The Resolutions of the Afflicted

1:30A very curious choice, since that, of course, is where Goliath was from, the man that he had earlier killed and beheaded. And to add to the irony, David brought with him exactly one thing to this city, and that was Goliath's sword. That feels like he's inviting a fight, like he's throwing it back in their face. But he has nowhere else to go, and so he determines that he's going to go to this city. And Abimelech, who is known as King Akish, the Hebrew word Abimelech means something like ancestor king or father king. That's a formal title for the king of the Philistines. King Akish is the king of Gath at this time. And his servants come to him and they tell him David has come seeking refuge. And his servants remind him, they sing of David that he has killed tens of thousands of soldiers. Now, of course, the king knows this probably from David's reputation, which has undoubtedly preceded him in that city where Goliath was from. And David immediately is scared because they're talking about him. They're talking about his exploits. He's worried that the king is going to kill him because he sees him as a threat. And so David comes up with a plan, a plan that he attributes to the Lord in hindsight. He decides that he's going to pretend to be crazy.

2:51So he scratches up the gates and the doorposts, and he drools all over his beard. And King Akish cannot believe. That his servants have brought this guy in front of him. He says, Do I lack madmen? If you're in charge of anything, you can appreciate that. Do I lack madmen that you have brought this person to me? Get this guy out of my sight. And so David is able to escape without incident. And sometime after this event, he's able to reflect on what has happened here. And he writes what we call Psalm 34, a Psalm of Thanksgiving to the Lord. Now, you and I may not have had an experience like David's, a situation where we thought that we were going to die, but we've all been in situations where we simply did not know what we were going to do. We needed God to come through for us in a big way, and he does. He does come through for us in a big way. And in that moment, we are relieved and we are grateful. We might even be in awe of God and His mercy and His kindness towards us in delivering us.

4:03But it often seems that just a short time later, we have forgotten all about that incident and how God came through for us. So, not only do we fail to offer thanksgiving and praise as we should, we also fail to reflect and to internalize the lessons that we should have learned the next time we face a trial. And, friends, what that means is. Is that for a lot of us, every trial kind of ends up feeling the same?

4:38Something happens in your life, and you feel the same level of surprise and disorientation and fear and anxiety that you did the last time you faced a trial. And so it's like the hundredth time we go through a trial, it doesn't really feel that different than the first time we went through a trial as Christians. But, friends, trials are a gift from God to us. I want you to listen to what the Apostle James says. He says, Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. What an incredible connection that the Apostle James makes. He connects going through trials with you becoming perfect and complete, lacking in nothing as a Christian. Have you ever thought about that before? There is no way for you and I to become the mature, godly people that God intends us to become apart from trials. You simply cannot get there.

5:57So we think to ourselves, it would be so nice. If we just had a life that was free of trial, free of trouble, no problems, but you are guaranteed to remain an immature Christian if that is your life. The only path to maturity, the only path to spiritual growth, to perfection and completeness as God intends, is the path of trial. And so that's what we want. We want to be believers who are perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. But that road is not easy. And so this morning we're going to walk through Psalm 34 and consider David's reflections on this one trial that he has in his life. And my hope for us is that as we consider this particular trial and how David reflects on it, that we would walk away with a few resolutions.

6:54First, I hope that we would resolve to bless the Lord. Second, that we would resolve to seek the Lord. Third, that we would resolve to fear the Lord. And then fourth, that we would resolve to take refuge in the Lord. So let's think about that first resolution to bless the Lord. Look at verse 1. David says, 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.

7:44The first words that David writes as he reflects on this incident with the king, with Abimelech, is a resolution. He says, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. Now, I think most of us are familiar with the fact that the Bible says that we should pray continually, that we should pray without ceasing. And that is true. That's a very good thing. That's a good practice to cultivate. We want to be people who are inclined to turn to prayer when things go wrong in our lives.

8:24But you notice that David's resolution is not to pray continually. His resolution is to praise continually. Those words, bless and praise, mean something like to speak a good word about someone. And we understand that in the context of our human relationships. When we offer praise, we are speaking a good word about another person or to another person. And David says that he is resolved to do this about God, that he is going to go about his days. Every day, blessing and praising God, speaking good words about God to everyone who will listen. He's going to go about boasting in the Lord, inviting others to do the same. He says, Oh, magnify the Lord with me. Let us exalt his name together.

