Psalm 34 this evening. If you're familiar with Psalm 34, it is a psalm written by David after an instance where he was delivered from the hands of enemies in enemy territory. In fact, he acted mad. He pretended to be mad, and he was allowed to leave unscathed. And so what we're reading is a psalm of grateful response. It's a psalm of grateful response, but this is not just a psalm for David or for the people in David's time. It is a psalm for God's people. It's a psalm for all of us. And so this psalm this evening is for us. So what I'd like to do is pray one more time, and then I'll read God's word. Father, we need your word. We need to hear the truth of your word. We need you to reveal yourself to us through your word. We need to see how good you are through your word. Father, we need to be shaped by your word. And so, Lord, we need your Holy Spirit. We need your Holy Spirit to be with us this evening as we worship you, as we listen, as I preach. Please be with us all. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. This is Psalm 34, this is God's word. Psalm 34 verse one, of David when he changed his behavior before Abimelech, so that he drove him out and he went away. I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall be continually 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. 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. Oh, 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. 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. 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. 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." This is God's Word. I don't know what your week was like. I know, honestly, for me, I said in the room back there, somebody asked me how I was doing, how my week was. Oh, good. And actually, it wasn't my favorite week of all time. It wasn't the best week that I ever had. It wasn't a particularly great week. And I don't know how it was for you. I don't know what you feel afflicted by. I don't know what you feel assailed by. I don't know what you're worried about or tend to be worried about or struggling with. You may feel as figuratively you you crawled in here this evening, struggling spiritually or struggling physically. And that may leave you overwhelmed. It's actually quite common to be overwhelmed, to be overwhelmed by the fallenness of this world, the brokenness of this world, our own suffering, but also to be truly overwhelmed by the sin that we find in our own heart, by sin and by difficult circumstances. And yet, this psalm, this beautiful psalm, it directs us. It directs us where to turn and what to do when life is overwhelming. And what we're going to find is that more than anything else, what we need when life is overwhelming, whether it's our sin or suffering, when life is overwhelming, what we need more than anything is to experience the goodness of God, to experience the goodness of the Lord. And this psalm actually tells us where we need to turn. It also tells us how to experience the goodness of God in our struggles, how we actually experience the goodness of God. It tells us, it gives us four things to do. It gives us four ways we can actually experience, by His grace, the goodness of God. And first, by praising Him. Secondly, by seeking Him. Third, by following Him. And fourth, and finally, by taking refuge in Him. So we praise Him, we seek Him, we follow Him, and we take refuge in Him. And in doing so, we will experience the goodness of God that we so desperately need. So let's see this in the text. First, I want you to see the call to praise God. We see this in the first Three verses. David is praising God for his deliverance, but he's not just praising God by himself. He is inviting others to praise God with him. He says, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall be continually on my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord. Let the humble hear and be glad. And then he says, oh, magnify the Lord with me. Let us exalt his name. He is inviting people to magnify and exalt and praise God with him. This isn't lukewarm praise. He makes his boast in the Lord. He boasts in the Lord. This is full-hearted praise. He doesn't praise just because things have gone well for him lately. He says, no, we praise the Lord at all times. which is counterintuitive, right? But it's true. David calls us to praise the Lord in the good and the bad at all times. This is not a silent act. He says, I'll praise the Lord. The praise of the Lord will be in my mouth. This is verbal. This is out loud. This is not just a silent act. Others can hear. And of course, it's not a private act either. It involves others. He says, like I said earlier, Let us exalt his name together. And what I want you to notice is this. Notice who he invites to praise God with him. It tells us in verse two, he says, let the humble hear and be glad. See, David invites the humble to praise the Lord with him. He invites the humble, humility, this idea, this being empty of ourself, This is actually what provokes gladness in the Lord. Humility opens up the floodgates of praise, right? Because gone is the self-sufficiency that distracts us from God. Gone is the self-sufficiency that makes us think we don't need God. Gone is the self-righteousness that keeps us from repentance. And in the enjoyment, in the faith, in the belief in God's grace, all those things are gone. when we're humble. So humility provokes gladness in the Lord. It opens the flood gates of praise. And actually, conversely, pride stunts it. Pride inhibits