Reflecting On Love

I ask you to take your Bibles this morning and let's turn to the 103rd Psalm, Psalm 103. You know that we are spending our time speaking about the two great commandments here. The commandment to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. so far we've looked at this command to love God and today before we move on to the second great commandment we want to look at Psalm 103 because I believe this is a psalm that would help us to learn to love God as we reflect on the love of God for us and so as we look at Psalm 103 this morning see it as an encouragement to us as we reflect on God's love to learn to love him more well let's pray before we look into this great psalm Father once more we are here to listen to you speak to us from your word you love us and you have told us so and in this psalm you tell us of the great love you have for your people I pray Lord that this would then move in our hearts to respond in love to you help us to reflect on this so that we might love you as you've commanded us and that we would do it in a willing spirit, not begrudgingly, but giving up all others for you.

Help us now as we reflect on this psalm to grow in our love for you. In Jesus' name, amen. Turn on your radio just about any day or any station whether it's contemporary, pop, album-oriented, or whatever, and you will hear a love song. Of course, by even saying that, I'm sure I've dated myself, so let's rephrase it. Go to iTunes or the Google Store and download anything of that album or a particular song, and you will hear, eventually, a love song. and in Psalm 103 we find a love song to a loving father we find a song here written by David an expression of his love for God you find a psalm of exalting praise You find a man reflecting on the acts of God And you see his emotions kindled so that he cannot help but glory in the love of God.

So let's look at Psalm 103 this morning. You follow as I read this great psalm. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.

The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, So the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him, for he knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass.

He flourishes like a flower of the field, for the wind passes over it and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children's children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments. the Lord has established his throne in the heavens and his kingdom rules over all bless the Lord O you his angels you mighty ones who do his word obeying the voice of his word bless the Lord all his hosts his ministers who do his will bless the Lord all his works in all places of his dominion bless the Lord O my soul reflecting on God's great fatherly love fatherly love ought to drive you to a whole being sort of love towards him loving him with all your heart and your soul and your mind so let's look at this first of all reflect on God great love and praise him as you read this psalm psalm it opens with an inner dialogue that David is having with himself He seems to be in the danger of forgetting, forgetting what God has done. David has to rouse himself from his apathy.

Have you ever felt that, this kind of apathy or even gloom sometimes? And so there's this inner dialogue that takes place in your heart when you're talking to yourself about the Lord and what you need to do. You've had that same conversation. And you get there by forgetting. That's what he says here in verse 2. And forget not all his benefits.

Now, this is not some lapse of memory. That's not what he's talking about here. If you want to see what he means by forgetting, turn back to Deuteronomy chapter 8. where God warns his people about forgetting. Okay? Deuteronomy chapter 8. Verse 10.

Now, they're just on the verge of entering into the promised land, and he says this, and you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. Okay? You're going to bless God. However, he goes on, take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes which I commanded you today.

Lest when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you to do you good in the end. Beware, lest you say in your heart, my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this well. you shall remember the Lord your God for it is he who gives you power to get wealth that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers as it is this day and if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you so shall you perish because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God Forgetting is what? Forgetting is ignoring God's goodness.

It's ignoring God's goodness. It's saying I'm giving you all these things and you just kind of take it for granted. It's disregarding his lordship. You forget when you disregard his lordship. Here he talks about the lordship of his commandments. Don't forget to do those.

It's taking credit for something you did not do. You forget the Lord when you start taking credit for what you've done, not recognizing that it's God who's empowered you to do that. It's giving credit to others who don't deserve it. The other gods that he mentions here. How do you forget God's benefits? You take credit even for your successes.

When you wallow, you forget the benefits of God. When you wallow in self-pity and discouragement. When things don't go your way. Or when you sin and you wallow in your sin and you say, Oh God, I'm just no good. What am I going to do? Instead of looking to the cross and realizing that you're forgiven and saying, I'm going to keep going and I'm going to keep growing.

Alright? That's when you forget the benefits of God. It's failure to take time to reflect on the benefits of God. How many of us spend some time thinking about those things? It means that we merely disregard Jesus' lordship. The great hindrance to praise is this forgetfulness.

