{"id":9756,"date":"2024-02-19T14:24:20","date_gmt":"2024-02-19T21:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=9756"},"modified":"2024-02-19T14:33:41","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T21:33:41","slug":"abounding-in-steadfast-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=9756","title":{"rendered":"
Abounding in steadfast love<\/div>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Click here for a pdf version.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Psalm 103<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A sermon for the Season of Lent<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today our text is Psalm 103. We will deal with the first 13 verses. It begins:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1<\/sup><\/strong>\u201cBless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That \u201cbless\u201d really means \u201cpraise\u201d and \u201cO my soul\u201d means with my whole person, as it goes on: \u201cand all that is within me bless his holy name!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2-3<\/sup><\/strong>\u201cBless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity [sins], and who heals all your diseases. . . .\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note it is three times \u201call<\/strong>\u201d \u2013 all<\/strong> his benefits, all<\/strong> your iniquity, all<\/strong> your diseases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4-5<\/sup><\/strong>\u201c. . . who redeems your life from the Pit, and crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good as long as you live so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Pit\u201d is death and the grave. We remember Isaiah 40:31: \u201cThose who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles.\u201d And also Deuteronomy 33:27: \u201cUnderneath are the everlasting arms.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6<\/sup><\/strong>\u201cThe Lord works vindication and justice for all who are oppressed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is on the side of the downtrodden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7<\/sup><\/strong>\u201cHe made his ways known to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has acted in his covenant with Moses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8<\/sup><\/strong>\u201cThe Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9<\/sup><\/strong>\u201cHe will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He doesn\u2019t bear grudges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10<\/sup><\/strong>\u201cHe does not deal with us according to our sins, nor requite us according to our iniquities [our wickedness, our sin].\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If he did, who could stand?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

11<\/sup><\/strong>\u201cFor as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This phrase \u201cthe heavens are high above the earth,\u201d reflects their thinking that there were two, three, or even seven heavens. They had the idea of the vastness of the whole cosmos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

