“Bless Me, Lord. After All, I Deserve It”
By Rev. Dayle Barrett
Sunday, July 28, 2024
Reading: Psalm 26
It is a great honour to be standing before you here today to minister to you the word of God. In fact, it's not just an honour, it's also a bit of a challenge. You see, when our senior pastor, Reverend Dr. Jason Byassee, first asked me to preach, I thought, great! I like preaching, I like Timothy Eaton, a marriage made in heaven, you might say. Then he told me what the sermon series was. He said, “Dayle, we're going to do this series called Rude Praise. And what we're going to do is we're going to take all the Psalms that people don't really quote, the ones you never see on greetings cards, the ones that people don't even read very often, and definitely the ones that people don't preach on. I want you to preach on one of those.”
Okay, I thought. I can think of a few rude psalms that I can preach about. Then he sent me an email with a list of the ones he'd already picked. We had a psalm of lament: The psalmist shaking his fist at God. God, you're not doing a particularly good job at being God. We had a psalm that sounded a bit too nationalist or xenophobic for our liberal modern tendencies. We had a psalm that ended tragically and didn't even have something happy to go forward with. We had a psalm that cursed people, saying things as horrible as “blessed is the one who dashes the baby's heads against the rocks”.
I thought, which psalm am I going to pick? If you read today’s Psalm and wondered, “Dayle, why did you pick that one?” Maybe you think it isn't a very rude Psalm at all. It doesn't shake its fist at God. It doesn't say anything mean about any other nations. Nobody gets cursed. For all intents and purposes this Psalm sounds quite benign. But maybe if you know a little bit about me, you'll understand why this one sounded difficult. You see, despite the wonderful introduction that Dr. Elaine Choi gave me at the beginning of the service, which made me sound great.
There's a big gap in between that she graciously didn't mention. And that's in between the time when I was really young, beginning in ministry and serving the community, and the time later on when I was pursuing ministry and gaining education and preparing to be part of the United Church of Canada. There was about a seven-year gap in between where I could best be described as an absolute degenerate.
During my late teens, I suffered a great injustice in my life that made me completely question my faith. And I turned from God. I rebelled against God. Anything you would tell your kids not to do, I made sure that I did it. And I made sure that I did it hard. I spent every single night drinking myself into an ugly stupor. I spent every day putting a cocktail of dangerous chemicals into my body. I peddled those chemicals to other people in my community so that I would have what I wanted. I took advantage of women who were looking for love in order to satisfy my own fleshly lusts and desires. I was, my friends, objectively a bad person. Until about 10 years ago when I met this man called Jesus for myself. It went beyond a mere head knowledge of who he was. I already knew the Sunday school stories. I already knew every single story in the gospel. I already knew the things that Paul had said and that the prophets had prophesied. But now it was different. Because finally I fell on my knees before my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and said, God, have mercy upon me, a sinner. And only because of God's grace and God's mercy do I stand before you today clean and sober and in my right mind and faithful to God, standing behind this pulpit preaching to you the gospel. It's because of nothing that I've done, but because Jesus bore my sin upon the cross and rose upon the third day, conquering death, sin, and the grave.
No, I didn't come here to talk about me, but I had to let you know that, so you'd understand why I had a big problem with this psalm. You see, when I read Psalm 26 after all that, it didn't sound right. It didn't sound like a prayer that I could pray. Psalm 26 sounds like a prayer for something, somebody who's done everything right, doesn't it? First of all, who goes to God and says, “Lord, judge me.”? But even after that, how can I tell God that I've walked in my integrity when I know how often I've lied? How can I say to God that my feet will not slip when I know how often I’ve fallen? How can I talk to God about hypocrites and idolatrous mortals and evildoers and the wicked when those are the words that one day described me?
When I read Psalm 26, it sounded like it was saying, “Bless me, oh Lord, after all, I deserve it.” And if there's one thing that I was completely certain of, it's that I didn't deserve it. It sounded prideful. It sounded arrogant. It sounded like a rude psalm. In fact, it sounded like the exact kind of prayer that Jesus taught us never to pray.
In Luke chapter 18, he tells this parable to people who trusted in themselves and thought they were righteous. He says:
Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all I possess.’ The tax collector standing afar off would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!
