We do, we do want to sing. Bless of assurance, Jesus is mine. Let's sing number 204. We'll go ahead and stand to sing just to stretch and perhaps warm up. We've got three verses here of Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine, 2-0-4. Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine. That's it, 2-0-4. Bless me with your grace, Jesus is mine. Oh, what a joy to taste the glory divine. Yes, salvation, that is not mine. But now it's clearly, Jesus is mine. This is my story, this is my song. This is my story. This is my song. I see my Savior. I thank Him. I thank salvation. I thank God. This is my song This is my story, this is my song. This is my Savior, my God. As His creation, all is at rest. I am my Savior, and I am blessed. I keep you waiting, I'll be right by. This is my story, this is my song. Praising my Savior God and His love. This is my story, this is my song. Praising my Savior God and His love. As this Lunar New Year unfolds, we know that there are those who are afflicted, those who have undergone great difficulties either in the past year or as this year commences. And yet, as we start a new lunar year, or as we continue our regular calendar year, we should be reminded that we have great reason to give thanks to our Lord, to our God, to, as the psalmist says in Psalm 103, bless the Lord, O my soul. Today, whatever you are going through, whatever you've been through in this past week or in the weeks prior to it, it might be good simply to take stock, to review God's goodnesses to you. His faithfulness, His grace, His mercies that are new every morning. And so as we look at Psalm 103, this Psalm of David, we have the chance to really, in a sense, restore our souls, to once again look at things above, to once again be reminded that we have a God who is with us, a God who is always the same, a God who is good. good to us, and who has done great good by us, however hard our lives may be. So we're here in Psalm 103. This evening I am in the King James, so I put a little note there, so that's kind of where my terminology is coming from. So we're in Psalm 103, and as I read, if you've got a Bible with you, I would like to ask you to Let's kind of do this as a back and forth to kind of personalize this. So as for those of you who've been in chapel before, in secondary chapel, we'll read every other verse. I'll read the first. and then you can read the second. So again, I'm using the King James. If you don't have that on you, that's fine. Just do the best with the English version you have on hand. So Psalm 103, and we will all participate in the reading of this. Psalm of David, Psalm 103. Bless the Lord, O my soul. and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Together, bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases. Together, who redeemeth thy life from destruction, who proudeth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies. Verse five. who satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagles. Well done. He made known his ways unto Moses. his acts unto the children of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plentiful in mercy. He will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger forever. He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor reported us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, So great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Verse 13. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. When we know our frame, he remembereth that we are dust. As for man, His days are as grass, as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children. to such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them. The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom ruleth over all. Blessed are ye his angels that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word. Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts, ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure. Verse 22. Bless the Lord all his works in all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Let's pray. Our Father, with all that is within us, we would bless you this evening. Lord, your benefits toward us are many. Who could number them? They are so many, so great. Lord, when we think of your greatness, your goodness, your glory, our minds follow. We cannot comprehend all that you are. And yet, what we can comprehend causes us to marvel causes us to bless your holy name, causes us to worship you in spirit and in truth, to praise you with adoration, with joy. Lord, as we meditate upon you this evening, we pray that we might indeed catch just a glimpse of some of your glory, that you might unveil yourself to us through your word this evening, Lord, change us, conform us to Christ thereby, and thus make us more like yourself, and so glorify yourself, make your name even greater. We pray that you would do this as we have prayed for your glory, for your name's sake, for Jesus' sake, amen. All right. Well, in my haste to print out the handouts, I was unable to print out a handout for myself. So I'm kind of monitoring this online. I've got an online full script. Oh, I did print it out. I was looking for that. No, I've got the blanks. I just don't have a full. It's a separate file. Anyway. We'll just do our best, and I do have it here on my phone, and hopefully my battery will last, and I will remember. So as we look here, we see the title of the message is Stir Your Soul to Bless Jehovah. You see, as David is writing this poem, this wonderful anthem of praise, he begins by urging himself by talking to himself. He is in a place where he just needs to remember, this is my Lord, this is my God. How can I do anything else other than to bless the Lord, O my soul, with all