Taste and See the Lord’s Goodness
By Pastor Matt Black
07
January 2006
Lord's Day morning
Psalm 34:8-10
Open your Bibles to Psalm 34, and let’s read verses 1-10. The title of this morning’s message is “Taste and See the Goodness of God”.
[Read Psalm 34:1-10]
We will be looking specifically at Psalm 34:8-10, “O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him. 9 O fear the LORD, ye his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him. 10 The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing.”
Introduction: God is good! Amen? I do not know what you’ve been through this year. Some of you have suffered greatly because of sickness, death in your family, trials that were totally unexpected. God’s goodness tells us that in every trial, He holds our hand. In every tragedy, He carries us!
Some of you began last year with high expectations, but you ended the year scratching your head and wondering why little seemed to work out as you thought. Some of our plans ended in failure. Listen, God is good, and He makes NO mistakes! You may be thinking…
Ø God has forgotten about me, but He hasn’t! He’s good. Every heart ache and headache has a purpose! It’s ALL good. He wants to make you like Christ.
Ø You may think God is mad at you, but if you are a believer remember—there is NO condemnation in Christ Jesus! He loves you—Every hurt and trial is for your good! He’s not a mean God friend. You need to taste and see HOW GOOD GOD IS!
Ø Maybe something has come into your life and you think well God is good so this can’t be His will. You might think you just need to pray for God to change these circumstances. Friend, we need to pray less for God to change our circumstances and more for God to change US!! God is good! Taste it! See it! Visualize this—one day we’ll be in heaven even though we deserve hell. The Father put all the bad that we deserve on Jesus. I don’t know about you, but no matter what you or I ever go through, we have something to rejoice about!! God is GOOD!!!!
Let’s look at what’s going on in David’s heart and life as he writes this Psalm. The Psalm begins “<<A Psalm of David, when he changed his behaviour before Abimelech; who drove him away, and he departed.>>”
David had a rough situation. Abimelech is another name for Achish king of Gath. The word “Abimelech” means means “father-king” or “royal father”. In fact, it was common to refer to any of the kings of the Philistines as “Abimelech”—it is a title like that of Pharaoh.
Now this King was an intimidation to David! He brought FEAR to David. What is it in your life that makes you act the way David acted? We all have our FEARS!!!
We find in 1 Samuel 21:10-15 the story surrounding this Psalm. Turn over there would you? These are the circumstances in which we need to taste and see God’s goodness. David was fleeing from Saul for his life. He was living in caves and running from place to place. He runs to Achish, King of Gath of the Philistines for refuge. David learned a valuable lesson that day. In 1 Samuel 21, David We read, “David arose, and fled that day for fear of Saul, and went to Achish the king of Gath. 11 And the servants of Achish said unto him, Is not this David the king of the land? did they not sing one to another of him in dances, saying, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands? 12 And David laid up these words in his heart, and was sore afraid of Achish the king of Gath. 13 And he changed his behaviour before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard. 14 Then said Achish unto his servants, Lo, ye see the man is mad: wherefore then have ye brought him to me? 15 Have I need of mad men, that ye have brought this fellow to play the mad man in my presence? shall this fellow come into my house?”
Here David comes face to face with the possibility that Achish might have the same jealousy in his heart as Saul, and David, instead of trusting in the Lord “was sore afraid of Achish the King of Gath” (verse 12).
David shortly after this incident realizes that no matter what the circumstances are, He can have joy in God! Nehemiah said, “the joy of the LORD is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). In our text of Psalm 34:8, David concludes the same thing, “O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.” This delight in God’s goodness is not optional for the Christian. In fact, it is a command!
I. Let’s examine God’s Command. He says “Taste and See” God’s goodness! Notice what he does not say!
A.
What God
does not command
1. God does not command us to worry. What is worry anyway? Worry is the result of listening to the fears of your heart! Worry will just complicate your life—it will freeze you out of God’
Ø Philippians 4:6, “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”
What should we do with worry?
Ø We should cast all our care “upon him; for he careth for you” (1 Peter 5:7). Psalm 55:22 says the same thing, “Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved [SHAKEN].”
Ø You say, “But I’m so afraid!” Listen to David in Psalm 23:4, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me”.
2. God does not command us to figure it out. We think we have to figure everything out. First of all, if you lack wisdom, you are not called to figure your problems out. We are to ask God!
ASK!!
Ø James 1:5, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.”
Ø Matthew 7:7-8, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”
Ø Jeremiah 33:3, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.”
We get so busy worrying and trying to figure things out. Have you ever stopped and called unto God? Have you asked Him to do His will?
B. What God does command
Ø Psalm 34:8, “O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.”
We see here that to “taste and see the Lord’s goodness” is parallel to the blessing of “trusting in Him”. In other words God commands that we get all our satisfaction from trusting and resting in Him. Proverbs 3 puts it another way.
Ø Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy path.”
1. Trust in the Lord. “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart” Total unreserved trust is what God commands.
