Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] I want you to think of a time of weakness or of vulnerability in your own life.
[00:00:09] Think of a time when you felt small or powerless or unable to help yourself.
[00:00:18] Perhaps this was a time of sickness or of injury.
[00:00:24] Perhaps it was or is losing a job.
[00:00:29] Maybe you were rejected by someone close to you.
[00:00:33] Maybe you were even betrayed by your own husband or wife.
[00:00:39] Maybe you sinned in some way that you couldn't undo or take back and all you could do is sit back and watch as the consequences of your sin fell like dominoes, each one hurting someone else in your life.
[00:00:54] Maybe someone took advantage of your weakness and sinned against you and you felt the shame of vulnerability and violation.
[00:01:06] Maybe the time you're thinking of happened years ago.
[00:01:10] Maybe that time of vulnerability is right now.
[00:01:16] Our sermon today is from Psalm 34 and this is a Psalm 40 for those who have experienced great weakness, vulnerability, exposure.
[00:01:27] It was written by David before he was king, in just such a time in his own life.
[00:01:34] Saul, a man whom David had been completely loyal to, the father of his best friend and actually his own father in law, by this point in the story was actively trying to kill him.
[00:01:47] Now I know some of you have some pretty strained relationships with your in laws, but come on, this is pretty bad.
[00:01:57] David's father in law is trying to kill him and has the power to do so.
[00:02:03] So he runs away from his own family and his own people, and the only real option is to run into the arms of his enemy neighbors, the Philistines, who would also love to get their hands on David to kill him before he gets to the Philistines. He visits Ahimelech, the priest at the tabernacle, and Ahimelech gives David holy bread to eat and the sword of Goliath, whom David himself had killed.
[00:02:30] Now this seems like a perfect setup for David to make a heroic stand against Saul, maybe, or for him to lay waste to the Philistines and firmly establish himself as Israel's savior king.
[00:02:44] Well, that's not quite what we get.
[00:02:47] Let me read to you first Samuel 21 this is what happens next. David arose and fled that day from before Saul and went to Achish, the king of Gath. And the servants of Achish said to him, is this not David the king of the land? Did they not sing of him to one another in dances, saying, saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousands?
[00:03:12] Now David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish, king of Gath.
[00:03:19] So he changed his behavior before them, pretended madness in Their hands scratched on the doors of the gate and let his saliva fall down on his beard.
[00:03:30] Then Achish said to his servants, look, you see, the man is insane. Why have you brought him to me?
[00:03:37] Have I need of madmen that you have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence?
[00:03:42] Shall this fellow come into my house?
[00:03:45] David therefore departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam.
[00:03:51] Now, this was certainly a time of great weakness and vulnerability for David.
[00:03:56] And his weakness was not just from external circumstances, the things happening to him. This was a time of internal weakness for David, a time of fear and anxiety and, I believe, weakness of faith.
[00:04:11] What we get here is not exactly a David and Goliath moment.
[00:04:17] It's the opposite of a David and Goliath moment, right standing in stark contrast to his previous engagement with the Philistines.
[00:04:27] There's no standing up with great courage here to face down the enemies of God.
[00:04:32] Instead, he pretends to be out of his mind to the point of drooling all over himself.
[00:04:38] It's pretty embarrassing.
[00:04:41] And this is the context of Psalm 34.
[00:04:45] I know it's not really a psalm of confession.
[00:04:48] It reminds me of Psalm 51, which is David's psalm of confession after he had sinned greatly by committing adultery with Bathsheba and then murdering her husband.
[00:04:58] Psalm 51, that Psalm teaches sinners how to come to God.
[00:05:06] Psalm 34 teaches those who are weak, vulnerable and fearful how to come to God.
[00:05:15] Would you please stand? And I'm going to read Psalm 34 and all this morning I'm going to be in the new King James Version because our family's memorizing Psalm 34 right now. And it seemed unwise to preach from a different translation than we're memorizing.
[00:05:32] So we're going to be. If you have a new King James, it's your day to follow along in the Scriptures. So this is Psalm 34. This is God's word, and it is eternally true.
[00:05:44] A psalm of David, when he pretended madness before Abimelech. Just a side comment here. Abimelech, a general, can be a name, but also a name for a king, like the king, the ruler of a particular land at this time in history. Abimelech could just be used in that way. So don't be confused that the name there is different than Achish. It's referring to Achish, King of Gath.