that is within me? Now, you know David. He was a man who occasionally fell. He was a man who was not perfect, just like most of us here, right? And so here was a man who was not perfect, who knew his share of family problems, who knew his fair share of hiding in caves or running from enemies. He knew difficulty. But all his experience throughout life, from Absalom to to giants, to all the rest, ultimately became a testimony that God was living, and that His God was to be praised. So I want to see here, the first line there, you see, with the big line there, personally bless the Lord. This is where each one of us, from our souls, not asking one another, it's, am I, Praise the Lord. What is my attitude toward the Lord? Am I keeping my focus on the reality that my God has done wonderful things for me? And so in these first five verses, you see that David is really just stirring himself up. He's saying in verse one, all that is within me, heart, soul, mind, tongue, Proclaim, bless this one whom I love, this one whose I am. I am his, he is mine. Let us worship him. So his worship of God was wholehearted. It was not lackadaisical. It was not, you know, sometimes, you know, we get in church and, you know, we sing, but you know, it's more, lips moving, but not really losing our lungs. And he's just saying, I want this blessing, this praise of my God to just bubble up from the heart and just completely overwhelm so that tongue, lung, all is involved in this blessing of my great and glorious Savior. And you see there in verse 2 that As he is blessing the Lord, the subject of his blessing, why is he praising God? Why is he thanking God? Why is he lifting up God's name? Well, the Lord has done me good. He has benefited me. I don't want to forget even one of his works. Now, how can we begin to number our blessings? You know, we sing, count your blessings, name them one by one. Where can we begin? I mean, from conception to death, there are an infinitude, there are multiplied mercies, there are gifts of grace that have just been showered upon us abundantly. Some we never know of. And so David says, Lord, just bring to mind some of what you have done. that I might extol and bless and praise the Lord. Here is one who has been my benefactor, who has helped me throughout my life. What has he done, O my soul? Well, he has indeed, verse three, forgiven my iniquities. So bless Jehovah, 1.3, that little tiny part there. Bless Jehovah, the great forgiver. He has forgiven my iniquity. He has washed me clean. I have been made as white as snow, as Isaiah will later say. So every sin, regardless of how bad it is, the worst sin that I have done, the most depraved action, the worst thought, the thing that I've said that is most wicked, is all under the law. It has been wiped away. It is not on my account anymore. I don't owe a debt for that sin. He forgives. This is the word iniquity. We're not talking a garden table, you know, white little tiny book, all sorts of things. But this is it. This is gross. This is vile. And it's forgiven. You forgive it, thine iniquity. the Lamb of God, His blood was shed, that we might be clean and pure, that no sin might be on our account. It was all put on Christ's account so I could be forgiven, so the account could be settled, so my debt could be paid. And so all that I've done has been washed away under the sea of God's forgiveness. But God has forgiven all my iniquities. Your worst sin, the worst thing that you've ever done. However you weigh them. God has been merciful to you. He's shown you. The scale has been balanced. You are in the balance. Jesus, amen. Next, in the second part of verse three, we see not only does he forgive our iniquities, but he's the one who heals our diseases. So Jehovah's a great forgiver, he's also the great healer. And so here we see our great God is the one who mends broken lives, broken health, the one who one day will raise every soul. and bring that soul before His judgment bar, the goats and the sheep. And one day, we will give an account for our lives, either for Christ or those who are unsaved against Christ. And so this is the one who raises every soul This is one who calls us to account before the judgment seat, but he heals souls that are dead. Remember, we are spiritually dead from our delusions too. You were dead. You had no ability to please God on your own. You needed to be born again. And so he has healed the dead. He has put skeletons and muscles and breathe life into those bones of Ezekiel, Ezekiel 37, by his power. And so the one who has given us spiritual life and eternal life will one day heal all of our diseases. One day in his presence, there will be no more cataracts to have surgery, praise God. There will be no more heart problems. There will be no more chronic diseases. The Lord will one day wipe every tear from your eye from mine. Tears of pain, tears of sorrow. And so he is the one who, in his earthly ministry, caused the blind to see. He was the one who, in his earthly ministry, caused the lepers to be whole and healed. This incurable disease. He is the one who in Mark 2, not only caused this man who was paralyzed and lowered through the roof to walk about, but he said, son, your sins be forgiven. And so here is the one who heals us, body and soul. So He is indeed the Great Healer, the Great Physician. There's an H there on the right, so put Healer there for 1.4. In verse 4, who redeemeth thy life from destruction? Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies? What do we see here? Bless Jehovah, the Great Savior. You know, God's people can indeed proclaim, our souls, our lives have been redeemed from destruction. The wages of sin is death. We no longer have that as our due, as our destiny. Our destiny is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. And we have begun to make good on that great Savior. We have been redeemed. Verse four says, He redeems your life. You are His. You have been bought back from the slave market of sin. You are His. Utterly, wholly, completely, nothing now can separate you from the very love of God. He is your Savior, yes. that if you're looking for a more rare savior within power, that's what 1.5, the great savior. We all know this. Sin has a way of ruining things. It ruins relationships with others. It's not just, you know, you're saved by the skin of your teeth, you've scraped on by You know, you're just barely in. No, what, look at, this is fullness of life, who has come to give life more abundantly, eternal life. What is this fullness of life? Verse four, he crowns you with loving kindness and to your mercy. So you can say, yes, the Lord is my shepherd. He leads me by the still water. This is what gives peace in the storm. This is what gives joy when everything in your life is wrecked and you're able to say, I have joy. I have wellness. If my body, flesh fail, if everything is going wrong, health, wealth, whatever, the peace of God is loving kindness, is healing, is salvation. I saw we have a blind savior who has saved our souls, but there's so much more. We look at verse five and we say, bless the Savior, who? What are we thanking him for? He has satisfied your mouth with good things, so your youth is renewed like the eagles. Any of you remember, what was his name, Constantine? Anyone? From the 1500s, right? What was his great quest? Anyone remember? He was seeking the fountain of youth. And he was going all over the place, ping-ponging through South America, whatever. And did he find it? No, but it was right there. Look at verse 5. God has given us the fountain of youth. Your youth is renewed like the eagles. Does that mean you get younger as you get older? The grayer you are, the gayer, the happier you are? No. The physical things still proceed more or less well. But if your youth is renewed like the eagle's, the eagle is able to melt down with his wings with little effort. Because he is not trying to keep aloft by, you know, the flapping of his wings. He is kept aloft by the wind. And so, in our old age, as we experience Ecclesiastes 12, I'm not gonna read that, but you know it. As we experience Ecclesiastes 12, the dimming of the eyes, the weakening of the bones, the night chirping of the crickets and all the rest. As we endure that, God gives a song in the night. God, in our maturity, say our great age, Our four heads, as King James puts it, he gives a wisdom and an ability to accomplish just as much for him as a youth who is expending all kinds of energy, you know, shouting from the platforms or doing other hand and member work. Because one of the benefits of age is wisdom. And so, wisdom means that you are able to use your acquired experience that the youth don't have, and to perhaps get more things done in less time or in less energy. That might be part of it, but the promise here is that the Lord is going to satisfy us. And so, what we see here is not only is He the Great Savior, but we see that He is the Great Good Giver. I'm sorry, I couldn't come up with another word. He's a giver, he's a satisfier. So he has given us this renewed strength, this renewed energy, this renewed zeal, this renewed experience, this renewed wisdom, what we need so that we find satisfaction ultimately in himself. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it, he tells us. And so we see here, That we are able, sometimes at the end, you know, as different facilities or faculties fail, we are yet able to have spiritual futures. And when we cannot do things physically, we can still pray. So some of God's great prayer warners through the ages have been those senior saints. for those invalid. Was it Amy Carmargo in India who was writing books there as she was on her sit-down? Very frustrated that she wasn't able to be out there doing stuff, but doing just as much by her will, her writing, her prayers. And actually, one of her followers who weeped her mother for her, saying, Alright, so that's main point number one. personally bless the Lord. But David doesn't stop with the internal soliloquy. He moves from the solo to the choir. He goes from, not to a duet, but he invites all of the redeemed to join him in anthems of praise to his God. So number two there is corporately bless the Lord. Together, verses six through 13, And I didn't leave any blanks here because I knew that I would be getting long-winded, but you do see here that verse 6 marks this transition. Notice in verse 6 that the Lord executed righteousness and judgment. Now, he's no longer talking only about himself, although there have been times when he's been oppressed and had a hard time. He goes back to Moses on all those who are oppressed. And so he makes known his ways to Moses and his acts unto the children of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, plenteous in mercy. He will, now look at this verse, he will not hold his child. God is not a man. Now there are those who, you know, You don't meet the qualifications, or you don't do what you ought, and you're dead, right? Make your bed, right? Do the dishes. There might be something else. You need to do this. And you know we need to do those things. But when we fail to meet God's expectations, because, you know, we still have that flesh, God doesn't hammer us. He doesn't madness, although His Holy Spirit does. And so we have a choice. Are we going to harden our conscience against the promptings of the Holy Spirit? Or are we going to avoid damaging that relationship further and seek to mend the relationship by