Authentic Christianity

Three verses of what we often refer to as the Book of Psalms. Please allow me to advise you not to use that expression. There’s nothing book-like about Psalms. They’re not a book. They’re 150 separate, entirely unrelated compositions. If there’s any structure to it, there are five sections that somewhat organize the Psalms. But it’s more akin to a library than a book.

This is likely the preface. It’s probably not the first psalm as such, but many believe, most believe, Solomon wrote it as a sort of preface to this entire experience we call Psalms. And I’d like you to read those words with me. Shall we read them aloud in unison? Blessed is the person who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or stand in the path of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers.

But their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on this law, they meditate day and night. They are like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season, and whose leaf does not wither, whatever they do prospers. And now, while you’re standing, let me quote the last verse of this collection.

It’s the 150th Psalm, verse 6: “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.” Can you say that with me? “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.” Amen. You may be seated.

I must say, I enjoy my times away. For one thing, you get about a hundred miles out of town, and suddenly, you become an expert. And that’s quite enjoyable. Regardless of how unremarkable you may feel, once you leave town, people seem to think you’re special and important. Nevertheless, it is quite exhilarating to be reminded of the external impact of this congregation’s ministry.

I encountered around a hundred people, more or less, in that region during the week, and many of them talked about the tape ministry of this church. Particularly, they mentioned the tapes that originated from a previous ministry session back at Elam Bible College, one of the oldest Pentecostal colleges in America.

It boasts a beautiful campus with historic buildings that once served as the foundation of Syracuse University when it was first established. Even before that, it was known as Genesee Methodist Seminary. This picturesque campus features stately old columns, and it’s truly impressive. I’m reminded of a story about a woman who ordered takeout food.

The young man delivering the food was remarkably courteous and considerate, prompting her desire to express her appreciation. She asked, “Young man, what’s your name? I’d like to mention your thoughtfulness and politeness when I call the business next time.” He responded, “William Shakespeare.” She laughed and said, “That’s a very famous name.”

He cleverly quipped, “It ought to be. I’ve been making deliveries here for three years.” Isn’t it interesting how people perceive fame? This morning, I’ve given a topic about these individuals, and this serves as an introductory message from the Book of Psalms, or rather, the compilation known as Psalms.

I’ve raised a question: Can these individuals be genuine? I believe you’ve likely had this thought just as much as I have as you’ve delved into this collection. You encounter people expressing themselves across a spectrum of experiences, and at times, you might wonder, “Do people truly exhibit this level of openness? Is anyone really this authentic?”

Allow me to provide you with the framework for our discussions throughout this summer. I’ve conducted numerous series centered around the Psalms. I’ve addressed the Penitential Psalms, the Seven Psalms of Repentance. We embarked on a series focused on the Fifteen Psalms of Ascent. I’ve also spoken about the Thirteen Didactic Psalms, the instructional psalms.

There’s another subset called the Psalms of the Korahite Levites, which we covered on a separate occasion. So, we’ve explored various themes from the Psalms. However, this time, I want to encourage you to adopt three simple foundations for this series, as we delve into the content this summer. These foundations are as follows: I’d like us to view the Psalms as a laboratory or an experiment with life.

I want us to see that the Psalms express an honest, living kind of experience. Secondly, I want us to see the Psalms as they manifest what true Christian community ought to be. As hard as it may be for us to believe, I want us to see the honesty, vulnerability, and transparency among these psalmists – the kind of evolutionary, inviting, happy, and exciting way in which they write.

I want us to see and say that that’s a view of what Christianity and the church ought to be like. And thirdly, I’d like you to see the Psalms as they’re expressed – the kind of way we ought to come to God. Non-hypocritical, absolutely honest with our frustrations, hopes, and dreams. Those three things, let me give them to you again.

As a laboratory of life, meaning whatever your experience, give it to God and let it be an experiment. See what God’s going to do with it. Secondly, as a manifestation of what real believers’ community ought to be like, what the church should be like. And thirdly, what an approach with God should be really like, versus the religious attitude that so many people show.

