Introduction
A man goes to the confessional. "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned."
"What is your sin, my child?" The priest asks back. "Well," the man starts, "I used some horrible language this week and feel absolutely terrible." "When did you use this awful language?" said the priest. "I was golfing and hit an incredible drive that looked like it was going to go over 250 yards, but it struck a phone line hanging over the fairway and fell straight down to the ground after going only about 100 yards." "Is that when you swore?" "No, Father." Said the man. "After that, a squirrel ran out of the bushes, grabbed my ball in his mouth, and began to run away." "Is THAT when you swore?" asked the Father again. "Well, no." said the man, "You see, as the squirrel was running, an eagle came down out of the sky, grabbed the squirrel in his talons, and began to fly away!" "Is THAT when you swore?" asked the amazed Priest. "No, not yet." The man replied. "As the eagle carried the squirrel away in his claws, it flew towards the green. And as it passed over a bit of forest near the green, the squirrel dropped my ball." "Did you swear THEN?" asked the now impatient Priest. "No, because as the ball fell, it struck a tree, bounced through some bushes, careened off a big rock, rolled through a sand trap onto the green, and stopped within six inches of the hole." "You missed the putt, didn't you?" sighed the Priest.
We, as humans, love to keep score. Not just with games and sports, but with almost every aspect of life. We keep count of everything. In sports, it's a fun competition. But in many areas of life, keeping score isn't always the best approach. We keep count of what others do to us, we keep count of what we do right, and privately, we keep count of what we do wrong. All this keeping score, though, usually doesn't bring us victory. More often than not, keeping count causes us to lose.
During a British conference on comparative religions, experts worldwide debated what, if any, belief was unique to the Christian faith. They began eliminating possibilities. The debate went on for some time until C.S. Lewis wandered into the room. “What’s the ruckus about?” he asked and heard in reply that his colleagues were discussing Christianity’s unique contribution among world religions. Lewis responded, “Oh, that’s easy, it’s grace.” After some discussion, all the scholars agreed.
The notion of God’s love coming to us free of charge, with no strings attached, seems to go against every instinct of humanity. How can God, with humanity’s fallen state, freely grant us good things we do not deserve, like forgiveness? He's got to be keeping count of our failures. We would.
Psalm 103, which is referred to as a hymn, was written by King David. Our passage today is from Psalm 103, and in His song, David shows us the wonderful truth that God loses count of our failures.
Bible Passage
Psalms 103:8-14 (ESV)
8 The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
9 He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever.
10 He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
13 As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
14 For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.
Scriptural Analysis
Verse 8
Verse 8 is a direct quotation from Exodus 34, when God declared to Moses and proclaimed, “The Lord is a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” This verse sets the tone for the entire passage, emphasizing God's compassionate nature. It showcases God's willingness to extend forgiveness and patience toward those who have sinned and failed.
The mercy of God is one of God’s most apparent attributes. Throughout the Bible, God’s mercy is pictured not only as God’s disposition but as his action on behalf of an undeserving people. The Bible often pairs other divine attributes with “mercy”: compassion, grace, faithfulness, and kindness. God has freely made promises of mercy to his people despite our repeated failures. God is who he is, regardless of what his people do or don't do. His love and mercy are not predicated on our perfect behavior. God simply is who he is by nature: merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in love.
Verses 9-10
Verse 9 emphasizes God's limitless love and compassion, stating that He will not always accuse or harbor anger towards us. We understand this truth in the New Testament as it proclaims all of God's wrath was poured out on Jesus. God's love is greater than any wrongdoing we may have committed.
The positive restatement of God’s character in verse 8 is followed by four negated statements meant to indicate clearly what God is not like or how he will not behave. Accusation and anger are, of course, appropriate responses of a holy God to the sins of his people, but he will do neither indefinitely. As a gracious God, he does not seek to repay us in accordance with our human fallibility.
The psalmist goes a step further in verse 10, asserting that God never punishes his people as severely as their sins deserve. God's grace is undeserved and beyond measure. God's divine mercy overrides the consequences we humans deserve due to our sinful nature.
God corrects and disciplines His people, but His anger is not permanent. Instead, He desires reconciliation and restoration. This verse reminds us that God's forgiveness is not based on our deserving or earning it. God extends His mercy and grace to us freely.
Verses 11-13
Now follows three similes that beautifully illustrate the extent of God’s grace and love toward his people. The height of the sky above the earth is the only concept that comes close to exemplifying the span of God’s steadfast love for his people. This imagery conveys the incomprehensible magnitude of God's love for us. It emphasizes that His love is boundless and beyond our understanding.