praise. Pride is like a roadblock to praise. Charles Spurgeon says this, he says, who can make God great but those who feel themselves to be little? Who can make God great but those who feel themselves to be little? There's a hymn that I love, and you're most likely familiar with it. It's called Jesus Cast a Look on Me, and the first stanza, it goes like this. Jesus cast a look on me, give me sweet simplicity, make me poor and keep me low, seeking only thee to know. So the hymn writer is asking for humility, and then at the end, the hymn, the final stanza says this, in this posture let me live and Hosanna's daily give, in this posture let me die and Hosanna's ever cry. Do you see what he's saying? He's saying as I am humble, as I may poor and low, seeking only thee to know, that actually enables me to praise. That enables me to to say hosanna, to give hosannas daily, this enables me to praise God. There's a direct line in the Christian life from humility to praise. And I think there's things we can learn from this, very practical things. And the first is this, I think this is very encouraging for us. For Christians, this is very encouraging because in your life, I'm sure you have experienced this or you will experience that being humbled and being brought low and whether that's through our sin or whether it's through some sort of embarrassment, are something that causes us to be brought low. Maybe we see our sin face to face and we're humbled by that. Well, I want to encourage you, being humbled actually leads us to deeper, sweeter praise when we know Christ. Being humbled actually propels us to a greater sense of awe a greater sense of wonder, a greater sense of delight in who God is and what he's done for us. And so we praise him more richly. And so if you're in a place where you feel like you've been humbled, where you feel like you've been brought low, that is a painful experience. And yet, on the other side of that is goodness and beauty and praise, which is what our soul needs to experience the goodness of God. Secondly, you see this in the first three verses, our souls In our hearts, what we need is actually to, we need to praise God out loud. We need to talk about God's goodness to us. Other people actually need to hear about God's faithfulness and kindness and goodness to us. But not only that, we need to hear ourselves talk about it. And so the encouragement for us is this. Tell other people about God's goodness to you. Praise God to other people. Praise God out loud. Talk about it. what God has done for you to people. And in that way, we'll experience God's goodness. And lastly, and I think another direct application for this is we need to worship together. One author says, joy is not complete until it is shared. And you're here this evening. worshiping together. And I would say keep on with it. Keep coming back to church. Keep worshiping in the morning. Keep worshiping in the evening. Be here with God's people worshiping together. In that way, you experience the goodness of God. So in order to experience the goodness of the Lord, we need to humbly praise Him. Secondly, in order to experience the goodness of God, we need to seek the Lord. We see this in verse 4 through 10. To experience God's goodness, we must draw near to Him. We must seek Him. This is David's personal testimony in verses four through six, really four and six. He says, I sought the Lord and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears. In verse six, he says, this poor man cried out and the Lord heard him. David is saying, this happened to me. And then he goes on in verses five and seven and say, my story can be your story. He says those who look to him are radiant and their faces shall never be ashamed. Those who seek the Lord shall never be ashamed. Derek Kidner says this word for radiant describes the face of a mother finding a lost child she thought was gone forever. There is something so beautiful about the depths of God's love that it exudes from those who gaze upon God. The faces of those who look to the Lord shall never be ashamed. There is no chance, David is saying, of seeking the Lord backfiring. It is a completely certain reality. And not only that, but verse 7 tells us that those who seek the Lord will experience His nearness, will experience His protection, will experience His deliverance. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them, David says. Well, how can this be so? How can all of this be true, right? Aren't we tempted to doubt that seeking God will truly enable us to experience his goodness and will truly fulfill us? How can this be so? Well, the reality is it's because God really is good. Ultimately, when you seek God, you will find that he is good, you'll find that he is more and more beautiful the more that you seek him. I had the privilege of, when I was a school teacher, I had my summer off and I drove with a good friend of mine all over the western half of the United States and we got to Yosemite National Park and we drove, we entered in kind of one entrance of the National Park and we kept going up and up and up, and as we got higher and higher, we saw the beauty of the park more clearly and more visibly. And it seemed like the deeper in that we got, the more beautiful everything became. Well, there's a reality in the Christian life, the more that we seek God, the more that we pursue him, the more that his beauty becomes evident to us. As we seek him more and more, we see more clearly how truly good he is. And that's why David says in Psalm, in