Understanding God's Personality

Psalm 103 August 10, 2025 Pastor Chris Oswald

Thesis God's primary personality feature is His enthusiastic delight in redemption, demonstrated by where He meets us (in our pits), how He meets us (eagerly and repeatedly), and how He leaves us (crowned with steadfast love, not merely rescued).

Series

Psalms

Type

Expository

Tone

pastoraldidacticpropheticcelebratory

Method

redemptive-historicalcanonicalgrammatical-historical

What's in this sermon

The shape of the argument

28 units across exposition, application, illustration, theological claim, and conclusion. The pastor's argument is built from these moving parts.

Doctrinal loci· 10 surfaced

Soteriology · 16 Theology Proper · 13 Hamartiology · 4 Anthropology · 3 Bibliology · 3 Providence / Sovereignty · 3 Eschatology · 2 Sanctification · 2 Christology · 1 Ecclesiology · 1

Bible citations· 24

Illustrations· 3

The Cook Who Delights in Desserts personal story · unit #3 — Uses the example of a church member who excels at all cooking but shows special enthusiasm for desserts to illustrate that someone can be good at many things while delighting especially in one particular thing.
Augustine's Conversion historical example · unit #13 — Uses Augustine's famous conversion scene from Confessions to illustrate God's eager pursuit of sinners in their pits. Emphasizes the providential orchestration—the fig tree, the child's song, the timing—showing God's active agency in redemption, not reluctance.
The Mexican Food Rule analogy · unit #24 — Uses the 'Mexican food rule' analogy to prove God's delight in redemption. If someone moved to Oaxaca despite hating Mexican food, we'd call them foolish. God chose to dwell with humanity—where redemption is the only activity available—therefore He must delight in it.

Theological claims· 14

God's primary personality trait is His enthusiastic delight in redemption and steadfast love. unit #2
Though God excels at everything, Scripture consistently emphasizes redemption and steadfast love as the distinctive quality by which God wants to be known. unit #4
The defining pattern of the patriarchal narratives is a repeated cycle of impossible situations ('as good as dead') followed by divine deliverance. unit #6
Of all the ways our lives could end in ruin, the most probable is self-destruction through our own sin. unit #9
The crucial truth of Psalm 103 is that God delivers us not merely from external enemies but most importantly from our own sin. unit #10
You cannot engage in mission or Christian service until you first expect God's redemptive power to deliver you from your own pits—no pit is too deep or too old for God's eager redemption. unit #14
God's delight in redemption is proven by where He meets us—always in our worst moment, when we are enemies, in the pit, full of sin. unit #16
God's delight in redemption is proven by how He meets us—eagerly, repeatedly, and with inexhaustible grace that never runs out no matter how often we need it. unit #17
God's supreme delight in redemption is proven by how He leaves us—not merely rescued but crowned with honor, transformed through forgiveness, and blessed beyond what we deserve. unit #18
The angels' rejoicing over repentant sinners is merely a reflection of the Father's own jubilant delight in redemption. unit #19
When we create God in our image, we produce either a libertarian god who makes the cross unnecessary or a legalist god who makes the cross insufficient—both distortions prevent us from believing in God's eager redemptive delight. unit #21
Though God both redeems and damns, His self-disclosure consistently emphasizes His redemptive character, and even His damning serves to display His marvelous grace. unit #23
The key accent to God's personality is His delight in redemption—not conditional on our promises, not limited by frequency, but rooted in His knowledge of our frame. unit #25
God will be as happy to have you in heaven as you are to be there—not because you're awesome but because He chose before the foundation of the world to glorify Himself through extending grace to enemies. unit #27

Quotations· 4

"the very toys of toys and vanities of vanities still held me. They plucked at the garment of my flesh and whispered softly will you cast us off forever? And from that moment shall we no longer be with you forever? And I hesitated for a strong habit said to me do you think you can live without them? But count continents said to me that's self-control. Why do you rely on yourself and so waver? Cast yourself upon him. Fear not. He will not withdraw himself and let you fall. He will receive you and heal you." — Augustine (unit #13)

"Suddenly I heard from a neighboring house the voice of a child singing over and over again take up and read take up and read checking my weeping I got up and went back to where I'd been sitting and had laid down the volume of the apostle Romans and read the first passage which my which met my eyes not in rioting and drunkenness not in impurity and wantonness nor in strife and envy but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts I needed to read no further for suddenly as if it were by a light infused into my heart all darkness vanished away." — Augustine (unit #13)

"expect great things from God attempt great things for God" — William Carey (unit #14)

"the only thing we contribute to our salvation is the sin that made it necessary" — Jonathan Edwards (unit #25)

Read it

Full transcript

30,811 characters 28 units ~34 min reading time Listen instead →

0 · Opening prayer asking God to remove mental obstacles and preconceived notions that would prevent the congregation from seeing His glory in the text

Holy name for how faithful and good you are to us. And Lord, I pray that even right now you would clear the rubble in our minds, not only a way free from distractions, but also just worldly categories and preconceived notions that will keep us from beholding the glory that you've got for us in your text. So God, please overcome all of these unfortunate obstacles that are just a part of dealing with us people. And please, Lord, be good to us as we open your word. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