The Psalms are this long, private look at God. And of course, when you come to the Psalms, you see this – the expression of real people, relevant individuals. I love them. I’ve told you before, I like a whole section of the Psalms called the Imprecatory Psalms, or the Precatory Psalms.

Those are the sections in which the psalmist says, “Break their teeth, Lord! Open the earth and swallow up my enemies.” Now that’s not very biblical, and it’s not very Christian, but I love it. I’m so glad it’s in the Bible. And there are times when I regress from my Christian maturity in order to pray some of those prayers that are in the Psalms.

That’s the kind of reality that we’re involved with. Years ago – and it’s probably the most successful, in the sense of continuing to be fresh – Broadway play that I certainly know of in this generation, other than perhaps one that’s now playing called “Les Misérables,” which I think has the same kind of longevity.

But a film called, or a play called, then it was a film, “Fiddler on the Roof.” How many have seen “Fiddler on the Roof”? About every six months, I check out the video because I love to see it. It never gets old to me. Hey, do you remember the star in “Fiddler on the Roof”? An old Jewish Russian by the name of Tevye.

And Tevye is a psalmist. He complains to God about his daughters. He complains to God about his wife. And he complains to God about things that are going on, but he also just talks to God. It’s just a kind of absolute openness and honesty. I love one of my favorite lines where Tevye says, “Okay, God, you say money’s a curse, curse me. Come on, just curse me a little bit.” I love that kind of honesty. There’s a very touching part in that film in which Tevye asks his wife, “Do you love me?” And some of you remember her response was, “Do I love you? What a question! Who has been preparing your food, washing your clothes, scrubbing your floors, tending your garden, sharing your bed, raising your children?” But that doesn’t answer the question. And he repeats, “Do you love me?” And again, she answers in the same way.

Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to take your bulletin with me again and look over the top of the program for the day, which is on page two, I guess you would call it, if these were numbered pages. Now, I want you to see a quote at the top by a friend of mine, Bruce Larson. Bruce Larson has written many books, and in case you haven’t kept up with his life, for several years now, he’s been pastoring in the Seattle area. He just took a job about two weeks ago as the new associate pastor at Crystal Cathedral with Robert Schuller. So, you’re going to be seeing more of Bruce Larson on national television, I’m sure. But I want you to see this quote from him: “Sin is being unable to hear the person God has put next to you in life who’s saying something to you in a way different from what you’re programmed to hear.” Do you see that word? Do you hear that word? You’re not really programmed to live, to understand. You want to hear it the way you want to hear it, and they’re saying it to you in a different way. Bruce Larson also has another quote I love. Bruce Larson says, “There’s a difference between living the Christian life and living life as a Christian.” Do you believe that? I do. And the difference is here in the Psalms – the difference between living a Christian, godly life versus living life in the freedom, honesty, and integrity that God intends for Christians to have. Well, Tevye, to me, is a psalmist because he speaks about the honesty of his life.

And, of course, when you really come into this whole idea of the Psalms, one of the things you obviously are interested in is who in the world wrote this? Have you ever had that question? You read some of the Psalms and you say, “Who wrote this?” Because about 40 of them are anonymous. In fact, almost 50 of them are anonymous.

You know, of course, David is one of the primary authors. Seventy-three of the Psalms bear his name. Another three or four, well, two of them by the New Testament Book of Acts are credited to David that we didn’t know were David except by the inspiration of the Spirit in the Book of Acts. And a number of others probably were his.

But the most generous count would be probably eighty of the Psalms being David’s. Another whole group, eleven or twelve of them, are written by a man named Asaph. And you know, of course, who he was. He was the choir director for David. So he was a part of that same influence and experience. One of them, I think, is by Solomon.

One of them is written by, well, Moses. One is credited to Zechariah. There’s a whole series, as I mentioned, I’ve done on the Korahite Levites. Do you remember who they were? They were the boys who survived from their father, whom God judged and swallowed up in the judgment. Those were the boys who didn’t identify with their dad; they identified with God.

And they became an important family in David’s worship. In fact, they became some of the major singers at the moment David restored the Ark of the Covenant. So, these are very real people. But not only were they real people, like flesh and blood people, but their circumstances were real. I think this is almost trite for me to say to you, but I have to say it.

