Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction:
This weekend, I was blessed by my wife to get one of those griddles like a Blackstone.
It’s the kind like they have in a restaurant that you cook on outside.
In doing my homework to figure out which griddle I wanted, I have watched a lot of videos of people cooking on these griddles.
They have made me hungry!
The problem is that I can’t taste what they’re cooking and I can’t smell it.
I can see it and it looks tasty, but I can’t wait to fire mine up and give it a try and actually get to experience the full effect.
I want to taste and see for myself what this griddle can do.
You know that’s how it is with our relationship with God.
We can hear stories about God and what He’s done, but we have to learn to taste and see that He is good for ourselves.
Let’s take a look at Psalm 34 tonight and we are just going to read v. 8 fro now.
Pray.
Background:
Title ascribes the Psalm to when David faked insanity in Gath when he was fleeing from Saul (1 Samuel 21)
David had seen God deliver him time and again from the hand of Saul and his other enemies
The Psalm is an acrostic in the Hebrew language, the first line of every stanza beginning with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet
Structure of the Psalm
A Call to Praise (vv.1-3)
A Testimony of God’s Goodness (vv.
4-7)
An Invitation to Experience (vv.
8-10)
A Word of Wisdom (vv.
11-14)
A Promise of Help (vv.
15-22)
However tonight, we are going to make our focus verse 8. “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”
Now, I have to admit that I was thinking about our fellowship tonight after the worship service when I picked this text.
There are two things we want to notice tonight as we look at our text.
1. Experience the Goodness of God
David says to the worshiper to “taste and see.”
These are two of the senses that we have.
They are some of the most important senses as well.
Imagine not being able to taste or see.
Imagine losing any of your senses for that matter.
Illustration:
Back in January, our whole family got Covid, like many of you have, I’m sure.
We had all or the usual symptoms, but one of the worst was our loss of taste and smell.
I remember that we couldn’t taste or smell anything.
Not smelling some things can be a blessing, but not tasting is horrible!
When that happened to us, I remember sitting around the table and eating food one night with the kids and asking them to pass the potato chips.
We had two kinds and I thought for a moment.
Then, I realized, “What am I doing?
I can’t tell the difference between the two anyways!”
I remember thinking how important it is to taste and smell.
You can’t enjoy food without these two senses.
What David is calling the worshiper to do is to experience God firsthand.
Don’t just live through others, but experience the goodness of God for yourself.
David had been through a lot!
He had been chased all over Israel by Saul.
On numerous occasions, David had been almost caught by Saul, but God delivered him.
Finally it got bad enough that David fled to the city of Gath, thinking no one would notice him, but he was wrong.
He had to think fast and come up with a way to get away from the people he had been chasing and killing for Israel.
So, David begins to drool on himself and act crazy.
The king, Abimelech, bought it and David escaped the city, because Abimelech said that he had enough crazy people already.
The truth is, God caused Abimelech to buy David’s story.
David was ecstatic and it led to him writing this psalm about God’s deliverance.
That’s why he says in vv.
1—7,
David knew God had delivered him and he was singing up a storm!
He understood the goodness of God.
If you are going to really understand the goodness of God, you are going to have to experience it for yourself.
You can’t experience it through someone else.
You have to personally taste and you have to see that the Lord is good.
But, you also have to understand what it entails to taste and see.
You are going to go through some difficult seasons in your life.
You will have some trials and struggles.
But you will come out of them praising God because you have tasted and seen the goodness of God.
2. Trust in the Goodness of God
The more you experience the goodness of God firsthand, the more you can trust in that goodness.
David says, “blessed is the man who takes refuge in God.”
What does it mean to be blessed?
The synonym for this word is “happy.”
How happy is the man who trusts in the Lord.
The psalms open up with this word “blessed” in Psalm 1.
The person who trusts in the Lord can be happy because their trust is in the immovable Rock.
Psalm 34:17-22 says,
Verse 20 was actually used to apply to Jesus at His death.
Jesus is the perfect example of what it looks like to trust in the Lord and what it means to be blessed.
Jesus could be “blessed” no matter what was going on because His confidence was in the Lord.
One thing that the Lord has been teaching me over the last few years is how much the Bible speaks of the sovereignty of God.
God is in complete control of what is going on in this world.
Not a sparrow falls to the ground without the Lord knowing; and God establishes the boundaries of every nation, and has appointed a time and season for everything.
But this is not some concept that only applies to the large scale things in life like nations and global events.
It also applies to your own personal life.
Psalm 139 says that you are fearfully and wonderfully made and that God knows all of your days and has them written down before there is ever one of them.
We don’t have to worry about a thing when we put our trust in the Lord.
This trust leads to happiness.
It doesn’t mean we are happy because we are trouble-free.
David certainly wasn’t trouble free.
In fact, even after this, there were several other close-call situations.
But, David could have confidence no matter what was happening, because God was on his side.
The happiness we experience is a state of mind.
It’s a decision to rest in the goodness of God.
Illustration:
There is a poem by an anonymous author that goes like this:
When Birds Worry
When the birds begin to worry
And the lilies toil and spin,
And God’s creatures all are anxious,
Then I also may begin.
For my Father sets their table,
Decks them out in garments fine,
And if He supplies their living,
Will He not provide for mine?
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