verses 8 through 10, he says this, Oh, 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. And then in verse 10, he says this, such a memorable verse. He says, the young lions suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the Lord lack no Good thing. God truly is good. And when you seek him, you will find that he is good. And David knew this. He knew this, that God is a God that actually is so good that he draws near to his people. He says in verse seven, we talked about that God encamps around his people and delivers those who fear him. He knows that God is a God who draws near in loving kindness, and yet we as Christians in this New Testament era get to look back and see more clearly that God is a God who draws near to his people. We see this in the person and work of Jesus Christ who left his throne, who tabernacled, who suffered and died to free us from our sins. In Christ, in Christ alone, we actually experience the goodness of God most fully. It's actually in seeking Him that we discover that He has sought us the whole time. He has suffered for us, He has died for us, He is perfect in a way we can never be, and He atoned for our sin. And we can say, as the hymn writer says, what wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss to bear the dreadful curse for my soul. It's in Christ that we see the goodness of God most fully. He is a God that draws near to his people. He is a God that comes to us and saves us and redeems us out of our sin. And so for us, my question is for all of us this evening, what is it that's holding us back from seeking the Lord? What is it that's holding us back from seeking the Lord? Is it guilt? Is it shame? Is it regret? Is it a sense of spiritual inadequacy or spiritual poverty? You see, Christ has removed all of those obstacles. In fact, when we come to the Lord convicted of sin, full of shame, full of regret, those feelings actually deepen our experience of God's goodness when we come to Him because we are met with His lavish grace. Spurgeon again, he says, never did a sore heart look in vain to the great physician. Never did a sore heart look in vain to the great physician. So this seeking God, it is not striving to earn God's favor through our own goodness. It is actually running to God with empty hands, knowing that we are sinful and empty of any righteousness of our own. So don't wait. Don't punt until next week. Don't put it off. Run to Jesus. Seek the Lord. And in seeking the Lord, you will experience His goodness. You will experience His grace. And you will experience His loving kindness. So what Psalm 34 is teaching us is this. First, in order to experience the goodness of God, we need to praise Him. We need to praise Him in the good and the bad. And secondly, in order to experience the goodness of God, we need to seek Him. But third, this psalm tells us in order to experience the goodness of God, we need to follow Him. We need to follow Him. You see this primarily in verses 11 through 17. And what's interesting about this psalm is about halfway through at verse 11, it all of a sudden begins to read like a proverb. I don't know if you call it that, but it feels like a proverb. David says, come and children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord. And then he goes on and it feels exactly like a proverb. And it's actually directed to children, like he says, but it's for all of us. And the point of this, the point of this section is that we must follow God in order to experience his goodness. And I want to be clear, godliness is not the way to earn God's love. It is absolutely not the way we earn God's love, and you know this. But it is certainly how we experience it more deeply. Following God and obeying him, that is certainly how we experience God's goodness more deeply. In verse 12, David says, what man is there who desires life and loves many days that he may see good? And then he says, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. David is really practical. He speaks more broadly later, but here he's talking about Gossip and slander and dishonesty. These are things that actually erode life. These are things that objectify and use others. They destroy and they bring harm. And so for the Christians, for Christians, they must be unthinkable to us. They must be bitter to us. He's saying follow God with the way you talk. Stay away from these things like gossip and slander and deceit, dishonesty. But in verse 14, he becomes more broad. He says, turn away from evil, do good. He says, seek peace. He wants us to be proactive about this. Now, I'm not much of a hunter. I've been probably 10 times in my life, but I would imagine many of you are or have friends that are. And if you think about the routine for hunting, right, it requires a lot of preparation, does it not? You get up early. Maybe not so much around here, but you know, often you have to drive far to get to where you need to go, to go hunting. You get up early, you put on the right clothes, you plan, you prepare. Think about all the work that goes into that, all the preparation that goes into that. It's like David is saying, we need to hunt righteousness. We need to Pursue righteousness in the same way that we hunt. We need to seek peace. We need to pursue it. We need to do it with patience. We need to do it proactively. We need to do it persistently. And we need to be intentional about it. We need to hunt peace. We need to seek it out and pursue it. And in doing so, you will experience the goodness of God. Of course, any of you who've been