I do invite you to turn together to Psalm 103 this morning, a psalm that is far from unfamiliar to us, a favorite of many. This morning we want to consider together, in particular, verses 11 and 12 of Psalm 103. We'll read together the psalm. Psalm 103, hear now the word of the Lord. 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 knit 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 His 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. Let's bow together in prayer. Father, may it be that we would heed the call to praise the Lord. that we would do so even in this very hour as we worship You, as we hear Your Word proclaimed. We pray, Heavenly Father, that by Your Spirit You would open our hearts and minds, open our spiritual eyes to see the wonderful truths of Your Word, the comfort that You have for Your people here. And again, we pray that You would strengthen us and bless us, help us, O Lord, that we might be more faithful servants of the Most High God. In Jesus' name we pray these things. Amen. Beloved in Christ the Lord, suppose that you were to die today and that you were to stand before God and that He were to ask you, what right do you have to enter my heaven? What would you say? Now, if I remember right, that's the famous question of evangelism explosion. That ministry started many years ago by the late Dr. D. James Kennedy. A ministry to teach God's people how to evangelize, how to effectively share their faith. And that question, you see, is not simply a conversation starter. It is a good conversation starter, but it's far from an unimportant question. But instead, it's a matter, it deals with a matter of life and death. And as we are called to examine our hearts and lives in preparation to come to the Lord's table, to examine ourselves with an examination that is not simply to be for this week alone, but is to be a daily examination. It is to be ongoing in our lives. We are called to answer these questions. Upon whom do you depend? Where do you place your trust? Who holds your life, even at this very moment? What is your hope? Now, I suspect that most, if not all of us here this morning would answer, well, that's easy. The answer is Jesus Christ. Plain and simple. But you see, beloved, that then begs the question, why? It's one thing to say, Jesus Christ is my hope. But it's another thing to say, why? Why do you have hope in Him, in body and soul, for life and for death? You see, in this morning, we are called to remember the faithfulness of our God. We are called to remember the greatness of His love. We are called to remember the believer's hope. That is what David wrote of in Psalm 103. From beginning to end, this psalm is a beautiful hymn of the believer's living hope. We've talked about that living hope on occasion. It's a living hope. It is not an uncertain or a questionable hope. It is not a no-confidence kind of hope, boys and girls. It's not the kind of hope where you wonder whether or not it's going to come to pass. But it is a very real hope. It is a true hope. It's not something that is simply a possibility. But the believer's living hope is certain. It is sure. right now. Because as we know, the believer's living hope is eternal life in the glory of heaven. And Peter calls this living hope an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade. Kept in heaven for you who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. This hope is living and real for the child of God because the child of God has been reconciled to God. David begins this psalm by singing of the benefits of the Lord to him. Benefits that point to. Benefits that give him hope. Again, noticing the first verse is, 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. And listen to them. 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. What a powerful, wonderful list of benefits for us to consider as God's children. These benefits point to being reconciled with God, being brought back into favor with God. Boys and girls, you know that if you are not reconciled with someone, that means that there's a problem that exists between you and someone else. And that problem has separated you. You're not friends right now for whatever reason. But to be reconciled means that the problem is solved. The problem is no longer an issue. It's been put away and the two of you come together again as friends. These benefits point to our reconciliation with God. He has brought us back into favor with Himself. And the text, verses 11 and 12, which says, 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. With this text then, we see specifically why this reconciliation is possible. Why it can even happen. Why it's real. As David sings of pardoning grace. Why can David sing in confidence of this pardoning grace in the first place? Because of the infinite canopy of God's mercy. The infinite canopy of God's mercy. Boys and girls, you know what a canopy is? It's something that covers you, like maybe the canopy over your patio. And verse 11 speaks of the love of God in this translation. It's also translated mercy of God. So great is His love or mercy toward those who fear Him. The words love and mercy can be used interchangeably here. It speaks of the mercy of God. We have a need for mercy. In order to be reconciled, we need God's mercy. Now, mercy, we know, presupposes misery. And when we think of misery, we might think of pain, we might think of anguish or agitation or heartbreak, or simply the fact that things are just not right, but instead, things seem all wrong. And all of these things make us miserable. And where mercy is needed, misery already exists. And the purpose of mercy, we know, is to relieve one of their misery. Now, what is the cause of misery? Well, again, any one of us can mention many things in life that make us miserable. Even things that probably shouldn't make us miserable make us miserable. Sickness can make us miserable. Maybe our job at times makes us miserable. People can make us miserable. Failure can make us miserable. Many things, we might say, can make us miserable in life. But the ultimate misery for mankind is sin and the effects of sin. And the misery of sin destroys man. The misery of sin introduced death into the life of man and into the world. The misery of sin always leads to death and ultimately to hell. and to eternal suffering and the punishment of God. Beloved, sin is hateful to God. He hates it. He hates it. Again, that's why Joseph, I keep thinking about this lately, Joseph with Potiphar's wife, he said, how can I do such a wicked thing and sin against God? Because he knew how God hates it, how offensive it is. God and sin are utterly and completely incompatible. And that's why we are separated from Him. Sin can