Psalm 153

Psalms

[Watch this short video: Saved But Not Whole]

Despite what you have heard, Christians are not nice people. After all, do nice people get angry? Are nice people jealous? Do nice people feel bitter and betrayed and delight in delicious plots of revenge? Are nice people discouraged and depressed? Are nice people hypocritical?

Don’t get me wrong, Christians are not terrible people. My closest friends are Christians. I am married to one. I am one. But Christians are not perfect and no one knows this better than we who are Christians. We know our weaknesses and failings.

We know this but when people come to church, they often put on their best face and hide what has been going on that morning, the last week, some of the deep hurts from the past years. We often see the surface and not the depths of each other when we come to church.

The video we watched illustrates this and after watching the husband and father yell at his wife and children it hurts to see him singing the doxology with his hand raised in worship. The camera stays on him for far too long and I want to say, “OK, I get the point. Enough!”

Followers of Jesus are not perfect. We are not always nice. We have deep issues in our lives we have to deal with. It is for this reason that the Psalms are so good for us.

We can read Paul’s letters and be impressed with the theology of Romans and Ephesians. We can read the Gospels and be amazed at the life of Jesus and how he related to people. We can read these books of the Bible and absorb the truths without it reaching into our hearts. But the Psalms are different. We read such raw emotion, moving from depression and despair to praise and giddy elation. We read about anger and a thirst for revenge. We read about surrender and contentment.

The Psalms are not for nice people. The Psalms are for real people trying to deal with all that life throws at them, trying to deal with their own weaknesses, and trying to draw closer to God.

For the next couple months I will be preaching from the Psalms. I had thought we would continue to move through the book of Acts, but the Psalms are where I have been led and so this morning I want to preach from Psalm 153.

Now of course you realize there is something wrong with this. There are only 150 psalms in the Bible so what are Psalms 151, 152 and 153? And the answer is that these are three psalms I have written. Now I am not proposing my psalms be added to the Biblical record – I am not that presumptuous –  but there is great value in writing our own psalms. This will be the fourth summer in the last 13 years that I have preached from the Psalms and each time I have encouraged the members of RIC to write their own psalm.

King David wrote a lot of psalms and I think that is why David is described as a man after [God’s] own heart (I Samuel 13:13). In many situations of his life: when he was hiding from enemies, when he was repentant, when he was fearful, when he was discouraged and depressed, when he was giddy with victory – in all these situations David sat down and wrote psalms. In order to write a psalm, David had to quiet himself, become aware of what he was feeling, and then begin to express himself and see where that led him. That is a path to intimacy with God.

Writing psalms was a great spiritual exercise for David and it is a great spiritual exercise for us.

Let me list five benefits for us of writing our own psalms.

First, writing a psalm makes me aware of what I am feeling.

When I take the time to identify what I am feeling and take the time to write out what I am feeling, I become more aware of my need for God. If I don’t do this, then my emotional state rules me.

The husband and father in the video we watched was clearly angry and frustrated. He woke up, went to the bathroom, stumbled over a basket of laundry on the floor, yelled at his wife, woke up his daughters so that their first experience of the day was his anger. He was the first to wake up and he contaminated the entire family with his foul mood.

What would have happened if he had taken a few minutes to pray and ask God for help to figure out what was going on? Could it be he has problems at work and is worried about losing his job? Could it be that he is worried that his income is not sufficient to pay the bills and he feels inadequate? If he could have identified what he was feeling and why he was feeling that way, he would not have been so destructive to his family.

His emotions, for whatever reason, are ruling him in this video.

Second, writing a psalm draws me into intimacy with God.

As I identify what I am feeling and describe it, the door is opened for God to come in. As I write about what I am feeling, the feeling will become more intense and I may find myself writing on and on. But eventually I come to the end and put down my pen. There is nothing more to say. And now that I have emptied myself, there is room for God to enter.

You see this in many psalms, for example, Psalm 55. David is feeling betrayed by a close friend and is now in pain. He begins by describing what he is feeling.

Listen to my prayer, O God,
do not ignore my plea;
2 hear me and answer me.
My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught
3 at the voice of the enemy,
at the stares of the wicked;
for they bring down suffering upon me
and revile me in their anger.

David is troubled and distraught, but this is just the tip of the iceberg of his emotional state that needs to be expressed.

4 My heart is in anguish within me;
the terrors of death assail me.
5 Fear and trembling have beset me;
horror has overwhelmed me.

From troubled and distraught he moved to anguish, terror, fear and trembling, and horror. The depth of his feelings make him strike out.

9 Confuse the wicked, O Lord, confound their speech,
for I see violence and strife in the city.
10 Day and night they prowl about on its walls;
malice and abuse are within it.
11 Destructive forces are at work in the city;
threats and lies never leave its streets.

As he goes deeper and deeper into what he is feeling he comes to the deepest hurt.