Isn’t it true that almost all the psalms you read came out of tough times? Well, I can promise you this. In fact, only about 20 of the psalms came out of the golden era of David and Solomon. Most of them came either from the period of the exile or the Persian persecution or the Maccabean moment. Well, those names are pretty close, anyway. Maccabean time. A great persecution for the people of God.

So, it’s almost trite to say that the Psalms come out of great moments that try people’s souls. I don’t know how it is with you, but most of my spiritual progress hasn’t come out of the uptimes.

In fact, I shared with the 8 o’clock crowd today, and I’ll share with you, probably one of the most strategic moments in my life, as far as my ministry is concerned, was a period when Anita and I had gone back to Memphis, Tennessee, from the West Coast. We had just been married about a year, well, actually it must have been two years, because we had Sherry at that point, so it was about two years.

And, I was going back at the invitation of people who had loved me when I was there before, and I was going to start a servicemen center that I had laid the foundations for before. The biggest bank president in Memphis was on the board, and another man, the man who helped found the Holiday Inn, was on the board, and another man who has now become the most important evangelical in America, Eddie McAteer, was on the board. This was going to be a really big deal, and I got back there, and we bought a building and started repairing it, and I was working practically 20 hours a day getting the thing set up.

I was betrayed by a person who was probably my closest friend. And she not only betrayed me but insisted on making an issue before the board, and it became a schism within the ranks of the board. It was, and I had never gone through anything like that in my life before or since, and I’ve had some other pretty crucial moments. But you know, in that period of time, which involved months, we were without a living, a new wife, and a new baby. In fact, a man opened a model home and let us live in his empty house for a period of time.

We survived hand to mouth doing that, didn’t know where we were going to do, what was going to happen. But I was driven to understand the Lordship of Christ and servanthood in a way I’d never understood. I could go with you through my major teachings, what YOM calls my life messages, the things I’m most known for, and I can prove to you that almost all of those messages came out of that period of time.

That’s when the bottom line, that’s the foundation. And, of course, I could tell you about a lot of other times like that as well. So when you say that the Psalms are a laboratory of life, please get the point. The point is, it’s experience where believers are saying, “I don’t understand what’s going on, God, but here is my circumstance, and I’m waiting to see what you’re going to do in this.”

This is an experiment, and many times the psalmists start out very negative. “Oh, God, where are you? What’s going on? Here are my enemies,” and then they end up saying, “Yet I will praise you.” So, forth a laboratory. Secondly, there’s something in the process of these psalms that has to do with a manifestation of what the Christian life ought to be like.

Now, friends, you’re not gonna like what I’m gonna say, and I’m sorry, but the need to say it is pressing. I don’t know any believers’ community that exists like this community of the Psalmist—non-deceptive, open, vulnerable, absolutely inviting. And of course, the only way this can happen is because there is, in this psalm, in the community of the psalms, a kind of incredible sense of honesty.

For example, here is King David himself committing adultery with a woman he knew very well from the time she was a girl, and he had ensured that she would marry his son’s chief associate—a Hittite by the name of Uriah. David not only commits adultery, and she becomes pregnant, but he literally murders her husband.

Actually, he doesn’t physically stab him, but from God’s viewpoint, he did. Uriah was murdered because of some instructions David gave in a battlefield situation, leading to Uriah’s death. In God’s sight, it was as though he had murdered him directly! And what does David do? He writes the 51st Psalm, confessing his sin. He sends it to his choir master, Asaph, and says, “Put this to music and sing it on Sunday morning.”

Can you imagine that happening in this church? Boy, you people would drive me to San Francisco in tar and feathers as fast as you could. There wouldn’t be a second’s guess or a moment’s hesitation, and of course, it would be justified. In terms of most, Paul Tournier, who I think is still the best psychologist—I know there’s a brood of them out there writing books these days, but Paul Tournier, to me, is still the deepest and best of all the psychologists I know, Christian psychologists. Paul Tournier says this, and I quote, “What isolates a patient in most of his life, whether he’s a schoolboy, a housewife, or a worker, is the thing that isolates most of us—our secrets, our sins.”