[00:06:07] He pretended madness before Abimelech, who drove him away and he departed.
[00:06:13] I will bless the Lord at all times.
[00:06:17] His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
[00:06:20] My soul shall make its boast in the Lord.
[00:06:23] The humble shall hear of it and be glad.
[00:06:26] O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.
[00:06:32] I sought the Lord, and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears.
[00:06:38] They looked to him and were radiant, and their faces were not ashamed.
[00:06:43] This poor man cried out, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.
[00:06:49] The angel of the Lord encamps all around those who fear him and delivers them.
[00:06:55] O taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who trusts in him.
[00:07:02] O fear the Lord, you his saints. There is no want to those who fear him.
[00:07:08] The young lions lack and suffer hunger, but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing.
[00:07:16] Come, you children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord who is the man who desires life and loves many days that he may see good.
[00:07:28] Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.
[00:07:32] Depart from evil and do good.
[00:07:34] Seek peace and pursue it.
[00:07:38] The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
[00:07:49] The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart and saves such as have a contrite spirit.
[00:08:01] Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.
[00:08:08] He guards all his bones, not one of them is broken.
[00:08:13] Evil shall slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous shall be condemned.
[00:08:19] The Lord redeems the soul of his servants, and none of those who trust in him shall be condemned.
[00:08:25] This is the word of the Lord.
[00:08:28] Would you please be seated?
[00:08:31] So why did David write this psalm? Well, verse three is a pretty clear purpose statement in the form of an exhortation.
[00:08:39] Oh, magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together.
[00:08:44] David's goal in writing this psalm is pretty straightforward.
[00:08:48] It's to get God's people to exalt the name of the Lord with him.
[00:08:53] Now notice first of all that this exhortation flows from a personal commitment on David's part.
[00:09:00] David preaches what he practices.
[00:09:06] He's committed to blessing the Lord at all times himself.
[00:09:10] And out of that commitment comes his call to others to join him in that praise. David is no hypocrite.
[00:09:17] He's a leader.
[00:09:20] Now he says, I will bless the Lord at All times.
[00:09:26] Now, this, of course, means David was committed to praising God morning and noon and night.
[00:09:31] It is always right to praise the name of the Lord, no matter what time of day, week, month, or year it is.
[00:09:38] But just as much when Scripture says we should praise the name of the Lord at all times, it means that we should praise the name of the Lord in all circumstances.
[00:09:50] Think of David's circumstances at this time.
[00:09:54] What do you think he's thinking when he says at all times?
[00:09:58] And he's just been running away and pretending to be insane?
[00:10:02] I think he's thinking along the lines of the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4, where he says, I have learned in whatever state I am to be content.
[00:10:12] I know how to be abased, made low, and I know how to abound everywhere and in all things. I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.
[00:10:25] I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
[00:10:30] David knows that it is right to praise the name of the Lord when he's just won a great battle and when he's just drooled on himself to escape from the Philistines.
[00:10:42] Even though David has changed his behavior, God has not.
[00:10:49] God is still just as worthy to be praised. Even when David has faltered, God is to be praised in times of strength and in times of weakness.
[00:11:03] In fact, for David, a time of weakness provides all the more reason for his soul to make its boast in the Lord rather than in himself.
[00:11:12] Coming off of this embarrassing episode, David doesn't build himself up by reliving his glory days.
[00:11:21] This is one of the exemplary things about David that no matter whether he's strong and courageous or weak and vulnerable or even caught in outright sin, for David, it's all glory to God all the time.
[00:11:39] When he tells his stories, he's not concerned with making himself look great.
[00:11:44] He doesn't say in this psalm, and then I obtained the sword of Goliath, and I heard the Philistines talking about my battlefield prowess and the songs people sing about me. And I remembered how awesome I am.
[00:11:58] He says, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
[00:12:06] And this opening verse is an excellent manifesto for the Christian life.
[00:12:13] We could use many, many verses of Scripture to instruct our hearts at the beginning of each day, but for me, this one makes the top of the list.
[00:12:21] I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
[00:12:31] I want to talk for a minute about the nature of true praise.
[00:12:35] A couple of things that we see in this psalm.
[00:12:39] First of all, true praise involves the whole person.
[00:12:45] Verse two makes a wonderful connection between our souls, our inner man, and our bodies. What happens on the outside?
