Good evening, it’s good to be with y’all. It’s a privilege to open up God’s Word tonight with you. Before I pray the prayer of illumination, I want to introduce the text. We are going to be in Psalm 34. Psalm 34 is David’s psalm of thanksgiving after he was delivered from the hands of his enemies in enemy territory after actually pretending to be a madman. He was let go and set free and this is his psalm of deliverance. This is not just a psalm for David; it’s a psalm for all of God’s people. It’s a psalm for you and me. So let’s go to the Lord in prayer now and ask that He bless this time in His Word.
Father, You say in Your Word that Your Word will not return void; it will accomplish its purposes. And so we are confident in You that through the opening and the preaching of Your Word, You will do that work in our hearts that we so desperately need. Specifically Lord, we need to see Your goodness. We need to experience Your goodness and believe in it and trust in it and live lives that reflect that reality. And we would ask that by Your Holy Spirit You would do that. We pray this in the name of Jesus, amen.
Psalm 34. A psalm of David. This is God’s holy and inerrant Word:
“Of David, when he changed his behavior before Abimelech, so that he drove him out, and he went away.
I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together!
I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack! The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. What man is there who desires life and loves many days, that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.
The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken. Affliction will slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned. The Lord redeems the life of his servants; none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.”
This is God’s Word.
It really is a joy to be here with you this evening. I don’t know what your week has been like, but I would imagine that many of you have felt assailed by anxieties, disappointments, stress, worry, possibly even tragedy and heartache. You may feel as though you figuratively crawled in here this evening. And it’s common. It’s common to be overwhelmed by life’s circumstances. It’s common to feel overwhelmed by difficult circumstances.
And yet in this psalm, the Lord directs us where to turn when we are overwhelmed; He directs us where to turn. He also tells us what to do. This psalm tells us what to do. God, in His Word, tells us what to do when we are overwhelmed by life’s circumstances. We are going to find that more than anything else, what we need most, what our soul needs most is to experience the goodness of the Lord. It’s to experience the goodness of the Lord. It actually instructs us how to do so. It gives us four, at least four ways, four that I want to point out to all of you this evening in order to experience the goodness of the Lord, in order to taste and see that He is good. First, we praise Him. Secondly, we seek Him. Third, we follow Him. And lastly, we take refuge in Him. So we praise Him, we seek Him, we follow Him, and take refuge in Him.
Praise the Lord
So let’s begin. The call here is to praise the Lord. If we want to experience the goodness of the Lord, even when we are overwhelmed, even when we are struggling, we are called to praise the Lord. Look at verse 1. David says, “I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall be continually on my mouth.” David is praising the Lord and he actually invites us to do the same. He says in verse 3, “O magnify the Lord with me. Let us praise and exalt His name together.” David is saying, “I have been delivered and I am praising the Lord, and I am inviting you to do the same with me.” You see, this isn’t lukewarm praise. He boasts in the Lord. The Lord is his boast. And this is not just during the good times; this is all the time. He says, “I will praise the Lord at all times; His praise will continually be on my mouth.” In other words, it is not a silent act. He says, “The praise of the Lord will be on my mouth.” Others can hear the praise that he is making.
And this is not a private act. He is involving others. He says, “Let us exalt His name together.” Now I want you to notice who is invited to exalt the Lord with him. Who is invited? Well it says it in the text. It says at the end of verse 2, “Let the humble hear and be glad.” It’s the humble who are invited. Humility, being empty of self, that actually provokes gladness. That actually provokes praise. Humility opens the floodgates of praise. Conversely, our pride, our self-centeredness, our self-sufficiency, that actually closes the gates. That stunts praise. It’s like a roadblock to praise. Charles Spurgeon says, “Who can make God great but those who feel themselves to be little.” David is calling the humble. There is a hymn that I love called, “Jesus Cast a Look on Me” and it reads, “Jesus cast a look on me, give me sweet simplicity. Make me poor and keep me low, seeking only Thee to know.” And then at the end of the song, the hymn, it says this. “In this posture let me live and hosannas daily live. In this posture let me die and hosannas ever cry.”