Interesting, isn’t it? It’s one thing to talk about giving your life as an experiment to God to prove His faithfulness, but it’s another thing to live in a community of people where that process of openness and vulnerability is possible. I remember a friend once; we used to check in with each other. I asked him something like, “How are you doing today?”

He said, “Terrible, awful. My wife and I had a miserable fight last night. We went to sleep back to back, neither of us speaking to each other. We got up this morning, and my wife said to me, ‘Well, I love you, honey.’ I said to her, ‘Well, I don’t love you, and I don’t love myself, and I don’t love God, but I’m going to pray because God loves me. I know He’s going to work in my spirit and enable me to love again, and when He does, you’re the first on the list.'”

Again, you see, we have a different attitude, don’t we? We even use the expression, “Sunday, go to meeting clothes.” Or we say, “That’s my Sunday suit.” You know, I think Sunday mornings are the worst times in the world. We get up in the morning, burn the toast, yell at the kids, kick the dog. Then, the most marvelous thing is we get in the car and don’t speak for 20 minutes until we get to church, you know.

Not a word passes. We pretend we’re listening to the radio. We get to the parking lot, open the car, and say, “Good morning, Brother Jones! Isn’t it a beautiful Lord’s Day?” You know, it’s a wonder God doesn’t strike us dead right on the spot. What hypocrites. Yet, there’s an attitude about this that says, “That’s the way it has to be.”

I couldn’t really let anybody know the way I feel. Please listen to me just a moment. Listen to the things written in these psalms. Listen to one of them—a psalm of David written while he fled from his son Absalom. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine not only him writing it but also putting at the top, “I wrote this when I was fleeing from my own son who was going to betray me”?

Or this one: a song from an irregular string to be sung concerning the words of a Benjamite when he cursed me. You remember that? During that same time, a Benjamite stood and, as King David was being driven from the throne, he cursed him. David said, “Please, here’s a psalm I wrote while a man cursed me, in the process of that experience.”

Here’s another one. This is a psalm of David when he pretended to be insane before King Abimelech. King Abimelech drove him out, and he went away. Would you ever, uh, describe a situation like that? This kind of vulnerability and honesty. I remember when I came back from my sabbatical. And, uh, several people took me aside and said, “Rick, you need to know this.”

“So and so said this,” and “so and so said that,” and there’s this suggestion and that suggestion, and… And I remember for about six months, I started kind of walking around in a, uh, corset, saying, “Well, I don’t want anyone to misunderstand this, and boy, if that person is saying that, I won’t be close to that person again, and I won’t be vulnerable with that person because they’re not really trustworthy.”

And then the Lord began to really deal with me, and I said, “No, I won’t live my life that way. I will not live my life that way. If people want to misunderstand my motive or people want to quote me out of context, that’s okay. But I will not live my life without a sense of transparency and openness to people.”

How many understand that if you’re transparent, there is a slight possibility you may get hurt? The slight possibility is about 99 percent.

People will misquote you. People will misunderstand you. They’ll misunderstand your motives. You know, when I grew up, we used to say in the church, “Avoid the appearance of evil,” which meant wear the corset as tightly as you can until your eyeballs bulge, and that’s the Christian demeanor.

That’s what a Christian looks like. What a narrow way to live, what a narrow way to live. Vulnerability and transparency in the basis of our issue and in the basis of our life is such an important thing. Oh, how much I would long for this kind of openness that we see in the Psalms. And if nothing else, my friend, be attracted to it.

Smell it. Have it as a fragrance to which you would attest your life. Now, numbers of you have mentioned how much you enjoy since Don’s here. You enjoy the worship and the involvement that he and I have. You know, that doesn’t come because Don is hired as a staff member. That comes because there’s been a lifetime of a relationship with Don and me in which we both know the worst about each other.

And though we’ve never worked together, we’ve been in contact over the years as he’s worked in various churches and so forth, and we’ve had various opportunities in a relationship. But the point is, what is worship? It is the result of lives of honesty and transparency that come when we are able to commit and release out of our lives.