[00:12:52] It says, my soul shall make its boast in the Lord.
[00:12:56] The humble shall hear of it and be glad.
[00:13:00] When David says his soul, he's talking about the inward man. He's talking about praising God in his heart. And yet that is something that those around him also hear hear of.
[00:13:13] That's because David is a whole person. He lives a life of integrity where that which happens on the inside is displayed on the outside.
[00:13:21] David's soul is engaged in the worship of God, but that soul praise is manifested in his body.
[00:13:29] God's praise is continually in his mouth, making a real sound for other people to hear.
[00:13:37] The same should be true of us.
[00:13:39] In fact, we can make pretty good judgments about what we boast in in our souls by what's coming out of our mouths.
[00:13:47] Just the other day, I found myself praising Lionel Messi as I was reading out loud to others about his wondrous accolades as a soccer player.
[00:13:59] My soul was boasting in messy.
[00:14:03] And that man is an idol to many.
[00:14:06] But how does Lionel Messi stack up to the Lord God Almighty?
[00:14:13] Who should our souls boast in, whose praise should continually be in our mouths?
[00:14:22] Channel your praise to the one who is worthy.
[00:14:28] True praise involves the whole person, body and soul.
[00:14:34] We also see here that true praise is communal.
[00:14:37] It invites others in.
[00:14:40] David says, the humble shall hear of it and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together.
[00:14:50] David's not satisfied just to have his own private praise of God. He wants others to join in. And I think we all understand this on some level. When you have something exciting that you found out, you want to share it with someone else. And this is the nature of true praise.
[00:15:06] We should be praising God to those around us.
[00:15:11] This is the purpose of our existence as the people of God.
[00:15:17] First Peter 2 says that we are a special people, that God has brought us into existence so that we may proclaim the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light.
[00:15:34] We are to be a light to the world by proclaiming out loud the excellencies of God and calling others to join in that praise.
[00:15:43] We're encouraged in this work with the sweet promise that the humble shall hear of it and be glad.
[00:15:51] Now, not everyone you boast in the Lord to will be glad that you're doing so.
[00:15:57] The humble will.
[00:16:01] Nevertheless, it's our job to boast to everyone no matter how they respond. Because no matter what, God is still worthy of praise, no matter how the person across from us will respond to it.
[00:16:14] Your praises will be an aroma of life to some and an aroma of death to others.
[00:16:24] But the humble will hear our praises and be glad.
[00:16:28] Now we can put ourselves on the other side of hearing God's praises.
[00:16:33] And when others boast in the Lord, you should be humble and be glad that God is receiving glory.
[00:16:41] Breathe a sigh of relief when someone deflects glory or attention in general from themselves and gives God the glory.
[00:16:50] There are enough people in the world and in the church, even many preachers who love to build a name for themselves, be glad when others boast in the Lord.
[00:17:06] So this psalm opens with David's commitment to praising the Lord and his exhortation to everyone who will listen to join him in that praise.
[00:17:14] But he doesn't stop there.
[00:17:16] A call to praise someone or something naturally comes with a why attached.
[00:17:22] Magnify the Lord.
[00:17:24] Why is he worthy to be praised?
[00:17:30] Tell me why now. There are many reasons why God is praiseworthy, but this psalm, I think, focuses on one main reason that his praise should be continually in our mouths.
[00:17:45] The Lord saves those who cry out to him.
[00:17:50] The Lord saves those who cry out to him.
[00:17:57] This is why David says that we should praise the Lord.
[00:18:03] Who is it that God saves? Let's look at that first.
[00:18:08] He saves those who cry out to Him.
[00:18:13] Verse 4 David says, I sought the Lord and he heard me.
[00:18:18] David begins with his personal testimony of God having listened to him.
[00:18:25] This statement in this psalm is particularly sweet because it is clear that David does not see God's willingness to listen to him as stemming from God's being impressed with David.
[00:18:39] He makes no claim here that it is because of his strength or valor or courage that God listened to him.
[00:18:46] He simply proclaims God's graciousness to listen to those who earnestly seek him, and gives his personal account of experiencing how God listened to him when he cried out, this poor man cried out and the Lord heard him.
[00:19:05] God is to be praised for the grace he shows by opening his ear to those who call on him, even and especially when they are poor, which is to say, when they have absolutely nothing to offer him.
