The Love You Don't Have to Earn

Well, hello and welcome to Crowd Church's non-live livestream August series. My name is Matt Edmundson, and I just wanted to jump on before we get started with today's talk and tell you what's going on. So this isn't our usual Sunday service. I know, but it is our usual August Crowd service. If you're a regular to Crowd, you will have twigged already that we are not live.

We're not in our studio as we would usually be when we livestream. Which means I won't be fighting the usual technical difficulties, but I may well fluff the odd line. Just putting that out there. And here's why it's a little bit different. Because in August, half of Crowd Church kind of disappear to somewhere hot, and the other half of us are trying to kind of figure out, well, why did we not book somewhere, right?

It is the month in the UK that most of the team get to book their holidays because of family. So we lean in, we lean, see, messing my lines up, we lean into that every August, and we pre-record the talks. So we don't have the Conversation Street, we don't have Live Lounge, and the whole team just gets to stop for the entire month of August. We think of it as our Sabbath rest, and it's a practice we've done every year. Yeah, so that people who serve you week in week, they get some proper Sabbath rest, and you still get something worth turning up for.

The talks are actually Brilliant. Uh, you'll get a lot out of them. So make sure you keep watching on a Sunday with your cup of tea, or possibly in August on a Wednesday afternoon when you're avoiding something important. I don't know, whatever suits you. And of course, if you're new here to Crowd, let me give you a big fat hello.

Crowd is an online church, uh, actually with, uh, members all over the place. Everything we do here at Crowd, from the Sunday livestream to our midweek community groups, even the online course for those exploring Christianity All of it is on the website, which is www.crowd.church.

Now, this August, we are in the Book of Psalms for 5 weeks, 5 Psalms. These are sort of Psalms written by people that— it's the book in the middle of the New, uh, Old Testament, uh, and there's going to be a thread running through this, uh, series, which is what restoration actually looks like when your life is all over the place, which Hands up if you need to hear that right now. One more thing before we get started, make sure you stay with us to the end of the video because there are some changes coming to Crowd starting in September, all of them good ones. And I'm going to tell you about a few of them after the talk. So hopefully that's created enough intrigue.

But that's it. Let's settle in. Grab your notebooks, grab your pens. Let's enjoy the talk. I'll be back.

After this.

Well, hello, Crowd Church! Great to be with you, uh, in these August Talks, the non-live livestream, uh, and today we're going to look at Psalm 103. And if you have been following along, you may well go, hang on a minute, Matt, I thought Kate Sopwith was going to do this talk. And Kate Sopwith did in fact do this talk. She recorded it in this studio a couple of days ago, um, And bless her, the video, when we came to put the video, edit the video, it was corrupt.

What's that all about, right? Um, you could see her but you couldn't hear her. And so we've just not had a chance to re-record it with Kate. So I'm going to go through Psalm 103 with you. And it's a real shame in some respects because Kate's talk is really good, and I was really looking forward to having Kate on Crowd Church.

We will get Kate back, that's for sure. Um, but I just happened to be near the studio, so I can get in to record the video, uh, before going around to Dan's house. Uh, anyway, all these long stories. Uh, Kate, I'm really genuinely sorry. I was looking forward to this.

I really was. Now, that said, Psalm 103 is an incredible Psalm, and I'm really looking forward to getting into it. It's one of my favorite Psalms. Um, it was written by David, who you may have heard of. In David and Goliath fame.

Um, he was the shepherd boy who, uh, killed a giant with a slingshot. And David goes on to become king, king of Israel, sort of really powerful king. And he writes this psalm, and he writes it about 1,000 years before Jesus comes. So let me read, uh, the start of it to you. It says, bless the Lord, in verse 1, bless the Lord Oh my soul, I love the language here, and all that is within me, all of it, everything that is within me, bless his holy name.

That's quite an extraordinary start, isn't it? Bless the Lord, O my soul, all that was within me, bless his holy name. Wow, wow, wow, wow. So David doesn't just rejoice in God with his words, but with his soul, with his entire being. Everything that is within me.

Um, in fact, David is a king who's recorded, uh, of dancing, uh, in the street with joy, um, at who God was, right? And he was dancing, and, and everyone was like, what's going on? This is all a bit weird. And he was very exuberant Um, and it's okay to be exuberant in your worship and wonder of God. I think, you know, being British, we like to be slightly stifled, uh, in, in what's going on.

