Today we will be celebrating the sacrament of Baptism for two lovely little girls. The parents have chosen Psalm 103 and Psalm 145, with the title of the message being: The Lord is Compassionate and Gracious. Both these psalms focus on praising the Lord for being a God of forgiveness, a God who does awesome works, whose greatness no one can fathom. Our God is compassionate and gracious, who calls us to tell his stories to our children and our children’s children so that they too will believe in and love our Lord.
Today we will be celebrating the sacrament of Baptism for two lovely little girls. The parents have chosen Psalm 103 and Psalm 145, with the title of the message being: The Lord is Compassionate and Gracious. Both these psalms focus on praising the Lord for being a God of forgiveness, a God who does awesome works, whose greatness no one can fathom. Our God is compassionate and gracious, who calls us to tell his stories to our children and our children’s children so that they too will believe in and love our Lord.
The Lord is Compassionate and Gracious
Psalm 103—Psalm 145
February 20, 2022
What a beautiful moment we’ve just experienced together in the baptisms of Leigh and Irelyn. Sacraments are holy acts where God reaches down to us, acts which call for a response from us. Travis and Mary, Bowen and Rebekah, you’ve chosen Scripture that calls us to respond; to respond with praise to God for his faithfulness expressed in the baptism of your beautiful daughters. Both of these psalms are hymns of praise and trust in the Lord, hymns that remind us of who God is, and who we are, his people, his children.
Psalm 103 praises God for his great love and is part of a group of psalms from 101 to 110 that tell the story of God’s relationship with his people from creation until these psalms were written, how God saved his people and provides for them; they talk about to God’s mighty acts in saving his people, how God is a God of justice and unfailing love, and how God responds to his people’s cries. Psalm 103 and 108 pair together in this group to celebrate and praise God for his great love.
I appreciate Bowen and Rebekah how you pointed out how the Lord’s faithfulness and compassion is limitless and goes on beyond our lifetime, “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 obey his precepts.” Our Lord is committed to us beyond our own lifetime, but he’s committed to us down the generations, calling us to respond to him with obedience and faithfulness and to teach our children to be obedient and faithful to God.
This is a very personal psalm, “Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name,” the writer is writing this psalm to himself, reminding himself of the importance of praising the Lord, because we often get so caught up in the day-to-day things of life that we can forget. It can be hard to remember to praise the Lord when the kids have been fussing all day, when work is hard, when you are tired or not feeling well. Through it all, we are reminded that the Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love; so great is his love that as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
You mentioned how you see these verses 8-11 showing how God relates to us as the ultimate parent, the one both you and Rebekah can look to as you seek to parent your children. We see a compassionate Father, one who doesn’t get angry quickly, and allows love to flow out of him into his children, giving them a strong sense of belonging and importance, that he is on our side filled with grace and forgiveness, while also calling us to respond with obedience and faithfulness back. Great parenting advice and skills here!
Travis and Mary, you chose Psalm 145, one of the early psalms of ascent that the pilgrims to the Temple would sing as they walked the road up to Jerusalem, keeping their eyes focused upwards to see the house of the Lord. This is also a psalm of praise, a hymn of celebration calling us to praise the name of God the King. Like Psalm 103, this psalm is an acrostic poem where each verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. As one writer put it, these types of psalms basically describe their topic from a to z. In the twenty-one-verses of Psalm 145, King David leads the Israelites and all of creation in words of praise and thanksgiving to God as king over all creation. The heart of the psalm is found in verses 10-18, verses that describe God’s sovereignty over creation and God’s care for that creation. As you mentioned, one of the things that drew you to this psalm was that God is above all and eternal, king of an everlasting kingdom. There’s no fear that Jesus’ kingdom will ever fall, we can live with courage and grace knowing that Jesus is in control and will remain in control of all creation, including our lives.
You pointed to verses 3-5, “Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom. One generation commends your works to another; they tell of your mighty acts. They speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty—and I will meditate on your wonderful works.” What stood out for you was how we are called to tell our children what God has done, from creation to saving his people. We’re called to talk to our children about who God is, of God’s majesty, but you also are called to show your children how God shapes you as you meditate on his wonderful works, allowing the Holy Spirit to shape who you are as parents and as children of God. Teaching the stories of God and allowing them to guide you and shape you as parents will fill your children with confidence and assurance as they listen and watch your faith in action. The psalm begins by reminding us that our God is King, a majestic king who has done great things for his people to show the nations around Israel who he is.
Both of these psalms talk about God being compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and rich in love. This is the type of king God is, a God who is focused on his people, on providing for them, protecting them, and providing opportunities for them to flourish and become who God has created them to be. This is why we come together each Sunday to worship and praise God, this is why we share the stories of God with our children, so they learn to praise God as a natural part of their lives and grow up wanting to share Jesus with their friends. Sharing our faith, talking about Jesus, begins really early on in our lives and our children’s lives.
Praising God is the beginning of our response to who he is. As Psalm 103 tells us to “Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all 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 eagle’s.” These are beautiful promises to fill us with strength, courage and hope as we journey through life, important promises to teach out children. We see the Lord’s great love for us especially in Jesus, who in his death on the cross, removed our sin from us, offering healing in times of despair, who has saved us from the power and hold of death over our lives, as we know that our physical death now leads to eternal life with God, the fear has been taken away.
Nancy deClaissé-Walford reflects on Psalm 145, “The message for the church today is simple and yet complex. In the midst of turmoil and uncertainty in the world, praising God as sovereign is the solution. But what does that mean? We can speak the words, but how do we put them into action? God is indeed sovereign, but we must be the hands and feet of God in God’s world — what some scholars call “a communitization” of kingship.”
King David goes on in Psalm 103, “The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed. He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel.” We teach our children God’s ways, what Jesus taught and who he calls us to be as his followers. We are the hands and feet that Jesus uses to work for righteousness and justice for all the oppressed, we teach our children through our actions as well as our words. We have many groups in our community who can benefit from volunteers coming in to help them in the ministries God has called them to.
This week I met with the director of the Central Alberta Pregnancy Center who shared how they volunteers are such a blessing as they walk alongside single mothers who often don’t have any other place to go, here in Lacombe there’s Big Brothers and Big Sisters who are always seeking people to become mentors to children in our community who can use the encourage and blessing of someone willing to care and bless them. There’s Youth Unlimited, the Food Bank and others who are serving the most vulnerable and would be blessed by having others join them in their mission of working towards righteousness and justice.