[00:19:21] Now this can be hard for us to grasp, coming to God poor. This poor man cried out because we're all ashamed to be needy.
[00:19:37] None of us wants to be a beggar who relies on the charity of others to survive.
[00:19:44] And it's true that we should provide for ourselves and seek to not be an unnecessary burden to others.
[00:19:53] But guess what?
[00:19:55] You do not get to come to God as anything except poor and needy.
[00:20:04] If mighty King David, who slew his ten thousands, was a poor man to God, you are too.
[00:20:16] We should acknowledge this to God, and we should acknowledge our need for God to one another.
[00:20:24] And the only way to do this is to acknowledge your own weakness.
[00:20:29] But man, this is scary.
[00:20:34] But we should be encouraged that there is great freedom and strength in being honest about how weak you are.
[00:20:41] If you're unwilling to admit your weakness, you you will never cry out for help. And if you don't cry for help, then God will never hear you.
[00:20:52] Isaiah 40 Isaiah says this. Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary.
[00:21:06] His understanding is unsearchable.
[00:21:09] He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might, he increases strength.
[00:21:18] Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall.
[00:21:24] But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.
[00:21:28] They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.
[00:21:36] God helps the weak.
[00:21:40] Now, David uses another word besides poor to describe those who cry out to God, and that is righteous.
[00:21:50] In verse 15, he says, the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry.
[00:21:58] A couple of verses later, in 17, he says, the righteous cry out, and the Lord hears, who are the righteous?
[00:22:09] It is those who are right with God.
[00:22:13] It is those who have God's approval.
[00:22:18] Now, amazingly, this can be those who are weak and poor and needy. David clearly puts himself in both of these categories, doesn't he?
[00:22:27] He knows his own weakness, and yet he also considers himself righteous and in God's sight.
[00:22:34] He believes he has God's approval.
[00:22:37] And we'll come back to that in a minute.
[00:22:41] What does God what does the Lord do when the righteous cry out to him?
[00:22:47] He saves them.
[00:22:50] And what does he save them from?
[00:22:52] The Old Testament builds a rich theme of salvation, of rescue, of deliverance for the righteous people of God. From beginning to end.
[00:23:03] Mankind is saved just after the fall from being snuffed out through the birth of a son.
[00:23:12] Noah and his family are saved from the waters of God's wrath. In the ark, Lot and his daughters are saved from God's destruction. On Sodom and Gomorrah, Isaac is spared from sacrifice.
[00:23:30] Israel and his sons are spared from famine. Through God's work in Joseph to save all of his brothers from being destroyed by hunger.
[00:23:39] Israel as a nation is saved. Boom, boom, boom. Slavery in Egypt, from slavery in Egypt, from the sentence of death at Passover, from Pharaoh and his army.
[00:23:52] After that, Israel from hunger and enemies and fiery serpents. They are saved in the wilderness.
[00:23:59] As they enter the promised land, God begins to save even those outside of the people of Israel, like Rahab and her family, saving them from the destruction of the sword of God's people.
[00:24:12] The people of Israel are repeatedly delivered from enemies in Judges.
[00:24:19] God saves Naomi and then Ruth from famine and death.
[00:24:25] And Ruth is redeemed, saved out of her poverty by Boaz, so that a few generations later, David could come onto the scene.
[00:24:35] The story of the Old Testament is salvation after salvation, after deliverance, after rescue of God for his people.
[00:24:44] David comes on the scene, and David acknowledges that God has saved him from the lion and from the bear.
[00:24:51] And God saves him from Goliath and Israel, from the Philistines.
[00:24:56] And then we come here and David is saved from the hand of Saul and from Achish, the king of Gath.
[00:25:05] Now David in this psalm, wants us to praise the Lord, the God of Israel with him, because this is the God who says saves.
[00:25:15] What has God saved David from? What does David say that he does save from? He says that God saved him from all his fears.
[00:25:25] Verse 4. The Lord delivered me from all my fears.
[00:25:29] And what was David afraid of?
[00:25:32] Mainly of those who wanted to kill him, of Saul, of the Philistines.
[00:25:37] Later it will be his own son trying to kill him whom he's running away from.
[00:25:45] David says that God saves from shame.
[00:25:51] Verse 5 says they looked to him and were radiant, and their faces were not ashamed.
[00:25:57] David had much to be ashamed of, both from his own sin and weakness, as well as the shame that comes from the violence of others as we are made weak.