The fragrance of Jesus, and that, of course, comes in exactly that way, in that sense of vulnerability and openness. Recently, one of the major magazines had a pictorial article, and some of you remember this. You’ve seen it. It was the picture of a man who had fallen down or been injured and was lying on subway stairs, 30 minutes.

And took pictures every 30 seconds of people who came by and didn’t help him. What the magazine didn’t tell you is that the photographer himself had been there for an hour taking pictures because he thought his job of showing this was more important than helping the man. Let’s face it, friends. Some of us are far more convinced that our so-called reputations are more important.

than our involvement or our concern with other people and our integrity in those kinds of relationships, our commitment. For example, I’ll ask you this question. Do you have unconditional relationships in your life in which you would be with that brother or sister regardless of what the circumstances were?

I don’t know many people like that. If I murdered Anita tomorrow (and we’ve never talked about divorce in 29 years, that I know of), but we talk about murder frequently, about every 10 days or so. And of course, in the Assemblies of God, I could murder her and keep my ministry, but if I divorced her, I’d lose my whole pastorate.

So there’s no question about, there’s no question about what I would have to do. But the likelihood is she’d do it first, so don’t worry, friends. If that ever happened, or if the worst thing imaginable happened – whatever that is in your little book of blacks and whites – I don’t know many people who would identify in loyalty and commitment with me.

The proof of that is what’s happened recently in the Jimmy Baker, Jimmy Swagger thing. Now, I can speak to this honestly because I didn’t like either one of them before they had problems. I was on Jimmy Baker’s show, and I just wasn’t attracted to the man. I would rather watch Johnny Carson. Now, that’s not judgment, that’s just me.

I want you to understand that. So I was probably more critical of them while they were at their height. But once they had their “fall from grace,”

then I became their defender because I saw something happen in the church that, to me, was sickening. Christians jumped in to add descriptions about their morality and to judge them in reference to their lives. How many people, in fact, have you found it this way – that the people who are often the most unquestioningly loyal to you become the wordest, worst detractors when a problem comes?

They become the most critical, probably because they had you in a place you shouldn’t have been to begin with.

So it’s interesting, isn’t it? How we conduct a Christianity that says, “I love you when you’re good.” I don’t know if your mommy ever said that to you. “I love you when you’re good, but mommy doesn’t love you when you’re bad.” What an awful way to be raised. You know, in my life, that meant about 10 or 20 percent – at best – that I wouldn’t be loved, right?

“I love you when you’re good, I don’t love you when you’re bad.” And yet, a lot of us feel that’s the way it is with God. There’s a wonderful new book out called “Adam, Eve, and Pinocchio.” That’s the title of the book. It’s written by a psychiatrist, an eminent psychiatrist.

In this book, he talks about the fact that not only are we losing faith in our institutions – that’s one thing – in our country, in our church, and other things, but we have lost faith in ourselves. I’d like to change his words and say it’s not just a matter of losing faith; we’ve lost understanding of ourselves.

We’ve lost the understanding of the mixture that we are and how God works among us. In this believer’s community in the book of Psalms, don’t you read a David who can write something like this and say to his choir director, “Look, this is the worst thing about me, but here’s what God’s done in it, and I want everybody to share this so that people will be strengthened in the process of it.”

Isn’t that phenomenal? Incredible, hard to believe. The other day in our staff meeting – and I don’t want to be embarrassing to Barbara at this point, our dear secretary, and we love her so much – our staff from time to time takes moments of just sharing the devotions for the day, and they all do whatever they want to – read out of a devotional book or whatever.

But on this particular day, Barbara, before she gave us something, she just shared for about ten minutes about where she was, how discouraged she was with herself because she’s just in a period of life, she said, in which she’s not performing up to the way she performed in the past, by her own expectations.

But you know, in those few moments, I watched something happen in the staff. I was kind of looking around to see. I watched, not people backing up on their chairs, but I watched everybody moving in. And I watched a sense of respect, integrity, and support. I really believe that’s the way Christians really are, but we’re not quite sure enough to trust them, are we?