12 If an enemy were insulting me,
I could endure it;
if a foe were raising himself against me,
I could hide from him.
13 But it is you, a man like myself,
my companion, my close friend,
14 with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship
as we walked with the throng at the house of God.

David was betrayed by a close friend and he pours out his anger and bitterness with this curse.

15 Let death take my enemies by surprise;
let them go down alive to the grave,
for evil finds lodging among them.

Is this the end? It seems so. David begins to talk about God’s faithfulness to him.

16 But I call to God,
and the Lord saves me.
17 Evening, morning and noon
I cry out in distress,
and he hears my voice.
18 He ransoms me unharmed
from the battle waged against me,
even though many oppose me.

But David stopped prematurely. His bitterness toward his friend who betrayed him returns and he pours out verbal venom on this betrayer.

20 My companion attacks his friends;
he violates his covenant.
21 His speech is smooth as butter,
yet war is in his heart;
his words are more soothing than oil,
yet they are drawn swords.

Has David emptied himself so God can work? It seems so.

22 Cast your cares on the Lord
and he will sustain you;
he will never let the righteous fall.

But David still has room to go. He cannot finish his psalm without returning once again to a call for God to avenge him.

23 But you, O God, will bring down the wicked
into the pit of corruption;
bloodthirsty and deceitful men
will not live out half their days.

David ends his psalm with:

But as for me, I trust in you.

Do you see the process David went through? As he wrote, the intensity of what he was feeling was expressed and he began to come to a point of rest with God. Then he took a step back, expressed a deeper pain and then came again to some sort of resolution. I think he had more to write. It seems there was still pain to be explored, but this is a process, not a one-time fix.

Writing a psalm is not a neat exercise. Sometimes psalm after psalm has to be written to express the depth of what I am feeling. But as I write, I come closer and closer to the point of being empty so God can come in and work in me. It is a process and each step of the process is helpful. As I continue, I will be drawn into intimacy with God.

Writing a psalm makes me aware of what I am feeling. Writing a psalm draws me into intimacy with God. And third, writing a psalm will help keep me honest in my relationship with God.

The pain of watching the husband and father in the video was almost too much. Who of us wants to be so hypocritical? Jesus spent so much time critiquing this kind of empty religious faith.
Luke 6:41
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?
Matthew 23:27–28
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

Sitting down and writing about what you are feeling, becoming honest and vulnerable with yourself and with God is the best way to avoid this embarrassing hypocrisy.

Fourth, writing a psalm brings what is hidden out of the dark and into the light where God can begin to heal and mend.

When you surrender to Jesus and accept his gift of salvation, you are filled with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit begins to work in you and with you to clean and mend the mess of your life. But you still have the keys to doors that are locked. Even after your initial surrender, you have locked doors and God will not force you to open them. You have to choose to surrender once again and open those doors. This is a process that will go on and on, to the end of your earthly life.

You have to express a fear and then the Holy Spirit can work with you to give you the love you need to overcome that fear. You have to express a feeling of inadequacy or incompetency and then the Holy Spirit can work with you to find that you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. You have to bring out a painful memory that you have repressed so that the Holy Spirit can begin to heal the hurts that resulted from that experience.

Writing psalms opens up your life so God can work in you.

Writing a psalm makes me aware of what I am feeling. Writing a psalm draws me into intimacy with God. Writing a psalm will help keep me honest in my relationship with God. Writing a psalm brings what is hidden out of the dark and into the light where God can begin to heal and mend. And fifth, writing a psalm will protect me from falling into sin.

When I watch the video of the couple and their children, I see so much danger. The husband and wife are not sharing intimacy. The husband may already be addicted to pornography. If not, this is a danger lurking and waiting to entrap him. The wife is ready for the kind advances of a man at her work or in her neighborhood. She needs to be loved and is not receiving this from her husband. So when a man in her life listens to her, affirms her, values her, is kind to her, she can very easily slip into an attraction to him. If he makes moves toward her, she is not in a good position to resist.

In 2 Samuel 11 we read of the story of David and Bathsheba. As you remember the story, David seduced her while her husband was away at war. She got pregnant and so David called her husband, Uriah, home but he would not sleep with his wife while his men were on the battlefield. So David sent him back with a message for the commanding general to put him in a situation where he would be killed. It is an ugly story in the life of David.

At the end, when David was confronted with his sin, he repented and wrote Psalm 51. But I wonder what would have happened if David had written a psalm before he called for Bathsheba to come to him.

2 Samuel 11 begins with:
In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.
2 One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, 3 and David sent someone to find out about her.

When David got up from his bed, what was he feeling? Was he wishing he had gone with his troops to battle? Was he feeling impotent because he was not leading his men in battle? Did he conquer Bathsheba because he could not go out and conquer another city?

If David had taken time to assess what he was feeling and written a psalm, perhaps this tragedy would never have happened.