Um, especially, I suppose, that you think King Charles, our king, I don't see him doing— maybe he does, I don't know. Um, it would be interesting to see him, uh, do that though, wouldn't it? Um, so yeah, this is, this is a really interesting psalm. And it's a passionate psalm. It's a heartfelt response from deep within, uh, being about a God who is so, so good.

And it's interesting to look at the psalm and maybe ask the question, why did he have that reaction to it? You know, sort of, why was that his reaction to God. And there's a power revealed in this, isn't there? There's a character of God, um, that we see in this, which is, it's quite transformational really. And so yeah, just bless the Lord, O my soul, all that is within me, bless his holy name.

Bless the Lord, verse 2, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits. Do not forget what God has done for you. Uh, he forgives all your iniquity. In verse 3, he heals your diseases. Verse 4, he redeems your life from the pit, and he crowns you with steadfast love and mercy.

Verse 5, he satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known his ways to Moses and his acts to the people of Israel. Verse 8: The Lord is merciful and gracious and slow to anger and abounding in love. And it goes on with just some incredible verses, even towards the end.

Bless the Lord, oh you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word. Bless the Lord all his hosts, his ministers who do his will. Bless the Lord, all of his works in all places of his dominions. Bless the Lord, O my soul. You can see what's going on, can't you?

You can see what God has done for us. And there's a, there's a celebration here, because in this we also only see what God has done for us, but how God sees us. And so that's a great song to get into, isn't it? Like I say, intensely passionate, um, intensely exuberant in focusing on the truth of who God is. So verse 3, which I read, says he is the God who forgives all our iniquities— or forgives, it's an old-fashioned word— and gives our— forgives our sins.

You know, we pray the Lord's Prayer, forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us, right? And the word sin is an interesting one, uh, and I think one of the revelations that you have as a Christian, as you get closer to God, I think you have a revelation of just how serious sin becomes. When I wasn't a Christian, I wasn't really interested in that word sin. I just thought it meant no fun, you know, no sin equals no fun. It was a simple equation.

In my head. Um, and so that's how I sort of saw it, you know, the fun police. But I think as you grow in your faith, sin stops being about a lack of fun and it starts being the very thing that separates you from God. And we learn, like David, to run to God with our sin as opposed to run from him. Uh, and so yeah, I, I think it's important to understand that as you grow, you do start to see sin differently.

And one of the definitions actually Kate said in her talk, um, is sin is something distorted from its original design. Something distorted from its original design. And I think if you think— well, if you think back to the very beginning of existence, even before we were born, God knows us and he loves us, and he says that we are wonderfully made. That's— he says that in another Psalm. So in spite of the sin, in spite of the things that separate us from God, he sees us as fearfully and wonderfully made.

And I love that because that means I don't have to have everything sorted to come to him. It's a love I cannot earn. And God is never surprised about where we are in life, which is big, and it's exciting. It's definitely exciting, I know that. Now, each of us, um, I think, is a beautiful, wonderful creation of God, regardless of the situation, um, of our conception, of our birth, of our family.

That's what God made us to be, regardless of the circumstance. There's a verse in Ephesians which says you are his workmanship, in Ephesians 2:10. And that word workmanship is translated poetry. God wrote a poem and it was me. God wrote— you could phrase it this way: God wrote a love poem and I'm it, right?

And that's how wonderful God sees us. And it's in this context you then go, bless the Lord, oh my soul, right? And he forgives, uh, iniquities. So sin is what separates us from God. It's what happens when you take God out of the equation.

It's nothing to do with fun, it's just separating yourself from God. And I think repentance, or turning around, or asking for that forgiveness of sin is so important and so critical. And we bless the Lord when that happens, right? So rather than me saying, "I'm gonna do it my way, I think I know best, I'm going to decide to walk this way," rather than saying that, like David, "Bless the Lord, I want to walk in this way, to do His will, to do His words." It's a real cry of the Christian heart. God, would You help me walk worthy of you, right?

It's, it's one of the things that Paul prays, that we would work— walk— that Paul would— Paul, my tongue is getting tied. Paul prayed that we would work— walk— boy, you should have chosen different words— that we would walk worthy of our calling. And that's the cry of our heart. Bless the Lord, we want to work— walk and work worthy of the Lord. Maybe there's a verse in there, I don't know.

Um, so sin is not just the things that we do or don't do, but it's, like I say, it's that separation from God. But God says whenever we turn back, he's there waiting to welcome us with sort of these open arms, which is great news. And we can get to this place of being happy and excited and joyful again about being in the presence of God, about walking our lives with him. Bless the Lord, everything within me bless him. Rather than sort of doing what Adam did when he sinned, which is sort of sneak away and, and hide, wasn't it?

