Life can be cruel. Cruel to you personally, cruel to your family, cruel to your business. You see much cruelty on the news, and it can make you wonder if God is, in fact, cruel. Many people who don’t believe in God don’t believe in God because they think, from looking around them, that if there is a God, he must be a cruel God. And, as awful as it is to live in a world with nobody at the controls, it would be even worse to live in a world where there is a tyrant at the controls. And so they choose to conclude it would be better if there was no one.
But even if we say God is good, how do we know God is good to me? Or is it just that God is good to other people and, for reasons known only to himself, sadistically he decides to be cruel to me instead? But what if that’s not the way things worked? What if it’s different? What if God is actually good? And what if there is a way to enjoy his goodness for ourselves? Wouldn’t that be wonderful? But would it help us to believe that if we heard first-hand testimony from somebody who can testify to God’s goodness to them?
That is what this psalm offers. Here is verse 8: “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.”
The King’s testimony
Like the other psalms we’ve been looking at, this psalm is by King David, and King David looks back and thanks God for delivering him from all his troubles. If you know the story of David, there were indeed a great many troubles. In fact, if you look at the title of this psalm, “When he pretended to be insane before Abimelek”, that actually is only at the beginning of his troubles. They were just getting started at that point.
Nevertheless, he looks back and he thanks God. Verse 6: “This poor man called, and the Lord heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles.” But all the way through, as David chants his own testimony, he wants us to know that his experience of God was typical. This is what God is like. And therefore, all of God’s people can have the same experience of God that he had. But, whilst that’s true, there is one of God’s people who fits David’s experience more than any other.
If you were here when we looked at Psalm 2, we saw that God promised David a son who would be the perfect king. And we saw that all of that hope, all of those promises, came true in the Lord Jesus, descended from David. So, after Jesus rose from the dead, he could pray, verse 6: “This poor man called, and the Lord heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles.” And Jesus’s experience is typical — we can all have the same experience of God’s goodness that Jesus had.
One more comment before we dive into the meat of the psalm. This is a psalm we are meant to memorise. So, if you’re into memorising scripture, this would be a great one to learn. It’s meant for it. If you have always meant to start the habit of memorising scripture, this would be a good place to start. It’s an acrostic psalm. Not in English, I get it, but it basically means the first letter of verse one starts with an A, the first letter of verse two starts with a B, the first letter of verse three starts with a C, and there are only 22 letters, so it runs out after 22. It’s an A to Z of God’s goodness.
It’s a nursery chart — don’t put before your eyes “A is for apple, B is for ball, C is for cricket ball” — because you can only draw things that are round. Don’t do that. Put this psalm before your eyes, A to Z and you can learn it. That’s the idea. This psalm has been precious to me for many, many years. It’s been precious, actually, to many Christians. It would have been precious to the Lord Jesus on earth because there are many verses of this psalm that we can call to mind in various different seasons of life and pray in words of thanks, reminding us of the character of God.
The goodness of God
So, what I want us to do this morning is to look at what God did for David, look at what God did for Jesus, look at who God is for all of his people, and help us to rediscover these precious, precious words.
Let’s start with verse four: “I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.” Now, that word is actually stronger than it sounds — it’s more “terrors” than “fears”. So, we could translate, “Delivered me from all my worst fears, delivered me from all my nightmares.”
Let me ask you — what is it that you most fear? What is the worst thing that could happen? What is the thing that you dread? What is the thing that keeps you awake at night, worrying in case that worst possible thing might happen? Well, this says that when we seek God, he answers whatever it is that we most dread. That is David’s testimony, and that is Jesus’s testimony, and it’s true.
Verse 5: “Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.” This might remind you of the transfiguration, when the Lord Jesus went up a mountain and his face was transfigured, literally glowing brightly, as the long-dead Moses and Elijah appeared to have a conversation with him. That story of Jesus actually itself has a line tracing all the way back to Moses, after Moses came down the mountain with a face glowing. But this says it’s true of all of us — the people of God have no need to be ashamed.
