We've sung from Psalm 103, three times already, and now we turn to Psalm 103 in the Scripture, and we'll hear the very Word of God as it is brought to us there. By way of anticipation, the first verse, really just one little statement within the first verse, will be the concentration of our thoughts when it says, Praise His Holy Name. This is the first Sunday of a brand new calendar year. And it's good to have a theme for a calendar year. And let the theme for this calendar year be that the name of the Lord will be praised in our lives. That our lives will reflect with credit upon the God whose name we bear. So hear the word of the Lord from Psalm 103. Praise the Lord, O my soul, all my inmost being. Praise His holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits. He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases. He redeems my life from the grave and crowns me with love and compassion. He satisfies my desires with good things so that my 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 harbor His anger forever. 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. As for man, his days are like grass. He flourishes 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 obey His precepts. The Lord has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all. Praise the Lord, you angels, you mighty ones who do His bidding, who obey His word. Praise the Lord, all His heavenly hosts, you His servants who do His will. Praise the Lord, all His works, everywhere, in His dominion. Praise the Lord, O my soul. May the Holy Spirit revive us with these words of revelation from Psalm 103. As I already said, we're concentrating on verse 1, especially the last little phrase when it says, Praise the Lord, O my soul, all my inmost being. Praise His holy name. There was a time when I was very much troubled by the reference in the Bible to the name of the Lord. Dozens, multiple times the Bible, especially the Psalms, speaks of the name of the Lord. Now, we don't use that terminology, do we? We don't say, isn't that a wonderful name of such and such a person? Why does the Bible do it in reference to the Lord? Here we have, praise His holy name. Why not simply praise the Lord? Praise the Creator. Praise our Heavenly Father. Why does it so frequently call us to praise the name of the Lord? What's in the name? Shakespeare asked that question, didn't he? several hundred years ago. And Shakespeare answered his question, what is the name, by saying that a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet. In other words, a name is rather arbitrary. Just something by way of identification to draw our attention to a particular object or thing or person. A rose by any other name is still a rose. Whether you call it a rose or an esor, that's rose spelled backwards, E-S-O-R, it's still a rose. Andy Griffith of Mayberry fame likes to translate Shakespeare into hillbilly language. And this is the way that sentence goes that I just quoted from Shakespeare. Andy Griffith said, you can change the name of rose, but you can't do nothing about the smell. And of course, the idea is the same. What you name something is rather arbitrary. Just a thought reference, just a label, just to focus our attention. So, if I say the word truck, you can have in your mind some image of a vehicle that conveys material from one place to another. Or if I mention the word house, H-O-U-S-E, you have in your mind some image, some referent. But those letters, they don't mean much, do they? Well, maybe they do, because you see, a word or a name or a title or a label always has reference to something that's much greater than just those few letters put together. So a house, for instance, means more than some kind of an image in your mind. I hope it means a place of quiet, relief, withdrawal from a busy life. And suggests the warmth of a family circle. And maybe now we have an idea what the Bible means by the name of the Lord. Just a few letters. But they have reference to something much greater and much grander than those few letters would suggest. Because you see, when the Bible says, praise the name of the Lord, it really has reference to everything God is. It's almost as though the writers of the Bible were aware of the weakness of human language to describe something about God. You know, human language is really inadequate. And yet, God in His mercy uses human language to tell us His will. But we know that the words that are revealed to us in the Scripture express a reality that is so far beyond what those few letters grouped together seem to suggest. And so when the Bible says, Blessed be the name of the Lord, it means blessed be everything God is. In Psalm 148, verse 13, we read, Let them praise the name of the Lord, for His name alone is exalted. Everything God is, is exalted. That's what the psalmist is saying. And when the psalmist says, O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth. He's speaking of the overarching majesty of our God. You see, our God is indescribable, incomprehensible, inexhaustible. So the Bible simply says, praise his name, because it wants us to praise everything God is. Now, with something of that in our minds, let's ask ourselves, what does it mean that the Lord's name is to be blessed? And I think you will agree that there are at least three factors that are suggested when we speak of the name of the Lord. To begin with, it identifies him. And that's why in your bulletins we have the first point with reference to the identity of our Lord. Furthermore, a name suggests reputation. We say he or she made a name for herself. He's developed a reputation. Well, our God has developed a reputation too. The record of His reputation is right here in the Scriptures. And then finally, a name suggests intimacy. If someone really knows your name, there's an intimacy associated with that. Of course, for our God, His identity is supreme. So, our first point this morning is God's supreme identity. His name suggests a supreme identity. And secondly, his merited reputation. He has done great things and established quite a