have nothing to do with the holiness of God. And therefore, because God is God, sin must lead to hell. This is our misery. And you see, all of this then, as we consider the Lord's table, all of this is why the table of the Lord is so very amazing. Because that table is a visible picture of the undeserved character of mercy. We know that simple definition of mercy, don't we? It's not getting what we deserve. If you are merciful, if you show mercy to someone, it's not necessarily because they deserved it or because they earned it. They most likely didn't. God's mercy for us is not giving us what we deserve. We deserve to be punished for our sin. We deserve to live with the guilt of our sin. We deserve to remain stained with our sin. We deserve to continue to suffer the misery of our sin. All of the misery that it can pour out upon us. But God's mercy is for the purpose of reconciliation. David says in verse 9, He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever. And David says this here with hope. We might paraphrase it and say that God will not remain unreconciled with His people. Sin causes separation from God. It causes enmity and striving with God. But in His mercy, He removes all of that. And the mercy of God is as a canopy, again, that covers and protects believers. And David speaks here of what we might call the immeasurableness of God's canopy of mercy. In verse 11, For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him. As high as the heavens are above the earth. Now, boys and girls, you know that that is a distance that cannot be measured. Maybe at whatever age you're at, you jump in your house as takes place in our house, and the boys are trying to touch the ceiling to see how big they're getting. no matter how high you jump no matter how high you reach you will never be able to touch heaven it never ends it's a distance that cannot be measured space keeps on going heaven is unreachable and so are the edges of the canopy of God's mercy and that means that you and I will never get out from underneath the canopy of God's mercy And that means that there is a never-ending, infinite supply of the mercy of God because it is boundless, without bound. It never runs out. It never loses its effect. It is not insufficient for us, but it is completely, it is more than sufficient for you and me. And we can speak also of the grandeur and the glory of this canopy of mercy. Someone has said in comparing heaven and earth with God's canopy of mercy, someone has said this, As the lofty heavens canopy the earth, water it with dew and rains, enlighten it with sun, moon, and stars, and look down upon it with unceasing watchfulness, even so the Lord's mercy from above covers all His chosen, enriches them, embraces them, and stands forever as their dwelling place. God's canopy of mercy comforts and protects and provides for His people. And in verse 17, David also speaks of the length and the breadth and the depth of this canopy of mercy when he says, but from everlasting to everlasting, the Lord's love is with those who fear Him. From everlasting to everlasting, it's never ending. And the glory of that canopy of mercy is that in His mercy, God reconciles man to Himself. He brings him back into favor with Himself so that we are no longer His enemies. We are His friends. We are His children. How? Through forgiveness. You see, the offense is that which separates us from God has been removed. He removes the guilt and the misery of sin. Verse 12 tells us that that's what God in His mercy does. David sings of pardoning grace in the second place because of the never-ending scope of God's forgiveness as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. See, this ought to be no surprise to us, but there can be no reconciliation with God without forgiveness. Without the offense, the problem being dealt with and removed. And that's because indeed there is a union between us and our sin. David speaks of our transgressions. He's talking about ownership here. We are the owners of our sin. Now often we like to boast about our possessions, but don't forget, one of our possessions is our sin. We are the owners of our sin. We have committed them. We are responsible for them. No one else's sins, your sins haven't been charged to my account. My sins haven't been charged to your account. Paul says that we, each of us individually, were dead in trespasses. We were all guilty. But there has been a separation from the curse and the judgment of our sin. That's what forgiveness is. And that separation has been affected by God. So far has He removed our transgressions from us. We didn't do it. We weren't able to accomplish that. God has affected that separation by His Son coming to be between the sinner and his sin. And that separation is undeserved, David says in verse 10. He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. Notice David doesn't sugarcoat this. He doesn't say, well, you've done your best. You've done okay. So you really don't have to worry about it. He makes it clear that these are our transgressions. He makes it clear that we deserve the punishment, the consequences for our sin. We have provoked God and we continue to do so as we sin against Him. But in His mercy, He does not give us what we deserve. If He had, we would have all been in hell a long time ago. The separation is affected by God. It is undeserved and it is in another. Why hasn't He treated us according to what our sins deserve? because He has treated another in our place for what we deserve. Don't forget that, beloved. Another has taken what we deserve. And that other is Jesus Christ. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5.21, For He that is God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. In Him, the believer's sin, your sin, and mine is completely blotted out. And that means that this separation will be a separation without a reunion. We like reunions, family reunions, getting met together with relatives we haven't seen in a long, long time, laughing and enjoying each other's company. But this is one reunion we should never want. And praise God, it is one reunion that will never take place. How completely has He removed our sin as far as the East is from the West? It means that a reunion of the forgiven sinner with his sin, sin that would condemn him, is impossible. Because East and West will never meet, boys and girls, when you draw a line, a straight line. The distance between the ends continues to grow. They will never meet. It's a distance that cannot be calculated. North and south can be measured. Think about this earth, the globe. You can go so far north until you hit the North Pole, and then you begin to go south, and you can measure the distance between