2. Distrust Self. “lean not unto thine own understanding.”
3. Obey. “In all thy ways acknowledge Him”
4. Yield. “He shall direct thy path.”
So we see that our text is really a Command! We are commanded to be satisfied in God alone! Psalm 34:8, “O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.” Notice the words “taste and see”. These words have to do with our cravings. That brings us to our second point. Not only do we need to examine God’s command…
II. Second we need to explore our Cravings. We read in our text to Taste and See God’s goodness! Everything that’s good in life is experienced. We enter into it.
Illustration: Have you ever looked at a pie and said “I’d really like to study that pie! Now, you might study it. You look at it, you smell it, you measure it. You wonder how many pieces you can afford. But you study it not for intellectual gratification. All the intellectual lectures on the sweetness of honey will not allow you to experience honey. Your goal is to eat it! You want to digest it! You want to experience the flavor!
A. We must like David have an appetite –a fixation—for God. He says in verse 8, “Taste”!
David tells us to taste the goodness of the Lord. What a contrast our bitter trials can be in comparison to the sweetness of the Lord.
1. What are we to have an appetite for?
The believer hungers and thirsts for God’s goodness. We are to taste the graciousness of God in all things. So that when I fail, I can say, God gives me any ability I have, so if I have sought to please God, I have not failed!
If I have sinned, I can have a hunger for God’s goodness. For “where sin abounds (Romans 5:20), grace much more abounds!” Have you tasted this? Are you ADDICTED to God’s grace?
When I was in Spain, we lived right above a bread store. We loved to TASTE that bread!! We had a great appetite for that bread!!
Application: The reason we at times have no appetite for God is because we are feasting on the world! A couple weeks ago we went over Billy and Joyce Russell’s house. O the T-bone steak they cooked for me. Imagine if I would have filled up on White Castles before I went there. Listen as good as White Castle is, it’s junk compared to that T-Bone steak!
We must feast on God and His goodness!
2. When are we to Taste God’s goodness?
· Not just in the Best of Times. Sometimes when things are going right in our lives, it is common, at least in my family, to say “Isn’t God good?” And that’s right. It is in those good times that God’s goodness seems to shine the brightest. Yet much of the time, what we are really enjoying is not God, but our circumstances. We have this meter in our lives. My wife often says, “Boring is good”. God is quietly sustaining us. Sometimes God is we might say that God is more than good. We might say “He’s amazing”. Amazing on our scale would be someone sending us a $60 or $600 dollar unexpected check in the mail. Our scale goes below boring good when your like a conversation I heard the other day in the mechanics shop when I was getting my oil changed. The lady walks in and says, I think something’s leaking from the engine. The guy takes a look at it and after a few minutes says, “You know it’s coming out of there pretty good”. His eyebrows raise. He says, “We can fix it, but the car’s so old, if we take everything apart to fix the bad part, there’s no telling what else will go wrong.” But, the repair would cost such and such amount of money. Now her eyebrows raise.
· Even in the worst of times. Yet, we need to understand that God is good even in the worst of times. His grace is constantly streaming to us even in our hardest trials. We need to remember that the worst that this life can offer is better than what men in hell suffer every day. We are breathing air and not the flames of hell. The worst of our circumstances are better than what any one of us deserve. And so David in the midst of His trial begins this Psalm telling us just when we are to Taste and See God’s goodness. What does he say? Verse 1, “I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.” I will continually bless God. This has been the fruit of every true saint that God has ever saved. If you are a believer, then you know what it is to bless God not just in the seeming good times, but you can bless God in the heart breaks and in even in the head aches!
Think of the greatest heartaches in the Word of God.
· When Job lost his family, he fell down and worshipped God (Job 1).
· When Joseph was in prison and falsely, He rested in God’s presence (Genesis 39:21).
· David at first was not trusting in God’s goodness in the presence of Achish. He was fearful and he acted like a mad man. Sometimes we try to come up with a solution, but David through this learned that though Saul pursue him or even if Achish tries to harm him,
B. We must like David have an focus on God.
What do we need to “see”? We need to see God in His majesty. Isaiah 6—Mine eyes have seen the King! We need to see God in everything. He’s not just good when things go right! He’s good in all circumstances!
III. Finally, we need to exult in our Creator.
A. The Lord is the sovereign of all. “The Lord”. Until you see that it is God who controls all things, you will never taste the sweetness of the Lord! Romans 8:28.
B. The Lord is the sweetness of life.
“Heavenly counsels call us to know by glad experience the goodness of the Lord. The cup is brought to our very lips. We are invited to exhaust these waters of delight. The strongest in their strength may suffer famine; but all abundance of real food is the rich table of the humble saint.”[1]
8, 9, 10. "O taste and see that the Lord is good! blessed is the man who trusts in Him. O fear the Lord, you His saints; for there is no lack to those who fear Him. The young lions lack and suffer hunger; but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing."
You will not lack any good thing!!
C. The Lord is sufficient for every need.
Listen, whatever you have going wrong in your life is to keep you humble and to keep the Lord sweet in your life. Paul knew what this was all about. Turn to 2 Corinthians 12:7ff, “lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. 8 For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. 9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.”
Conclusion: Listen God did not make you to enjoy this world! He made you to enjoy Him! We know that the reason God made man was so that man would enjoy God, be totally addicted to His glory.
Closing Hymn: 21 Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow
Photos:
1. Group Photo Next week (chairs will be set up)
2. Individual photos next—two stations—elderly first