Freshbrook Church Podcast | 09Aug26 | Who Is God | Mike Workman

Mike Workman continues our Summer Series - The Characteristics of God (Todays characteristic is 4 - Mercy/Grace).  

Today's passage is - Psalm 103.

Transcript

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Right, we're going to read from Psalm 103. Praise the Lord, O my soul, or my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all of his benefits, who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed. He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel. The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbour his anger for ever. He does not treat us as our sins deserve, or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him. As far as the East is from the West, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. For he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field, the wind blows over it, and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But from everlasting to everlasting, the Lord's love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children's children, with those who keep his covenant and remember to his obey his precepts. The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.

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You love us. Thank you. Please, Lord, help us to be good listeners, good learners. Speak to us deeply and clearly. In Jesus' name. Amen. You are blessed people. Not just because God has given you his son to give you life, but in particular, this summer you have this series where you are looking at the attributes, the characteristics of God. Time focused on who God is. Eight wonderful weeks. We're only halfway through. But we have a problem. You have a problem, because eight weeks is not enough.

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Okay?

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Eight years would not be enough to give a full picture of God. Words are not enough. In a sense, how dare we limit God by thinking that we can describe him in words? He is infinite in all his ways. He is apart from us, but personable at the same time. I mean, how can this be described? Psalm 145. Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise. His greatness no one can fathom. Job chapter 1. Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? But somehow God is knowable. Jesus explained that eternal life is to know Him through Jesus, who shows us how knowable God is. Spiritual blindness caused by sin makes us by nature disinterested in God. We may believe He exists, but naturally we have no idea of the beauty within him, of the jaw-dropping beauty of what he is like. It's like we're in Trafalgar Square, looking at the National Gallery, but not bothering to go in to see the paintings, even though the entrance is free. Now, using this analogy, I want us to go inside the psalm that was read, Psalm 103, and try to describe what we see, knowing that we will be overwhelmed, that we will be speechless because words are not enough. It's the interaction with God that matters. It's the impact that He has on us. And we must pray. Lord, don't only open our eyes, please touch our hearts. So let me this morning be your tour guide to the wonders of this psalm. The theme of our tour is the beauty of mercy and of grace. We will look at the context, the personal experience of the author, over the author, and then we will look at some examples that he gives, asking finally how we should respond. It's an understatement to say that King David, who wrote the psalm, was excited about God. In fact, more than excited, he was overwhelmed. And at the beginning of the psalm, he challenges himself to make sure he's fully awake. He knows that we cannot, in fact, we must not walk into God's word lightly or just use our senses of sight and sound. David's soul, indeed, his whole body must be awake and alive as he meditates on the mercy and grace of God. So first he speaks to himself. Praise the Lord, my soul, all my inmost being. Praise his holy name. In London these days, many venues offer what they call immersive experiences. Maybe in a restaurant with a thrilling, totally integrated decor that has food to match. Or more likely, in a hall with surround sound where projected waves are crashing on the walls and beneath you on the floor, while lightning flashes overhead and the ship is struggling to stay afloat. The whole experience gets you in the gut so that you hold tight to the person who's sitting next to you, totally immersed. This is how we must come to God's word. Fully awake and expecting to be immersed. Praise the Lord, my soul. Please touch me, Lord, to my very core. And my soul don't forget his past blessings. Why does David say that? Because we are forgetful people. You are here today because of God's blessings to you in the past. And I am here today to share some of my experiences of God with you. I have to say, I'm sorry, Lord, I forget so easily. You have forgiven all of my sin and healed all of my diseases. And you and I together are here, Lord, for all of us to know you better as rescued people. David speaks of God rescuing him in verse four. When I was stuck, you lifted me up. When I was alone, you crowned me with love and compassion. And verse five, you gave me satisfaction. So many blessings, Lord God, that my youth is renewed. Now I'm 77, but because of you, Lord, I feel I'm still twenty-five. May the visitors to this gallery, this art gallery of Psalm 103, be touched by your mercy and grace, your kindness and your love, not only in the pictures, but also hopefully in me. Please make this tour impactful, Lord, for all of us. We come to the first picture, which is in verse six. And we see David talking about God having mercy on people who are badly treated. That he relieves them with liberty and justice. He's not obliged to have mercy on them, but he does, because mercy is characteristic of who he is. And as you look at this picture, you can see the smiles coming on the faces of the people in the painting. Not only has God freed them, but in his grace, their whole circumstances have been put right. Now in Cambodia, near the OM office, there is a slum. It is an awful place of hopelessness. But when slum dwellers receive Christ, they receive hope. And what happens is that their demeanor changes. And they leave the slum. In Christ, they realize that they aren't stuck anymore. Because one of the many wonderful things about grace is that it equips people to lead moral lives. Now, in our tour of the National Gallery, let's move on to the next room, where there is a painting that takes up a whole wall. Verses 7 to 12. It's about David's predecessors, that after 400 years of slavery in Egypt, they were led by God back to the land that he had promised them. He saw that they were suffering, and under Moses' leadership, he restored them to the promised land. Were they faithful on this journey home? Absolutely not. They yearned to be back in Egypt. They feared they would die on the journey. They made a golden idol for themselves and they worshipped it while Moses was away receiving God's law. They deserved to die. And most of them did. God still took their children home. Verse 9. David speaking. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever. He is merciful and graceful. Verse 12, his grace doesn't just cover our sins, it removes them altogether. Do you want to know how great God's love towards you is? It's as high as the heavens are above the earth, and as wide as east is from west. In his mercy, God relents from giving us the bad things that we deserve. And in his grace, he gives us good things that we don't deserve. As individuals or as a whole people, which is why the picture on this wall is so big. Mercy and grace are God's love in action. The picture in the next room, verses 13 to 18, is also large, but the tone is different. It's soft and gentle. It's of God as our Father, and of us with him as his children. Seeing his picture, we realize he knows how frail we are. We are transient, insignificant in the passage of time, but not to him. From the beginning to the end of time, God has loved us and will love us. He gives us the grace of righteousness, of being able to stand in his presence and be counted. And I can tell you today that if you fear God, if you hear him in your hearts and you aspire to be like him, it doesn't matter how weak you are. In his presence you can stand up and be counted. Each of you is and always has been valuable. Much, much love. Mercy, grace, kindness, compassion, peace, safety, and strength, all of these things are yours in Christ. So David, awake and alive, has given us three beautiful paintings to reflect on, to be immersed in. The first set the scene that God provides righteousness for us humans who are bowed down by sin. The second picture showed how mercy and grace have brought us to where we are. The third picture shows who we are, that we can stand before God as our Father in heaven. Significant, neither weak nor buffeted. How are we to respond? Verses nineteen to twenty two. We acknowledge the sovereignty of God over heaven and over everything created, over the spiritual and the material. He is more than worthy of our praise. Our very souls must join in the chorus there in the last line. Praise the Lord, O my soul. Now let's look at mercy and grace separately and then together. In the Bible, the words mercy and merciful have Hebrew roots which may be translated elsewhere as kindness, grace, favor, loving kindness, and goodness. Together, all these things picture the overall kindness of God, of his faithfulness in the face of our unworthiness and our defection. That God relents from giving us the bad things that we justly deserve. Through the whole Old Testament, God persistently refuses to wash his hands of his wayward people. Mercy is so characteristic of God that in the New Testament Paul describes God as the Father of mercies. It's because of his mercy that we are saved. That's in Ephesians. Jesus bids us to be merciful as our Father in heaven is merciful. Luke chapter 6. And Jesus says, Blessed are we if we are merciful, for we will receive mercy. And you will know Jesus' prayer from the cross. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. That is total mercy. Grace, because we're looking at these two things together, is associated with the blessings of God, of his many gifts to us, and of the change that he works in us through Jesus and the Holy Spirit. It's associated with forgiveness, salvation, and repentance. Grace is about making God making people new. And we can say that grace came into the world in Christ. There can be no greater blessing, no gift greater for us than him. And I can say for myself that I was unworthy of Christ, that my life was a mess until Jesus came into it. Many of Jesus' parables, like the prodigal son and the laborers in the vineyard, these parables teach us the doctrine of grace. In fact, mercy and grace together are two sides of the same coin. They both carry the message that God is kind, that he is generous, that he is a giver, that love overflows, overflows from him to us. And taken together, they also show that God is thorough. Okay? There's nothing missing in what God does for us. He doesn't only not give us the bad we deserve for being wayward, he also gives us the many good things we need but don't deserve. There's something very complete in this. Mercy by itself deals with our sin. But we need more than that. We need God's renewing gifts to properly live. We need both mercy and grace together to be totally restored. Mercy doesn't come before grace, nor grace before mercy, because mercy is itself a grace. And that God gives us grace is a mercy. They have to be taken together. And together, mercy and grace show us how it is possible for us to know God. In this sermon series so far, you have covered what we might call some of the intangible characteristics of God. That he is self-existent, that he is holy, that he is inherently good. Now, today we discover that through his mercy and grace, God is, can we say this, tangible? Wow. Next week you will see that God is also totally love. Many events in the Bible demonstrate how mercy and grace go together. Like when Jesus restores Peter, after Peter had denied knowing Jesus. Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, I do. Then feed my sheep. That is total restoration through mercy and grace. You'll recall that after Adam and Eve listened in Genesis listened to Satan and they disobeyed God, they realized that they were naked. Ashamed. They used fig leaves to cover themselves. But God, showing his mercy, did not want them to suffer more. So he replaced the leaves with better clothing. Clothes from the skin of a sacrificed animal. Mercy and his grace together providing full covering, the beginning of restoration. In the New Testament, Thomas wasn't with the disciples when Jesus had appeared to them. We don't know why. Maybe he was busy with something, so he couldn't come. But later, when Jesus appears again, Jesus singles him out. Thomas, come. This was mercy. That there was no blame, that Thomas hadn't been with the group before. But Jesus wanted Thomas to be sure. Go on, Thomas, touch my wounds. I want you to be sure that I am worthy of your worship. Wow. What kindness. What mercy. What grace that Jesus should give Thomas individual attention. He wants us to be sure about him. Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. Who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God that God should repay them? For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. Tell me, are you amazed at how much David understood of God before most of the prophets or Jesus had come? How did he get this understanding? How much understanding do you and I who know Jesus have? Tell me, are you amazed at God's kindness to you? At the mercy and grace that He has shown you? Tell me, do you show mercy and grace to others? Are you kind as God is kind? It is the mercy of God that Jesus took our sin on himself. It is the grace of God that through Jesus' resurrection we are restored people. So we're going to pray now and then we're going to respond in our final hymn that I chose because it's a hymn of amazement. And can it be that I and you fresh people can gain an interest in the Savior's blood? So let's pray. Father, as I preach this morning, I am convinced more than ever that your grace, your mercy, your glory, the totality of who you are, Lord, cannot be expressed in words. And we pray, Lord, for we pray for ourselves, we pray for the people sitting next to us. We pray for Swindon. That Lord, you will impact our hearts. And that we will find you are more knowable than ever we realized. And that in our day-to-day demeanor, in our work, in our homes, with our kids, with our grandkids, we are showing them the grace and the kindness of God. Lord, please help these things to be embedded in us by the power of the Spirit and in the name of Jesus. Amen.