9:22What kind of a difference do you think that that resolution would make in David's life? What kind of a difference do you think that resolution would make in your own life? If you and I, like David, resolved to bless the Lord at all times, friends, I don't have to tell you, most of us are not doing that. We have simply not developed that skill, that muscle, that habit of blessing the Lord at all times. No, sadly, we've developed a habit of complaining, usually in the form of sarcastic comments that we make to ourselves or to others around us about nearly everything in our lives. It is deeply ingrained in us at this point, and it's been reinforced. We have been discipled by actors and comedians and people on the internet. They've reinforced our habit of complaining and of using sarcasm in almost every single situation.

10:30Our society has become so cynical that when we do come across that rare person who seems resolved to bless the Lord at all times, we just kind of find that precious. It's a little naive, like somehow this person has been spared the difficulties of what life is really like. But we're the initiated. We know better. We know what life is really like, and that's why we're so cynical and sarcastic. Friends, in my experience, it's often the people who have been brought through really hard trials, or the people who are going through really hard trials, who have learned to bless the Lord at all times, who have learned to boast and magnify the Lord in all circumstances. And their response serves as both a challenge and an invitation to every one of us to bless the Lord at all times.

11:37Think about our own church body. Think about the men and the women who are battling or who have battled cancer, but they've done so with faith and joy. Think about people who have continued to worship God and serve Him after losing a friend. Family member or a beloved friend. Think about those who are praying and waiting to conceive a child or to give birth to a child or to adopt a child. Think about those who are not in the job or the career that they want, but they keep showing up every single day and working as though working for the Lord.

12:33None of those things are easy to do. It is easy to bless the Lord when all things are going right. But it is difficult to do that in hard times. And so we have to learn to praise the Lord continually and bless Him in the good times so that when those trials come, we have developed the habits that we need that will carry us through those hard times. If you talk to people who train soldiers and elite athletes, they will tell you that under pressure, you will not rise to the level of your goals, you will sink to the level of your habits.

13:18Everybody thinks that when the pressure is on, you will perform. You will not. You will do whatever you have habituated yourself to do. So if you have habituated yourself, Not to bless, not to praise in the good times, then friends, it is folly to think that we will do that in trial. So, brothers and sisters, let's resolve to bless the Lord at all times and to start today. Trials are a gift from God designed to make us steadfast, and steadfastness makes us perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

13:57Let's pick up now in verse 4. Consider that second resolution: we must resolve to seek the Lord. Verse 4: 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.

14:35Last week we meditated together on Psalm 27. I want to remind you of verse 8. David said, You have said, Seek my face. My heart says to you, Your face, Lord, do I seek. Seeking God is one of the most common themes in the Bible. People are commanded to seek the Lord literally. Dozens of times in Scripture. And I want you to listen to some of these comforting promises that are made to those who seek the Lord. Deuteronomy 4, verse 29, but from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and all your soul.

15:22Lamentations 3:25, Jeremiah says, The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. And then Jesus says in Matthew 7, Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, it will be opened. And here in Psalm 34, we see David enjoying the fulfillment of those very promises. When David sought the Lord, God answers him and delivers him from his fears.

16:11God comes through for David. He doesn't let him be ashamed. God hears David when he cries and God saves him from all of his troubles. Friends, that was David's experience, both in this situation with Abimelech when God rescued him and many other people. Times in his life, David knew firsthand the benefits of seeking the Lord. And what do you do when you have had a great experience, when you know firsthand the benefits of something? You want to share it with other people. Look at verse 8.

16:56Oh, 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. Oh, friends, what an invitation. Taste and see that the Lord is good. About 15 years ago, I was writing a sermon in Starbucks because we didn't have offices back then. So I smelled for four years like burnt pike place.

17:53I go to Starbucks now as little as possible because it smells like blood, sweat, and tears to me. But back then, they came out with this product called Perfect Oatmeal. I thought that was ludicrous, like just absurd. But they were selling this thing called Perfect Oatmeal. And so, this one day I'm writing a sermon, and this college bro comes in, and he orders some perfect oatmeal, and he sits down at the table next to me. And I kid you not, he takes a bite of the perfect oatmeal and he calls not one but two friends in the middle of eating the perfect oatmeal to tell them what a delight it was and how they needed to come and experience it for themselves. Now, I don't know if he spent his life eating ramen noodles, and therefore this was a truly existential experience for him. But the point of the matter is, he thought it was awesome. He had tasted and seen that the perfect oatmeal was good.