1 · Frames the two-week series on Psalm 103, distinguishing this week's focus (understanding God's personality) from next week's (developing godly personality)

You can be seated. We're in Psalm 103 this morning and also we'll be in Psalm 103 next week. This week we are examining the text with the purpose of understanding God's personality. And next week we'll go back to this text with the purpose of developing, developing a godly personality. This week is about God's personality. Next week about developing a godly personality. Charles Spurgeon thought that Psalm 103 had to have been written much later in David's life because the psalm itself displays such a robust appreciation for the grace of God. I don't know whether the psalm was written early or late, but I do know that if you walk with God over a period of decades, you will, if you're really walking with the true God, develop a greater and greater appreciation and understanding of the grace of God. You can't stand under a waterfall and stay dry. And you can't walk with God for decades and not become essentially a connoisseur or aficionado of grace. I think that's what I want my epitaph to be on my gravestone. Chris Oswald, grace connoisseur. Speaking of gravestones, I turned to 50 last weekend, and I got a letter welcoming me to the AARP. But I will tell you absolutely, if there's, if I can identify one thing, one category, one area of knowledge that I have grown in over the last three or four decades, most notably, it would be an appreciation for the grace of God. It is absolutely the greatest lesson I've learned over these past several decades.

2 · States the sermon's controlling thesis: God's main personality feature is His enthusiastic delight in redemption

I want to show you today that while we can't spend a sermon, just one sermon, examining all of the personality of God, I can show you the main personality feature that God possesses, and that is His enthusiasm for redemption. He delights in steadfast love, as we saw a moment ago.

3 · Uses the example of a church member who excels at all cooking but shows special enthusiasm for desserts to illustrate that someone can be good at many things while delighting especially in one particular thing

We have a number of really good cooks in our church, and I'm thinking of one particular lady who is a good cook in general. She's just a really wise and careful cook. But when you eat at her house, you can get to this point where you're like, I think you probably like cooking desserts more than all the other stuff you cook. Because you just get to the dessert sequence of the meal, and there's just a little something extra going on there. She delights in all sorts of things, but I think in particular, baking.

4 · Establishes that while God does all things well and is completely happy, Scripture itself consistently emphasizes redemption and steadfast love as the distinctive quality by which God wants to be known

If you were to ask me, what does God do well? Well, I would have to say all things, right? If you were to ask me, what does God delight in doing? I would say God is completely and eternally happy, and all that He desires comes to pass, and so it would be hard to rank that. Nevertheless, the Bible does consistently, the book that God Himself wrote, consistently put forward this unique quality as exceptionally delightful to God. And the thing that He wants you to know Him by, and that is this redeeming, this steadfast love.

5 · Provides technical background on the 12 Davidic psalms with superscriptions linking them to specific life episodes, primarily during his flight from Saul

I haven't shown you one of the crucial pieces of sort of Psalm data yet in our Psalm series, so let me do that now. We have 12 Psalms that correspond to particular periods in David's life, and we know they relate to those particular periods because in the original manuscript, before the Psalm appears is what's known as a superscription, and it's a note written by the author, the original author, that tells us this Psalm was written for this particular moment. The majority of these Psalms have to do with the period of time in which David was fleeing from Saul. But there are also several additional Psalms that pertain to the back end of David's life after his becoming king, so on and so forth. Now, this is helpful because if you just wanted to read through the Psalms in 1 and 2 Samuel together, here's your passages, and it would just take you probably, like really, it would probably just take you 12 days to do this. So these are the Psalms that pertain to a particular moment in David's life. These are the passages in the narrative account of David's life.

6 · Establishes the pattern of 'death and resurrection' as God's characteristic operating mode throughout the patriarchal narratives

Now, I show this to you for a couple reasons. One, David's life is simply a sequence of death and resurrections. Did he ever die? Literally no. But if you want to understand kind of what God is doing when he tells us the story of the patriarchs, you can lock in on this phrase, as good as dead. It's described of Abraham in Hebrews, but it's really the message of the patriarchs. They keep getting into situations that are basically irredeemable, unsolvable, without miraculous intervention. They are getting into situations in which they are as good as dead, whether that be because of biological age, being outnumbered by their enemies, all sorts of possibilities. And what you see throughout all of the stories, not just David, but Abraham and Jacob and Joseph and so forth, is you see this sequence of someone gets in a situation in which there is no hope, and God pulls them out of the pit.

7 · Traces three specific examples of David's 'as good as dead' pattern: his insignificant birth order when Samuel came to anoint a king, his facing Goliath against impossible odds, and his being hunted by Saul and the entire government

David's resurrection cycle started actually with his birth order. The very first thing we see of David is the prophet Samuel arriving to the household of Jesse under the instruction of the Lord to anoint the next king in replacement of Saul, and it does not occur to anyone in Jesse's house, nor does it occur to the prophet himself that the one to be anointed would be the youngest one, one of the youngest ones. David is way down the birth order to have ever been a significant person in the ancient world. That's his first resurrection, if you will. The first pit he's pulled out of is just his birth order. And then you go from that into the next story that appears, and that's the story of David and Goliath. And again, that is not supposed to end with David holding the massive noggin, the massive decapitated noggin of a giant. The logical expected turn of events there is that David is as good as dead, that God raises him from these terrible odds. And then through a series of events, he becomes persona non grata in the courthouse of Saul, and he is hunted down not only by Saul, but by the entire government. Again, he is as good as dead. And we go through several sequences where he gets trapped and pinned and cornered, and each time the Lord delivers him.