Peter warned in his letter: 1 Peter 5:8–9
Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith,

How do you resist the devil? You cannot simply shout out doctrine. The words of what we believe do not have power. What has power is Jesus in our lives and our dependence on him.

We resist the devil by being in an honest relationship with Jesus. We resist by knowing we are weak and easily tempted. We resist by opening up our lives and allowing the Holy Spirit to clean and mend the mess and pain in our lives. We resist by not claiming to be more than we are. We are sinners desperately in need of Jesus. We cling to him. We trust in him. We open ourselves completely to him.

In the time left, let me help you with some thoughts about how to write a psalm. In your bulletin there is something I found that will help you with this.

The first place to start is to sit down where you will not be disturbed and think. Get quiet and ask yourself, “What am I feeling?” This is the most critical part of writing a psalm, identifying what it is you are feeling.

Being angry, frustrated, happy, grateful, worried, apathetic, depressed, hopeful, loved, bitter; all these are good places to start with your psalm. In fact, whatever you are feeling is the best place to start when you write your psalm. A psalm is not written with your head but with your heart.

Make a series of notes about what you are feeling. Describe the feeling you have. Use a picture to describe your feeling. “I am happy like a kite soaring in the wind,” or “I am angry like a tornado about to rip apart a house in its path.” Psalm 42 begins with this:
As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.

What are some other ways you can describe how you are feeling? Explore the depths of your feeling. Find a number of ways to describe your feeling. You may not use them all, but they will help you to articulate your feeling. Put flesh and depth on what you are feeling.

Then try to explain why it is you are feeling this way. If you are happy, what has happened that made you happy? If you are worried, what is it you are worried about? If you are bitter, what happened that made you bitter?

If your psalm is a happy or joyful one, let it erupt into a wonderful praise of God who has blessed you.

If your psalm started out with worry or anger or depression or apathy, work your way to the point that you have expressed the feeling as completely as you can and then sit. Put the pen down and think.

Where has the expression of your feeling taken you? Think through other times in your life when you have felt this way? What happened in those times?

Can you think of how God was faithful to you in the past when you felt this way? Remember those experiences. Describe them.

If you have expressed fully the way you are feeling, you will get to the point where you will be able to surrender to God and submit to his will. This will take you from anger or bitterness or apathy or discouragement to recognition of God’s goodness to you and you will be able to end in praise with hope.

Some Psalms do not end that way. So if you write a psalm and get to the end and you are still feeling angry or depressed, then write another and try to more completely express what it is you are feeling.

Let me present some cautions for you as you write.

1. Be honest about how you feel. The less honest you are, the less helpful this exercise will be to you. Don’t hold back. Don’t be afraid that someone else might see what you wrote. After you write the psalm you can always destroy it. No one needs to see or hear what you have written. This is an exercise for you and not necessarily for the rest of the world.

Sometimes it is difficult to be honest with yourself, so start with what you are feeling and make sure you get to the bottom of that feeling.

2. Let what you write be a prayer to God that allows you to feel heard. The benefit of such an exercise is that you clarify to God what it is you are experiencing and that helps you to know you have been heard.

3. Don’t be afraid of hurting God’s feelings. God has big shoulders. When the Sons of Korah wrote Psalm 44 and said this,
Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep?
Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever.
24 Why do you hide your face
and forget our misery and oppression?
do you think God was hurt by their accusation that he was sleeping on the job and had forgotten about their suffering?

God can handle whatever it is you are feeling so get it out and put it down so you can begin to deal with it. I am saying this over and over again, but it is critical. Until you fully express what you are feeling, in all honesty, you cannot move to an authentic relationship with God. There is nothing you can say about God that God has not heard many times before. God is not unaware of the intensity of your feeling. Writing down what you feel is not telling God something he does not already know. Writing down what you feel is helping you to be honest and more open to God.

4. You don’t have to share with others what you write, but when you write your psalm and you have been true to your feelings, chances are your psalm will speak to others in a similar situation. So don’t be afraid to share what you wrote with some friends.

Over the Sundays of this summer we will take a look at different kinds of psalms. Some are full of praise, others express severe depression. Some are incredibly angry, others are repentant. The psalms express a host of emotions and that is why it is helpful for us to write our own psalms.

If you go to the doctor and tell her you have a headache, she will tell you to take two aspirin and call her in the morning. If you come to a spiritual doctor he might tell you to write two psalms and call him in the morning. So take some time this week to breathe and relax, figure out what you are feeling and then write a psalm or two this week. It will be good for your soul.

I would love it if you would share with us the psalms you write. Give it to me next week or email it to me and I may put some of the ones I receive in the RICEmail, if you give me permission to do that.

The goal is not to write a psalm this week. The goal is to draw more intimately into your relationship with God who loves you.

May God bless you as you open your heart to God.