I really believe most Christians would move in, but we’re really not quite sure about that. To celebrate the true body of Christ, I earnestly and personally would contend for that kind of place where there was that kind of honesty. Let me tell you this, dishonesty is an insidious disease, and it grows inside you like a cancer.

When we begin to express ourselves honestly, we’re afraid of what people will do. Have you ever heard of gossiping by way of prayer? Let me tell you, it’s done all the time. Well, we need to pray for Sister So-and-So; she’s not quite where she used to be, or they’re having trouble in their marriage, and so forth and so on.

And of course, if we would ever be honest, somebody would surely put a title on us. Well, he’s backslidden. She’s lost her touch with God. She’s not where she ought to be, and so we just decide it’s not worth it. And when people ask, “How are you doing?” what do we say? “I bless God, isn’t it a wonderful day?” and we’re falling apart inside.

That’s idolatry. That’s dishonesty. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German theologian who was martyred by the Nazis, said, “Christians are unmistakably horrified when a real sinner is found in their midst.”

How many understand we’re all real sinners? So we ought not to be very horrified. I love the time when David finds the Ark in a barn where it’s been for a hundred years, and he returns that Ark of God back to Jerusalem. I won’t repeat the story for you, as it’s often preached in charismatic circles.

He tries the first time using a cart, and there’s a tragedy. A man is killed as a result of trying to steady the Ark of God. Finally, he gets it right and finds out it’s supposed to be borne on the priest’s shoulders. He sets up a little kind of spiritual timing, stopping every few paces to praise the Lord and so forth.

They come into Jerusalem, and David is dancing. The scripture says he’s dancing naked before the Lord. Probably it means he had a kilt on or he was in his underwear. Most people I knew went to see the recent film about David because Richard Gere was in his underwear, and everybody thought that was a big deal, so everybody went to see the film.

The film was terrible, by the way. But that’s that kind of representation. Here, David was out dancing. Certainly he didn’t have the king’s robes on. His wife, Michal, saw him from the window. The Bible says she despised him in her heart. She called out to him and said, “Oh boy, you look like a common fellow. You’re like one of the servants. Not even clothed like a king.” David basically said to her, “I’m serving the Lord genuinely. I’m doing what I think is right.” The Bible says she was barren from that time forward and never bore children. This story is often used in various ways. I want you to understand the truth of that story.

I want you to understand that David had mistreated Michal terribly. Michal had been given by her father Saul after she had a short marriage to David. David became a refugee for those number of years. Michal had been taken and remarried to another man. It was a happy marriage. I can understand that.

Women not married to spiritual leaders generally have happier marriages. She had a happy, rural kind of marriage with a man who stayed home occasionally, and she had children. It was a wonderful thing. But when David became king, though he had a bunch of other wives, he insisted on going and ripping her away from this happy, rural marriage just because she was his wife. One of the saddest stories in the Bible is Michal being taken away and her husband going after the entourage, weeping.

Well, she had a lot of reasons to be bitter against him. But the point I want you to see is this: Do you think David knew his weaknesses? Do you think David ever faced the reality of what he had done to Michal? Of course he did. Do you think David understood his weaknesses? Numbering the people of God, you know, we think of his sin with Bathsheba. That was just one. David was a real rat. He really was. I sure wouldn’t want him for a son-in-law. I’d have found a way to put him in the front of the battle and withdrawn the troops. The fact is, here is David worshiping before the Lord. That was genuine. But you see, Michal was saying, “You hypocrite. I know who you are. I know your weaknesses. How dare you, as a common fellow, be in front of the people of God worshiping.” Isn’t that a little bit like us? Aren’t we kind of that way? Judgmental. How can she worship God when I know this about her? How can he worship God when I know this about him?

The Bible says we are to receive one another as Christ received us. That’s Romans 15. “Receive one another as Christ received you.” That means if your attitude towards the way Christ received you is legalistic, “He loves me when I’m good. He doesn’t love me when I’m bad.” If that’s the way you feel God is towards you, then how do you treat your brother?