And then Jesus says this:
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
Now I look at Psalm 26 and at the Pharisees prayer and they look a bit similar, don't they? I mean the psalmist is saying that they'll wash their hands in innocence. They're saying that they've walked in God's truth, that they haven't sat with idolatrous mortals or gone in with hypocrites. They've hated the assembly of evildoers. Surely just like the Pharisee, this psalmist is comparing themselves to other people and saying that they are better. But if you want to understand the Psalm, my friends, you have to understand what it's for. And we know that the Psalms were kind of like Voices United for the people of Israel. It was their book of prayers and hymns. And every hymn, every prayer had a purpose.
When I found out what this one was for, it was quite interesting. Because far from being a prayer bragging at God for how good the person was, this was a prayer for somebody who was seeking re-entry to the sanctuary. It was a prayer for somebody who'd been ousted from the community of faith for one reason or another. Maybe they touched something unclean; ate something unclean; or slept with somebody unclean. There are all sorts of reasons that you could have to distance yourself from the community and stay there for a while until you were ready to come back. The whole point of this prayer was that when you came back, you came back asking God to judge you by the integrity, by the truth that you bear in your heart. You were casting yourself down upon the loving kindness of God. This wasn't a prayer of a perfect person. This was the prayer of a sinner seeking God's mercy. This was a prayer of repentance. And if I can pray anything, I can pray that. But not just me, my friends. This is the prayer that we all need to pray. Because the gospel truth that I stand before you to tell you is that Christ came to save sinners of whom I am chief. But that doesn't make me the only one.
All of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. None of us can come before God in our own power and say, “God! Bless me because I deserve it.” But what we can do if we believe that Jesus Christ bore our sins upon himself, if we believe that he rose from the dead conquering death, sin, and the grave, is we can come to God and walk to him in our integrity. We can trust in the Lord and because of that faith we shall not slip. We can ask God to examine our hearts and prove us. We can keep God's mercy and loving kindness before our eyes. And if we can learn to pray like that, my friends, if we can, like the publican, say, “God have mercy upon me, a sinner,” then we too will walk away justified.
That, however, is not where it ends. You see, if all I came to tell you is that God can forgive you of your sins, that would be great. But there's so much more for you than just justification. And the next part, the part that sounded rudest to me, was about that. Because I found that after I'd given my life to Christ, after he'd washed away my sins and brought me into communion with him, I had a lot of work to do. I had to stop sitting with idolatrous mortals. I had to stop going in with hypocrites. I had to begin to hate the sin that I used to participate in. I had to change my friend circles and the people I spent my time with. Because after justification, my friends, comes sanctification.
You see, when Jesus has transformed your life, when he's made you one with himself, it's not just a one-time event, it's an entire lifetime of being made more like Christ. You begin to hate your sin as you grow in love of God and in love of neighbour. Paul says it like this in Roman 6. He says: “But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit unto sanctification and in the end eternal life.”
You wash your hands in innocence. You go about the altar. And knowing all that God has done for you, you’re finally set free to open your mouth and begin telling everybody about the wondrous works of God. You might think that that's not what people want to hear today. People don't want to hear about sin and repentance and salvation. But I can only tell you what I know. I know that Christ came to save sinners. And if you're not a sinner, my friend, I can't help you. But if you are, I've got great news for you. Not only will Jesus cleanse you of your sin, but he will take away all unrighteousness. He will cast your sins as far as the east is from the west, as far as the heavens are above the earth. And he will help you every single day to become more and more like Christ until you reach perfection.
That's a tough word, isn't it? How can anyone be perfect? Peter tells us in second Peter chapter one, that we can have the divine nature of Christ. Athanasius said it like this, that God became man so that man could become God. But maybe you'll prefer Wesley's words. He said, “go on to perfection.” Keep going, keep seeking God, keep reading God's word, keep praying. Stay in communion with the people that God has put around you to strengthen you in your faith. And in doing so, you'll find that one day you can come before God and say, “do not gather my soul with sinners, nor my life with the bloodthirsty.” You'll have a blessed assurance in your heart that Jesus is yours and know that you don't have to worry about the day you close your eyes. You can stand in an even place, all your hope firmly grounded in Christ. And then you can finally say, “Bless me, oh Lord, after all, I deserve it. Not because I'm good. but because you've justified me by faith, you've sanctified me by grace, and you've perfected me in love.”
Thanks be to God. Amen.