In similar terms, only the unending and immeasurable distance between East and West can illustrate the extent of the removal of sin from a forgiven people. This imagery illustrates the complete removal of our sins and the distance they are separated from us. It signifies God's ability to cleanse and purify us, leaving no trace of our past failures.
Verse 13 emphasizes His understanding of our weaknesses and His willingness to offer comfort and forgiveness. The compassionate love of a father for his children is the only human experience that can, however inadequately, approximate God’s love for his children. These three images are rich and vivid. Anyone can grasp their intent and importance: love that extends beyond our ability to conceptualize, the absolute removal of sins, and the compassionate care of parents for their own children. These verses portray the immeasurable magnitude of God's love, the depth of God's forgiveness, and His tender care and empathy.
Verse 14
Finally, verse 14 acknowledges the frailty of our human nature, comparing it to dust. However, it also acknowledges God's steadfast love that endures forever. This verse reminds us of our reliance on God's mercy and the assurance that His love remains constant, regardless of our shortcomings. God understands our human frailty and weakness. He knows our limitations and does not expect perfection from us. Instead, He extends His mercy and compassion, recognizing our humanity. God remembers our finite nature and is, therefore, all the more willing to limitlessly extend his grace to us.
TODAY'S KEY TRUTH
God is Forgiving, and He doesn't Keep Count of Our Failures.
Psalm 103:8-14 beautifully expresses the character of God as a merciful, gracious, loving, and forgiving Father. It assures us that His love is immeasurable, His forgiveness is complete, and His compassion is ever-present. It reminds us that God's nature is to extend mercy to those who fear Him, and He understands our human limitations and weaknesses.
David realizes that the Lord is a forgiving God. David was an adulterer, murderer, and a liar. David has been forgiven, healed, redeemed, crowned, and renewed. He has experienced the love, compassion, mercy, and grace that only God can provide. God forgave all his iniquities. That does beg the question, how can God do that? Just like that? Does God actually say, “We won’t count the adultery. We won’t count the murder. It's forgotten. We just won’t count it.” Everything in us cries out, “Wait a minute, it can't be that simple.”
The notion of God’s love coming to us free of charge, with no strings attached, seems to go against every instinct of humanity. The Buddhists have an eight-point plan, the Hindus the doctrine of karma, the Jews the covenant, and the Muslims the code of law. Each of these offers a way to earn approval and possible redemption. Only Christianity dares to make God’s love and forgiveness unconditional.
In America, there's no such thing as a free lunch. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. We make our money the old-fashioned way; we earn it. Go to work and bring home the bacon. Americans are pros at performance, and we understand little about grace. The American work ethic says, "You get what you pay for. You get what you deserve." That makes it very hard to relate to the fact that God is a gracious God. You can't earn this.
The most fundamental truth of Christianity is that Jesus Christ has already paid for all your sins. All you have to do is accept it. There is no reason to go around with a bunch of guilt. We are free. Free from condemnation, free from guilt, free from worry, free from death, free from having to earn it. Even if there were no heaven, becoming a Christian would be worth it just to have a clear conscience. God doesn't keep score. There is no reason to live in regret or loss. There's no reason to live in guilt. That is such good news. God's saving grace removes my guilt.
God is Forgiving, and He doesn't Keep Count of Our Failures.
Our struggle is that we have been completely wrapped up in God's wrath for the last few centuries. God is angry. God is waiting to strike you down. He's angry; therefore, if He forgives you, it's begrudgingly and with a scowl. Thankfully, there are a lot of incorrect understandings of God's wrath.
Wrath is not an eternal attribute of God like love and holiness. It is his reaction in time to the phenomenon of sin. Wrath is not natural to God in the way that mercy is. Isaiah 28:21 calls it his “strange work,” his “alien task.” God is “slow to anger,” as the Old Testament repeatedly states, while he delights in showing mercy. Parents who have disciplined their children understand this.
God does not cast away His believing people because of shortcomings and mistakes. The good husband does not put away his wife because he finds failings in her cooking. The good mother does not forsake her infant because it is weak, feeble, and dependent. And the Lord does not cast off poor sinners who have committed their souls into His hands because He sees their failures and imperfections.
God’s wrath tends to get people’s attention when nothing else does, but the psalmist points out that God’s anger doesn't compare to His compassion, grace, and love. God receives no satisfaction from punishing human sin. Verses 11–12 are often quoted as a reminder that God’s anger is not lasting, but His forgiveness is. He desires for people to forsake their sins and turn to Him. When they do, He gladly removes sin as far as the East is from the West (103:12). Nothing is greater than the love of God.