And that's not what we see here in this song. We see a man who is aware, aware of his sin and the sins he has committed, but is more aware of the forgiveness and grace of God. And it's amazing news, right? Because there's no conditions for this forgiveness other than we come to him. Verse 3 also says he heals all our diseases, which is a really interesting idea, isn't it?

And we've talked a lot about healing on Crowd, um, what happens when you don't get healed, what happens when you, you know, when God does something quite miraculous. And, you know, Sharon's told her story of how God helped her through the cancer, but there was also medical stuff going on there. We've had people talk about instant miraculous healings. The whole— we've had people who didn't get healed for whatever reason. Um, and it's an interesting one, but it says here that God heals all of our diseases.

So what does it mean when it talks about diseases? Well, not only physical sickness and pain, but also grieving and sickness of the heart. Um, you know, when David talks about, bless Lord, O my soul, the soul, that bit within me There's a lot of people walking around with soul sickness, sickness deep in their soul, a brokenness, a wound. And God heals all of that. I still believe fully that God heals physical disease.

I really do. Um, and I believe ultimately the will of God is that he heals all of our diseases, whether that's physical, whether that's something in the soul, whether that's here on Earth, whether it's when we get to heaven. I don't, I don't know all the answers, um, but I can tell you I've experienced physical healing, but I've also experienced that healing of God where he is restoring my soul, my inner being, that inner emptiness and brokenness that can happen so easily in our lives.

Like I say, I appreciate God doesn't always give us the instant healing that we want. And the Bible is actually full of stories, uh, like that. But I do believe the heart of God, and what David is trying to communicate here, is this is the desire that God has for us— the goodness of God. Not to be pain-free or physically and emotionally well every single day of our lives, but I think when we get to heaven, we will be. I think there are people on earth that can't walk, but when they get to heaven, they will be running down the streets of gold, sliding along in their socks.

I'm going to be right beside them. And that's the hope we have. We, we're not just limited to what's here on Earth, but we can also understand our existence in the context of eternity and living out, uh, an eternal life with him in heaven, in paradise. I mean, that just sounds amazing. Right?

And so you can see that, I mean, this is just the warm-up act. It gets, it gets better and better, guys. It really does. And so I think God wants to mend us. He wants to sort of stitch us back together and restore us to wholeness.

And if you've been around Crowd for a while, we did a whole series on what it means to become whole. Such is the desire of God about this topic, it took us over a year To talk about wholeness and what the Bible says about it. But you know what? We just scratched the surface. There's so much, uh, more we could look at.

But the fundamental thing is God wants us whole. And so we don't forget that. We don't forget all of his benefits. He forgives our sins. He heals.

That is his— this God who makes us whole. And this is what we see at the start of this psalm, the very heart of God coming through the lips mouth of David. And that song, I think, should rise up within our own hearts. One of my favorite things to do— if you've never done it as a Christian, um, I would strongly suggest you do— and that is literally get— open your Bible to Psalm 103 and read it out loud. Talk to yourself like David did.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and stir up the gift of joy within you. Because we also read, uh, in that Psalm, didn't we, that he redeems your life from the pit. There's so much you could say about that single sentence right there. He redeems our life from the pit. And when we go our own way, when we separate ourselves from God, when we go down this path of sin, It's an interesting one, isn't it?

God can redeem us from that pit when we come to him. And that's what I'm talking about with this eternal destiny, this eternal life, living with God, this hope that we have. And the Bible says that this hope is the anchor. In Hebrews, it calls it the anchor of our soul. And so when you've got that hope, your soul is anchored and it blesses the Lord.

And the whole thing is connected. And we get this eternal destiny when we accept God, uh, when we trust him, when we live, uh, in his love and in his mercy. Um, we know that he promises eternal life, and that is an immeasurable gift that God has given us. He will bring us into this place of peace, this place of shalom, his kingdom where there's no tears, where there's no pain, and everything is restored fully to him. And I cannot wait.

I mean, I'm— don't get me wrong, I am enjoying what God has got me to do down on earth. I really am. But the kingdom of God is so much bigger than the 10, 20, 80, however many years we have down here on earth. And so the psalm goes on to say, uh, that, uh, he crowns you. There was this language, wasn't it?