reputation for himself. And then finally, his comforting intimacy. For to know our God's name truly is a comfort for our souls. The blessed name of the Lord. First of all, then, his specific identity. When I first went to the seminary, I took a course called systematic theology. Systematic theology deals with doctrine, dogmatics, we sometimes called it. And part of the systematic theology is the doctrine of God. And we had to learn what were called the divine attributes. If I remember, there were something like 16 of them. That is, what can we attribute to God? What can we say about God? And there we had this rather extensive list. We can say that God is omnipresent. That means He's everywhere by His Spirit. We can say that God is omniscient. That means He knows everything. We can say that He is omnipotent. That means He is all-powerful, and so it goes. Self-existent, transcendent, immutable, eternal, about 16 of them. Well, in each of these, we were to memorize certain passages in the Bible. We call them proof texts. And for each of these attributes, there was an appropriate one or two or three proof texts. For instance, with omnipresent, that God is everywhere present. Jeremiah 23, verse 24. Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him, saith the Lord? Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord? Omnipresent. And so it goes for each of these. Well, at the end of the lecture hour, we sort of closed our notebooks. We went off to lunch or to another class or went home or whatever. And it seemed so academic to me. There never seemed to be some motivation to praise. And maybe we have to go through that kind of experience to come to a better understanding of our God. But after about eight years in the ministry, we went off to Amsterdam to study at the Free University. And there I sat at the feet of Bergkauer and J.H. Boffing. And they had a different approach. I went to the systematic theology lectures of Bergkauer as well. And he didn't begin with attributes and try to say something about the character of God and then find in Scripture certain supporting ideas. He began with the Bible. And for him, the doctrine of God simply was, what does the Bible say about God? And I like that. And that happens to be our approach at Westminster Seminary. There's benefit, of course, in the systematic approach, the more rational building of a system approach. But if we look at what the Bible says, we get a different kind of a vision of God. As a matter of fact, if you begin with the Scripture, the Scripture always calls us to praise. It doesn't deal with the issues academically. It simply calls us to praise. In almost every instance where the name of the Lord is mentioned in the Bible, It calls the angels to praise, or the creation to praise, or especially God's people to praise. And this was one of Berkauer's emphases. As a matter of fact, he always ended what he called with doxology. You know, doxology, praise God from whom all blessings flow. Every time he treated a doctrine, he ended up with doxology. As a matter of fact, some of the Dutch students used to, well, make a little joke of it. And they said, well, to study systematic theology under Berkauer, all you have to do is know doxology. Well, there's something to that. I was fortunate to have the early Berkauer. I understand he drifted away a little bit toward the end of his career. But this was his emphasis. Noxology and praise. You know, that's the psalmist's approach, isn't it? Let me demonstrate to you. The Bible always calls us to acknowledge God's glory and greatness and calls us to adore Him. So, for instance, in verse 21 of the psalm before us, it says, Praise the Lord all His heavenly hosts, you His servants who do His will. Praise the Lord, all His works everywhere in His dominion. Let everything that breathes praise the Lord. So, we can't really understand God in His fullness. That's beyond us. But we can understand God in His relationships. His relationship to us. His relationship to the universe around us. All calls us to praise Him. Now, the Bible has some special names for God as well. And in every instance, it seems to me, it talks about a relationship with the heavenly host or the natural order or especially his covenant people. Let me give you some of these names, specific names, not simply the name, but specific names. For instance, there is in the Old Testament a name called Elohim. It happens to be in Hebrew a plural form, not because it refers to a plurality of gods, but the Hebrew uses the plural form when it wants to emphasize something special and grand and glorious. And so, one of the words is Elohim, and we often have it translated, the God of hosts. The God who is transcendent above the hosts of heaven, above the angels, above the departed saints, Of the redeemed in relationship. That was what verse 21 called us to. Praise the Lord. All His heavenly hosts. That's one name. Another is El Shaddai. Now, I mention these because they come up occasionally, don't they? I've heard some of the young people sing a chorus. That's El Shaddai, El Shaddai. They call His name El Shaddai. I don't know it very well, but I've heard them sing it. It means God Almighty emphasizes His power, His divinity. I like to watch the religious programs on TV. Not because some of them, they're all so beneficial, but I like to know what they're saying and singing and preaching and how they're doing it. Because my students ask me, they keep asking, what do you think of so-and-so on TV? And so I listened to them all, you know, Pastor Stanley and Joyce Myers and Jimmy Swaggart. He's back, you know. Mrs. Coleman, who now speaks on the Hour of Power and happens to be the mother of one of our students here at Westminster. Well, the one I seem to like best is a rabbi. Yes, a Jewish rabbi. But he happens to be a Jewish rabbi who has come to know Jesus as the promised Messiah. And he's calling his fellow Jews as well as Gentiles to a recognition of Jesus as the Savior. And there he is in his rabbinical gown and all. And on one occasion was speaking about El