8 · Identifies Psalm 51 as the most famous Davidic deliverance psalm because it addresses the most universal enemy—not external threats but our own sin

So most of these psalms that I'm showing you here are psalms of deliverance out of one dire situation or another. Which is the most famous of all the psalms on the screen? You probably can't even see them. I don't know. Psalm 51 is by far, by far, the most famous psalm in this sequence. And that's because that psalm deals with the deliverance from the most common foe that human beings face. The most common foe that we face is our own sin. The most infamous and dangerous enemy in our lives is our own tendency to walk away from the Lord's commands, indulge our flesh, walk in our own wisdom.

9 · Establishes why Psalm 51 is disproportionately beloved in church history: because self-inflicted spiritual disaster through sin is the most common path to ruin

And so there's a reason why if you did a heat map on the psalms that the saints have prayed through the years, almost none of these psalms would be very high on that list. Psalm 23 would be high. Psalm 1 would be high. But absolutely, Psalm 51, of all of the psalms would be probably top five in terms of its fondness in the church. And that's because of all the possible ways we have of winding up in various pits, of getting cornered, of being in a situation in which we are as good as dead, the most likely way our lives will end in disgrace, in shame, in loneliness, in darkness, is that we screwed it up ourselves. That's the most likely outcome.

10 · Reiterates the sermon's main thesis with heightened specificity: God delivers not just from external threats but from the more dangerous internal enemy of sin

And so the main thesis for today, coming from Psalm 103, is that not only do we have a God who will deliver us from the giants and the kings and the accidents of the fate of birth order or genes or whatever else, most importantly, we have a God who will deliver us from our own sin. And that is a crucial, crucial truth, and honestly, the thing that animates my heart more than anything else for the last decades, several decades.

11 · Signals a structural shift from establishing God's redemptive character to diagnosing the specific sins from which redemption is needed

Now, I want to make sure before we get into talking about God's redeeming love that we have a frank but brief conversation about sin.

12 · Directly confronts the congregation with the reality that some live in 'pits'—habitual sin patterns—so normalized they don't recognize them as pits

There are particular pits that people in this room even have fallen into, and they are so pity, so deep, that you can build a whole life down there. You can have kids down there. You can get married down there. You can go to church down there. You can function as a human being in some of these pits. They're so big. You won't function exceptionally well, but you can function. One of the big pits that you can fall into is a general lack of self-control. You can be a Christian and have a relative difficult time controlling your emotions, your thoughts, your actions. You won't be a very successful or fruitful Christian, but you can be a Christian. It's possible that some people here are in a pit so deep related to their own inability to control the way they think, the way they feel, and the way they act, that it has such a big pit that it looks like home. And so you aren't even necessarily understanding how good a news it is that God delivers people out of pits because you don't even know how big of a pit you're in. But man, like, until you can learn to control your thoughts and your lusts and your anger, you're in a pit. And you are not going to live God's best life in that pit. So I want to encourage you. I don't mean to make you feel bad. I just want to wake you up to the fact that we'll call him Plato's pit, Plato's cave. You can be in some kinds of pits so long you don't even know you're in the pit, which is the story of Plato's cave. The fear of man is another massive pit that you might have been living in for most of your Christian life. You might be so concerned with what others think and use comparison as the chief guide for truth and normality, and you might not even realize, yeah, you're down there. You've got your whole family down there. And guess what? It is not okay for you to stay there. And so you, because you don't know that you're living in this massive pit, don't know how good news it is that God is a pit puller. Some of us have such an extraordinary love of comfort, convenience, and control that we are relatively stingy and we keep a relatively small set of ambitions because everything outside of this relative narrow margin that we've allowed ourselves to live in forces us into discomfort and uncertainty. And I'll just say, you're in a pit. That is not how you're supposed to live. But you might have been down there for so long, you don't know you're in a pit. Some people have far more selfishness with which to contend than they realize. They reflexively evaluate opportunities and circumstances by how it serves them. They struggle to love proactively and think of others and for others and land with others in their difficulty. They have a great struggle with selfishness. They're in a pit, but you know, it's just become a normalized kind of thing. The truth is, is that these deeper issues, these bigger pits, are actually the cause of many of your sins. If you struggle, for instance, with a lack of self-control, well, so many other issues are just downstream of that one thing. If you can't learn how to get your mind off of something and onto something else. If you can't learn how to be transformed by the renewing of your mind, how to take every thought captive. Well, you're probably out here chasing sort of secondary level sins. Why am I anxious? Why am I bitter toward this person? Why do I keep thinking about promiscuous sex? It's like, well, these are all downstream of the fact that you actually are in a big pit called a lack of self-control. And I bring that to you because I want you to celebrate with me the promises of this passage that we serve a God who is eager to pull us out of these pits.