19:02And he wanted to share that with other people. Why is that? Look at what C.S. Lewis wrote in Reflections on the Psalms. Oh, wait. You can't do that. Listen as I describe to you what C.S. Lewis says in Reflections on the Psalms. I think we delight to praise what we enjoy. Because the praise not merely expresses, but completes the enjoyment. It is its appointed consummation. The delight is incomplete until it is expressed. Oh, said in the way that only C.S. Lewis can write that kind of a thing. Doesn't that just hit the nail on the head?

19:58When you enjoy something, whether it's a restaurant or a store or a vacation spot, there is a sense in which you can't fully enjoy it until you have told someone else about it. Until you've said, you've got to try this food, this perfect oatmeal. You've got to go to this store. You've got to go to this place on vacation and experience it for yourself. Friends, that's what David is doing here. He has tasted and seen that the Lord is good, and he is inviting us to do the same. He wants us to experience it for ourselves.

20:43You know, you think about places that sell ice cream and fudge and various desserts. They almost always give out free samples. Why do they give out free samples? It's because they know that if you taste it and experience it, It for yourself, you will want more of it. You will buy that product. That's what David is saying. He's not making an intellectual argument here. He's not saying, Let me show you on this piece of paper what the ice cream is made out of. Let me explain to you the scientific and chemical reactions that will happen in your mouth when you put it in there. No, he's saying, eat it. Taste and see.

21:31And that's what he's inviting us to do with the Lord. Friends, some of you are not experiencing the goodness of God, not because you don't have a Bible in your hands, not because you don't know theology, but because you're simply not tasting and experiencing for yourself. It is one of the many reasons that you hear people talk about how they came to faith in Jesus Christ, and so few people are argued into faith. They are invited into the Christian community where they get to taste and see, experience that the Lord is good.

22:14They get a taste of what the Christian community is like, and then they begin to examine the claims of Jesus Christ for themselves. You've probably noticed this. I talk about this with our college students all the time. There are People, scores of people in our lives right now who are hungry to taste and to see that the Lord is good. Week after week, there are stories shared in our church of co-workers, of friends, of neighbors, of classmates who are hungry spiritually. All you have to do is mention the Lord. All you have to do is mention church, and they will say something like, I've been thinking about these things. Where do you go to church? Can I come? Would you be willing to study the Bible with me? Friends, invite them to taste and see. Invite them to taste and see that the Lord is good. You will be amazed at how open your friends, your classmates, your neighbors, your co-workers are.

23:17So let's resolve to seek God through His Word and through prayer and through the church, gathering with other Christians to receive God's care and wisdom and help through them and their ministry. Let's resolve to seek God because if you do, you will find him. And when you find him, you will taste and see that he is good. There's no one else and nothing else that can satisfy like him. So we resolve to bless the Lord. We resolve to seek the Lord. And third, we resolve to fear the Lord.

23:56You find that phrase all throughout Psalm 34, and you find It all throughout the scripture. It occurs hundreds and hundreds of times. But what does it mean to fear God? You've probably thought about that at some time in your life. You may have heard a sermon on it or read a book on it. To fear the Lord means to stand in awe of Him, to hold Him in reverential awe. It's to have an accurate understanding of who God is as the creator and the sustainer, the Savior, and the Judge.

24:29But here in Psalm 34, I want you to notice that as David talks about the fear of the Lord, he doesn't frame it negatively. But almost anybody that you talk to inside or outside of the church has this conception that, oh, fearing God must be bad. It must be a bad thing to fear the Lord. Like if you are a believer, you should not fear the Lord. But we see all throughout Psalm 34, David does not frame the fear of the Lord negatively, quite the opposite. He shows us why the fear of the Lord is a very good thing. Look back at verse 7.