Shaddai. And I listened with intentiveness because he knows his Hebrew so very well. And this is what he said. Al-Saddai means that we serve a God who is more than enough. He is God Almighty who has more than enough power. More than enough grace. More than enough mercy. More than enough compassion. More than enough love to reveal his grace to a lost world. And I thought that was so meaningful that this man who knows his Hebrew so very well says, God Almighty simply is a God who is more than enough. I hear the children sing that chorus once in a while. I don't know if they still do that in Sunday school or in vacation Bible school or in Christian school. But let me talk to the children for just a minute or two. Children, if you're 12 years of age or younger now, 11, 10, 9, 8. I want to tell you about what we're talking about. You're not a teenager yet, and I know for you sermons seem kind of long. When you're a teenager, of course, you'll be able to grasp it all, right? You'll be able to repeat. You'll be able to understand. But at least you ought to know what we're talking about when we speak about God. And we're speaking about God Almighty. Okay? If God is Almighty, does that mean He can do anything? Well, no. God can't do everything. As a matter of fact, you can do some things that God can't do. Yes. The Bible tells us, for instance, that God cannot lie. But you can. And I hope you don't. But you can. Listen to what the Bible says. Psalm 89 verse 35, God is speaking here. I have sworn by my holiness and I will not lie. Or, 1 Samuel 15 verse 29, He who is the glory of Israel, that means Israel's God, does not lie or change his mind. Just one more. Maybe this is a proof text. Hebrews 6, verse 18. It is impossible for God to lie. There are other things God can't do. I give you quite a long list. He can't change. He can't deny Himself. But I'd like to mention just one more thing that God can't do. He can't tolerate sin. And that's why He has to punish it. Either in the one who commits the sin or in Jesus as a substitute for sinners who trust Him. God can't do everything because He only can do what is true to His own nature, to His perfections, to His holiness. God can do everything He wants to do, but He doesn't want to do evil. Our God is God Almighty. Okay? We have a few others, and I'll be a little more brief in these. Adonai. Adonai. Another word for God in the Bible. And it means God who is the Lord. Its emphasis is on God as our master and as our owner. We belong to Him. We are His property, and He takes good care of His property. And He wants us to take good care of ourselves because we don't belong to ourselves. We belong to our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. God cares for us as Lord. And then just one more, Yahweh. Now in the old translations we used to say Jehovah and we still sing that way, don't we? when the rhythm of the psalm requires it. It's the covenant name for God. It emphasizes that our God is a God who keeps His promises. And that we find also in Psalm 103, verse 17. From everlasting to everlasting, the Lord's love is with those who fear Him. That fear, you know, is a fear of reverence. Not a frightened fear, but a fear of reverential awe before God with those who keep His covenant and remember to obey His precepts. From everlasting to everlasting, God keeps His promises. And when the Bible says that they who believe on Him shall have everlasting life, you can count on it. God keeps His promises. And when He says, They who confess me before men, them will I confess before my Father in heaven. Believe it, because it's true. Well, we haven't done justice to this point. The specific identity of our great God. But let's remember that His name embraces who He is. His supreme glory. So don't besmirch the name of the Lord. Don't sully the name of the Lord. Never take the name of the Lord in vain, but honor the Lord. Let that be a model for 2011 that every one of us reflect with dignity on the name of our great God. But the name of the Lord means more than His identity. It also is a reminder of his merited reputation. We like to refer to people sometimes as someone who's made a name for himself or herself. Bill Gates. He made a name for himself. He invented the Microsoft system and he became a millionaire in his 20s. Oprah Winfrey, making a name for herself. Ronald Reagan. In Illinois, we have a former governor. Blagolevich is his name. He made a name for himself, a bad name. He's going to prison. Four of the last seven governors of the state of Illinois moved from the state capitol, from the governor's mansion, to prison. And Blagolevich is one of them. They make a name for themselves. Not a good name, but they still have a reputation. The Bible says a good name is more desirable than great riches. And to be esteemed is better than silver and gold. Well, the psalmist liked to speak of God's reputation. And that includes his name. As a matter of fact, there are occasions in the psalmist's life where he tells the Lord that the Lord's reputation is at stake in the psalmist's life. In Psalm 103, verse 22, we read, Praise the Lord all His works everywhere in His dominion. So everywhere around us in creation, we see evidence of God making a reputation for Himself. And the psalmist sometimes made this very personal. On occasion, when the enemies were attacking him, he would cry out to the Lord to deliver him and remind the Lord that the Lord's reputation is at stake. Because if people ask the psalmist the secret for his successes, he would always say, it's because the Lord is on my side. And so in times of special danger, he called upon the Lord to demonstrate that he is really on his side because his reputation is at stake. In Psalm 109, verse 21, we read, O Sovereign Lord, deal well with me for thy namesake, for your reputation's sake. Because evil men had spoken against him and told lies about him. And now, O Lord, deliver me and demonstrate that your reputation is still whole, still holds in my personal life. You know, the Bible, in the final analysis, is a record of what God did