Here’s just something I’ve observed over the years. When people become Christians, over the next year or two, their appearance changes. Well, circumstances might not improve, but their appearance changes, and they just lift their head slightly higher. They talk to people and say hello, rather than shuffling along. There’s a dignity that comes out. There is a beauty that comes out — not because they’ve discovered in themselves some kind of dignity or beauty or worth, but because they now know that they are loved by God. That they have no need to be ashamed because all they’ve done wrong has been forgiven, and therefore they can lift their heads high and shine as a child of God.
Or verse 7: “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.” That word “encamp” is a military word. We used to go on holidays in Dorset when I was a child, and there’s a place, a town called Blandford, next to which is the Blandford Camp — or think Catterick. But the angel of the Lord — he was the one who gave instructions to Joshua before conquering the city of Jericho. The angel of the Lord was the one who appeared to Gideon before he defeated the Midianites with an army of just 300 men. When Jesus was sweating blood in Gethsemane, because he was praying in anguish for you and me, the angel of the Lord appeared and strengthened him.
This says, if you are a Christian, God’s angel gets his army to camp around you, to protect you and to deliver you. Isn’t that a precious, precious picture? Can’t see the army? It’s true.
Verse 10 largely speaks for itself: “The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.” The word for “lion” here is actually the word for a young lion, so unlikely to get sick and weak and tired. Actually, this is a kind of late-teens, early-twenties lion in human terms. Robust, strong, muscular, full of life. But even they have a bad day. Those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
Verse 15: “The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their cry.” Always watching. The picture is of first-time new parents who have just got a baby. They’ve only got their one baby, it’s only a few weeks old, and they’re constantly watching their little one, always checking they’re okay. You’re too tired to actually think about this for long, but you have that brief moment when you think, “If I close my eyes and go to sleep, will that little one stop breathing, or do I need to watch them just to make sure?”
Here’s God — he never takes his eye off you. He’s always listening, just in case you need anything. You know, as a parent — I was talking to one of you before the service, and they said to me, “Oh, I can hear my daughter.” I couldn’t hear her. But you know, as a parent, you’re just tuned to your own child’s noise. God’s like that with you. He’s just listening — anything you want to say, he’ll hear it in a second, because it’s you.
Verse 18: “The Lord is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” If you’re just broken-hearted — just feeling crushed, God says he’s especially close to someone like you. He’s right there. He’s not just close because you need company — no, he saves those. He’s there to help. He’s there to save you.
Verses 19 and 20 prevent the whole psalm from just being glib, triumphalistic, and stop you going, “Well, that’s all very well for you, but my experience is different.” Just listen to verses 19 and 20: “The righteous person may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all; he protects all his bones — not one of them will be broken.”
This says that you can be righteous and yet have many, many troubles. So all those other verses I just quoted to you do not mean that your life will always be a bed of roses — there are rose thorns as well. Ask Job. The story tells us that he’s one of the most righteous men who ever lived, and he’s a pinnacle of the ultimate suffering — a foreshadow for the Lord Jesus, who actually was the most righteous man who ever lived, and who suffered more deeply than any human being before or since. The righteous may have many troubles. Indeed, he knew about thorns. Yet, God rescues you from all of them.
We heard in the first reading that we had how Jesus’s legs were not broken as he hung on the cross, and John says that that fulfils this very verse. And yet, he went on to die, in case you’ve forgotten the story. But the ultimate fulfilment of that is as God raises him from the dead and restores and mends his body to utter perfection. So, for us, the ultimate fulfilment of this verse is not in this life, because A&E would be empty if nobody ever broke a bone, and our orthopaedists here would have no job. No — but when Jesus raises his people from the dead, and we are given new and restored bodies, we will truly be delivered from all of our troubles. Not a bone will be broken — and never again.
The last one just to comment on is verse 22: “The Lord will rescue his servants; no one who takes refuge in him will be condemned.” This is kind of the summary at the end that draws it all together. I’ll tell you how we know that. I told you it goes A, B, C, D, E — okay, X, Y, Z — and then verse 22, P! That’s a device to make you go, “Hang on a minute, let’s pay attention to that — this is out of place.” So it’s intentionally there to kind of wake you up and go, “Here is the summary of all of this stuff.”