walking with the Lord for any measure of time know that this is not easy. Oftentimes, it's not as pleasant as getting out on a Saturday morning and going hunting. It can be difficult. It can be costly. It can cost you time. It can cost you money. It can cost you your reputation. It could even potentially cost you your life. It can cost you so much. And yet, there's deep encouragement here for us. Many of you have been, or will, or are currently being mistreated. And it seems like nobody knows. And you may be being mistreated because you're taking a stand for righteousness' sake and you are following God. Well, these verses tell us that God knows, He sees, and He cares. There's a man named Odell Jones. He was a business owner in Detroit back in a time where the mayor's office in Detroit was incredibly corrupt, and he couldn't secure a contract through the city because he refused to pay bribes. He suffered for righteous sake. He lost business. He lost out on contracts. And he says that the most difficult part of it all was witnessing the despair of his dedicated employees when deal after deal fell through. In his own words, he says, I don't know if anyone understands this, but I loved my employees. He was suffering for righteousness sake. And oftentimes in this life can seem like there's no justice and seem like there's no vindication for those who suffer for righteousness say, he reminds me of a Bob Dylan song where he says, how many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn't see? But God's word tells us in Psalm 31, Psalm 34, that God does see. Verses 15 through 17 says, the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, his ears toward their cry. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil to cut off memory of them from the earth, and in verse 17 it says, when the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of their trouble. God sees, he knows, and he will act, and it may not be in the way that we would ask for, it may not be in the timing that we would want, but he will act. It may even not be in this lifetime, but God will act because he sees, and he knows, and he cares, And he can act, and he will. So there's a couple of really practical applications for us. And the first is this. You may be, in fact, all of us in some measure, given authority, whether that's in the workplace, whether that's in the home, wherever that is. As human beings, we have some authority given to us by God. And oftentimes, it's easy as sinners to misuse that authority, to use that authority to serve ourselves rather than to bless the people that we have authority over. And there's a really explicit and clear application here. It's that God, even though if we don't think anyone sees, God sees. Verse 21 says, affliction will slay the wicked and those who hate the righteous will be condemned. There's no more severe warning than this. God sees. God sees everything and he sees the way that we misuse our authority and serve ourselves rather than blessing the people in authority under us. He knows. And actually eternal judgment awaits unless we repent of that. Eternal judgment awaits those who hate the righteous. There's condemnation. And so the application for us is turn to Christ and repent of the ways that we misuse our authority. Secondly, for those who are currently, and this may, you may be experiencing, you may be doing both of these things. You may be sinfully guilty of misusing our authority. You also might be the recipient of someone over you harming you. Both can be true at the same time. But for those of you who are suffering, at the hands of others. Do not repay evil for evil. Actually, the psalm is quoted in 1 Peter 3, and surrounding the quotation of these verses, Peter says, do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless. Even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed, for it is better to suffer for doing good If that should be God's will, then for doing evil. As Christians, we do not fight fire with fire. We fight evil with good. When we are mistreated, we bless. And in doing this, there is something we actually experience the goodness of God. This is not health and wealth. This is not a promise that all your sorrows and mistreatment will go away. This is actually something greater. Peter says, you will be blessed. And he is talking about real spiritual blessing, real, true fellowship with God, a real experience of the very goodness of God when we refuse to fight evil with evil, and instead we choose to bless. So it is true that those of us, when we see the goodness of God, when we experience the goodness of God, it actually propels us, that makes us follow God. That makes us obey God, but it's also true that if you want to see, if you want to taste and see that the Lord is good as a Christian, obey Him. Follow Him. Let Him lead you in paths of righteousness, even when it's hard. Follow Him. So we've seen that in order to experience the goodness of God, we are to praise Him, we are to seek Him, we are to follow Him. And finally, in order to experience the goodness of God, we are to take refuge in the Lord. This takes faith. This takes faith. God is our rock. He is our righteousness. He is our hiding place. And the psalmist says, David says, we must take refuge in Him. Verse 18 says, The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. And isn't it true in the Christian life, as we discover the goodness of God and we encounter the grace of God more clearly, we actually begin to see our sin more clearly as well. This whole idea