in real human history to save a lost world. And so we sing, and our children will sing, and we're going to sing as our closing little chorus. He hath done great things. He hath made quite a reputation for himself. Everything that exists was created by our God. In our creed, we say that he created all things visible and invisible. Yes, the forces that we can't see were created by God. Gravity, or the fact that you can use a cell phone to call anywhere in the world. But God created these unseen invisible forces and it remains for us to discover them and to use them and say what a God we have to put such potential in the reality that he has created. So everything that exists was created by God. And so verse 22 reminds us of this. Praise the Lord all his works everywhere in his dominion. But, of course, you know that something happened. That beautiful creation was corrupted. And then God began to make a reputation for Himself to save this lost world. In the third chapter of Genesis already, He promised that the seed of the woman, someone born of the woman, would crush the head of the serpent and destroy the works of darkness. And He fulfilled that promise, didn't He? And that's why we celebrated Christmas just a week or so ago. And God began to make a reputation as the Savior of His people. Oh, things went badly and so the flood had to be a cleansing agent of a sinful world. And God sort of started over in His reputation for saving the world with the family of Noah. With Abraham, he said that in Abraham, all families of the earth would be blessed. And Galatians 3 tells us that that promise was fulfilled in the seed with a capital S. Jesus. Because wherever Jesus' name is proclaimed as Savior, Abraham's blessing is also in evidence. With Moses and the deliverance of the people of Israel from the enslavement in Egypt, God made quite a reputation for Himself. And all through the Old Testament, the prophets loved to remind the Lord's people that with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm, God had redeemed His people from slavery. And to mention only one more in David's time. Psalm 103, verses 4 and 5. we are reminded that in David's personal life, God proved faithful and has a reputation for coming to the aid of his own. For he forgives all my sins, says David, and heals all my diseases and redeems my life from the grave and crowns me with love and compassion. The Bible is really a record of divine reputation. He has done great things. Bless His holy name. And so the name of the Lord speaks of God's specific identity. It's a reminder of His merited reputation. And now finally, his name suggests comforting intimacy. If you can say someone's name is blessed, or a blessing to you, you must have an intimate knowledge of that person whose name you know. And that's certainly true if we know the name of our God. Oh, there are many names, you know, that are just an identity. We read about people in the newspaper, just a name. Or we see them at a checkout counter with a little label that says Elizabeth or Peter or whoever. Just identity, nothing more. Others we know by reputation. Famous baseball player, politician, someone in your community. You know something about them. You know something they've done. The reputation they've established for themselves. But to those who are dearest to you, to those with whom you share a loving attachment, their names inspire a precious intimacy. One of the trials of military services would be sent to some distant place that you probably didn't know before and spend a lot of time there and hear your name mentioned only as it is barked in some kind of a command that you had better get going doing. And it becomes rather lonely. And you think of your loved ones so distant from you. And in our case, in World War II, we didn't know if or when we would ever get back to see them. But to be restored to their relationship is such a precious moment. It's almost worth the months and even years of separation and loneliness to be reunited with someone you love who knows your name intimately and personally. Now the psalmist knew his God that way. Listen to verse 13. As a father has compassion on those who fear him, so he knows how we are formed. He knows how insignificant we are. And yet His love is forever with us. From everlasting to everlasting, His love is with those who reverence Him. The psalmist knew God in an intimate fashion. And therefore, the name of the Lord inspired this precious intimacy with the Lord. And that, of course, prefigures the intimacy that Jesus, the psalmist's greater Son, would know in relationship to His heavenly Father as even He spoke in John 17, verse 5, in Jesus' high priestly prayer when He said, Father, glorify Thou me with the glory which I had with Thee before the world began. Jesus. For us, the name of divine intimacy is the name of Jesus. Oh, sadly for some of our fellow man, the name Jesus is only some identity. Identify as a person who lived 2,000 years ago and whose name more often than not is taken on the lips in a curse, as a curse. For others, the name Jesus suggests something of a reputation. They know He was a good man, a great teacher, a moral example. But for those who trust Him as Savior, He is so much more precious, and His name is so much more dear. For them, the name Jesus inspires an intimacy that only those who trust in Him can know. And whether the name is shouted from the pulpit or whispered in the ear of the dying, There is no other name that can bring peace to the human heart. For the believer, he's the great shepherd. He's the rock of all ages. He's the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus, name above all names. Beautiful Savior. Wonderful Lord. Amen. Amen. Blessed be your name, O Lord our God, for you have done wonderful things. And help us, Father, to know you with the intimacy that the psalmist reveals, That we may take your name on our lips and have it as a banner before our eyes in this new year that we may reflect with glory to the one whose name we bear. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.