[00:26:07] And yet when he looked to God and knew God loved him and would take care of him, and that God was not ashamed of him, he had no need to be weighed down by shame.
[00:26:19] The Lord was the lifter of his head, as he says in Psalm 3.
[00:26:25] David says, this poor man cried out, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.
[00:26:32] The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.
[00:26:38] David is surely considering his own troubles and dangers as well as those experienced by the people of Israel in the history before him of violence, of oppression, of famine, plague, death.
[00:26:51] He says God saves from troubles. In verse nine he says, o fear the Lord, you his Saints, there is no want to those who fear him. Want here means lack. You lack something.
[00:27:06] What are different ways we can have want or lack? Well, hunger, poverty, being poor, thirst.
[00:27:15] But David says the young lions lack and suffer hunger.
[00:27:20] Top of the food chain, right?
[00:27:22] Provided for by their strong lion parents.
[00:27:28] But young lions lack and suffer hunger, don't they?
[00:27:31] But those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing.
[00:27:37] God saves and has saved and will save David from his enemies.
[00:27:43] Verse 16 says, the face of the Lord is against those who do evil to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. Verse 21 Evil shall slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous shall be condemned.
[00:27:58] David trusted God to deliver him from his enemies.
[00:28:02] Now we may look at this particular episode and diagnose David as weak in faith here, considering his fear of Achish and the way he dealt with that fear.
[00:28:13] But what does David see when he looks back on this incident and rates this psalm?
[00:28:18] God graciously delivered him from his enemies.
[00:28:22] Sometimes we look good and strong when we are delivered from our enemies, and sometimes we don't when God saves us from trouble in spite of ourselves.
[00:28:35] Either way, God is to be glorified and thank goodness he saves us when we are weak and lacking in courage.
[00:28:48] The New Testament is written against this backdrop of the Old Testament, and it picks up this theme of salvation from the very first chapters in the Gospels.
[00:28:59] I'm going to run through a lot of these. John 3:17. God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him.
[00:29:12] John 10, verse 9 I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.
[00:29:23] In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says, the Son of man has come to save that which was lost.
[00:29:31] In Luke, the Son of man did not come to destroy men's lives, but but to save them.
[00:29:38] The apostles carry this theme of salvation thoroughly into the book of Acts. The apostle Peter says, it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
[00:29:52] In verse 47 of Acts 2, the Lord was adding to their number day by day, those who were being saved.
[00:30:01] In Acts 4 there is salvation in no one else. For there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.
[00:30:13] In Acts 13 I have set you as a light to the Gentiles that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth. He's quoting Isaiah 49.
[00:30:25] All of the salvation in the Old Testament builds up to and culminates in this salvation in Jesus, whose name means the Lord saves.
[00:30:38] And what is the salvation that is so desperately needed? Salvation from what?
[00:30:45] Here's what Matthew says.
[00:30:48] An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit, and she will bring forth a son. And you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
[00:31:11] 1st Timothy 1 the apostle Paul says, it is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
[00:31:23] We need to be saved from our sins and from the consequences of sin.
[00:31:31] This salvation from sin and its consequences, namely the wrath of God, is the core of salvation from which all other deliverances emanate.
[00:31:42] After all, what would be the use of being delivered from tribulation or distress or persecution, or famine, or nakedness or peril or sword, if we are not saved from the wrath of God and are finally damned?
[00:31:58] Those of you who are in Christ, you are saved from your sins and made righteous right with God, approved of by God, loved by God.
[00:32:18] Even in your weakness and vulnerability and sin, you are God's, and he will take care of you.
[00:32:28] It is a trustworthy statement. Christ Jesus came to save sinners and as God's righteous ones, ones who have been saved from your sins in Christ.
[00:32:41] You have many promises of salvation that belong to you in Christ.
[00:32:46] In fact, the promises of this psalm belong to you in Christ.
[00:32:52] And that's because this Psalm, Psalm 34, is about Jesus.
[00:32:58] Look at verses 19 and 20.
[00:33:02] David writes, Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.
[00:33:08] He guards all his bones, not one of them is broken.
[00:33:14] Does that sound familiar to you?
[00:33:19] Here's the Apostle John.
[00:33:21] What John thought of that. In John 19 he's telling the story of Christ's crucifixion. And he says, coming to Jesus, when they saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.