You see, there is a straight line from humility, from being brought low and seeking the Lord, to praise. Humility provokes praise. That should offer deep encouragement to you, especially, especially if the circumstances of life or your own sin has brought you to a place where you are at the end of yourself, where you feel low, where you feel helpless. There ought to be great encouragement here because the lower you are, the deeper and sweeter the praise that you can experience will be.
I think there are a couple of other points of application for us in this first section and the first is this. We need to be people who talk about the goodness of the Lord out loud. We need to speak it. Our neighbors need to hear it, our friends need to hear it, our coworkers need to hear it, our family needs to hear it. We need to hear it. We need to hear ourselves say it out loud. We need to be people who, like David, can say, “The praise of the Lord is on our mouth.” Another point of application – we need to worship together. David says, “Come, let us exalt the name of the Lord together.” Let’s be together. One author says, “Joy is not complete until it is shared.” We need to worship together. And we are all here tonight. That is a wonderful thing. And my encouragement to all of us is this – keep on with it. Keep coming back. Keep making corporate worship, morning and evening, an important part of your lives. You need others. You need to worship together. So in order to experience the goodness of the Lord, we need to humbly praise Him. That means no matter where you are this evening you can praise the Lord, even if your circumstances are screaming otherwise. You can praise the Lord. And in doing so, you will experience His goodness.
Seek the Lord
Secondly, this psalm calls us to seek the Lord. It calls us to praise the Lord to experience His goodness; it also calls us to seek the Lord. To experience God’s goodness, we must draw near to Him. We must seek Him. This is looking to God, this is prayer, this is turning to God in the struggles of our life, looking to Him and hoping in Him, seeking Him and drawing near to Him. You’ll notice in verse 4 and 6 David gives his personal testimony. He says, “I sought the Lord and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears.” He says this poor man cried out and the Lord heard him and delivered him. And then David says the same can be true for you. “My story can be your story. Seek the Lord.” He cried out with a broken spirit to the Lord and was delivered and he says, “My story can be your story so seek Him and you will experience His goodness.”
Why? Why do we seek Him? Well David gives us reasons. He says in verse 5, “Those who look to Him are radiant.” They light up. They are like the woman that Gary talked about in the children’s sermon who lights up with thankfulness. Derek Kidner says in Isaiah the word for “radiant” describes the face of a mother finding a lost child she thought to be gone forever. There is something so beautiful about the depths of God’s love when you seek Him that you will find that it actually exudes from the people who gaze upon them. Looking to the Lord makes us radiant. It says you will never be ashamed. It is a certainty that you will never be ashamed. It will not backfire if you look to the Lord. There is no chance. It is a certain reality that you will not be ashamed.
And not only that, verse 7 tells us that those who seek the Lord will experience His nearness, His protection, and His deliverance. It says, “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and delivers them.” So how can this be so? Well it’s because God is really good. He truly, really is good. And that’s the lie that our hearts want to tell us – it’s that He is not good. But He truly is good. And ultimately when you seek God, when you draw near to Him, that’s what you’ll find – that He is a good God.
I remember traveling to Yosemite National Park, which I called “Yose – mite” the first time. I actually wrote in my notes, “Yo-sem-ite” so I wouldn’t say it wrong! As we drove through California, a friend and I, me and a friend, and we got closer to the park, everything became more and more beautiful – the mountains, the hills, the greenery. It became stunningly beautiful the closer we got to the park in the same way the closer you draw to God, the more you look to Him, the more you seek Him, the more of His goodness and beauty you will see. So seek Him and you will experience His goodness.
Verses 8 through 10 say this – “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack!” And then one of my favorite verses – “The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.” Seek the Lord. Seek the Lord. You see, David knew, David knew verse 7 to be true – that those who fear the Lord, God draws near to them, encamps around them, protects them and delivers them. He knew that God is a God who draws near, and yet we ought to know even more deeply that God is a God who draws near. We ought to see it more clearly because we can look back to the person and work of Christ who left His throne above. John says He came and dwelt among us, He tabernacled among us, He camped out with us, He suffered, He died and He rose to deliver us from our sins. So it’s actually in Christ that you experience the goodness of God most fully. It’s in Him. And you’ll actually find that as you are seeking Him, that He has been seeking you, that He is a God who draws near to us. And you’ll be able to say as the hymn writer says, “What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss to bear the dreadful curse for my soul?”