It's this forgetfulness. It will hinder your praise. So, he says instead, reflect. and that will lead to wholehearted devotion, wholehearted adoration, the kindling of your emotions. God's love is so great that it involves your whole being. It should involve your whole being. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name.

Now, in our area, there is a cult that we need to be aware of. A cult that calls for total devotion. It's called Ohio State football. Now, it calls forth total devotion. Your mind finds satisfaction in that well-executed post. pattern. You have emotions of joy when they cross the goal line.

Your body erupts into a screaming maniac when they win the national championship. We're talking about wholehearted devotion here. That's the sort of thing that God deserves. That kind of devotion, a satisfied mind, emotions of joy. This kind of wholehearted, I love God. God's love is so great that it should involve our whole being.

And God's love is so great it requires the adoration of God's angels. And all that is within His rule. That's what He says in verses 19-22. His throne is over all areas and therefore He ends it by saying, And bless the Lord all His works in all places of His dominion. Everything ought to praise Him. Even His angels, His servants, His mighty warriors should bow down in thankfulness to this great God.

God's love is so great it requires all of us and it requires all of creation. Now, suppose someone would ask me, Are you married? And I responded, Married? I'll say I am. I have the hardest time tearing myself apart from my wife, Becca, in the morning. And when I come home at night, it's pure delight in her company.

And when I'm gone on trips and I come home, well, that's really nice. You say, wow, that must be some woman that you love. And that's exactly what ought to be happening here. As we praise God for his love for us, people ought to look at us and say, what kind of a God is this? What kind of love is this that calls forth that kind of adoration? Can people look at us and say about us, they love God.

They can if we reflect on the love that God has for us, His magnificent love and compassion. He goes on to describe it and he tells us to reflect on God love for you individually In verses 3 through 5 up the love of God the love that God has for us as individuals Okay, let's look at it. Who is this God? He forgives all your iniquity and heals all your diseases.

He redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with steadfast love and mercy. He satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. David says, let me tell you of the love that I have experienced as I have come to know my God. It's like reflecting on the love of your own father. As you recall the fun times that you and he shared, right?

It's just about you and him. Here he's opening up his heart to tell us how God individually has loved him as David. How has he done that? He pardons and restores you, verse 3. He pardons and restores you. He graciously removes the guilt that separates you from Him.

Now when I say He removes the guilt, I'm not talking about He makes you feel better. We in our culture today use the term guilt 99% of the time to talk about feelings. When most of the time, guilt is not about feelings. Can you be guilty and not feel bad at all? Yeah. Guilt is an objective reality.

You have transgressed and you are guilty before the law or you are not. You are guilty or you're not guilty. Feeling has nothing to do with it. It has to do with this state of being. And he says, God has removed my guilt. He doesn't look at me condemned.

He doesn't look at me like a criminal. He doesn't look at me like a rebel against His goodness. He's removed that guilt. He's washed the record clean. he removes the guilt that separates you from him, and he graciously restores you to what you ought to be. That's what he means in that parallel phrase when he says, and heals all your diseases. Now you see the parallelism in this verse.

Remember, we've talked about this in the past, maybe not all of you have heard this. Hebrew poetry and the Psalms or poetry are built not so much on rhyme of sound, but rhyme of thought. First thought, second. First line, second line. Oftentimes repeats. So when he says he forgives all your iniquity and heals all your diseases Those are parallel terms For example in Psalm 147 verse 3 it says He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

Now, is He saying that God binds up if someone shoots you? God binds that wound up? No, what He's saying is, you're brokenhearted, that's a wound. And God heals that wound, right? He heals the brokenhearted. He binds up their wounds.

And I think the same thing here is going on. He forgives all your iniquity. And the parallel phrase, who heals all your diseases, that is, this is a loving Father who forgives, who refrains from punishing, and then He steps in and changes you. All the perversity that sin has worked in your life, He deals with that. He doesn't say, I'm going to forgive you, your guilt's no longer there.

But now, because of the sin and what it's done to us, and sin is a pernicious thing, is it not? How many of you have habits that you've said, oh God, I've done it again, right? God works in your life to change you so that the things that sin has ruined in your life, God starts to change. He starts not only to save you from the guilt of sin, He saves you from the sin itself.

See? What about that unfaithful man who's committed adultery? He comes to Christ. That adultery is forgiven. But now, God starts to change him so that that straying heart that led him to that now becomes a heart that rejoices in faithfulness. You see?