13 · Uses Augustine's famous conversion scene from Confessions to illustrate God's eager pursuit of sinners in their pits

God is not a reluctant redeemer. I'm reading the Confessions right now by Augustine. And there's a passage that's probably one of the most famous passages in the book. Augustine, before he was saved, you could tell I'm kind of like half-educated because the really smart people say Augustine and the less smart people say Augustine and I say both. there's a passage. Augustine struggled a lot with sexual sin before his conversion. And he got to a point where right before his conversion he came to understand like it's it's Jesus or this. If I follow Christ I will have to deal with this. And he's really struggling. He writes, the very toys of toys and vanities of vanities still held me. They plucked at the garment of my flesh and whispered softly will you cast us off forever? And from that moment shall we no longer be with you forever? And I hesitated for a strong habit said to me do you think you can live without them? But count count continents said to me that's self-control. Why do you rely on yourself and so waver? Cast yourself upon him. Fear not. He will not withdraw himself and let you fall. He will receive you and heal you. So I rose and throwing myself down under a certain fig tree wept bitterly in contrition of heart. Suddenly I heard from a neighboring house the voice of a child singing over and over again take up and read take up and read checking my weeping I got up and went back to where I'd been sitting and had laid down the volume of the apostle Romans and read the first passage which my which met my eyes not in rioting and drunkenness not in impurity and wantonness nor in strife and envy but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts I needed to read no further for suddenly as if it were by a light infused into my heart all darkness vanished away. He would go on to struggle in progressive victory into ultimate freedom. this is not a get rich quick kind of passage what I want you to see is the God who planted the fig tree and the God who sent apostle Paul to be apostle to the Gentiles and the God who put it in the little child's heart to sing a thing they probably weren't even thinking about as they were playing take up and read take up and read the God of the universe had visited Augustine in the pit and orchestrated through his providential sovereign will everything needed for this man to find freedom from this life dominating sin this is the God we see in Psalm 103 the God who pursues us just so he can bless us

14 · Transitions from illustration to direct theological claim

William Carey the great missionary to India is famous for saying expect great things from God attempt great things for God and we talk about mission and love mission and love sharing the gospel with others and love being a church but friends I will tell you fundamentally you are not ready to do any of that until you can expect the God of the universe to pull you out of the pit and I need you I want you I'm eager for you to see just how eager God is to do this for you there is no pit that needs to be off limits it's it's not too late it's not been too long the God of the universe he's got this and he enjoys this particular work that's the burden of the message today I want to prove to you that not only does God redeem but he delights in redeeming and I can show you that in the text in a couple ways

15 · Reads Psalm 103:1-5, providing the biblical text that grounds the sermon's argument

look back at verse one bless the Lord oh my soul all that is within me bless his holy name bless the Lord oh my soul forget not all his benefits who forgives all your iniquity who heals all your diseases who redeems your life from the pit who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagles

16 · First proof of God's delight in redemption: where He meets us

I can say that God delights in delivering us because of where he meets us you know God only ever meets people in their worst moment that's that's how he is introduced to all of us while we are yet sinners and enemies God meets us we see that here God meets us when we are in the pit God meets us when we are full of iniquities God meets us when we are sin sick he must really delight in it if he comes to us in those particular moments he actually doesn't come to us when we don't think we need the doctor right so even when he comes to us reveals his heart for redemption he comes when we are broken when we are undone when we are desperate like Augustine weeping under the fig tree

17 · Second proof of God's delight: how He meets us

we see that not only with where he meets us but how he meets us if you study all the Bible you'll find all of these passages where redemption is given a verb of some kind like Luke 15 the prodigal son's father does what not just that he meets the son how does he meet the son he runs to meet the son you can find these passages all over the Bible where it is shown that God has an enthusiastic response to delivering people out of their darkness Malachi 4 2 but as for you who fear my name the son of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings! We could see his vault of stuff we're supposed to be doing that we aren't and they're both pits of different kinds and God not only comes and meets us in those places he meets us eagerly and he meets us often I love the use of the word all at the beginning of the psalm he heals all of our sins he heals all of our diseases you know when Peter asks how often do I have to forgive my brother and Jesus says you know 70 times 7 what he's saying is is that if you want to be a godly person you have to act like God and God doesn't have a limited amount of grace for each saint grace is not a finite resource you won't run out if you use too much of it you don't have to ration it he will come and heal you from the disease today and the disease tomorrow the sin tomorrow you will simply never exhaust God's goodwill toward you to extend his salvation he never once will say all right you've used too many of your forgiveness credits this year come back to me when you've got your act together

18 · Third and climactic proof of God's delight: how He leaves us after redemption

