Nourishing: Faith (Psalm 103)
Having lamented in week one and considered what we have learnt from God during the pandemic in week two, we are now encouraged to look at nourishing our faith, so that we may deepen our awareness of the goodness of God. Being confident and to trust and grow in our knowledge and love of all we have been given by God.
Psalm 103 glorifies the God of grace, it is attributed to David who throughout praises God and acknowledges his majesty and sovereignty.
Here are a couple of quotes from those who have studied the Psalm in detail:
Charles Spurgeon “We should attribute the Psalm to David’s later years when he had a higher sense of the preciousness of pardon, because a keener sense of sin, than in his younger days. His clear sense of the frailty of life indicates his weaker years, as also does the very fullness of his praiseful gratitude.”
G. Campbell Morgan “It is perhaps the most perfect song of pure praise to be found in the Bible…. Through centuries it has been sung by glad hearts, and today is as fresh and full of beauty as ever.”
Nourishing our faith is a lifelong work, worship, prayer in all its forms, service and being open to the Holy Spirit, is all part of how we can grow in our spiritual life and faith journey. As we come out of this time of lockdown, the need to gather as the body of Christ is increasingly vital, so we can be connected with each other, supporting, sharing and enjoying all that being together means. In this Psalm of David we see not only praise but also explore forgiveness, anger, love and heaven…..it’s a full Psalm and hopefully we will all be able to engage with it and see something new that we hadn’t noticed before.
Please read the Psalm through together
Verses 1-2: This is a true psalm of life; the experience of expressing all that is within us is powerful. David cries out from the depth of his being to praise. We all express our praise to God in different ways, not one way is better than another. David understood that worship was something from within, it’s not so much about the exterior way we show this but what is happening on the interior of our lives that is important.
Q. Do you relate to the opening two verses? How do you praise God in your life?
Verses 3-5: David gives us great hope in nourishing our faith with the truth about forgiveness, how we are forgiven and out of love of God we are then able to praise. In v. 12 we have an amazing promise of forgiveness ‘as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our sin from us’ Jesus goes on in Matthew 6 v 14-15 to teach us how we should forgive.
The themes of healing and compassion then follow on, some feel that David is referring to spiritual ‘disease’ (i.e.) the sin in our lives. God lavishes his compassion on us and promises to ‘satisfy our desires’, so that we can be ‘renewed’
Q. How do we respond to these words, live them out in our lives – as we nourish and grow our faith, do we all need to be intentional and challenge ourselves?
Q. What holds us back in receiving and giving forgiveness? Is sin, healing and compassion relevant to us as we nourish our faith?
Verses 6-7: The Psalmist talks in these few verses about righteousness and justice. Jesus hungered and thirst for righteousness and justice Matthew 5 v. 6 says we are blessed if we seek them.
Q. How do we not get so pre-occupied with our own lives so that we might not forget to strive for justice for those in our society who are oppressed?
Verses 8-10: If we look at God’s character here in these two verses, we can learn a lot of how we can nourish our faith. David speaks of God’s ways - compassion, slowness in getting angry, abounding in love. These aspects of God’s character are true and so also is the mercy and graciousness of God…..his anger comes, but slowly and after mercy has been shown. In Exodus 34 v.6 we see the same characteristics. These few words give us a glimpse into David’s relationship with God, he see beyond and he grasps the deeper truths.
Q. Discuss together how we might grow in these ways? How do we allow ‘anger’ to be expressed in our lives? Can we be angry with God? And how do we use righteous anger to change un-justice situations in our world?
Verses 11-12: ‘for high as the heavens are above the earth’ there were three concepts of heaven in the ancient Biblical world. The first heaven is the blue sky, the atmosphere with its sun. The second heaven is the night sky, the stars and constellations. The third heaven is the place where God dwells and is enthroned. It’s interesting to wonder which of the three concepts of heaven David had in mind with this wonderful statement. ‘as far as the east is from the west’ We have no idea if David knew the shape of the earth, but the Holy Spirit who inspired David to write this did, and the nature of the earth and our way of describing directions makes this statement particularly inspiring. If you travel north on a globe, you begin to travel south as soon as you go over the North Pole. But if you travel east, you will continue east forever. Given the true shape of the earth, east and west never meet – and this is how far God has removed our sins from us!
Q. How do you respond to this?
Verses 13-14: David continues to describe the abounding mercy and goodness of God. The way that a good father cares for children. Think of a loving father or mother dealing with a tired child, they don’t demand more of them than they can do, the loving care of a parent takes into account their weaknesses.
Q. If you are a parent, do you relate to this?
“We may lose ourselves amid the amplitudes of the lofty, wide-stretching sky, but this emblem of paternal love goes straight to our hearts.’’ (Maclaren)
The word ‘formed’ comes from the same root as the verb employed in Genesis 2:7 to describe man’s creation. ‘The Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground. It is also used for the potter’s action in moulding earthen vessels in Isaiah 29:16 so, ‘dust’ carries on the idea of the fragility of man and woman.
Q. In ‘fearing’ the Lord, do we know how we have been formed, what does it mean to us?
Verses 15-19: Humanity is so transient that our days are like grass and like a flower of the field that blooms one day and withers the next. When the flower is gone, virtually nothing remains – its place remembers it no more. This is true of God’s mercy and of God Himself, the source of mercy. His covenant love, loyal kindness – endures from all ages to all ages. God’s love does not alter or change with our response to him.
Q. God’s love is everlasting, we have been loved from the beginning……do we take the magnitude of this deep within or do we read this and see that we need to do certain things in order to receive God’s love?
David celebrates God’s secure reign from heaven. God is enthroned in heaven, beyond the troubles and corruptions of earth. It is established, and will never be moved. An eternal contrast is made between the Ruler and the ruled. There is no aspect of the universe that is not under His reign.
Q. As we nourish our faith, how do you understand ‘heaven’? Do you feel that sometimes when we read bible passages that we are left with more questions?
Verses 20-22: David began the psalm by telling his own soul to bless the Lord, but he knew the praise and honour to God should go beyond what he could give, he commands the angels and heavenly hosts to praise God as well……all creation sings ‘all his works’. In contrast we are but a small part of the praise. David ends the psalm as he began it, with a call to his own soul to bless God, giving Him the honour and praise due to Him.
Q. How do we want to praise the Lord in response to this Psalm, now we have studied it?
Prayer
Spend some time as a group offering prayers of praise to God, use the Psalm to help offer you words that you would echo in your praise. If you are able to sing, then please do that as well! Bless the Lord all my Soul . . . Amen