So my question for all of us is this – What is it that is holding us back this evening from seeking the Lord, looking to Him honestly and openly? Is it guilt? Is it shame? Is it regret? Because the truth of the Gospel is, that Christ has removed those obstacles. In fact, your feelings of shame and regret and guilt will actually only deepen your experience of His goodness when you come to Him and seek Him and receive His love. Spurgeon says, “Never did a sore heart look in vain to the Great Physician. This not striving to win God’s favor. To earn salvation. But running to Him with empty hands.” So don’t wait. Seek the Lord and you will experience His goodness.
Follow the Lord
So praise Him. Seek Him. Third, follow the Lord. It’s interesting, this next section of Psalm 34, it reads almost like a proverb. David says, “Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” It almost feels like you could take it and put it in the book of Proverbs and it would fit perfectly. It’s directed to children, but the point is for all of us. The point is that this good God, this good Captain, this good Lord that we have sought, that we have praised, that we know to love us is a God worth following. He is a God worth obeying. His ways are good, and that means when we follow His ways we will experience His goodness. Godliness is never the way to earn His love, but it is certainly the way that we experience it. Godliness is not how we earn salvation, but it is how we experience the goodness of the Lord. So follow Him, obey Him. That’s what the call of this psalm is for us.
Specifically in verse 13, David says, “Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.” He talks about these sins of the tongue like gossip, slander, dishonesty. These are things that erode life. They objectify and use others. They destroy and they harm. And these things must be bitter and unthinkable to us. We must keep our tongue from evil. But more broadly in verse 14 and 15 he says, “Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.” We are to be proactive about doing good.
For those of you who hunt, you know the process is much more extensive than just going out in the woods with a gun and shooting at the animals. It takes going to bed early, getting up early, putting on the right clothes, usually traveling out of town. It takes a lot of patience, planning and preparation just to possibly get a shot at whatever you are hunting. In the same way, we need to pursue, we need to hunt peace and righteousness in the same way. We ought to be patient and persistent and proactive and intentional about looking for opportunities to do good and pursuing peace. We should hunt good. We should seek peace and pursue it. And in doing so, the promise is we will experience, we will taste and see the goodness of God.
Of course, righteousness and godliness can be costly. It can cost us. We know this. The Christian life is not all sunshine and rainbows. It is costly. It can be hard to follow the Lord. It can cost us time, money, our reputations. It can cost us even more than that. But there’s deep encouragement here. You see, many of you have been or will be or are currently being mistreated and it seems like nobody will know and nobody cares. And you may be being mistreated for righteousness sake. There may be even people who know and don’t care enough to act.
It reminds me of a story of a man named Odell Jones. I listened to this podcast years ago. He was a business owner in Detroit years ago and he refused to pay the expected bribes to the mayor’s office in order to go secure contracts for his business. He knew that was wrong and he didn’t do it. And what he said is fascinating and I think you can probably relate to it. He said, “The most difficult part about losing out on all those contracts was witnessing the despair of my dedicated employees when deal after deal fell through.” He said, “I don’t know if anyone understands this, but I loved my employees.” You see, he was suffering for righteousness sake. And oftentimes it can feel like there is no justice and no vindication for the righteous. Like Bob Dylan says, he says, “How many times can man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t see?”
But the reality we are presented with here in this psalm is that God does see. His Word tells us that, “The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, His ears toward their cry…When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them from all their troubles.” God sees, God knows, and in His time He will act. It may not happen in this lifetime, but this lifetime is not all there is. God is a just, good, righteous God and He defends the righteous. He defends His people – those who are in Christ.
So a couple points of hopefully practical application for you. Many of you, God has given authority and you are called to use that in a way that blesses others. It may be tempting to think that no one sees and no one cares when we harm others, when we do things that hurt others with whatever bits of authority we are given, whatever bits of power are given. But the reality is, God sees and God knows. And actually, unless there is repentance, there is eternal judgment that awaits because this Scripture tells us that, “The face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” So search your heart. Repent. Stop using your authority for evil, to harm. And then for those of you who are suffering at the hands of others, do not repay evil for evil. First Peter 3 actually quotes this psalm and after it does it says, “Do not repay evil for evil, reviling for reviling, but on the contrary bless. Even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.” As Christians, we don’t use the tools of the world to fight against mistreatment. We don’t fight fire with fire. We repay evil with good. On the contrary, we bless, as Peter says, and with that comes something far better than we could imagine – the deep, real, spiritual blessing of experiencing the goodness of God, experiencing His goodness.