but I love most of all in this passage the reason why I picked on this passage to preach is I love what it says about how God leaves us after he saves us now I don't mean that God leaves us he will never leave us or forsake us I mean the condition in which he leaves us after he a lot about someone's enthusiasm if you're a boss you know this you can tell a lot about someone's enthusiasm for a work a job by how they finish the last 10% of that job if you enter you've seen this when you mow we're taking care of the house or the lawn or something if you enter into a job you don't really want to do you get about 80% really matter all that much no no no that's that's not going to happen you put someone who enjoys that same work into that situation and what you'll be able to see is that all the way to the end in fact that last 10% which is you might think of as just like adornment or making it extra good people who love their work labor joyfully over that last 10% they don't just do most of it and move on they really like this work what we find with God is not a God who simply pops us out of the pit and moves on we see a God who after he saves us crowns us you see that in the text he will crown us with he crowns you with steadfast love and mercy a crown is a declaration it's a title it's a symbol of identity this is a pretty amazing truth friends when people sin against us if we are reasonably godly we will bite our lip and put a smile on our face and forgive the person and move on but what will happen almost inevitably I'm sure we've done this to each other as we've walked together over the years is we will say I forgive you but I'm going to put a sign on your head that says jerk or potential jerk or was once a jerk I'm going to put if you do something dumb I'm going to put an invisible dunce cap on your head I'm going to be kind to you I'm going to tolerate you I'm going to smile at you when I see you I promise not to bring up the stuff but in my heart you'll always have a sign on you that says this guy this gal screwed up when God saves us he puts a crown on our heads he doesn't simply pull us out of the pit he is not finished until not only have we been rescued but we will also be strengthened confirmed and established God's saving work is so complete it doesn't simply say okay good enough I bailed you out let's not do this again God actually does an extra work where he he transforms you through the forgiveness you see this all over the Bible Jesus is careful to include these details in the prodigal son story the prodigal son story isn't the son comes home and is given his wish of becoming a servant in his father's household no that story isn't done until the father has put a signet ring on his finger filled his belly with the best food he could find and given him the best seat in the house we see this in a passage that we looked at a few weeks ago in Zechariah Joshua the high priest is standing before the Lord and he's in filthy garments and the work isn't done simply by God overlooking the dark garments and saying I forgive you God says no you're not going to leave until you have all new clothes on God just won't stop until he has completely blessed you in response to your sin he he won't simply forgive you and move on he insists on not only forgiving you but filling your belly with the good things that he has that you don't deserve this is great evidence that God loves to redeem he doesn't just do the 80 cruci 80% crucial amount of redeeming he lingers over this process and blesses you far more than you are going to feel comfortable with I absolutely guarantee you that prodigal son felt so uncomfortable as he was sitting at that table with his older brother looking at him and this is a man who deserved none of this and the father kept saying no no no no bring out another course for my son was dead and now he is alive

19 · Establishes that angelic rejoicing over repentant sinners reflects the Father's own joy—angels mirror God's delight

you know while we are thinking about that passage Jesus says I think it's in like verse 15 in Luke 15 that all of the angels rejoice when one sinner turns and repents well where do you think they learned that from Jesus isn't taking a break in the parable to tell us about angels he's telling us about the father he's telling us who the father is the angels are just a mirror of how the father feels when he redeems a person out of the pit Isaiah 35 10 is marvelous to demonstrate this and the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing everlasting joy shall be on their heads they shall obtain gladness and joy and sorrow and sighing shall flee away Zephaniah 3 17 the Lord is in your midst a mighty one who will save he will rejoice over you with gladness he will quiet you by his love he will exalt over you with loud singing

20 · Pivots from establishing God's redemptive delight to diagnosing why the congregation struggles to believe it

so the main burden of the message is God delights in redeeming you and the real reason I want to hit the real reason why so many of us struggle to believe this has to do with our violation of the second commandment the reason why we can't get grace correctly has to do with the violation of the second commandment what's the second commandment

21 · Diagnoses two false gods created by violating the second commandment: the libertarian god (permissive, cheap grace) and the legalist god (stingy, exacting)

when we create a God in our image we will wind up with one of two gods the libertarian God who doesn't care about what we do if that's who we are that's the God we're going to create if we are permissive and casual towards sin then the God we will create the false God we will create the violation of the second commandment will involve creating a God who is a libertarian God who doesn't care about what you do but if you are exacting if you are a critical person critical of others and ultimately critical of yourself because Jesus says the standard you use to judge others created is a stingy God an exacting God a God who is not at all eager to forgive so what you need to understand is is that your lack of familiarity with grace whether you overemphasize like a cheap grace or underemphasize the generosity of God this is because of our human tendency to take the name Yahweh and some biblical data and marry it in like a recipe with our own sense of God and create a new God that absolutely diminishes the glory of the cross you see the people who recreate a God in a libertarian image doesn't really care about sin they desecrate the necessity of the cross why is Jesus dying if God doesn't really care all that much about sin but the people who have the javert from Les mis the legalist the strict understanding of the false God they negate the glories of the cross the accomplishments of the cross and that is that Jesus really did pay the price not only to expatiate to remove our sins but to impute his righteousness to us and so really we won't get grace right so long as we have this tendency to create a God in our image and I can just tell you that if you're struggling to believe what I'm telling you it is because you have without realizing it created a God in your image I'm preaching the God of the Bible to you right now this is who God is what I'm! telling you right now is who God is me saying that he delights exceptionally in redemption is what the Bible says so I hope that you'll accept this and understand how glorious this God is