the North and the South Pole. But think of the same globe, the same world. If you start going east, you continue to go east. You never at any time start going west all of a sudden. And the same is true when you're going west. You never start going east. They continue, as it were, to get further and further apart. And how comforting because of the great burden that has been lifted, the massive load of sin that has been moved for each and every one of us. You cannot begin to count or measure your sin or mine any more than we can measure the distance between heaven and earth or east and west. It is so far gone. The scent of it, the trace of it, the very memory of it must be entirely gone. As the Lord says in our assurance of pardon this morning, Isaiah 43, I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake and I will not remember your sins. Our sins have been covered. As David says in Psalm 32, never again will God charge our sins which have already been charged against our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. Never will they be charged against us. We don't ever have to fear our sin being brought back up and stuck in our face. Satan cannot dig it up again and use it against us. Oh, he tries. But as Paul says in Romans 8, verse 33, who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? Again, Satan tries. But it's a moot point because Jesus Christ has already done it all. The sin no longer stands between us and God. Our sin is forever gone because Jesus Christ took it all upon Himself. He carried it completely and fully away. And beloved, we cannot miss the unmistakable contrast that we find in this psalm between man who is temporarily wronged and God who is infinitely wronged. Man is temporarily wronged as we sin against each other, but we tend to hold on to that. We tend to hold that sin against each other. We want to use it someday and say, remember when? Just in case. But our God has been infinitely wronged, yet He tempers His wrath against, He turns His wrath away from us, and He transfers His judgment from us to our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, in many ways, this is so hard to fathom. Even the pictures that God gives us to help us understand what this means, east, west, heaven, and earth, it's so hard to fathom because we cannot truly fathom those distances. But if our sin is not removed this far, we are still in trouble because that would mean that our sin is still in view. But they're not. Jesus Christ has removed them completely for time and eternity. And therefore, as we consider the table of the Lord, as we consider what God has prepared for us there, We must see this table as a table of our living hope. It's a table of fellowship as it visibly reminds us that indeed God has removed, that He remembers our sin no more, that He has reconciled, has brought us back into fellowship with Him. It's a table of comfort. Comfort that Jesus Christ died for us, that He paid for our sin, and that we will not be reunited with our sin. but instead we will be eternally united in heaven with our faithful Savior. It's a table of instruction. Instruction that with God you cannot lose. But without God you can only lose. Instruction that the fullness of God's mercy, forgiveness, is evidence of the richness of His mercy. And therefore, beloved, what is to be our response of this unfathomable truth? Well, our response is not to be, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before. We hear it week after week after week as if it's no big deal. That is not to be our response, beloved, because it is a big deal. It is the biggest deal for you or me ever. Instead, we are to be gripped by the truth of our sin and misery and humbled as we consider how offensive it is to God and because of what Jesus Christ did to remove it as far as the east is from the west. We are to be amazed that He would do something about it for your good and mine. We are to be comforted by the truth of Jesus Christ and His saving love and that we can live in the joy of that truth today. And that we can die in the comfort of that truth, that we do not have to be afraid one day in death. And we are called to respond, beloved, by living like redeemed sinners. Not living like those who say, well, I'm going to be fine anyway. It doesn't matter how I live. I'll just ask for forgiveness in the morning. Everything is great. No. We are to live like redeemed sinners, those who hate sin. Who hate it. Again, because we understand how offensive it is to God. And instead, those who love righteousness and desire and seek to live in the way of righteousness. Those who recognize God's mercy and therefore seek to be merciful. And those who do not hold on to the sin of others. And we need to understand too, beloved, that these benefits that David sings of here are not for everyone. He makes it very clear in verses 11, 13, and 17 that these benefits are only for those who fear God. Only for those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ by grace through faith. Those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as the only way, truth, and the life. He is the only way for our sins to be removed. The only way. There is no other way. He is the only way to heaven. And apart from Him, God will treat one as his sins deserve. For those who reject Jesus Christ and His saving love, there is no canopy of mercy. There is only a covering of God's wrath forever. But you and I are to be comforted as those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. As believers in Him, we are to rejoice, give thanks, and sing of God's pardoning grace and of our living hope. And beloved, in life and in death, may we bless the Lord. May we praise His holy name with all that is within us, both now and forevermore. Let's pray together. Our great God and Heavenly Father, we praise Your name for this great truth. It needs something that we often take for granted. We hear it so often. We are reminded of our sin and misery every time we consider the law of God and as well of the good news of Jesus Christ as we hear the assurance of pardon. And therefore, for most, if not many of us, if not all of us, these truths are not new to us. We've heard them time and time again. But Father, may it be that we would hear them anew and afresh in this morning hour. To be reminded of what we truly deserve before Your face. And also to rejoice in what You have given to us freely in Christ Jesus. O Lord, strengthen us and help us. Cause us to shine and live for You in the midst of a dark world. Be pleased to use us, we pray, to continue to gather together Your church from the ends of the earth and prepare us for that great day of Christ Jesus. In His name we pray these things. Amen.