God is Forgiving, and He doesn't Keep Count of Our Failures.
Conclusion
We have peace with God as soon as we repent and believe. But even then, not always with ourselves. Often, the last person holding our sins against us is us. Most of us have held grudges against family or friends for different reasons; maybe something they did, their betrayal of trust, statements that were made, or their indifference. Yet, over time and talking with those people, we have forgiven them and forgotten about their sins. Yet we don’t forgive ourselves. Frequently, privately, we are keeping score on ourselves. Why can we not extend grace to ourselves?
It can be challenging for me to forgive myself because I see the pain and suffering on people’s faces when I've wronged or disappointed them. Then the devil will use that against us every chance he gets. Denying forgiveness to yourself is one of the devil's best and most used tools of his arsenal. If he can get us not to expect forgiveness, he has made null and void the forgiveness from God in our lives.
A little boy visiting his grandparents was given his first slingshot. He practiced in the woods, but he could never hit his target. Returning to Grandma’s backyard, he spied her pet duck. On an impulse, he took aim and let fly. The stone hit, and the duck fell dead. The boy panicked. Desperately, he hid the dead duck in the woodpile, only to look up and see his sister watching. Sally had seen it all, but she said nothing. After lunch that day, Grandma said, “Sally, let’s wash the dishes.” But Sally said, “Johnny told me he wanted to help in the kitchen today. Didn’t you, Johnny?” And she whispered to him, “Remember the duck!” So Johnny did the dishes. Later, Grandpa asked if the children wanted to go fishing. Grandma said, “I’m sorry, but I need Sally to help make supper.” Sally smiled and said, “That’s all taken care of. Johnny wants to do it.” Again, she whispered, “Remember the duck.” Johnny stayed while Sally went fishing. After several days of Johnny doing both his chores and Sally’s, finally, he couldn’t stand it. He confessed to Grandma that he’d killed the duck. “I know, Johnny,” she said, hugging him. “I was standing at the window and saw the whole thing. Because I love you, I forgave you. I just wondered how long you would let Sally make a slave of you.”
When you don't forgive yourself, or when you don't think God will forgive you, you become a slave to that sin. The entire purpose of Christ and the crucifixion was to give us victory over death and eradicating our sins. Jesus came, died, and conquered the grave to reestablish a relationship between God and man.
Isaiah 53:5 – "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: The chastisement of our peace was upon him, And with his stripes, we are healed."
Jesus was wounded and bruised for the direct purpose of eradicating and removing our failures and sins. Unless we accept the forgiveness extended to us by God, we are unable to experience true inner peace. When we count against ourselves our failures, we cannot experience true inner peace and spiritual healing.
The phrase, "the chastisement of our peace was upon him," means that Jesus bore our sins and failures through his suffering. He carried our judgment of sin upon his shoulders so that we may obtain true peace and be completely free of guilt and judgment.
Jesus Christ corrected or set straight the record. By his stripes, we are healed. The bold thread of grace in the Bible is a distinctive marker of Christianity, which sets it apart from other religions. The very center and core of the whole Bible is the doctrine of the grace and the forgiveness of God.
God is Forgiving, and He doesn't Keep Count of Our Failures.
I can’t help reflecting on the cross. Jesus hanging there, my sins, our sins on his shoulders. He isn’t shaking his fist, yelling out all the sins, dragging him down to the grave. He endured it all and said, "Father, forgive them." In Christ, every sin we have committed, past, present, and future, is not held against us. I don't care where you have been, what you have done, or even why; you haven't been anywhere or done anything beyond God's forgiveness. He's not keeping count, and nor is He keeping score. Neither should we. Even that one person listening today who thinks, "I've done the unthinkable and unforgivable," you can be forgiven.
The Lord knows everything, but He waits for your words, not that He may punish you, but that He may pardon you. Truthfully God is the only being that could keep count of my failures as no one else could count that high. Yet God chooses not to keep count. It is not His will that the devil should triumph over you and accuse you of your sins. To lose count of our past failures and live as people of grace, we embrace and believe in God's forgiveness. God’s extension of forgiveness is not a one-time offer, as he extends forgiveness to us every day. By both God and ourselves losing count of our failures, we are redeemed and better able to live as people of hope and grace.
God is Forgiving, and He doesn't Keep Count of Our Failures.