[00:33:42] And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true. John's talking about himself, right?
[00:33:49] And he knows that he is telling the truth. So that you also may believe, for these things came to pass to fulfill the Scripture. Not a bone of him shall be broken.
[00:34:00] And again another Scripture says, they shall look on him whom they have pierced.
[00:34:06] God the Father orchestrated the fulfillment of Psalm 34:20 to ensure that we would know that Christ is the righteous one spoken of in Psalm 34.
[00:34:19] Jesus, far more than David, is the one who cries out to God and is heard by him and God preserving Jesus Bones shows us that Christ's death on the cross was not God losing control or giving up control.
[00:34:43] But was God accomplishing exactly what he intended to accomplish in his righteous servant, the salvation of his people from their sins.
[00:34:53] The Psalms are about Jesus before they are about us now. I often find myself foolishly, I would say, reading the Psalms and trying to directly map them onto myself in my own experience.
[00:35:08] Now this mostly just leads to frustration, doubt, and a vacillating uncertainty about whether or not the Psalms really apply to me at all, because it's based on my subjective feelings about whether or not I've lived up to their descriptions of the righteous man.
[00:35:24] Well, looking at the Psalms and imagining that I could somehow measure up is actually proud and self righteous.
[00:35:33] And you can save yourself a lot of my self righteous angst if you learn to see Christ in the Psalms first and then see yourself in him by faith.
[00:35:44] He is the righteous man whose righteous cries are heard by God.
[00:35:50] And if we want to be heard by God, we must be righteous in Christ so that he will cry out to God for us.
[00:36:00] This is what the Gospel teaches us. Hebrews 7 says he is able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
[00:36:17] Now God's salvation of us in Christ goes beyond mere salvation from our sins.
[00:36:25] When Christ is the author of our salvation, his salvation of us manifests itself in many other deliverances as well.
[00:36:34] In fact, the deliverances of Psalm 34 belong to us in Christ.
[00:36:41] Like what?
[00:36:43] Well, how about deliverance from all our fears?
[00:36:48] What fears has God delivered you from?
[00:36:54] What are you afraid of right now that you can give over to God and be free from?
[00:37:02] How about fear of being hurt by others?
[00:37:06] In a different psalm, David writes Psalm 118. He writes, the Lord is on my side.
[00:37:12] I will not fear.
[00:37:14] What can man do to me?
[00:37:19] This doesn't mean that we will be delivered from all hurt by others, but that we can be free from being controlled by the fear of what other people can do to us.
[00:37:29] If God is for us, who can stand against us?
[00:37:35] Christ Jesus died for me.
[00:37:39] The worst anyone can do is kill me, and if they do, I get to see Jesus.
[00:37:48] Faith in Christ can deliver you from the fear of the wrong people being in power.
[00:37:56] Also in Psalm 118, it's a lot about the Fear of man. In Psalm 118, David writes, It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.
[00:38:06] It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.
[00:38:12] You think of David and the oppression that he was under with the people in power running away from Saul, his king ends up in Gath, his enemy's land.
[00:38:24] Everyone wants to kill him, but the Lord delivered him from his fears.
[00:38:29] We too can be free from the fear that comes with those over us even wanting to hurt us.
[00:38:39] We do not have to be afraid.
[00:38:42] The death of Christ delivers us from the fear of death and the many other fears that flow from it.
[00:38:51] Fears about our health, fears about sickness, fears about pain, fears about making the wrong choices about food or medicine.
[00:39:03] I praise God that He has delivered us from the fear of making the wrong choice about Danny's cancer treatment.
[00:39:11] So we chose a treatment plan that may have led to greater suffering.
[00:39:18] We can't really know, but God does. And God's working all things for our good. Even the pain that came from the path that we chose.
[00:39:29] Maybe there was a less painful path we could have followed, but that path may have also been less sanctifying.
[00:39:37] And is that what we want?
[00:39:40] No.
[00:39:41] We want to be holy.
[00:39:45] Are you afraid of pain?
[00:39:48] Are you afraid that it's going to last forever?
[00:39:54] This promise belongs to you. In Christ Jesus from Revelation, God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying.
[00:40:05] There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.
[00:40:11] God promises that there is an end to pain.
[00:40:15] And along the road, God assures you, through Christ's own sharing our pain, that your pain has purpose.
[00:40:28] Are you afraid of weakness?
