What does Psalm 103 teach us in A New Start and an Old Promise?

In this New Year's sermon on Psalm 103, Dr. Toby Holt of New Geneva Theological Seminary teaches that while everything in life changes, the character of God and His covenant love for His people never do. Drawing on King David's own hardships, Holt contrasts the merciful, gracious God of Scripture with the dispassionate pagan deities of the ancient world, showing that God does not deal with us according to our sins but removes our transgressions as far as the east is from the west. The abiding hope of the believer is an old, unchanging promise: God's mercy is from everlasting to everlasting upon those who fear Him and keep His covenant.

Questions this sermon answers:

1. What is the main issue in this passage? In this New Year's sermon on Psalm 103, Dr.

2. How does this text point us to Christ? It shows the need for God's grace and the hope fulfilled in the gospel.

3. How should Christians respond? With faith, repentance, and renewed trust in the Lord's Word.

"The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. He will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities." - Psalm 103:8-10 (NKJV)

Dr. Toby Holt is President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio. Find more verse-by-verse Bible teaching at newgeneva.org; support this ministry at newgeneva.org/give.

You know, several years ago, I was invited to go rafting in South Colorado.

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I didn't have a lot of experience with this, so this was going to be quite the adventure.

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The river that we went on, it was beautiful, but it was also somewhat dangerous if you didn't really know what you were doing.

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Now, after about a half hour of pretty smooth waters, comparatively,

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the leader of our group said that around the bend, it was going to get kind of dangerous.

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And sure enough, we go around this bend, we see the white water, there's some drops and the like,

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There's rocks that the water's churning around.

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And as we go around the last portion of this bend, I don't know what I was doing, but I fell in.

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Now, if you've ever been rafting, being in the water is not a terrible thing.

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Sometimes it's fun to float alongside the raft if you're going through a smooth stretch of water.

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Sometimes being in the water is one of the funnest parts of the rafting experience, but not when it's whitewater.

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Not when the water is churning, when you're feeling all sorts of undertoes and the like.

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Not in times like this.

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Now, I remembered when I fell in, realizing that this was not a good time to be wet.

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I was wet, I was cold, and I grew a little anxious because I hadn't been in a circumstance like this before.

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Now, we had life jackets on, and as I bobbed to the surface, you know, I saw the raft kind of going off and doing its thing.

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And I just looked to see what I could grab onto, you know, a tree, a twig, a rock, what have you.

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Anything that would give me some stability, even just for a moment, so I could catch my breath in the midst of the white foam that was churning around me.

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Now after a few moments of that, I did find a rock.

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It was near the side, but not quite all the way to the side.

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But it was big enough that I could reach over and hook one arm around it

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while the rest of me was floating in the water.

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And I remember just holding on to that as tightly as could be.

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And never in my history to date had I ever been as thankful for a rock as I was at this time.

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And the reason why is because this rock became my lifeline.

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It gave me stability in the midst of everything else that was going on around me.

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It was something to help me keep anchored.

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I could collect my breath, get a hold of my senses.

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No matter how furious the water moved, it could not, would not move this rock.

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Now, some of you already know where I'm going with this.

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This sort of experience is what we call a great sermon illustration.

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And that's what we have here.

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Some of us in our day-to-day lives, we know what it's like to feel adrift.

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To feel maybe even like we're drowning, like we're taking on water.

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Some of us, if we look back at the year behind us,

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we can say, that was not my best year. We can feel like we took on a lot of water. Some of us,

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as 2022 starts, we're looking for that rock. We're looking for something stable. Because whether it's

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you as an individual this past year, or all of us collectively over the past two years,

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this has been a wild ride. The past couple of years have put things on our radar that we

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never saw before. Corporately and individually, some of us have had some real hardships in the

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past number of months. And so as we come into this new year, we want stability. We want things that

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don't change in our lives. We're tired of the things that do change. We just want some stuff

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that's stable. In today's reading, King David also liked that which was stable, that which he could

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rely upon. You know, even though David was a king, being a king didn't make his life any easier.

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In fact, his life was exponentially harder. If you read 2 Samuel, read the chronicle of David's day

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age, there was all sorts of people that wanted to kill him. There's all sorts of nations that

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wanted to defeat him. Even in his own house, he had kinsmen, some that wanted to replace him.