The Lord will rescue his servants. If you are a servant of the Lord Jesus, he will rescue you from your sin and from your suffering, from the difficulties of life, from all the stuff that would crush you. Give him enough time — into eternity as well as in this life — he will rescue you. And no one who takes refuge in him will be condemned. No court will find you guilty in the eyes of God for anything — you’ll be completely acquitted. Why? You take refuge. The opposite of those, by the way, from the previous verse, who are called the foes of the righteous. So, if instead of opposing God you serve God, you won’t be condemned. Your sins are forgiven and you’ll — there’s the summary of all of this: “The Lord will rescue his servants; no one who takes refuge in him will be condemned.”
So Jesus testifies, “God is good. Here’s how he’s been good to me. This is who he is. And if you’re one of God’s people, this God will be good to you in just this way.”
Praise God with me
We’re not quite finished, because there are three points in the psalm where David, as he writes all of this, deliberately draws the audience in. There’s audience participation in Psalm 34 — we’re stepped into the story and invited to respond to the testimony that David is bringing here. So I’m going to just show you those three points of audience participation so that we can go away and participate for ourselves.
The first is at the beginning: Praise God with me. So, here’s David praising God: “I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips. I will glory in the Lord.” That’s David praising God. But then here’s where we fit in: “Let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together.”
So, there’s Jesus celebrating God’s deliverance, Jesus celebrating his resurrection from the dead, Jesus celebrating his ascension, Jesus celebrating all his death achieved on the cross. And he calls us to get caught up — to celebrate with him. Now, we do this when we sing some of our songs: “Thine be the glory, risen, conquering Son,” or we sung this morning, “To God be the glory, great things he has done,” and many, many more.
This idea, though, of joining in Jesus’s praise transforms our praise and our worship because verse 1 otherwise just sounds hard: “I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips.” I don’t always feel like praising God. Life is tough. But here’s the perspective that changes that.
Often our praise of God is selfish. Have you ever thought about that before? Our praise of God can be selfish. How so? Because we’re always praising him for things he’s done for us — as if that’s the thing that actually matters. “What a great God you are — you’ve done nice things for me — that proves you’re great.” No, it proves you think the world revolves around you.
Well, God’s praise is always on Jesus’s lips, and if we join him, we can praise God for all that God has done for him. And that’s something we can do even when we have many troubles, because Jesus is praising God for his goodness, even when your life is going through the mill. So, we can still join in Jesus’s song, even if we wouldn’t do it because of where our life feels at that moment.
I don’t know if anybody here went down to London on Tuesday — anyone go to London on Tuesday, to join in the parade celebrating the Lionesses’ win at the European Championships?
That is the language — that is the picture of being caught up in other people’s praises. The picture on the screen behind me — those people didn’t kick a ball once, most of them, but they’re joining in the celebration and the party of those who did. So, there’s the first bit of audience participation.
Taste God’s goodness
Here’s the second one: Taste God’s goodness. Verse 8: “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.” Taste and see — try him out. How do you do that? Take refuge in him — make him the one that you’re going to choose to keep you safe in life and eternity. This picks up the closing verse of Psalm 2: “Blessed is the one who takes refuge in him” — almost identical. How do we take refuge in him? Well, that’s verse 9: “Fear the Lord, you his holy people, for those who fear him lack nothing.”
Interestingly, in Psalm 2: “Blessed are those who take refuge in him.” Here: “Blessed is the one.” This is individual — this is asking each individual person, “Are you a person — a one — who’s chosen to take refuge in him?” Fear him! Jesus says in Matthew 10:28: “Don’t be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
Fear, reverence, respect the Lord your God. He’s saying that God is good — God is so good — but you only know he’s good if you try him. If you keep God at a distance, if you just look at him from afar, he does not look like much. But if you make him your refuge — you make him the one who keeps you safe in this life and in eternity — you will discover just how good he is.
My history with this psalm goes back a long, long way. When I was either 17 or 18, I gave my first ever Christian talk, and it was on Psalm 34. This was at school Christian Union, and so we had about a hundred — quite a good CU — about a hundred kids ranging from 13 to 18, boys and girls. Usually we had a visiting speaker, but for some reason I was given the opportunity, as a one-off, to do the 10-minute talk for CU. Terrifying, but a good experience. I don’t think I did a particularly good job — I don’t remember anything I said about it — it was probably pretty dreadful — but it got me over the fear barrier of doing one, and everyone has to start somewhere.