25:10The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and delivers them. Friends, we fear the Lord because God protects and delivers all who fear Him. There's a great picture of this in 2 Kings chapter 6. Elisha and his servant are in Dothan, and the king of Syria has sent an army to capture Elisha the prophet. And so they surround the city, and Elisha's servant is just in a panic. He's like, What are we going to do? So listen to what happens in 2 Kings 6. Elisha says, Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them. Then Elisha prayed and said, O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see. So the Lord opened the eyes of the servant, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

26:23Elisha feared the Lord, and the angel of the Lord encamped around him and delivered him and his servant. Go down to verse 9. O fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack. We fear the Lord because those who fear the Lord have no lack. He talks in verse 10 about young lions suffering want and hunger. These are the apex predators of the world. The king of the The jungle, though they don't live in jungles, and I don't know who named them that.

27:05He says, even young lions, they sometimes go on a hunt and they come back with nothing. But those who fear the Lord lack no good thing. Psalm 37, verse 25, David says, I have been young, and now I am old, and yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread. We fear the Lord because he promises to give us everything we need. God never promises to give Christians everything we want, but he does promise that we will always have everything we need.

27:45And they go down to verse 11. 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. Friends, we fear the Lord because every one of his commands is given to us for our good so that we can flourish in the world that God has made. You see, because of our sinful natures, fearing the Lord does Not come naturally to any one of us. Romans 1 tells us that we suppress the truth in unrighteousness. We exchange the glory of God for idols. We worship and serve created things rather than the Creator. And so what that means is we have to learn to fear the Lord. It does not come naturally. We have to be taught the fear of the Lord because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It leads, as David says here in verse 12, to a long and blessed life.

29:06So what does the fear of the Lord look like practically? Well, friends, to boil it down, it boils down to loving God and loving neighbor. We keep our tongues from evil and our lips from speaking deceit. We turn away from evil and we do good to those around us. We seek peace and pursue it. Those are just a few of the practical ways that we live out the fear of the Lord, but it comes down to obeying God's commands, not simply because he says so, but because he issues every single command for our good and so that we can flourish in the world that he has made.

29:49When you get those IKEA products and they come with that instruction manual, you can toss that thing aside if you want to. But you will build the strangest piece of modern art that has ever been constructed. The instructions are there for your good. And God's word is here, His law is here for our good. So we should resolve to fear the Lord because He promises to protect and deliver us when we fear Him. He promises that we will lack no good thing and because it leads to flourishing in His world.

30:29And that brings us to the final resolution: We should resolve to take refuge in the Lord. Now, that Hebrew word refuge conveys the idea of a shelter or protection from danger or distress. And as you know, along with air and food and water, shelter is one of our most basic human needs. And the God of the universe is the greatest shelter that we could have. Unlike a tent or a house or even a mighty fortress, we are told in Scripture: the name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous person runs into it and is safe.

31:15That's why David says in verse 7, Blessed is the man who takes refuge in the Lord. You see, when David was in Gath and he was afraid that King Akish was going to kill him, he sought rest. Refuge in the Lord. And he tells us why we should seek refuge in the Lord here in this psalm. Look at verse 15. He says, 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. Oh, friends, we should take refuge in the Lord because he is near to the brokenhearted and he saves the crushed in spirit.

32:20Every one of us has been there at times in our lives. You may be there this morning, brokenhearted, crushed in spirit, so disappointed and discouraged by the trials that you have gone through or that you are going through in your life that you feel like you can barely get out of bed in the morning. God says in Psalm 34 that he sets his face against those who do evil, but his eyes are always on the righteous. His ears are always attentive to their cry.

33:00And so, friend, you can know that no matter how abandoned you may feel, you are not abandoned because the Lord literally draws near to the brokenhearted and to those who are crushed in spirit. In a sense, when you are going through a trial, there is no point in your life that God is nearer to you than in those times. He is always near, but he literally says here that he draws near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

33:34You think about the men and women that we call first responders, police officers, and firefighters, and we are so thankful for them for their service. And one of the things that they are continually trying to do is to improve their response time. That is, the time that elapses between when a call goes out for help and when they arrive on the scene. They want that to be as short as possible because lives are at stake. But no matter how short that time gets, no matter how good they can be at their jobs, it will not be instantaneous.