22 · Exposits Isaiah 55:6-9 to correct a common misreading

as Psalm 103 continues in verse 6 the Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed! I want to linger just a moment more on this notion that our main troubles with grace have to do with violating the second commandment in Isaiah 55 we see the same language we see in Psalm 103 this spatial language as high as the heavens are above the earth the east and the west and this is the passage that you'll often hear used when someone's trying to communicate that God is transcendent and he's smarter than us and he's wiser than us this is that passage where God says as the heavens are higher than the earth so my ways are higher than your ways and my is that that's a passage about God explaining why they can trust that he will forgive it's a passage where he is saying my ways are higher than your ways in one particular way I actually do forgive completely I actually don't repay a man according to what he deserves I don't smile and say you're forgiven while putting a sign an invisible sign around your neck that says watch out for that guy that the point of that Isaiah 55 passage as is the point of this Psalm 103 passage is this is a God who doesn't think that way listen to the whole passage Isaiah 55 6 through 9 seek the Lord while he may be found call upon him while he is near let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts let the wicked let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him to our God for he will abundantly pardon for my thoughts are not your thoughts nor my ways your ways he's saying you can trust me to actually forgive you you can trust me to actually remove your guilt you can trust me to actually pull you out of the pit because I'm not like you I don't hold a bitter beef I don't keep score I don't count wrongs in the same way that you count wrongs I can actually forgive you that's one of the things that makes me unique

23 · Addresses the tension between redemption and damnation

God loves to redeem his people it's the emphasis he puts in the Bible throughout does that mean that God only redeems no he damns as well but what does he choose to emphasize when for instance Moses says show me your glory in Exodus 34 Moses says to the Lord show me your glory and the Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord the Lord a God merciful and gracious slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness keeping steadfast love for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin but who will by no means clear the guilty visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation so in God's own self disclosure he says I'm two things I'm exceedingly slow to anger but if you dare to neglect so great a salvation you're an idiot and it's going to affect not only you but your children and your children's children the emphasis is do not neglect such great a salvation and if we read Romans 9 which we won't do today we can see that even God's purpose for damning the rebellious sinner is to display his marvelous grace to those who are chosen to be saved again God is simply a happy redeemer

24 · Uses the 'Mexican food rule' analogy to prove God's delight in redemption

I'm about done I want to leave you with this logical proof that I think is absolutely it's called the Mexican food rule and it's the absolute airtight proof that God delights in redeeming imagine someone comes to me and says Chris you know I don't really like Mexican food all that much that's cool for different folks we live in an area where there's plenty of options and fine but what if that same person came to me and said Chris I don't really like Mexican food I'm moving to Oaxaca Mexico by the way I would say well you're dumb you've you gotta eat and Oaxaca Mexico is not known for its Chinese food so what's the plan here hombre friends when God chose to move into a relationship with us the fundamental activity of that relationship is redemption that's all there is to do that's all there is to do it's like well I'm going to take a vacation on the ocean but I don't really like the ocean don't really like water don't really like seafood don't really like sand well that's all there is to do I think the airtight evidence that God glories in redeeming is the fact that he has chosen to dwell with us because that's all we have to offer

25 · Synthesizes the sermon's argument with an Edwards quote and reiterates the main thesis

as Jonathan Edwards said the only thing we contribute to our salvation is the sin that made it necessary so God absolutely delights in redeeming us and I think that if you're trying to understand the personality of God you have to start with the thing that he screams over and over again and so hopefully today you understand that the key accent to God's personality is a delight to save a delight to redeem not one time not only with certain things not because you promise you'll never do it again God delights in redeeming he simply delights in saving you and he knows your frame by the way and he knows that you are but dust

26 · Signals the structural transition from sermon proper to communion preparation, framing the quotation to follow as the hinge into sacramental worship

I want to pivot to communion with this glorious quote

27 · Presents a striking quotation asserting mutual joy in heaven—God as happy to have us as we are to be there

do not be surprised to find that God is just as happy to have you with him in heaven as you are to be there if you don't if this isn't reflexively true in your heart you still need to stand under that waterfall a little longer you don't know God as well as you think you do this is the truth you will arrive one day in glory with him and he is going to be happy to see you he has done all the work to make that so he has paid an incredible price to make that so now the weirdo you know the weirdo charismatics and therapeutic gospel types are going to say that's because you're awesome no it's because God has chosen before the foundation of the world to make his glory known primarily through the exercise of extending free unmerited grace to his enemies and transforming them into his sons and his daughters but this is absolutely the heartbeat of God

Where this fits

Recent preaching context

The three sermons immediately preceding this one in the preaching schedule.

Jul 13, 2025

Asaph's Odyssey

The local church is God's appointed place where discouraged believers encounter truth not as abstract proposition but as embodied reality in a community of faithful people, enabling them to discern the true end of the wicked and persevere in holiness.

Psalm 73:1-28

Jul 20, 2025

Science & the Scriptures

Scripture must hold a superior position to creation in our lives because only scripture provides the interpretive framework necessary to rightly understand the natural world and our place within it.

Psalm 19:1-14

Jul 27, 2025

Reverence & Reward

The fear of the Lord—understood as filial reverence expressed in both attitude and action—is the pathway to genuine biblical blessings, which God faithfully gives according to his own timing and type rather than our specifications.

Psalm 128:1-6

August 10 · This sermon

Understanding God's Personality

God's primary personality feature is His enthusiastic delight in redemption, demonstrated by where He meets us (in our pits), how He meets us (eagerly and repeatedly), and how He leaves us (crowned with steadfast love, not merely rescued).