Anyway, as was our custom at CU, earlier in the meeting before we got to the talk, we had a sketch. And one guy in my year had written a little sketch. Unfortunately, I can’t remember it, so I can’t do justice to the sketch — but it was outstandingly good. It was a very, very simple idea. It was two people — him and one other sixth-former — having a conversation, in the style of Alas Smith and Jones (if you’re old enough to remember them), about a jar of apricot jam.
And one of them was trying to persuade the other one that this jam was absolutely delicious. And the other one looks at it and goes, “Well, I don’t like the colour — it’s orange.” “It’s not about the colour — it’s about the taste, isn’t it?” Takes the lid off, sniffs it: “Doesn’t smell of much.” “That doesn’t mean anything — you haven’t tried it yet.” Looks at the label: “I’m not eating that — it’s got gelling agent in it.”
Anyway, the whole sketch runs on for two or three minutes and closes — and not one person has eaten any of the jam. The debate is completely unsettled because they never actually tried it. The point, of course, linking into Psalm 34, was that God is like a jar of jam — unless you’re actually willing to taste, you will not know that he’s good. Study him from a distance — looks like nothing special. But actually, spread it on your toast or stick a spoon or a finger in, and suddenly you discover — actually, this is good. The only way to know that God is as good as I’m telling you, as good as Jesus is telling you, is to try. Come and take him as your refuge.
Learn from me
Here’s the third bit of audience participation — the way we are drawn in. Learn from me. Learn from me. This is verse 11: “Come, my children, listen to me; and I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” Jesus says, “If you want to experience the goodness of God that I’ve had, let me teach you how it’s done. Just come and learn from me.”
The answer comes in the next few verses. So David goes on with this: “Whoever of you loves life, desires to see good days” — who doesn’t? — “keep your tongue from evil, your lips from telling lies. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.”
Does that remind you of anybody? Then live like Jesus. That’s what’s involved in making God your refuge — in fearing him. Live like Jesus. Don’t get this wrong. This is not because then you will impress God and make him love you, whereas otherwise he wouldn’t. No, this is about how you make God your refuge — how you get to the point where you won’t be condemned. This is saying, trust that you don’t need to get yourself ahead in life. You can live like Jesus, and you can trust the outcome to God. He will look after you.
Maybe you’re tempted to lie a little because you think it might get you out of trouble if you’ve done something wrong, or help you get ahead sneakily. You don’t have to. Just be truthful, and the outcome’s in God’s hands. It’s all right. The angel of the Lord’s camped around you — you’ll be alright. Just live like Jesus, and God will look after you. If he’s your refuge, he’ll look after you. He’s got you.
Now, Jesus called people to follow him when he was on earth. They were called disciples. The modern word that’s closest to that is “apprentice”. Jesus called twelve apprentices. Some people in this church either are, or are about to start doing, an apprenticeship. Other people in this church employ apprentices. You’ve got the picture.
Jesus says to his disciples — he says to us — “Watch how I do it. Follow me. I’ll show you.” And so we just trust God to be a father to his children, and we put our lives in his hands.
Conclusion
There we are — three bits of audience participation from all of this. These are precious words. They were precious words to King David. They were precious words to King Jesus, and they are precious words to the children of God, because the God who was good to Jesus is the same God who is good to us.
Now, if you’re here and you’re not yet a Christian — you’re still investigating and thinking all of this through — please don’t not be a Christian because you fear that God is not good. God is good. So get that out of your mind and move on to the next reason why you’re not yet a Christian. And when you run out of reasons, be the individual who takes refuge.
But otherwise, for all of us here who are Christians, let me just say: store this up. Commit part of it to memory. Commit all of it to memory — why not? The other acrostic psalm that’s well known is 119. I’d start with this one if I were you. Go over it, and then respond to God’s call — to Jesus’s call. Praise God with him. Taste God’s goodness for yourself. Learn from him, and walk through life with him.
God is so good. He’s so good to me.