12-13<\/sup><\/strong>\u201cAs far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions [sins] from us. As a father cares for his children, so does the Lord care for those who fear him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We see a certain kind of repetitiveness. The Psalm really repeats about twelve times the same thing. In Hebrew poetry, as we have noted before, there is parallelism. There is a similar kind of repetition in many of the hymns we sing. Our hymns often have refrains and phrases with slight alterations in verses that repeat. We can anticipate what follows. The psalms are like hymns. Here is this repetitive music, song, prayer, prayed by one person, nevertheless in the temple, a praise to the Lord for what he has done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of utmost importance in the Psalm is \u201csteadfast love.\u201d The Hebrew word for steadfast love is found in verses 4, 8, 11, and 17, and because of parallelism in the Psalm, we can say that basic point is made twelve times over. What does \u201csteadfast\u201d mean? We don\u2019t use the word today so much, but if we go back to the Seventeenth Century, we find in John Bunyan\u2019s Pilgrim\u2019s Progress <\/em>that there was Mr. Steadfast.  What is this about?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can describe steadfast love in terms of three larger frameworks. First, there\u2019s the difference between a one-sided covenant and a two-sided covenant.<\/strong> This is what Paul is describing in the third chapter of Galatians. We usually think that a covenant, which is an agreement, has two sides. The way we know of it and think of it is in Exodus 20:2 and following. There the Lord says to Moses: \u201cI am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Therefore you shall have no other gods before me.\u201d It goes on with the Ten Commandments. He is the Lord who has done this, and this is the way you will act. That\u2019s a two-sided covenant, but that is not the covenant that is meant in Psalm 103. This is the covenant with Abraham. Gen 12:1-6 states (paraphrase): \u201cThe Lord came to Abraham out of nowhere and said: \u2018I have chosen you. I am going to make you the father of a great nation and in you and them all will be blessed.\u2019\u201d That is a one-sided covenant. That doesn\u2019t say what you have to do. Nor is it conditional: \u201cIf you do this, then I will do that.\u201d It simply says: That\u2019s what I\u2019m doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we look at the history of Israel, we see the people fall away all the time. They know the covenant with Moses, but they fall away. In the Book of Judges there is some discussion whether it\u2019s fifteen or eighteen times that there\u2019s a judge, but after a while the people were tempted into idolatry and are taken away by some oppressor. Then the Lord sends another judge to rescue them. They don\u2019t seem to learn. It happens over and over. The history of Israel after that is the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most daring statement of this, which is not mentioned in the Psalms at all, and is very cautiously avoided, is what happens in Hosea. He was not an obscure prophet. The prophets, including Hosea, not only spoke, they also did symbolic acts. Hosea 1:2 states: \u201cThe Lord said to Hosea, \u2018Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry, for the land commits great harlotry by forsaking the Lord.\u201d And Hosea actually did that. It goes on in that way for three chapters. It\u2019s a symbolic act, a way of saying: The Abrahamic covenant, the one-sided one: \u201cIn spite of who you are, I am in covenant relationship with you. I am sticking through in spite of you.\u201d It is the most astounding and daring image, one that we usually avoid. That\u2019s the covenant, the steadfast love that God expressed in the one-sided covenant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second image is fatherhood (Psalm 103:13).<\/strong> In the Old Testament there are only about seven times that God is called Father. Why so few? They were in a culture dominated by fertility cults in which there were all kinds of father and mother gods that had children on earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Israelites wanted to make sure that no one confused what God was doing with that. Nevertheless, about seven times and in a remarkable way, the ancient Hebrews state that God is like this Father. One key place is Psalm 89:26: \u201cHe shall cry to me, \u201cThou art my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.\u2019\u201d And Jeremiah 31:20. But again we come to Hosea. In this striking way in the eleventh chapter of Hosea it says, and this is the Lord speaking: \u201cWhen Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son\u201d (Hosea 11:1). It goes on in Hosea 11:8: \u201cHow can I give you up?\u201d \u201cHow can I destroy you?\u201d And then in Hosea 11:9: \u201cI will not execute my fierce anger . . . for I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come to destroy.\u201d That\u2019s that steadfast love that is the fatherly love of the Lord himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many times in the Old Testament steadfast love and faithfulness are yoked together. You know this word in Hebrew for faithfulness, because you use it all the time. It\u2019s \u201cAmen.\u201d Amen means: It\u2019s sure. It\u2019s set. It\u2019s certain. It\u2019s true. The steadfast love of the Lord and his faithfulness, his amen, are the same thing and are yoked together and that\u2019s what is stated in Hosea 11.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is another place in the Old Testament that we don\u2019t go to often, and it\u2019s Micah 7. The way that the book of Micah ends is very much like Psalm 103. The last verse, Micah 7:20, says this: \u201cThou wilt show faithfulness [that\u2019s Amen] to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham as thou hast sworn to our fathers from the days of old.\u201d There is that Fatherhood and that faithfulness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the third place, \u201csteadfast love\u201d has to do with east and west.<\/strong> Psalm 103:12 states: \u201cAs far as the east is from the west, so far will I remove your sins from you.\u201d We know Kipling\u2019s line: \u201cEast is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.\u201d Although he was contrasting Asian and American\/European cultures, he may also have been echoing Psalm 103. That is just a guess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we think of east and west simply in terms of geography, consider this: If you were to go north to the North Pole, everything from that point would be south. But if you are on the Equator and go west, you never reach east. Or if you go east, you never reach west. \u201cAs far as the east is from the west.\u201d The Lord is Lord of everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this same passage in Micah 7, just before the final verse, it says: \u201cThou wilt cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.\u201d That\u2019s basic. That is what Psalm 103 is saying twelve times over, especially in the last six verses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is it about? As we see what is in Psalm 103, and Hosea, Jeremiah, and Micah, we might rightly feel embarrassed. How slothful we are! We don\u2019t see the edges. We read about this: Yes, God is good, God is great. And so, what else? Ho hum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is this remarkable statement of the all-ness that the Lord is over all, and he takes care of all, and that is part of this steadfast love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And second there is the certainty, the fixedness, and that\u2019s this linking of faithfulness and steadfast love. \u201cI\u2019ll never let you go, through thick and thin. You are mine. I have done this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We learn in confirmation and seminary that the qualities of God are such and such, and that sort of dictionary knowledge is a mistake. It\u2019s not a static thing, but it is this active, steadfast love. It\u2019s like the Twenty-Third Psalm: \u201cSurely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.\u201d And then, of course, it\u2019s forever, just as here it is that God who will not forever reckon our sins to us. Finally, it is this incomprehensible, magnificent, superb grace, mercy, and love, all together, that is stated in these 13 verses. Amen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Psalm 103<\/p>\n

A sermon for the Season of Lent<\/p>\n

Today our text is Psalm 103. We will deal with the first 13 verses. It begins:
\n1\u201cBless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!\u201d
\nThat \u201cbless\u201d really means \u201cpraise\u201d and \u201cO my soul\u201d means with my whole person, as it goes on: \u201cand all that is within me bless his holy name!\u201d<\/p>\n

Select here<\/a> to read more or here <\/a>for a pdf document.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9756"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9764,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9756\/revisions\/9764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}