Psalm 103

Take it further

Discuss · apply · pray

Small groups

6 discussion questions

In Psalm 103:3-4, David describes God as one who 'forgives all your iniquity' and 'redeems your life from the pit.' What does the progressio…

Daily readings

5-day reading plan

This week we trace how God's eager delight in redemption—proven by where, how, and how He leaves us—reshapes our understanding of His personality and compels our trust in His inexhaustible grace.

Prayer

Prayer of Redemptive Delight

Father, we come before You in awe of Your defining personality—Your enthusiastic delight in redemption and steadfast love. You are the God w…

Family table

How Does God Really Feel About Us?

This prompt invites your family to wrestle with the difference between how we think God feels about us (distant, disappointed, keeping score…

Couples

God's Delight in Our Redemption

When Chris described God eagerly meeting us in our deepest pits—not reluctantly but with joy—what sin or failure of yours came to mind, and…

Memorize

Psalm 103:3-4

This verse distills the sermon's central thesis: God's primary personality trait is His enthusiastic delight in redemption, demonstrated by *where* He meets us (the pit), *how* He leaves us (crowned with steadfast love), and the completeness of His transformation from death to dignity. It anchors the audacious claim that God doesn't merely tolerate our sin but joyfully restores us.

Small-group discussion

6 questions for your group this week

In Psalm 103:3-4, David describes God as one who 'forgives all your iniquity' and 'redeems your life from the pit.' What does the progression from forgiveness to redemption tell us about what God actually accomplishes for us—and how is that different from merely tolerating our sin?

Psalm 103:3-4

→ Can you think of a moment when you experienced God meeting you not just with pardon but with restoration—when He didn't just stop the damage but actually renewed something in you?
The sermon emphasizes that God's delight in redemption is proven by *where* He meets us—in our worst moments, when we're enemies, in the pit. How does this claim challenge the way you typically think about God's willingness to help you, especially when you've fallen into the same pit multiple times?

Romans 5:8
Chris noted that we violate the second commandment by creating God in our image—either as a libertarian god who ignores sin or a legalist god who withholds grace. Which distortion do you find yourself gravitating toward, and how does that false image of God actually prevent you from believing in His eager redemptive delight?

→ What would change in your prayer life or your willingness to confess if you truly believed God was *eager* to redeem you rather than reluctant?
Psalm 103:1-5 describes God crowning us with 'steadfast love and mercy' and satisfying us with 'good things.' The sermon stressed that God doesn't merely rescue us from the pit but *leaves us* transformed and blessed. What's the difference between a God who saves us and a God who delights in restoring our dignity?

Psalm 103:1-5
The sermon presents a sobering truth: 'of all the ways our lives could end in ruin, the most probable is self-destruction through our own sin.' Before you can engage in mission or Christian service, you must first expect God's redemptive power to deliver *you* from your own pits. What would it look like for you to stop postponing your own healing and instead let God's redemption of you become the foundation of whatever He calls you to do?
In Luke 15:10, Jesus says the angels rejoice over one sinner who repents—and the sermon notes this is merely a reflection of the Father's own jubilant delight. How would your understanding of heaven, judgment, or even your daily prayer change if you truly grasped that God will be as *happy* to have you there as you are to be there, not because you're awesome but because He chose before the foundation of the world to glorify Himself through extending grace to enemies?

Luke 15:10

Draft · pending review

Daily readings · Monday–Friday

5-day reading plan

This week we trace how God's eager delight in redemption—proven by where, how, and how He leaves us—reshapes our understanding of His personality and compels our trust in His inexhaustible grace.

Monday Exodus 34:6-7

When the Lord reveals His name to Moses—"merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love"—He is defining Himself by His redemptive character first. This self-disclosure shows us what God most wants to be known for: not His power to punish, but His eager compassion toward sinners. We are invited this week to believe that this is genuinely who God is, not a facade He maintains while harboring hidden judgment.

Tuesday Romans 5:8

Paul's declaration that Christ died for us *while we were still sinners* reveals that God does not wait for us to clean ourselves up or prove our worthiness. He meets us at our worst—enemies of His holiness, dead in trespasses—and His action there proves His delight is not contingent on our merit. This is the scandal and the hope: the pit is exactly where we meet Him.

Wednesday Luke 15:10

Jesus tells us that there is *joy in the presence of the angels of God* over one sinner who repents—and that joy is not the angels' invention but an echo of the Father's own jubilation. When we repent, heaven erupts because God Himself delights in our restoration. We are not merely forgiven; we are the occasion of divine gladness, and that gladness proves His redemptive character runs deeper than any other attribute.

Thursday Zechariah 3:1-5

In this vision, Joshua stands accused before God, clothed in filthy garments—the image of shame and judgment—yet the Lord commands his attendants to remove the filthy clothes and dress him in clean robes with a clean turban. God does not leave Joshua in his forgiveness; He crowns him with dignity and restoration. This is how our Father leaves us: not as barely-rescued sinners, but as crowned and honored children, dressed in His own righteousness.

Friday Matthew 18:21-22

When Peter asks if forgiveness should end at seven times, Jesus responds: seventy times seven—a number that signifies not a limit but the endless, boundary-less nature of redemptive grace. This teaches us that God's forgiveness is not a finite resource we can exhaust through repeated failure; it is infinite because it flows from His delight in redemption, not from our performance. We enter the week's end knowing that no pit is too old, no sin too familiar, for God's eager grace to meet us again.