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And on top of all the dangers that were around him, on top of all the things and threats that

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he faced in his day-to-day life, he also was a sinner given over to doing that which was

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wrong. And one of his greatest obstacles wasn't necessarily Goliath or the Philistines or Absalom

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or others. Sometimes his biggest problem was containing the own sin in his heart. No sin in

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the history of sin has probably had, since the beginning, since creation, has probably had

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greater consequences for as many people outside of Adam as what David did with Bathsheba. David's

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life was difficult before Bathsheba and it got exponentially harder thereafter. But in the midst

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of all that, in the midst of all the hardships, the Goliaths and the dangers and all the things

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that he faced, one of the things that he was excited about, one of the things that caused

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this songwriter, sit back and write a song, was when he remembered God. And he remembered that

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although everything else changed in the world around him, although there was threats and dangers

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to his left and to his right, there was one source of consistency, one source of stability in his

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life, and that was his God. And so Psalm 103 starts with these words, bless the Lord, O my soul.

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And it ends with these words too. Let's look now at verses 8 through 10 of today's text. Verse 8,

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the Lord is merciful gracious slow to anger and abounding in mercy he will not always strive with

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us nor will he keep his anger forever he has not dealt with us according to our sins nor has he

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punished us according to our iniquities you know when he was a little bit younger than this David

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had spent a number of years with the Philistines David had traveled in their circle for a period

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time. During that time, David had encountered a lot of the Philistine gods. He was aware of the

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Philistine gods. He was aware of the Canaanite gods. He was aware of the Egyptian gods. He was

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aware of all the pagan deities of his age. Now, if we think back, we might remember a few of their

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names. The Philistines, in particular, had this kind of fish god. His name was Dagon. That was a

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popular one in the day. If you went south of the border, you went down to Egypt, they had Anubis,

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they had Amun-Ra, the Canaanites had Molech, and all of these were bad. All of these gods were just

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dreadful, just undesirable, monstrous gods to which were attributed monstrous actions. Amun-Ra,

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Molech, and the like. Now David knew that other nations worshiped these things, and David could

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not fathom their popularity given how dreadful they were. I'll take one for example. If you

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thought about the Egyptians. The Egyptians had, as most cultures did, they had a lot of gods.

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Most of the cultures in these days, they were not monotheistic. They didn't have one god,

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they had a lot of them. There was gods of the trees and the forest and the frogs and the like,

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all sorts of different gods. Well, the Egyptians had a god named Anubis. Now, Anubis, if you think

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back to mythology, this was a god who was half a man and half a jackal. Now, Anubis, one of the

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things that this pagan false god supposedly did was that when an individual died, you go into this

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netherworld state, and Anubis is there, and he's waiting, and there's a scale, and upon the scale

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is the heart of the individual, the heart of he who has died, and that heart is weighed by Anubis

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to see if the individual is worthy or if the individual is not. Now, if the individual is not

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found worthy. This is where it gets interesting and scary. If an individual's heart is not found

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worthy, there was another god. It was actually more of a demon, per se. His name was Ammit,

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and Ammit is known as the soul eater or devourer of souls. This was a female deity who was half

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crocodile, if I understand correctly, and Ammit had one job. If Anubis weighed a heart and found

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that it was unworthy, then Ammit's job was then to devour that heart, devour that soul thereafter

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with giant crocodile jaws. Now David knew all about these sorts of gods, and he knew that if

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you were an Egyptian, the Egyptians' eternal hope, such as it was, hope is even the wrong word to use

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in this context, the eternal hope of the Egyptians, so to speak, was based on these arbitrary

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netherworld, underworld gods and their scales. This dispassionate, unmerciful bunch would weigh you

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and then possibly eat you. That was the future of the Egyptian. And David, when he writes Psalm

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103 and really any of his psalms. He consistently stepped outside of that sort of mindset, that sort

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of worldview that existed among the pagans as he says, look, our God is so much better. Yes,

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you've done wrong, but at the end of time, there's not a dispassionate deity with a scale and a

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crocodile ready to eat you. Rather, we have a God who's merciful, a God who does not judge in such

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way or does not hold our sins and iniquities against us. The Lord is merciful, gracious,

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slow to anger, abounding in mercy. He doesn't always strive with us. He doesn't keep his anger

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forever. He's not dealt with us according to our sins, nor does he punish us according to our

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iniquities. When David messed up, which was often, when David messed up, he knew that God was still

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with him. He knew that God was still at his side. David had once killed a man to steal his wife.