So he restores us, he straightens and heals us from the things that sin has caused in our lives. Not only that, what else has he done for us personally? He redeems and exalts you. He redeems you from the pit. As I thought about this statement and tried to work it through, I believe that he's talking about here, redeems your life from the pit. Pit is often used in the sense of death.

He redeems your life from the pit of death. This father will not let death rule. Now I had countless countless funerals as a pastor And it can seem that death rules Death just arrives No one can say nope nope I am not ready to die today Come back next week. No one does that, right? You cannot keep death from claiming who it wants to claim. And the point of this is, and what I want to say, it comes and it takes everything and you can't do a thing about it.

But he redeems us from that. He exalts us. Listen. I can talk about influential townsfolk who are barely remembered today. I could mention some names today and many of you would go, oh yeah, now who was that? Who was that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You go to the cemetery and you read the stones and you have absolutely no idea who's buried there. Do you? You're gone. You're gone from memory within a matter of years. You're gone from any kind of recognition in a generation.

No one knows who you are. And here he says, Death may do that, but the Father will exalt you so that not even death can win. Through His free and gracious love, He redeems you from the pit. With His mercy, His sympathetic affection, He redeems you. He will exalt you someday. Right?

Here's the point. You may not even be known by anybody in life. But on the day when Jesus returns, when death has been made His footstool, He will exalt you. You ever thought about it? And it's not wrong to say that, because the Bible says that over and over. He's going to exalt you.

Right? He's going to exalt you. He recognizes what you've done, and He recognizes how you've served Him, and He recognizes you as His child. Nothing will be erased on that front. And so, out of His love and mercy, He will exalt us, so that not even death has the last word. Lastly, He loves us individually, verse 5, because He satisfies and He renews, you.

He's talking here about the satisfaction that comes from the blessings of the covenant. Now, we're not under the same covenant as David. We have a greater covenant, a more wonderful covenant. We have greater blessings in our covenant. But the The truth is the same. All of those blessings are yours, not because of what you do.

Do you think you've got the blessings of God because you've been a good girl this week? Do you think you have the blessings of God because you've been a good dad and a good father or a good husband this week? Do you think you've got those blessings because you've done well? No! You have those blessings because Jesus did well. you have every blessing that you have now not because you've been a good boy or girl you have every blessing that you have because God is gracious and he's laid your sin on Christ and he blesses you for his sake you see what do we have because of Jesus we've adopted his children we are his children we have a father's love we have been justified We're no longer standing before the courtroom of God trying to say, okay, I'll do better this week.

Right? Now, do we want to do better this week? Yeah, but it's not going to get us any points. Because God loves us. Alright? It's not going to make God love us anymore or any less.

We're justified. We're freely. There's no condemnation for us. Those are the sorts of things that we have because of this covenant that God has with us in Jesus. Those are the good things that then strengthen us and renew us. Part of the problem is we don't have strength because we don't think about grace.

We do not think about how God loves us in Jesus and wants us to obey and gives us the power to obey. And we don't have the strength because we're thinking about ourselves more than we think about what God has done in grace. That renews us so we're tireless and free like the eagle. Now as we move on, David calls us to reflect on God's love for you as members of his family.

When you start looking at verse 6 all the way down through verse 18, what you find there is God's family mercies. that is those that he gives to all his people God's family love and verses 6 God loves you with family mercies the Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed He made known His ways to Moses His acts to the people of Israel The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. God loves you with family mercies. These are family memories that He's recounting here.

What God has done for all His people. You know what? I had so much fun with my children growing up. Somehow we got all the pictures out this week. I don't know how it happened. I wasn't at home at the moment.

But the pictures were floating around. And it's almost enough to bring me to tears to look at these pictures and remember all those things that were going on. All the family memories that we have of fun and games. You know, the hide and seek. and the wrestling meets and the girl parties with my girls. Right? And I hope my kids remember those too.

I hope they remember. I hope they can look back and remember about the fun times that we had as they were growing up. Here he's talking about the father's love to his family in the past and the present. He's talking about how God treats his family, his covenant people. Okay? He says, look at God's acts of love that began in the past.