Draft · pending review

Pray together this week

Prayer of Redemptive Delight

Father, we come before You in awe of Your defining personality—Your enthusiastic delight in redemption and steadfast love. You are the God who meets us not in our moments of triumph but in our deepest pits, where we have destroyed ourselves through sin, where no human rescuer can reach. We confess that we often doubt this truth about You. We create You in our image: either as a distant libertarian who ignores our sin, making the cross unnecessary, or as a harsh legalist who withholds grace, making the cross insufficient. We struggle to believe that You pursue us eagerly, repeatedly, with inexhaustible compassion that never runs out no matter how often we need it.

Yet the gospel declares what we cannot earn: in Christ, You have absorbed divine wrath so that You can look upon the redeemed with unqualified satisfaction and joy. You do not merely rescue us from our pits; You crown us with honor, transform us through forgiveness, and bless us beyond what we deserve (Psalm 103:3–4). The angels rejoice over our repentance because they reflect Your own jubilant delight in our redemption (Luke 15:10). This is not because we are awesome, but because You chose before the foundation of the world to glorify Yourself through extending grace to enemies (Romans 5:8).

We ask for grace to believe this about You—truly believe it—so that we might be freed from self-condemnation and endless striving. Grant us courage to expect Your redemptive power to deliver us from our own sin, no pit too deep or too old for Your eager pursuit. As we are transformed by this knowledge, compel us by Your grace to extend the same steadfast love to one another and to those far from You. We commit ourselves to rejoicing in Your redemptive character and to living as those who have been crowned with dignity, satisfied with good things, and destined for unending joy in Your presence. To You be all glory and praise.

Draft · pending review

Sunday-evening family table

How Does God Really Feel About Us?

For the parent

This prompt invites your family to wrestle with the difference between how we think God feels about us (distant, disappointed, keeping score) and how the sermon revealed He actually feels (delighted, eager to rescue, thrilled to forgive). Listen for whether kids instinctively assume God is angry or reluctant—that's where the gospel reshapes hearts.

In the sermon, Chris talked about how God doesn't just rescue us from our mess like someone grudgingly helping a friend—He actually *wants* to rescue us and is *happy* to do it. Can you think of a time when someone helped you out of a bad situation, but you could tell they didn't really *want* to? How would it feel different if that same person was actually *eager* and *delighted* to help you? That's the difference Chris said God makes.

works for ages 6+; younger kids benefit from the concrete example, older kids can explore what it means to believe God is truly eager rather than tolerant

Draft · pending review

Couples · three questions over coffee

God's Delight in Our Redemption

When Chris described God eagerly meeting us in our deepest pits—not reluctantly but with joy—what sin or failure of yours came to mind, and how does it feel to imagine God delighting in your restoration rather than merely tolerating it?
How do we tend to create God in our own image in our marriage—either as someone who overlooks our wrongs or as someone who keeps score? Where do we need to receive afresh the truth that God both hates our sin enough to require the cross and loves us enough to crown us with honor?
What is one specific area where your spouse needs to grasp God's eager redemptive delight—a pit they're stuck in, a failure they're replaying—and how can we pray for that truth to break through together this week?

Draft · pending review

Memory verse this week

Psalm 103:3-4

He forgives all your iniquity; he heals all your diseases. He redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with steadfast love and mercy.

Why this verse: This verse distills the sermon's central thesis: God's primary personality trait is His enthusiastic delight in redemption, demonstrated by *where* He meets us (the pit), *how* He leaves us (crowned with steadfast love), and the completeness of His transformation from death to dignity. It anchors the audacious claim that God doesn't merely tolerate our sin but joyfully restores us.

Draft · pending review

Where this was preached

About the church

Providence Community Church

Lenexa, KS
Sundays · 10:00 AM
About us · What we believe

Plan a visit →

Crawler & AI-search policy · view robots.txt and llms.txt

This sermon page is intentionally optimized for search engines and AI assistants. We've opted into being crawled by both. The crawler-config files at the domain root:

/robots.txt

User-agent: *
Allow: /

User-agent: GPTBot
Allow: /

User-agent: ClaudeBot
Allow: /

User-agent: Google-Extended
Allow: /

User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /

Sitemap: https://sermonsteward.com/sitemap.xml

/llms.txt

# Providence Community Church

A church preaching expository sermons through the books of the Bible.

## Sermons
- [Asaph's Odyssey (Psalm 73:1-28, 2025-07-13)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2025/07/asaph-s-odyssey)
- [Science & the Scriptures (Psalm 19:1-14, 2025-07-20)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2025/07/science-the-scriptures)
- [Reverence & Reward (Psalm 128:1-6, 2025-07-27)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2025/07/reverence-reward)
- [Understanding God's Personality (Psalm 103, 2025-08-10)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2025/08/understanding-god-s-personality)

## About
- [About the church](/about)
- [Plan a visit](/visit)

The page itself ships with Schema.org Article + Church markup (with real geo coordinates), Open Graph + Twitter cards for share previews, and a canonical URL. Transcripts are server-rendered HTML — no JS dependency for the readable body.