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David had committed great evil, terrible thing. And if he was an Egyptian, he might have thought

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to himself, boy, I don't think I'm going to pass this scale test. If David had been an Egyptian,

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he might have resigned himself to that sort of terrible future. However, David rejoiced in this.

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He knew that his God, the one God, the true God, is a God of mercy, a God of grace who doesn't deal

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with us according to our sins. And this was a relief to him. It was such a relief to him that

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he broke into song. He broke into song, he sang, and he recorded what he had sung. You know, sometimes

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we take God's mercy for granted. There was a celebrity, this was, I don't know, five,

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six years ago. There was this female celebrity influencer in New York City. It was pulled over

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for a moving violation of some sort. And the individual had themselves on the cell phone and

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the tickety-tock and what have you, and was blasting the image to all of their followers.

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And the individual expected to catch a break from the officer on the basis of her fame. Well,

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imagine her surprise when the officer wrote her a ticket. In the same way, sometimes we can think

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that we're just such hot stuff. We're such hot stuff that of course God is going to give me

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mercy. Sometimes we can do terrible things and just shrug it off and say, you know, God's cool,

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God's hip, God's with me. We can think of ourselves as something greater than we are. We can think I'm

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just so darn lovable that God can't help himself. That's not the way that it works. God doesn't owe

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anybody anything, not the least of which is mercy. God doesn't owe us mercy. He doesn't owe us grace.

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And yet, and yet he grants it. Yet he gives it because it's his character to do so. All right,

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let's look at verses 11 and 12. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his mercy

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towards those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our

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transgressions from us. You know, when my kids were much smaller, I'd ask them a question that

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you may have asked your kids at some time in the past. I'd say, how much do you love me? Well,

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what does a kid say when they're really small? They think about that for a moment. You know,

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they try to add it up and the like, and they don't come to an answer. And so they say this

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much. Now, what do they mean? Well, what they mean is that their love for you, the parent,

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exceeds their ability to quantify. Their love for you, the parent, exceeds that which their

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vocabulary can speak to. It exceeds their ability to reach or to measure or to calibrate. As they

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say, I love you this much. In a sense, it's what David is suggesting in verse 11 about God's love

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for you, about the parent's love for us. It says in verse 11, as far as the heavens are above the

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earth, so great is God's mercy and his love for you and I. How much does God love us? This much.

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As far as the heavens are above the earth, as far as the east is from the west, so is God's love for

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us. In biblical terms, these phrases are meant to suggest something infinite, something you just

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can't measure. Even if you or I, I'm sure there's someone in the room here who knows atmospheric

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science and go, well, I know how high the heavens are above the earth. I'm like, all right, let's

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he got that. Tell me, tell me then how far the east is from the west. Aha, it gets harder. Later

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in the next verses, he's going to talk about God's love being from everlasting to everlasting.

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Again, these are references to that which is infinite, to that which you can't measure or

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quantify, and that which you can't take away from. Otherwise, it wouldn't be infinite. All right,

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let's look at verses 13 through 16. As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those

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who fear him. For he knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like

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grass, as a flower of the field, so he flourishes. The wind passes over it, and it's gone, and its

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place remembers it no more. It's a humbling thing to consider your own mortality. It's humbling to

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consider the end. There's an old saying that time makes fools of us all, and it's true. You know,

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Mark Twain once said that a surefire way of knowing that you're getting old is when people

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tell you how young you look. You start hearing that, you know you're in trouble. Actually,

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just the other day, I have family in town, and I have two wonderful, sweet, kind nieces. Now,

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the smaller one said something to me that I'll remember for the rest of my days. My niece said,

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when I get older, I'm going to run for president. When I get older, I'm going to run for president.

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And I said, that sounds great.

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I think you'd do just fine.

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I'm going to run for president, my niece says.

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But then she looks at me, and she goes,

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but as old as you are, you might need to vote from heaven.

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I marked it in my diary.

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Dear diary, this is the day I got old.

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We all have an expiration date.

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We do, and I'm sorry if that's news to you, but it shouldn't be.