of walking towards the light from the darkness, as we get closer to the light, we begin to see In my case, all the dog hair on my suit jacket, right? But as we get into the light, we see the stains. We see, spiritually speaking, we see our sin as we draw near to the Lord. This actually can leave us crushed in spirit. You probably know the experience of feeling the weightiness of your sin and being undone by that. The shame of that, the guilt of that, it can leave us crushed in spirit and broken hearted and actually in some ways it ought to. It ought to undo us. But God is near to the broken hearted and he saves the crushed in spirit. This word near is the same word used in the book of Ruth for the kinsman redeemer. The kinsman redeemer that is so nearly related to the person who needs to be redeemed that they are obligated to provide for them. They are obligated to care for them. They are obligated to draw near to them and welcome them into their family as one of their own. So what God does for us in Christ Jesus, he is our redeemer. He saves the crushed in spirit. He redeems. the life of his servant. He is a refuge for the repentant. As Spurgeon says, he never breaks with the rod of judgment those whose souls are sore with conviction. So if you're crushed by the weight of your sin this evening or have been this week, take refuge in Christ. He will draw near to you. The gospel is that he does draw near to us and he welcomes us as we are repentant. Maybe beyond the guilt and the weight of your sin, you're experiencing hardship that has nothing to do with your sin. You're experiencing hardship that is just pure suffering, that is just happening to you. You may not even know why, because life can be brutally difficult. As I said earlier, this is not a health and wealth gospel. Verse 19 says, many are the afflictions of the righteous. I love, I mean, the whole Bible is honest, right, because it's all true, but I love the directness of this. Many of the afflictions of the righteous. Life is hard, especially even as a Christian. Life can be brutal. There are difficulties, there are tragedies. Many of you, I have no doubt, are walking through hardship and tragedy and having prayers that seem to be unanswered or things that confuse you. All kinds of difficulty. many of the afflictions of the righteous, but the second part of that verse is this, and the Lord delivers him out of them all in his time, in his way. And yet it is a certainty for those in Christ that he will deliver us out of our afflictions. You see, God is the only refuge for sinners and sufferers, and that's who we are. God is the only refuge for sinners and sufferers. So take refuge in him and experience his goodness. This illustration may hit quite close to home, but the Easter of 2020, There's a string of storms that swept through Mississippi. I mean, I read about this family. They're actually watching an Easter service. And I wish I wrote down what town they were in, but I didn't. But it was in some town in Mississippi. They're watching an Easter service on their television. It was during COVID. And the tornado sirens started going off. And so they went straight to the tornado shelter and hid in this concrete tornado shelter they had built in their home and about 20 seconds after they got into their home the tornado hit and it hit their home pretty much directly on and when and it actually left it left nothing but this concrete tornado shelter. You can actually if you read this article about this on the news you actually see a picture of just the foundation of the house and this concrete structure that protected them. The reason I'm telling you this is because the winds of suffering, the winds of the sickness of our own wicked, sinful hearts, they will destroy us. They will leave us without any experience of God's goodness whatsoever unless unless you take refuge in Christ. Because Christ alone is the only true refuge for sinners and sufferers. He alone died and suffered to atone for our sin. He alone is the one who has dealt with our deepest problems. And the Bible tells us that one day He will wipe every tear from our eyes. You see, Christ is our only true and lasting hiding place from the storms of this broken world and the sickness that is in our own heart, is our sin. Christ is our only refuge. So take refuge in him. That's the call. Take refuge in Christ and you will experience his goodness, not just momentarily, but one day, perfectly, forever. And one day there will be a day when you say there's never been a time when God has not been good to me. Because he will never leave you and never forsake you. Verse 22 reads, the Lord redeems the life of his servants. None of those who take refuge in him will be condemned. So come to Christ this evening. Come again. Come for the first time. Come to Jesus Christ, the only refuge for sinners and sufferers, and in doing so, it is a guarantee you will experience his goodness, both now and forevermore. Let me pray. Father, how we long to know your goodness. Where you're distracted, where you're sinful, And often your goodness is dim. Teach us to praise you. Teach us to seek you. Teach us to follow you. And teach us to take refuge in you. Where there is our only hope in life and death. How we need you to teach us to do that. How we need you by your grace to enable us to do all of that. Father, we praise you that you're a faithful God who loves to save broken sinners and sufferers like ourselves. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Our final hymn is hymn number