coming back to Him? And so what we see there is the Lord is merciful and gracious. He will not always try, verse nine, Neither will he keep his anger forever. He will chastise you. We need it, sometimes, to get our attention. If we don't respond to this steel-soft voice, he will come under us with a stick, and point it at us. It will be a dismal minute. Not pleasant, but good. All right, so God, you see there, the third paragraph, God must be patient, or he would have. Because here, David is talking about Israel. And the Old Testament tells us that these people, on the Exodus, were not a good people. They were the grumbling trio, right? The grumbling multitudes. Murmur was the key word in Exodus, right? These people were murmurers. They were not trustors. Later, they would be idolaters. You know, they were people. There was Exodus 32, the gold calf. But we see that He is slow to anger. He is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, but He is merciful. And that isn't just for one or two of His families. That's for all of us. Praise God. And notice that not only do we have this corporately, this was supposed to be an adverb, corporately bless the Lord, personally bless the Lord, one, two. Number three, eternally bless the Lord, because the Lord sees, you know, He knows that you're dust, He knows your frame. You see that in verse 14, But for man, his days are grash. You know, you're not going to be here forever on this earth, but you will be eternal. Your body and your flesh will fail, but your soul will be eternal with your Lord and your Savior. And so we see that the Lord knows us. He knows our weakness. And when we see that David goes there in that our Creator knows our frame. He remembers where it does. We've already talked about the aging process. And then on page three, we see that our lives are brief, but our souls are eternal. So we can hear in verses 17 and 18, and we see that the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting. It's not like you experience God's mercy in this life and don't have any benefit once you die. You know, those mercies not only take you to heaven, they sweep you through eternity. Not because you keep on doing bad things, but because those mercies are what got you there by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ. And so His mercies are eternal, from everlasting to everlasting for those who fear Him. Now, what do we see? He remembers, you know, you're not going to be here forever. Sorry, it's true. You will not. But if you have children or grandchildren, the Lord not only remembers you, he remembers your child. And God makes his covenant from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob, and God remembers you as well. His righteousness unto children's children, verse 17 says. That's grandkids, right? to such as keep his covenant. And so if my kids keep his covenant, maybe their kids will keep his covenant, and it will extend. And there are families where you can trace. The goblin line, generation after generation, just unfolds. Sometimes there's the judge pattern, where there are those who know God a lot, and those who do not. But more often, very often, we see that the Lord, verse 18, prepares His thrones in the heavens, and His kingdom unfolds. So what we want to see finally, you see as David comes to the end of the psalm, and I've come to the end of the message. In verses 20 through 22, David returns to as he began. Now he began with this personal, bless the Lord, O my soul. And that's the very last thing he says in verse 22. But notice before he gets there, that last line, what he says. He's gone from speaking of himself personally to speaking of the redeemed. Now he's speaking of the heavenly hosts. Notice in verse 20, bless the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, heartening unto the voice of his one. What are these angels like? Well, they do listen to God. We should too, shouldn't we? And it says that these angels are excelling in strength. And we can't play with that always. We're less than. Man was made for something a little lower than the angels. Our bodies don't endure forever. We are made of dust. But our weakness is God's opportunity. So you and I will do things for the glory of angels in the world. We will trust in you in ways that angels never would. We will meet in lives that angels never would. And so these angels, not only hearken unto the voice of Israel, who are at birth to me, these are called upon as ministers of his that do his pleasure. Do you seek to do the will of God? Do you seek to please the Lord with your life? If so, I'm the angels. Blessed are you. O Lord Jesus. Universally, because it's not only the angels, but all of creation here. Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts, the hosts of heaven, the ministers of his, who do his pleasure. So, ultimately, this will go even to all creations and all beings. Angelically, universally, bless the Lord. Let's close with a prayer. Lord, we do want to bless you this evening. We thank you for this new season, this time of so long. Lord, we thank you for a break from our work routines. We thank you for the refreshment and restoration of body and soul. that You give us that comes from rest. We thank You, Father, that You are always the same. We're always changing according to Your will. And so as we change, we pray that You would be conformist to Christ, conformist to His likeness. Help our souls to lift great anthems of praise to You. with the host of heaven, with the children of God. Personally, Lord, knowing that we have a brief window of time to serve you on this earth, we know our fault. We know our weakness. Use our weakness. to demonstrate your power, your creation, your love, in Jesus name.