Exactly that way, measure up, and I’ll love you. Don’t measure up, and I can’t. Or I won’t. We respond to people just as we think people respond to us. I love—can I tell you another parrot story? I adore parrot stories. This is one of my favorites from this week. It will endure in immortality throughout my life, I’m sure.

Anyway, this man planned a robbery in this house, right? He knew to go in at exactly 3 a.m. when everybody would be sound asleep. So, he went in at 3 a.m. to commit the robbery. He knew where the safe was. He, according to the burglars’ accounts, cased the joint. He knew it all. He went directly to the safe. He started working on the safe, and he began doing so when he heard a voice saying, “Jesus is watching.”

Naturally, that kind of shook him up a little bit. But then it got silent again, so he started working again on the numbers to open the safe. And once more, the voice— “Jesus is watching!” So, this time he went and pulled the curtains open, knowing there was enough light outside that he’d at least see. And when he pulled the curtains open, sure enough, there was a parrot in the corner.

But beneath the parrot was a slobbering Doberman Pinscher that was just waiting to pounce on him. And again, the parrot said, “Jesus is watching!” To which the burglar said, “You stupid bird, can’t you say anything else?” And the bird said, “Sic ’em, Jesus.”

Ha, ha.

Do you think that your job as a Christian is to ferret out sin in other people’s lives? Is that the way you see your job as a Christian? To search? You’re kind of like a GPI, God’s private eye. You know, you’ve got a badge and all. When you became saved, you were given a medal that said GPI, God’s Private Investigator.

Your responsibility is to make sure that everybody else lives right. Look in a mirror, lady. There’s a lot of work to be done, right at home. That’s why Paul says, “How dare you judge one another? Every man’s servant shall stand before his own master. But we shall all give an account of, of what? Of ourselves to God.”

That’s Romans 14. We should give an account of ourselves to God. Let me tell you, the Christian job is far more interesting than saying, “Sic ’em, Jesus.” The Christian’s job is to affirm and support one another in their transparent believer’s community. But there’s a third point. To me, the Psalms indicate the way God wants us to approach Him with our moods—whether we feel angry, hurt, disgusted, worshipful, happy, joyful, praising the Lord.

The Psalms encompass all of these moods, and the psalmist seems to be crying out to us that whether he’s seeing, meditating, delighting, weeping, hating, longing, trusting, walking, or melting in whatever state he’s in, God wants him, desires him, and expects him to come exactly as he is to the throne of God.

That, to me,

is what God is about. It’s interesting— for years now, I’ve had to make some tests in my personal life. Part of them has been on the whole issue of people’s approval, especially in the denominational sense. Some of those decisions eventually were, “I’m going to preach grace, I’m going to live grace, I’m going to understand God’s working in people’s lives,” knowing that it won’t please a whole group of people, will never please them.

The kind of faith I believe in, the kind of gospel I preach, will never please them. But I also understand how desperately, in this broken world, God is seeking for that message to be proclaimed. And I want to do that. If the worst thing people say about me is that I preach grace, that’s good news.

I want to say something to you in closing. This comes from an expression, and those of you who have been to England might know this. There’s an expression called “sending to Coventry.” It’s a very negative experience. A negative expression that is still used today. Oh boy, she sent him to Coventry.

It comes from the fact that during World War II, the British decided to take care of the bill of housing soldiers by forcibly housing soldiers in the homes of people rather than building barracks. In other words, they required English citizens to billet soldiers. However, the city of Coventry decided they would not talk to the soldiers; they would turn their backs when they saw them on the streets.

They would purposely never have any relationship. If they were in the bars, they would go to the other side of the room and so forth. The city of Coventry became famous for that process of turning their back on soldiers. Thus, the form or expression “sending to Coventry” means to send someone into a place, an atmosphere, or an experience in which they will be rejected, where they will be alone.

It’s the most negative kind of expression you can get. It means sending someone to an experience in which everybody else turns their back, or in which they will have to learn to survive without any kinds of affirmations from people.

The interesting issue among us is not so much who’s better or worse or whose sin is worse than someone else’s sin. That’s so stupid. God doesn’t have a numbering system of sin where yours is a 1 or 2 and somebody else’s is a 10 or 12. That’s foolishness. Sin is sin. All sin was taken care of on the cross.