34:16But with the Lord, it is. As soon as you cry for help, the Lord is there, he is already there, already near to you. You are crushed and brokenhearted. He is omnipresent. God is all places, everywhere at once. There is nothing that you could go through that the Lord will not be right there with you, going through it too. Jesus understands our suffering as a man of suffering. And so, when you think about all of the things that break our hearts, all of the things that crush our spirits, friends, there is nothing that breaks our hearts and crushes our spirits more than the knowledge of our own sin, than the knowledge that we have sinned against God, that we have sinned against our neighbors, that we have sinned even against ourselves. And that's why the end of this psalm is so encouraging. Look at verse 19: 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.

35:53Oh, friends, the primary reason that we should take refuge in the Lord is given to us right there. It's because none who take refuge in him will be condemned. We deserve to be condemned, don't we? In the previous section, we meditated on what it means to fear the Lord. And to fear the Lord means to keep his commands. And if we don't fear the Lord and keep his commands, well, God's face is against us because we've done evil.

36:26And we know we've done evil. We know the things that we've done. We know the words that we've spoken. We know the thoughts that we've had. We have done evil. We are not the righteous. We deserve to be cut off from the earth. According to these verses, we deserve to be condemned. But David writes at the end of the psalm, none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned. How could that be? Well, friends, the answer is Jesus Christ, the righteous one, was condemned in our place and for our sins. I want you to think with me briefly about how the end of this psalm uniquely applies to Jesus. Look at verse 19. David says, Many are the afflictions of the righteous. Oh, friends, Jesus was afflicted. He was despised. He was forsaken by men.

37:27Everyone turned their face away from him. Including even his very best friends in his moment of need. He was betrayed by one of his best friends. He was cut off from the land of the living. In verse 20, David says, He keeps all his bones, not one of them is broken. If you know the story of the gospel, you know that Jesus was crucified in between two criminals. And as the day wore on, the religious leaders did not want those bodies to still be hanging on the cross on the Sabbath day. And so they went to the chief priest, they went to the Romans, and they said, Can you take these down? Will you break their legs so they die quicker so we can get them off the cross for the Sabbath day? And listen to what John records in John chapter 19. He says, So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.

38:30And in verse 22, David says, The Lord redeems the life of his servants. None of those who take refuge in him will be condemned. Friends, the last thing that Jesus did before he gave up his life was to take refuge in his heavenly Father. On the cross, he called out with a loud voice. He said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. And having said this, he Breathed his last. Jesus died on that cross. He was buried, but he did not stay dead. On the third day, he rose from the grave, victorious over sin and death for you and me. He took all of our condemnation upon him, everything that we had earned through our failure to keep God's law, everything that we had earned for our failure to put God first in our life. He took all of that condemnation on himself on the cross. As Isaiah says, he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement. Listen to this. That brought us peace.

39:46With his wounds, we are healed. Friends, Psalm 34 encourages us to bless the Lord and to seek the Lord and to fear the Lord. But above all, Psalm 34 encourages us to take refuge in the Lord because no one who takes refuge in him will be condemned. So if you are already a believer in Jesus, I want you to be reminded this morning that you are hidden in Christ. There is no condemnation left for you because God has poured it out all on Jesus. You have nothing to fear.

40:26And for those of you who have not put your faith in Jesus, I want you to see this morning, I want you to see Psalm 34 as a call, an invitation to taste and see that the Lord is good. That if you come to Him this morning for shelter, for refuge, from your own sin, from your failure, from the condemnation that you deserve, if you come to Jesus this morning in repentant faith, you will be received. He will not turn you away. And so do that. Friend, come, taste, and see that the Lord is good.

41:03Let's pray. Oh, Father, those of us who have tasted and seen know from experience that you are good. But Lord, we desire more. David knew that you were good, and yet he longed for more. We saw last week in Psalm 27, Lord, how he said that he desired one thing, one thing. To gaze upon your beauty all the days of his life. And so I pray this morning, Lord, that you would help all of us who are Christians today to taste afresh and see afresh that you are good.

42:23Revive us, Lord, and give us a new desire to gaze upon your beauty all the days of our lives. Oh, and Lord, for those who have not tasted and for those who have not seen that you are good, I pray that this taste that they're getting this morning from your word and by your spirit, that that would put in them a desire to taste more and to experience more of your goodness. We pray that they would turn to you in saving faith today, that you would give them a new heart, put within them a new spirit, and change their life forever.

43:11Thank you, God, for Psalm 34. Your word is perfect. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support, Our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.