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We all have a shelf life.

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We all have a shelf life, even if we ignore that,

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even if we try to forget that that's real.

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Well, God, as we see in these verses, He hasn't forgotten about it.

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Verse 14 says that God remembers that we are dust.

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God remembers how short our lifespan is,

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just like the lily of the field, the grass that's in our yards.

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It's here one day, and it's gone the next.

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Now, ordinarily, that would be sad news.

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Ordinarily, that would be a very depressing thought.

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If there was no God, if there was no heaven,

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you know, at New Year's, New Year's Eve, the only sound you would hear,

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if there was no God and if there was no heaven, it wouldn't be fireworks.

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It would be great lamenting and wailing of an entire generation

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that realizes that they're one step closer to the grave.

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You know, the two worst days in the life of an atheist?

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New Year's Day and their own birthday.

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Because once you pass, that's it and that's all.

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But that's not the hope or the faith or the belief of the Christian.

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It certainly wasn't the hope and faith and belief of David.

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David looked beyond to something better.

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No matter how long or short our lifespan is, and in the scales of eternity, it's very short.

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But no matter how long or short that it is, David knew that he was meant for someplace better.

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And that took the sting out of death.

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Now, this wasn't just theoretical for David.

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David had held his own son in his arms while he died.

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This isn't theoretical to David.

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It wasn't just this theological thing he mused upon at times.

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David knew the reality of that of which he spoke.

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And that of which he spoke was consistently hopeful, even in the face of death.

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Even in the face of his own mortality.

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David held his own son in his arms as he died.

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And you know what he said next?

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His servants thought that he would just spend the rest of the week, the year, just crying and lament.

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What he did is this.

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After his son died, he washed his hands and went in for dinner.

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And his servants asked him, well, how can you be like this?

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How can you have this sort of response?

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And he said this.

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He says, I know that my son cannot return to me, but one day I shall go to him.

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David saw beyond the veil.

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David knew that there was a better and brighter future on the other side.

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He knew that death doesn't have the last word, and he knew that, and so he rejoiced over it.

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Now, he was realistic.

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He says, our time is like a blade of grass, which, again, ordinarily, that would be sad and depressing,

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but he consistently looked to the other side.

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He says, yes, on this mortal call, we are here for a little bit of time, a little slice of the pie.

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However, we are made for someplace better, and in God's time, he will take us there into his everlasting arms.

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David was consistently upbeat, even though he had umpteen reasons not to be, given all the death that he had seen.

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He was consistently upbeat with good news for the future.

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Let's consider that good news as we look at our last couple verses here, verses 17 and 18.

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Verse 17.

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But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting.

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this is another measurement of infinity the mercy of the lord is from everlasting to everlasting on

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those who fear him and his righteousness to children's children to such as keep his covenant

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there's a lot of good covenant theology and everything i'm saying here as righteousness

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to children's children to such as keep his covenant to those who remember his commandments

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to do them all right again we talked about the distance between the heavens and the earth

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about east from west how vast would you say that everlasting everlasting is well once again this

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is an infinite reference to god's mercy practically speaking what david is saying is this if you're a

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child of god if you're a son of god if you're a daughter of god then there's no sin that you'll

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commit in times past or times present that he's not capable of forgiving or that he won't forgive

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there's nowhere you can go that he will not be there's nothing you can do that will ever separate

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you from his love and god's proven it time and time again the fact we still take breath in this

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room that will engage in the lord's supper here in a few moments in spite of all that we've done

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individually, let alone corporately, suggests this is true. His mercy is from everlasting

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to everlasting. Period. End of story. And that won't change tomorrow. The same God you went to

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bed on New Year's Eve praying to is the same God you woke up to on New Year's Day. And that will

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be true in the days yet to come. This is a God who does not change, and he has made an unchanging

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promise. And when you've been in heaven 10,000 years, maybe then you and I will begin to

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appreciate it. Now, let's stop and consider our response to all this. We've talked a little bit

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about what you might say is the indicative. We've given some theology. Here's who God is and how

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wonderful He is and the like. Let's talk about the imperative. What should we then do? How then

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should we then live? Let's talk about the imperative from verses 17 and 18. Verses 17 and

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18 say this, the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon those who fear

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him and his righteousness to children's children to such as keep his covenant to those who remember

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his commandments and to those who do them these verses tell us that if you really are a child of

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god you're going to take on the attributes and characteristics of your father if you really are

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a child of god then you'll learn maybe hesitatingly maybe with failure every other step but you will

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remember your father's laws and you'll endeavor to do them. You know, it's one thing if a child

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tells their parent, I love you this much. I mean, that's good to hear. It's one thing if they tell

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you, I love you this much. But if that love is real, it'll be demonstrated by what that child

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does. If your child loves you as a parent, it will be manifested and demonstrated and put to work

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and borne out and proven by what the child does.