He crowns you with his faithful love and compassion. He crowns you with it. Don't know how many crowns you've worn in your life. Can't say is I've worn a great many of them. I mean, my daughter was growing up, she wore a lot, you know, the sort of the the princess, uh, sort of tiara, tiaras.

And my sons, I suppose they wore crowns when they played the, you know, the sort of the wise men in the Nativity, uh. So maybe I wore some when I was a kid. I can't remember wearing a crown in my grown adult life, um.

But think about what a crown does. It declares something about you, right? It's a statement. It's, it's— if you wear a crown, unless you go buy a cheap plastic one, but if you wear a legitimate crown, you are a king.

So it's a statement— or a queen, right? And so it's a statement about a very special position, um, that you wear at important events, that you wear at celebrations. And so just close your eyes right now and just think about— he has crowned you. With his loving mercy and compassion. He's crowned you with it.

You wear it like a, like a royal crown. You are— Peter calls us a royal priesthood. Um, Peter, one of the disciples of Paul in the New Testament, calls us a royal priesthood. Um, we are in this royal family. I mean, whether you're a royalist or not, whether you're British or not, the royal family, there's always conversation right?

But you are part of God's royal family if you are a Christ follower, and he crowns you with some incredible things. It's not so much about the bling or the gold or the stones.

I mean, you have a bling one if you like, but I— you do you, right? But that crown is of mercy and loving kindness, and it's what everyone sees around you. It's sitting on your head. Uh, his faithful and steadfast love and mercy. That's what he's crowned us with.

I just love the language. Steadfast— it's not a word we use very much, is it? Um, what's steadfast in your life? Well, your house could be steadfast, um, unless it's got subsidence, of course, but even then it's pretty good. It's gonna be pretty steadfast.

Um, chances are it's not fallen down whilst you're, you know, listening to this.

Um, the seas and the oceans, they're huge and vast, aren't they? Are they steadfast?

But that your job, is that steadfast? Where do you put your security? Is that steadfast? The relationships you have, are they steadfast? Again, it's not a word we use But we know that God's love is steadfast.

It is immovable because that's who God is. And again, how much confidence and peace that can give us when we get that understanding and trust God's love, that his mercy will never fail, that his love towards us is steadfast. The crown we wear on our heads is steadfast. It's just— you can see why David gets excited when he writes this song, when thinks about these things. You know, he talks about God's mercy and that sort of undeserved goodness from God.

Um, God's mercy is extended towards us despite our failings, despite our own weaknesses, or when we mess up. He loves us. His mercy extends towards us. And in all of this, the critical thing in this language— and you see this in David's life, you just got to look at David's life and you will see and understand this— you do need to be perfect in order to qualify. In fact, no one has ever been perfect enough to qualify this apart from Christ.

We're never going to be that perfect. That's why Christ came, because we could never earn this, and so he freely gives it to us. And so in the psalm, it goes on to say that we are like dust, our days are like grass. In other words, we're not around very long, especially in the concept of eternity here on Earth. We're not very strong.

I think if aliens did come and invade us, I'm not quite sure we'd be able to put up a good fight. Do you mean all these kind of things? It's— I mean, humans are great and technology is wonderful and the innovations are great, but really we are like dust, our days are like grass. Again, really interesting language in the Psalm, in the scripture. And in spite that, in spite all of what we don't have to offer, God still loves us and has his mercy extended to us and honors and forgives us and puts a call on our lives and gives us a plan and a purpose and an eternal hope that anchors our soul so that we can say, bless the Lord, O my soul.

Why? Because this is God's nature, right? It just is who he is. God gives us these things. He gives us the gift of love, of feeling, and forgiveness, and eternal life.

Um, and the psalm, like I said, sort of concludes with this description, you know, with the angels and this sort of spiritual power and authority, with the armies of spiritual beings praising God. And we saw that at the birth of Christ, that when Christ was born whole angelic— the sky lights up with angels, uh, singing Hosanna and glory to God in the highest, right? And so David's describing— he's like, come on, angels, sing with me! Because God has the ultimate authority. He has created the world and his people.

He gave Jesus to bring us back to him. Self. Jesus paid the price for us in that we could never pay. And ultimately, God is God. He has ultimate authority, uh, and he's gonna do, do his thing, the God thing, right?

That's what God needs to do. We don't need to do it, but we've been given freedom to choose, to choose whether we bless the Lord, O my soul, or do we bless ourselves? Do we bless our fantasies? Do we bless our appetites? Or do we bless the Lord?

