Psalm 34

The LORD Is Good

8.11.24 [Psalm 34] River of Life (12th Sunday after Pentecost)

Have you ever made a decision and instantly realized it was a big mistake? Have you ever watched someone else do the same thing and knew that their recklessness was about to wreck your life for the foreseeable future? The answer to both questions is yes, isn’t it?

Life is full of these kinds of situations. There are moments when we wish we could take back what we said, make a different choice, or go a different way. But we cannot. There are times when other people make choices—with or without consulting us—and we are left to pick up the pieces. They’re both frustrating and miserable experiences. Who wants to deal with that? Who wants to deal with both?

Yet, that’s right where David found himself in Psalm 34. This is one of the few Psalms that has a time stamp. David wrote this Psalm in the time after killing Goliath and before he became king of Israel.

During that time, David commanded thousands of soldiers in battle and had great success for Saul. He also served as Saul’s personal musician, was Saul’s son’s best friend, and married Saul’s daughter.

David and Saul should have been on great terms. But they weren’t. Saul recognized that the people of Israel were as fond of David as his son and daughter were. Saul grew jealous and angry and more than a little afraid of David. On three different occasions, Saul tried to pin David to the wall with his spear. Four other times, Saul sent his men to kill David. Finally, David decided to run away.

As he was fleeing from Saul, he knew he needed some protection. So he picked up Goliath’s sword and fled from Israel to Gath, one of the major city-states of the Philistines. David must have figured that Saul wouldn’t chase him behind enemy lines. He might have also thought that the enemy of his enemy could become an ally. But when David showed up in Gath—Goliath’s hometown—with Goliath’s giant sword, the city was buzzing. (1 Sm. 21:11) Isn’t David the one the Israelites sing and dance about killing tens of thousands of us Philistines?

Instantly, David realized he had made a terrible mistake. But what do you do when you’ve walked right into the enemy’s lair and you’re carrying their conquered champion’s sword? Maybe if you’re Samson, you just rip the city gates out of the ground and throw them on top of a neighboring hill? But David didn’t have that strength. So he played the crazy card. He let his spit saturate and drip down his beard so he looked like he was foaming at the mouth. He started scratching at the doors and the gates like a madman. When the king saw David, he didn’t see some intimidating warrior, he saw a insane wacko. He told his men to get rid of him. So David escaped from behind enemy lines.

David was dealing with problems he inherited and ones he created.

David didn’t wrong Saul in any way. In fact, David was a loyal and faithful servant to Saul and that actually made Saul despise David all the more for his success.

Do you know what that’s like? You didn’t have a spear hurled at you, but someone was out to get you. They had their eyes on you all the time. They were just waiting for you to make a little mistake and then they were going to nail you to the wall. They were rooting for you to fail. Maybe it was a supervisor or a teacher who just didn’t like you for some reason. Maybe it was a neighbor or a former friend or a relative you just didn’t seem to get along with. For David, it was his king, employer, and father-in-law!

When we find ourselves in these situations, don’t we begin to retaliate against the person or the group who is out to get us? It feels like such a natural response! Fight fire with fire. Hate those who hate you. Hit back at those who hit your first.

Depending on how you respond to conflict and stress, you may take an aggressive tack. If they’re taking something that’s yours, you might feel like you have a right to help yourself to what’s theirs. If they’re gossiping about you, you might sling a little mud. If they’re threatening you, you might threaten them back in a nasty fashion.

If you are conflict-adverse, you might take a passive-aggressive approach. You might look for subtle ways to make their lives more frustrating. You might look for ways to make them look bad. You might poison the minds of your shared associates. You might know of ways to help them and gleefully keep it to yourself.

At the same time, anyone can see that David also made this mess in Gath for himself. How do we respond when we find ourselves in similar situations?

Don’t we tend to pity ourselves? Don’t we make excuses about how we only made this mistake because we are really dealing with a lot right now, or because we are in an impossible situation? Don’t we begin to look at all the other people who have made comparable choices and aren’t dealing with the same problems we are and then wonder why we have all the bad luck?