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How does that child respect and honor and respond and obey

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to that which you say as a parent?

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That demonstrates the reality and the presence of the love

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that the lips have spoken about.

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And if a child won't listen to one's parents,

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how deep can the love be?

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In John 14, Jesus made the same point.

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You see this in the Old Testament, you see in the New.

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In John 14, Jesus said this.

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He tells his disciples, he says,

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if you love me, you'll do what?

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You'll keep my commandments.

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If you love me, Jesus is looking at people who say they love him, right?

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We love you, Jesus.

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They're saying they love him and the like.

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And he says, well, I'll tell you what.

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If that's true, it'll bear fruit through your obedience.

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If you love me, you'll do what I say.

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If you really love me and respect me and honor me and cherish me

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and all the things that you say that you do with your lips,

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it'll be made manifest through the works of your hands, your feet, and the like.

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Now, the works that you do, we're good Calvinists and Presbyterians and Reformed people in this

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room. The works that you do don't save you, can't save you, won't save you. The works that you do

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are not the basis by which God loves you, but they are a good response. They are the fruit

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of that love once the Spirit has been sown into our hearts. In short, it seems like a good idea

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if God loves you and died for you, that you would respond by doing what he said. That's what we see.

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All right, for our remaining time, I want to mention something about New Year's.

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You know, there's no more introspective time than New Year's Day, than the first week of January.

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I think all the gyms are filled up across the coast the first week of January.

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Everyone's got good intentions and ideas and resolutions.

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Everyone's been introspective about the things that didn't work and times passed

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and all the things that they want to do in the year to come.

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It's a very introspective time of year.

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We look back to New Year's Day 2021 and we look to New Year's Eve just a few days ago

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and we say, you know, these are bookmarks of what happened last year, and we assess all that was

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done, and then we try to do better in the year yet to come. Now, one of the challenges as we

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look ahead is that so much has been weird this past year. So much has been different this past

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year, and it really doesn't matter what spectrum you come at these things from. So much has been

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weird or different. A lot has changed in the world around us. Some things might be better for us

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corporately or individually in 2022. I hope it is. I really do. Some things might be better in

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the year yet to come. Of course, some things may be worse. Now, there are some things that are

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almost always worse for many in January. For some of us, it might be our health. We're all getting

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older. Some of us, it might be our health, our finances, our insurance rates, our blood pressure.

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There's something, there's some metric, maybe all of them, by which we look back and we say,

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the time ahead might be more difficult than the time in the past. We say some of these metrics

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are trending downward. Whatever the case is, though, whatever the case is, there's two things

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that haven't changed at all and won't change. In spite of all the white water in your life,

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in spite of all the things that were bad before and might remain bad yet to come, although there

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might be changes and things you might not like on the horizon, some of which you can't even conceive

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of right now, although that might be true, there's two things that can't and won't change in the time

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yet to come. That's the character of God and his love for you. These are the things that can't

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change won't change in the time yet to come. His love, His mercy, His promises remain intact just

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as they always have. God's love doesn't fluctuate like Bitcoin or the stock market. His love is

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infinite. It can't fluctuate. His character can't change and it won't change. It's infinite. By

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definition, it cannot be measured or reduced. This is all encouraging. And this was David's

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message in his songs. It's God's message to us this morning, 2022. God's love for you will not

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change. I'm not a prophet or a son of a prophet, so I don't know what else might come, but I know

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that God is on his throne. This may be a new year, but you and I have an old promise to hold to,

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a promise that God will not forsake us, no matter what the future might bring. That gave David

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confidence. It gives me confidence. January 2nd, 2022. Does it give you confidence this morning?

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Let's pray.