The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. He's saying, do you remember when Dad rescued us? Do you remember when Dad stood up to the bully? Which was Egypt. Remember when Dad stood up to that bully? Boy, he took care of him, didn't he?

That's what he's referring to. The Exodus showed his great love for them. He has made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the people of Israel. They stood on the side of the Red Sea when God destroyed the Egyptian army as He drowned them. Right? They saw it.

This was God standing up for them. Their Father taking care of them. And unlike some dads, this Father tells us how much He loves us. Right? the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. Do you remember the rebellion of the golden calf Do you remember when Israel had seen God deliver them And what did they do Moses disappeared for a while up on the mountain So what did they do They made a golden calf.

And they started worshipping it. And by the way, that golden calf represented the God who delivered them. Right? And you say, this is Jehovah. This golden calf. And they started to worship that golden calf.

This image. and you remember what Moses' request was. Turn back to Exodus. Exodus. Exodus 33. Exodus 33. Look at verse 12.

Moses said to the Lord, see you say to me bring up this people but you have not let me know whom you will send with me yet you have said I know you by name and you have also found favor in my sight now therefore if I have found favor in your sight please show me now your ways that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight consider too that this nation is your people and he said my presence will go with you and I will give you rest. Drop down to verse 18. Moses said, Please show me your glory.

Alright? So here's Moses' request. Show me your glory. If I found favor in your sight, I want to know your name. Show me your glory. And God does that in verses 4-7 in the next chapter.

So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first and he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai as the Lord had commanded him and took in his hands two tablets of stone. The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgressions and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting iniquity of the fathers and the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.

Here is God's response. I'm going to show you my glory. What is it? I am merciful gracious slow to anger abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness Now look the psalmist here quotes that The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. You see, His love is for His people. Steadfast love, covenant love, a love that will not let us go.

By the way, the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. you will find repeated all the way through the Old Testament. This was kind of like the summary statement of the God that they served. You'll find it repeated a number of times in the Psalms, in the Prophets. They keep coming back to this. This is their statement of faith, if you will.

This is the glory of their God. He is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. This is the God who tells us how He loves us. but surely you must see that this is not an indiscriminate love these are family memories these are expressions of love given only to family members how do you know that as you read through this section he's not talking about himself he's talking about us he's talking about people connected to God by the covenant verse 11 right so great is the steadfast love toward those who fear him, the ones who fear him.

Verse 12. He removes our transgressions from us. Verse 13. So the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. Verse 17. From everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him.

Verse 18. Who remember to do his commandments. He's talking about His particular people. Certainly, God has a love that He gives to all men. But God also has a love that He expresses only to those who are members of His family. It's a discriminating love.

It's a special love. It's only on those who are related by covenant. Now, all these years I've been here, I've loved all the kids in this congregation. I've always loved the kids in our congregation. Right? But there were six children six children that I would hug and kiss at will who I would tuck into bed who I would cuddle with, with whom I would work on projects, all of those things they were the only ones I did that with they had a special claim on my love that the other kids in the congregation didn't.

By the way, all those kids that I loved for all those years are now grown up and having kids of their own. And guess what? There's another generation of pasmas here who have an exclusive claim on a particular love of mine. Right? My grandkids. The point is not that God doesn't love everyone.

The point is that there are some that have a special love that only God's people know. And that's what he's talking about here. God has this incredible love for those whom he has called, who have responded in faith and repentance to Jesus. He has a particular love for you that is different than anything else. He loves you as his child. He loves you as one who belongs to him.

Alright? So there's the family mercies. Then there's this generous love. Verses 9 and 10. He will not always chide, nor will He keep His anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.

Notice, this is generous love. He does not deal with you in heavy-handed wrath, like a lot of earthly fathers, but He tempers His anger. Right? Verse 9. He will not always chide, nor will He keep His anger forever. Right? though he has the right to be angry at our sin.

Do you think God has the right to be angry at your sin? That's not a trick question. He does. Any sin is just a is shaking your fist at God and spitting in his eye. It's every sin that we do. But you know what?

He has the right to be angry but he doesn't constantly criticize. Have you known dads like that who just always were on you? The only time they talked to you was to tell you what you were doing wrong. That's not God. That's not the way He operates. Okay?