So it is true that those who taste and see the goodness of God will be propelled to greater obedience. When you see how good God is, it makes you want to follow and obey Him, but it’s also conversely true that those who obey Him will experience His goodness. Do you want to taste and see that the Lord is good? Obey Him. Follow Him. Let Him lead you in paths of righteousness. Even when it is hard, follow Him and you will experience the goodness of the Lord.
Take Refuge in the Lord
So praise Him, seek Him, follow Him, and lastly, take refuge in the Lord. This takes faith. Take refuge in the Lord. God is our rock, He is our righteousness, He is our hiding place, and we must take refuge in Him. The psalm says, “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” He goes on in verse 21 to say, or verse 22 – “The Lord redeems the life of his servants; none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.” You see, there is a somewhat counterintuitive principle that we experience in the Christian life and it is this – the more you seek the Lord and the more you strive after godliness, the more you experience the depths of your own sin, the more you experience the darkness and you see the darkness of your own heart. These are intrinsically linked. As we move towards the light, it exposes our darkness and this often leaves us crushed in spirit and brokenhearted. And at some level, it ought to. But verse 18 tells us again that, “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and He saves the crushed in spirit.” The Lord is a Lord who comes near and redeems the life of His servants.
This word “to draw near” in verse 18 is actually the same word that is used for the kinsman redeemer in the book of Ruth. I think Derek Kidner points that out. This kinsman redeemer that was such a near relative to the person in need, the person who had lost everything, that they were obligated to redeem them. They were obligated to provide for them. God draws near to us as our Redeemer when we come to Him brokenhearted and repentant. Once again, Charles Spurgeon says, “He never breaks with a rod of judgment those whose souls are sore with conviction.” So we come to the Lord, we take refuge in the Lord, we repent, we are brokenhearted over our sin, and we find that He is good and He is a Redeemer.
But moreover, regardless of our sin, life can be brutally difficult. There can be hardships, difficulties and tragedies that really have nothing directly to do with the sins we have committed. And to this, verse 19 says, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” God is the only refuge for the sinner and the sufferer, so we must take refuge in Him.
Many of you likely remember this. Easter 2020 there was a string of storms that swept through Mississippi with lots of tornados. And I read an article about a family who, they were actually watching an Easter service on the television, heard the sirens with two little kids – husband and wife and two little kids – went to the tornado shelter and the tornado came about 20 seconds later and swept everything away except for the concrete tornado shelter. And if you actually look up this article you’ll see just the bare foundation of the home with wood and debris everywhere. You’ll see this standing structure, this concrete structure which actually preserved their lives.
The reason I’m telling you this is because the winds of suffering and sickness and the sickness of our own wicked hearts, they will destroy us, leaving us without any taste of goodness forever unless, unless we take refuge in Christ; we make Christ our shelter. We flee to Him and take refuge in Him because He is the righteous one. He is the only one that can shield us from the consequences of sin because He alone only suffered to atone for sin. And one day, Scripture tells us, that He will wipe every tear from our eyes. Christ Himself, He is our only true and lasting hiding place from both sin and affliction, and so we must take refuge in Him. And when you do, you will experience His goodness. You will experience His goodness forever.
So for those of you who are weary from this fallen world and sick of your sin, take refuge in the Lord by coming to Christ and you will experience His everlasting goodness. He is your Redeemer, He protects, He provides, He will never leave you or forsake you, and one day you will be able to say with full conviction that there was never a time when God was not good to you. The Lord redeems the life of His servants. Not one of those who take refuge in Him will be condemned.
Let me pray.
Father, we long to experience Your goodness more fully and we are so thankful that Your Word tells us how good You are, it tells us that we can praise You, seek You, we can follow You, that we can take refuge in You, and in doing so we will experience Your goodness because at the end of the day it’s You who have sought us, it’s You who love us, it’s You who have poured out Your goodness and Your kindness on us in Christ Jesus. So we praise You for that and thank You, praying all in the name of our precious Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.