[00:40:31] God's power is perfected in weakness.
[00:40:37] God delivers us from all of our fears.
[00:40:40] But what else does God deliver us from? He delivers us from shame.
[00:40:47] How does the Gospel of Jesus Christ deliver you from shame?
[00:40:51] In the Gospel, God tells you that he is not ashamed of you.
[00:40:58] He is pleased to call you his son, his daughter.
[00:41:03] And Jesus is not ashamed to call you his brother, his own sister, because he did everything that was necessary to tear down the wall of guilt and shame that stood between you and God.
[00:41:21] Christ Jesus delivers from shame.
[00:41:26] We could go on and on. God has delivered us from troubles, has he not? From war, from persecution, from famine, nakedness, death.
[00:41:35] He has delivered us from hunger, from thirst, from not having enough.
[00:41:43] God has fed us, clothed us, housed us.
[00:41:49] He delivers us from want.
[00:41:52] Now, many times God does that by providing the thing that we need or that we lack.
[00:41:57] At other times he provides the contentment, happiness and joy to live without them.
[00:42:03] The wonderful thing about God is that he holds the power of both physical provision and spiritual provision in his hand. So we know he will give us either the thing that we lack or the contentment to live without it.
[00:42:20] God saves his people from their enemies.
[00:42:24] What do we know from this psalm that God will do with those who hate the righteous?
[00:42:29] They will be destroyed.
[00:42:33] If God could preserve Jesus bones from being broken by the wicked even as they were beating him to a pulp, he can ensure that the wicked will not go unpunished.
[00:42:48] Now at the center of this psalm is an invitation to experience the goodness of the Lord. O taste and see that the Lord is good.
[00:42:57] Blessed is the man who trusts in Him. I hope you see how blessed you are by trusting in the Lord.
[00:43:05] I hope that you tell your children what blessings have flowed in real ways from fearing God in your life.
[00:43:14] I hope at the top of this list is the blessing of eternal life in Christ Jesus.
[00:43:19] Dwell on the ways God has helped you and delivered you and boast in the Lord to anyone who will listen.
[00:43:27] The humble shall hear of it and be glad.
[00:43:31] And one last thing.
[00:43:33] Being called righteous by God in Christ comes with commands and obligations.
[00:43:42] Are you righteous in God's sight?
[00:43:45] Then keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.
[00:43:50] Depart from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it.
[00:43:55] When you are grounded in the love of God in Christ Jesus, you have nothing to fear.
[00:44:00] You are free to do things like tell the truth without being afraid of the consequences.
[00:44:05] Because you know no matter what God's got you, Jesus only ever told the truth. And I'm focusing on this because this is the command in the psalm, right?
[00:44:18] Tell the truth.
[00:44:20] What motivated Jesus to speak the true words of God?
[00:44:26] The love and approval of His Father that he knew he already had. Jesus wasn't trying to gain his Father's approval through how he lived or how he spoke.
[00:44:37] He lived the perfect life of a man who perfectly knew and trusted in his Father's approval.
[00:44:45] That's the life we get to live in Christ.
[00:44:49] Not one of trying to earn God's approval, but one that flows from God's approval.
[00:44:55] Now, unlike Christ, you and I fall into sin.
[00:44:59] But that's the wondrous blessing of Christ's death on the cross.
[00:45:03] As ones who have God's approval, we also have an advocate in heaven pleading our forgiveness at the throne of grace.
[00:45:11] One who is specifically appointed for that purpose to intercede for us when we sin.
[00:45:18] God knew he was saving sinners when he saved us, and he knew they would continue to sin even after he saved them.
[00:45:25] That did not keep him from following through and saving them.
[00:45:29] Sinners who are righteous, that's what we are in Christ, acknowledge their sin, repent, and continue on in faith, hope, and obedience.
[00:45:41] That's where the psalm ends. In verse 18 it says verse the Lord is near to those who have a broken heart and saves such as have a contrite spirit.
[00:45:56] What a blessed verse to be in this psalm about God loving and taking care of the righteous.
[00:46:02] What a blessed relief to be taught even here that the righteousness of God's approval is not through your own perfect keeping of God's commandments.
[00:46:10] God is near to those who are sorry for their sins.
[00:46:14] He is near to those who trust in Christ's payment for their sins.
[00:46:18] May our souls boast in him, and may his praise continually be in our mouths.