He's not constantly chiding you. He's not constantly criticizing you. He's not always finding fault. If God, and by the way, you know, when we come under conviction of sin, we wake up in the morning, we go down for breakfast, and we've already said, oh God, I've sinned already. I'm coming down the stairs. Right?

God makes you aware of your sin. Do you think God makes you aware of every single one of your sins every day? do you think he does the answer is no if he did you wouldn get out of bed in the morning Right Most of us sin before our feet even hit the floor But he doesn't constantly chide you. He doesn't constantly point out what you're doing wrong. And he doesn't smolder with anger.

Right? He doesn't keep his anger forever. He's not this kind of a father who smolders with his anger and constantly gives off the attitude of, can't you do anything right? He's always kind of grumpy and out of sorts. That's not God. Because He sees you like His own son Jesus.

And He loves you like He loves His own son Jesus. That's the kind of love He has. And He doesn't deal with you in heavy-handed execution of justice. But He tempers that justice. Verse 10. He doesn't deal with you according to your sin.

He doesn't respond to your infidelity. And by the way, did you notice how James describes our sin? He describes it as adultery. Isn't that an awful way? Isn't that an awful picture of sin? When we're adulterous?

But God does not respond by saying, Oh, you've been unfaithful to me? Fine. Then I'm not going to be faithful to you either. Does He do that? No, He doesn't repay us as our iniquities deserve. He doesn't repay us in the way that we deserve.

Why? One of the most profound statements there are is found in Isaiah 53. Where it says about God, for it was His will to crush Him. It was His will to crush Him. That is, to the servant of the Lord, to Jesus. It was His will to crush Him instead of you.

Wow. that's why that is why he can say I'm not going to repay you in the way that your sin deserves because I crushed my son in your place again let's continue God loves you with an immeasurable love verses 11 and 12 for as high as the heavens are above the earth so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him as far as the east is from the west so far does he remove our transgression from us Can you measure the distance between the earth and the sky Like where does sky start Three feet Ten feet Three miles Where does sky start Can you measure that Can you measure that If you can measure that, then you've found the measure of the love of God. But you can't. If you travel east, if you get in a plane and you travel east, how long will it take you to reach the end of east well you just keep going because you're always traveling east right as far as east is from the west how do you measure that you can't measure that but when you reach the place where east ends that's where you'll find your transgressions and the point is you'll never get there You will never get there.

Can you see what he's saying here? This to me is one of the most profound statements about forgiveness. Right here. As high as the heavens are above the earth. Right? That's how far he's removed your sin.

As far as the east is from the west. That's how far he's removed your sin. It's like you can't get to them. Do you ever reflect on that? You know what we want to do? We want to wallow in our sin.

We don't want to say God's removed it. We want to say, oh, I've done it. Oh, I'm such a rotten person. And you are! But God, because of Christ, does not hold that against you. Some of you are sitting here thinking right now, boy, if people really believe that, they'd go crazy in their sin.

And the answer is, no, they won't. When you get a hold of grace, you understand what God has done for you, and you love Him because of it. Listen, folks, I'm preaching to myself here, okay? I'm preaching to myself. We tend to wallow in our sins. We tend to say, God, I'm going to show you just how sorry I am, and I'm going to keep thinking about what I've done wrong.

And so we wallow in it, and we start feeling sorry for ourselves, and we start saying, see, God, see how much, see how bad I am. How many points are you going to get for that? How many points are you going to get for that? God's removed your iniquity thank him for it and love him for it don wallow in it stop that I preaching to myself here folks this is something that I think needs to grip our hearts as far as the east is from the west yesterday's transgressions are gone stop thinking about it and move forward and say God I love you and I'm going to love you with my obedience and when I disobey I can confess it knowing that he will forgive it in Christ who was crushed for us so that that iniquity is removed.

And I can say, God, by Your power, I will not do that again. But God, I want to love You. I want to love You. See? Oh man, I think sometimes we're so stunted in our growth because we do not believe that statement. He's removed it.

He's removed it. Now you. grow. That's immeasurable love. But now, verses 13 and 14, here's an intimate love. This is a love that's very close. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.

For he knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. He is like a father with his children. He has great compassion. This is a warm and deeply affectionate term. Dads, do you know what that's like?

