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is in difficulty, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate their suffering. The ancients thought that this strong emotional feeling usually comes from sharp pain in one’s innermost parts, like the intestines or the heart. This emotional response is possible when we deeply understand another’s situation. So, compassion eventually leads us to be merciful and gracious to the afflicted, and even forgiving to our enemies. To more easily understand this, let me introduce a story.
Author Stephen Covey, who was famous for his book, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” recalled an incident while riding the New York City subway one Sunday morning. Covey was engrossed in reading when a man accompanied by several small children boarded at the next stop. In less than a minute, the kids ran up and down the aisle shouting, screaming, and wrestling with one another on the floor, but their father made no attempt to intervene. Stress became distress and frustration mounted. Covey wanted to be patient. After an overly generous pause, Covey turned to the father and said kindly, “Sir, perhaps you could tell your children to come back and sit down.” “I know I should do something,” the man replied. “We just came from the hospital. Their mother died an hour ago. I just don’t know what to do.” Heartfelt compassion welled up in Covey’s soul, compelling him to have mercy and forgiveness upon the man and his children.
God’s compassion makes him gracious to us, even slow to anger, restraining his holy justice and wrath to forgive sinners. Because of his compassion, he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our sins. (10) In verses 13-14, God’s compassion is described as a father’s compassion on his children: “As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.”
All of us had human fathers. Sadly, due to our human fathers’ weaknesses, the image of a father has been greatly disfigured in many children’s hearts. But basically, a father has great compassion on his children, even if he is the worst of fathers. A father may rebuke his erring child, but he does not crush or reject his child because he is compassionate. Even David loved his rebellious son Absalom who conspired against him and tried to kill him. He grieved at his son’s death, weeping, “O my son Absalom! My son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you—O Absalom, my son, my son!” (2 Samuel 18:33b)
Without exception, all of us came from our Creator God, and the Bible teaches that he is our heavenly Father. Jesus also teaches that we should pray to God calling him, “Our Father in heaven.” (Matthew 6:9) Regardless of how tarnished our image of a father has become, our heavenly Father is the perfect Father. He is compassionate toward us because he made us. He knows how weak, fragile, and vulnerable we are, like dust and grass. He is slow to anger that he may give space to repent for us with his long waiting love like the father of the prodigal son in Luke 15.
Richard Foster, a well-known Christian theologian, and author says, “God’s heart is the most sensitive and tender of all. No act goes unnoticed, no matter how insignificant or small. A cup of cold water is enough to put tears in the eyes of God.” As our compassionate Father, with his tender heart, he senses all our situations. He groans when we are sick, he suffers when we fall, and he bitterly weeps when a soul perishes. So, his compassion ultimately forced him to give his best gift for us, his one and only Son Jesus, to die for us, so that we shall not perish but have eternal life. Jesus’ cross is unchanging evidence of God’s compassion and love for each of his children. Praise God, who is our compassionate and gracious Father.
Second, God is abounding in love. Here “abounding” means “enough” or “exceeding.” Our heavenly Father’s love is enough for any kind of sinner to receive his favor, no matter who we are. His love is exceedingly abundant to wipe away any kind of sin, no matter how big and heavy they are. God’s abounding love reminds me of a hymn #84): “Marvelous grace of our loving Lord, grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt…Grace, grace, God’s grace, grace that will pardon and cleanse within! Grace, grace, God’s grace, grace that is greater than all our sin.”
Look at verses 11-12. “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 from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” The heavens are always above the earth. Likewise, our heavenly Father’s love is always high enough to cover all our flaws and weaknesses. Also, once we repent our sins, he doesn’t remember them anymore. East and west are always opposite, and they cannot be combined. As far as the east is from the west, so far does God remove our sins from us. We must remember God’s love and his promise in Romans 8:1, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
Third, God’s love is everlasting. Look at verse 17. “But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children…” Everything in this world changes, spoils, and fades away like a flower of the field. (15-16) But God’s love never changes from everlasting to everlasting. God says in Isaiah 49:15, “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!” Though there are rare occasions in which human parents abandon their children, our heavenly Father never forgets his children. He loves us eternally. Therefore, we can fully put our hope in our heavenly Father, who is truly trustworthy and whose love is eternal.
Now how can we fully enjoy our heavenly Father’s grace and his abounding and everlasting love? This psalm mentions three times that God’s love is directed to those who fear him: Verse 11b says, “…so great is his love for those who fear him…” Verse 13b says, “…so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him….” And verse 17b says, “…from everlasting to everlasting the LORD’s love is with those who fear him…” What does it mean to fear the Lord? Fear indicates both a sense of terror and a sense of awe and reverence. Here the term can be understood as awe and reverence. One who fears the Lord trusts in his absolute power and his attributes. Like an innocent child, he or she simply depends on the Father, accepts his compassion and love, and embraces his bosom. In Hebrew, “fear” also means to worship. In response to our heavenly Father’s love, we must worship, obey and love him. So, verse 18 says, “…with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.” Trusting and obeying the Father, out of our holy reverence for him is a proper response toward his grace and love. God’s compassion, patience, and unchanging love must lead us to repentance, faith and obedience. In doing so, we can build up a right relationship with God as his beloved children and fully enjoy the relationship.
Look at verse 19. “The LORD has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.” As David was moved by God’s love, his praise shifts from the earthly community to heaven. The LORD is the eternal King enthroned in heaven above all creation. The LORD rules heaven and earth. The LORD’s power and sovereignty is supreme over all. David is not content to praise the LORD by himself. Like an excited worship and praise leader, he summons God’s angels, heavenly hosts, and all his creatures in the universe to praise the Lord. “Praise the LORD, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word. Praise the LORD, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do his will. Praise the LORD, all his works everywhere in his dominion.” (20-22a) It sounds like David is praising before the LORD with all his might. In his final statement in the psalm, he returns to where he was inspired to begin: “Praise the LORD, my soul.” (22b)
I praise and give thanks to God for his compassionate, abounding, and eternal love for a sinner like me and all the benefits bestowed upon me. Apart from God, living a self-glory and pleasure-seeking life, I was exhausted and hopeless. God had compassion and led me to Bible study. God blessed me to find my life's purpose to declare the praises of him who called me out of darkness into his wonderful light. Most of all, God forgave all my sins of pride, lust, and anger through Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross. I have been still weak, fragile, and vulnerable, but with his fatherly love, God has endured all my weaknesses. He has gradually healed all my sin-sicknesses and helped me to grow in Jesus' image. God has blessed me to know the Father's heart and compassion and understand those who are suffering. Although I am getting older, God blessed me to renew my strength like the eagle's to study counseling, BSN nursing while working at a full time job, serving Bible students on the campus. I praise and thank my heavenly Father for his all benefits upon an unworthy sinner like me. Through this passage, I learn that I must praise God with all my innermost being. I must revere God by repenting of my sins daily and fully trusting and obeying him. In doing so, I pray that my relationship with God may grow deeper. May our praises and thanksgiving overflow in each of our hearts and reach to NCSU, U.S.A, the world, and the whole universe like David's praise!
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