And that’s where these two problematic paths converge. When we are dealing with troubles we didn’t cause, we wonder Why me? When we are dealing with problems we created for ourselves, we still wonder Why me? just maybe not as loudly.

The Scriptures do answer the Why me? question, but not in the way that we might hope. Whenever we are wrestling with the question of Why does my life have this trouble? the answer is simply sin. Sin wrecked our world in three ways that cause each of us great grief.

Our own sinful nature leads us to make foolish, selfish, and sinful choices that we quickly realize were terrible mistakes. We do incredible mental gymnastics to justify things that we know, deep down, to be bad and wrong and harmful. We are not the victims we often portray ourselves to be. Not only that, but we are not alone. We are surrounded by other foolish, selfish, and sinful people who also make their own wicked choices and they are not the only ones who suffer because of them. We feel that pain, as well. If that weren’t enough, sin did a number on this whole world. We’re told that because of mankind’s sin, creation has been (Rom. 8:20) subjected to frustration. The world we live in is (Rom. 8:22) in bondage to decay and is groaning as in the pains of childbirth.

That threefold damage creates our many troubles, generates so many of our fears, and leaves us crushed and brokenhearted. What can we do?

Cry out for help. Seek the Lord. And look at how he responds. David gives stirring descriptions. (Ps. 34:4) I sought the Lord and he delivered me from all my fears. (Ps. 34:6) This poor man called and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.

We might think that David was some kind of special case. He was the anointed king-in-waiting. He was more righteous and faithful than Saul. But that’s not the standard. It’s not why God saved him.

David tells us why God delivered him. (Ps. 34:8) Taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.

The Lord didn’t rescue David because David was good. The Lord rescued David because the Lord is good. And you see proof of that throughout the ministry of Jesus. Jesus delivered all those who cried out, not those who could make a case that they deserved it.

Some of those Jesus delivered were suffering because they lived in a broken world. Jesus’ disciples see a man who was born blind and ask Jesus: why him? (Jn 9:2) Was it his sin or his parents?

Jesus replied: neither of them sinned to cause this malady. But God was here to display his glory in delivering him from his trouble.

Then there were the Gentiles who lived in, among, and around the people of Israel. For their entire lives, they had grown up thinking that this world was ruled by many gods. So they worshipped whichever one they thought could help them out. Then they met someone different. He spoke with authority. He healed the sick and cast out demons. He had the power to make a small meal into enough to feed a large group of 4,000 men plus women & children. You might say that their idolatrous view on this world wasn’t their fault. Their ancestors handed this wicked way of life down to them. But look at how Jesus dealt with them. When the Syrophoenician woman cried out because her daughter was demon-possessed, Jesus healed her daughter at that very moment. Why? Because she had great faith in Jesus. Because she took refuge in the Lord. And no one who takes refuge in the Lord will be condemned.

Jesus came for those who were crushed in spirit, too. He sought out Zacchaeus and made himself publicly known as his friend. When a sinful woman came to him and wept at his feet and wiped them with her hair and poured perfume on him, Jesus knew what this would do to his reputation. But instead of sending her away, he sent away her sins. He forgave her and saved her. Both Zacchaeus and this woman had created their own problems. They had made sinful choices. But Jesus came to save those who were crushed in spirit. God is good to people who are not good.

Our Good Lord delivered us from the great trouble of our sins through his Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus never sinned, but he took our sins upon himself. He paid the price for our foolishness and wickedness. He went through hell for all our horrible choices. He did all this because he is good—even to people who are not good. So we are saved. We are delivered from death. We are rescued.

All because the Lord is good. We cannot navigate life in some way to avoid all hardship or troubles. David tells us: The righteous person may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers us from them all. Taste and see the Lord is good. And we can give others a taste of God’s goodness. It’s natural to resent those who cause you troubles. It’s good to forgive them freely, to pray for their repentance and to help them in their restoration. This is what we are called to do. This is how we show that the Lord is good. Amen.