I remember it. I can remember one of my first experiences as a father when I felt like that. Calvin was probably about two days old and you know the whole Billy Rubens things I can never quite remember all that. And they say, well you can take him home but you've got to bring him in and get his blood drawn tomorrow so we can check his Billy Rubens and all that.

I still see this as like it was yesterday. I'm holding my little baby boy, my first one, right? And they're taking his heel and they're poking him, right? And he starts crying. It's like, see, I've never had this before, right? I've never had this feeling before.

It's like, man, this is, what are they doing? And they kept poking and they couldn't get blood. And they finally gave up on that heel and they moved to the other one. And it got to the point where he cried so much he couldn't cry anymore. You talk about devastating. It was like, ah, this is awful.

This is terrible. I'd never felt that before. That's how God feels towards us, you see? That's how God feels towards us. He has that kind of compassion for us. He knows you as deeply as he cares for you as well.

He knows that you are frail. He knows that you are formed from dust. You have a frame of dust. You have a frame of dust. I was a pastor for about two months, and I heard this old pastor speak. I was at some pastor's meeting.

I don't quite remember. This old guy was speaking to us. He was a pastor, had been a pastor like for 90 years, you know, one of those old guys. And he was talking about his daughter and how one of the children or something had leukemia or something. And it was very hard on him. And he said, this is, and so I said to my daughter, the Lord knows that your frame is made of dust.

And he will not put more on that frame than it can handle. That's how God knows you. He knows you're frail. He knows that you're made of dust. And He will not crush you. He'll never do that to you.

That is an intimate love. He loves you with compassion and He knows you deeply. But that's not all. Verses 15 through 18. All right? He loves you with an eternal love.

As for man, his days are like grass. He flourishes like a flower of the field for the wind passes over it and it is gone and its place knows it no more But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him and His righteousness to children's children, to those who keep His covenant and remember to do His commandments. Do you know how short life is? now some of you who are you know not even 40 yet you're not quite catching it but life is really short life is really short looking at those pictures the other day you know of my children when they were babies and little children I'm thinking of one picture where the kids are in the backyard and you can see all the way back to the field because there are no trees.

No trees at all. And I'm thinking, wow, that was just yesterday. And here my children are grown and you can't see past our property because we planted a million trees out there. Right? And you can kind of see these little stubs where we planted the orchard and stuff. Now our place is just covered with these trees.

And I'm thinking, that was just yesterday. That was just yesterday. Levi's looking at a picture where they're going on the low boy, which is a low trailer that's stacked with corn stalks. He's just a little boy. And they're going out to feed it to the cows at Grandpa's farm. And he says I remember that day vividly Right And that was just like yesterday Wasn high school just yesterday Right That how life short is I mean that how short life is That's how short life is.

It's like a flower that blooms and then the wind blows over it and it's gone. And it's gone. It's short. It's transitory. But God's love is not like that. God's love is not like that.

He says it's an eternal love. The steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting for those who belong to Him. His love began before you existed. And His love will go beyond your death. That's the love of God. From eternity to eternity.

It starts in eternity and it will see you all the way to glory. God's love will never disappear over the shortness of your life. Every day of your life, if you belong to him through Christ, then every day you can count on his love. It's steadfast. He will not back away. So with all that in mind, what should you do?

We've looked at these verses. Verses 19 through 22. Praise God for his love. Praise God for his love. the King of all should be praised by all. Are you praising Him? Do you praise Him daily?

Do you praise Him individually? Do we praise Him corporately? Do we praise Him for His love That how you can love God you love him with praise so can the world see your love for God it can if we rouse ourselves to praise it can if we don't forget if we purposely reflect on the love that God has for us always remember, as we've said in weeks past now, our love is always a response to God's love.

Therefore, reflect on that love. Think about that love. So that you can love God. And we ought to praise Him and love Him in such a way that people can see our love for Him. How do we do that? Reflect on it.

Look at the glories of it. Look at the greatness of it. and watch what happens to your heart. Father, thank you for telling us of your great love. Father, we know that we can only love you when we understand more fully your love for us. So help us to respond. Help us to respond in love for you.

In a love that finds its expression in obedience. in a love that finds expression in love for others, in a love that so enraptures us that others will know that we love you. Help us to love you with our heart and soul and mind. In Jesus' name, amen.