Do we choose Him? He gives us that freedom to choose, to choose to belong to God, the God who has the final say.

"My soul"— it's the final line of the psalm. David says, "My soul, bless the Lord from deep within." At the beginning of the psalm, David encourages to bless the Lord. Oh, my soul, Don't forget this. Don't forget the goodness of God, because in a world that is easily distracted by these things, by everything that's going on around us, by the politics, by the wars, by relationships, by what we have, by what we don't have, by what we think we should have, what we think we're entitled to, it's so easy to be distracted. And it is good to remember that we need to bless the Lord, to sing our praises, to bless him, say good things about him, to be excited about God and remember all of the good things of God.

David had a lot of responsibilities as king. He had a lot of distractions. One particular one didn't do him any favors, can I say, if you read the story. Um, but he had all of this going on, and yet he says, do not forget the benefits of God. And I think it's good for us to remember that in this summertime where we are relaxing, hopefully enjoying ourselves, enjoying our holidays, in the distraction-free time, just take a few moments to remind yourself to bless the Lord and all that is within you.

Bless his holy name. God bless you. Have a phenomenal August. Uh, I think Will's with us. Next week, uh, carrying on as we look through the Book of Psalms.

Um, but again, my apologies to Kate. Uh, God bless you. I think I'm going to hand back to me now, who recorded the exit to the non-live livestream a few weeks ago. So from me to him, back to you. God bless you.

Bye for now.

So that's the talk, and you're going to be able to find all of the notes, a sort of a detailed blog post about it, all on the website, which is www.crowd.church. And of course, if you'd rather listen than watch, you know, maybe you're on the school run, on a dog walk, washing up, whatever it is, every talk goes out as a podcast. To search Crowd Church— not crowd.church, that's our website— search Crowd Church wherever you get your podcasts from. I reference back my previous point about fluffing lines. Now, I did say at the start that there were some changes coming to Crowd, so do let tell you about them.

Number 1, Live Lounge. Now normally Live Lounge is a chance to jump and chat to the team, to jump, jump on to a call and chat with members of the team after the live stream has ended. But from September, you're gonna be able to do that from the start of the live stream, you'll be able to watch the live stream in Live Lounge and watch it with actual people, for your community, your friends, maybe even make some new friends. And like I say, you're going to do that right from the start, which I'm really excited about, because it is going to help us build community. We have a phenomenal community here at Crowd Church.

And building on that, I think, is going to just be exciting and phenomenal. So that's going to be one change. The second change, the Wednesday night community groups are changing a little bit. So instead of having scattered and disparate groups, we're going to gather together as one big community and then break into into smaller groups, and each small group will be your regular sort of community group where people get to know your name. When they notice if you're not there, and you get to build your friendships.

Alpha will run alongside Community from September. It's going to move to a Wednesday night, same time, 7:30, um, and Alpha is great if you're new to the Christian faith or if you're just exploring the Christian faith. The next Alpha course starts on the 9th of September, and you can register for that on the website at www.crowd.church. We have lots of people coming to Alpha. They are phenomenal things.

Um, so yeah, go check out the website, uh, for more information about that at crowd.church. The third change, uh, is more in-person meetups. Yay, go in-person meetups! Now we tized some folks in Dorset last month, which was really phenomenal. We thought actually we need to do more of these in-person meetups.

So that's what we're going to do. We are planning gatherings throughout the year, from regional meetups to bigger events. Again, more information will be coming, more information on the website. One thing to tell you about, CrowdFest 27 will be held— with CrowdFest is going to be a big get-together. Club where we all get together, and we're going to do that at the Wildfires Festival at the end of July in 2027.

You can find out more information about Wildfires Festival and buy your tickets at wildfiresfestival.com, um, or just follow the links from the website because there's going to be more information on the website about CrowdFest 27, crowd.church. So yeah, if that's not it, there's more stuff coming. Yes, there are. So, but I don't want to bombard you. We're going to go through that in more detail in September.

Yes, we are. So in the meantime, like I said, everything you want to know about crowd, from past talks to all the stuff we've talked about today, is on the website, www.crowd.church. Make sure you subscribe to the channel, uh, whilst you're here, because like I said, this is a 5-parter all the way through the Book of Psalms, and it's built to be taken as a whole. Each one's going to build onto the next one. So don't miss any of them.

But that's it from me. Thank you so much for joining us. Have a phenomenal week wherever you are in the world. I will see you next time. Bye for now.