All sin. Everybody’s. And all that God asks of us is that we, by faith, accept that and hold onto the cross as our means of salvation, not our works or the works of the law. But it’s interesting to me that in some ways, there are certain senses in which the worst thing you could do would be to send a person into a certain community of believers because it would be like sending them to Coventry.

It would be sending them into a place where that spirit and attitude would destroy them.

We’ve had that experience in this church, maybe not willfully, but we’ve had experiences where people have come among us hurting, bruised, bleeding, broken, and we haven’t responded to them as we should have. Every church has had that experience. Certain categories of sin, again, seem to call more attention to themselves than others.

Certain groups of people are harder for us to accept than other groups of people. Certain categories of misconduct are harder for us to accept. Everybody’s got somebody on the list that’s lower than them. Do you know that every single one of you this morning, if I were to ask you about your righteousness, you would say, “Well, at least I’m not a…” and you’d name a category.

I’m not a drunkard. I’m not a gambler. Whatever it is that you don’t do. That would be your sense of righteousness. I don’t do that. I may do this and this and this, but I don’t do that or I’m not this. What are the things about the Psalms that if God will do anything in your life, to open up? We’re only going to talk about ten psalms.

Now, all summer long, we’ll just speak about ten psalms, and not all of them directly. In fact, two or three of them will be linked together in messages. But what I want to do from the Psalms, with this foundation, is to say to you, we want to see these as a living kind of life, as the way God wants us to come to Him, the way God wants our fellowship to be, and the way God wants us to understand that every experience can be an experiment of His grace and the release of His power.

Would you please stand with me? While our heads are bowed for just a moment, close yourself off to the Lord in that moment, standing at the pew where you are.

I’m going to ask the various elders who are present this morning, and their wives perhaps if they wish to come, to just come here and stand at the front. Part of the clarity that we need is the kind of declaration, forgiveness, reception, and openness. Many have allowed resentment, bitterness, lack of wholeness to come, sometimes rightfully so.

You’ve been wounded, you’ve been hurt, whatever. These people are here to pray with you. While our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed, if you want someone to agree with you in prayer, step out from where you are. Come and stand before them. Maybe you need to confess something.

There is no healing without that, by the way. God doesn’t forgive excuses. He forgives the confession of sin. You need to find someone to stand before in the name of the Lord and say, “I’d like you to hear this. I’d like you to hear what I have to say. And I’d like you to pray for me.” Just step out from where you are.

Find one of these brothers or sisters. Maybe you have some other needs. I’m not going to limit it to that. This is an opportunity for you to find a chance for prayer just where you are, and the kind of honesty, the kind of true relationship that God makes possible for us through Jesus Christ. Don’s playing a little song that was first introduced to me about five years ago.

I am loved. You are loved, and because we are loved, we can learn to love each other. We are loved. Christ loves us, receives us, forgives us, and then says, “Because of that, this is the kind of relationship that you can have with others. And this is the kind of grace.” In fact, the third line says, “I am loved, you are loved, I can risk loving you.”

Isn’t that great? I can risk loving you. You can risk loving me. And the next line is, “Because what? I can risk loving you.” What’s the next line, Don? We’ll get it. Let’s sing it. Let’s just try it. We’ll get through it. “I am loved. He loves me best.” Let’s do that again.

For the one across this aisle and wherever you happen to be this morning, please, as you leave the sanctuary, leave quietly. I’m not trying to quiet to be wanted. I want you to be friendly.

I know these people who are doing the praying here, to speak forgiveness and to speak love and acceptance to Jesus. I want to remind you at 3:30, personal at 3:30, they need four more ringers. They’ve only got, we want this.

Jesus, teach us the experience of these brothers and sisters that you’ve left a record. Teach us acceptance and even approach to you, access to you. Teach us this, Lord. We need to learn in this world of suspicion and criticism, in this world of cynicism and skepticism. We need to learn what it is to love each other and to be loved by you. Thank you. Amen. God bless you. You are dismissed, and may the blessing of the Lord be with you.