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1. Taste and See
30 Days of Thankfulness1. Taste and See That the Lord is Good Dan Bidwell, Senior Pastor
Psalm 34:1-8
Two friends met each other on the street one day. One looked forlorn, almost on the verge of tears. His friend asked, What has the world done to you, my old friend? The sad fellow said, Let me tell you: three weeks ago, my uncle died and left me forty thousand dollars.
Thats a lot of money.
But you see, two weeks ago, a cousin I never even knew died, and left me eighty-five thousand dollars, free and clear.
Sounds to me that youve been very blessed.
You dont understand! he interrupted. Last week my great-aunt passed away. I inherited almost a quarter of a million from her.
Now the mans friend was really confused. Then, why do you look so glum?
This weeknothing!
~
Thankfulness. November is the perfect month to think about the idea of thankfulness. Of course we have Thanksgiving (the holiday) at the end of the month, but why limit our thankfulness to just one day?
The Bible is full of encouragements to be thankful thankful to God for who he is, and what he has done. Thankful for everything he has given us. Thankful for providing even when things dont seem to be going our way.
Being thankful is not always easy. It takes practice. And thats why I want us to spend all of November practicing thankfulness together, with a series Im calling 30 Days of Thanksgiving. Im excited to see what God will do in our hearts, as we cultivate our thankfulness and grow in gratitude together over the next 30 days.
To help I have produced a downloadable 30 Days of Thankfulness prayer guide. I wanted to have paper copies printed for you but our printer stopped printing color this week, so youll have to be thankful for black and white notes, or you can easily read it on your ipad or computer. The idea is to focus every day on something youre thankful for. There is plenty of space to jot down notes or thoughts or prayers. I really hope it helps us learn thankfulness. Ill be working on this myself, so you can ask me what Im thankful for as wellJ
1
So the question we have to ask ourselves as we come to church this morning is, What are you thankful for in 2022? And how will you look back on 2022 and see blessing, and provision, and protection? And how can you take that thankfulness into whatever the coming season brings?
Were going to be looking at Psalm 134 to help us answer those questions, so why dont we pray and then well open the Bible together.
Our heavenly Father, as we reflect on the year weve had, help us to see your goodness and your sovereign hand over every circumstance. Give us thankful hearts as we remember your promises and your provision. Give us all joy in thanksgiving today. In Jesus name we pray. Amen
1. The Power of Words
I love the idea of thanksgiving. And scientific research shows that thankfulness is good for us! For example, a neuroscientist from USC found that there is a link between gratitude and the parts of our brain tied to social bonding, reward and stress relief.1 Other studies have linked gratitude with oxytocin production oxytocin is also known as the cuddle hormone or the love hormone, because its released when people snuggle up or bond socially. Researchers out of Berkeley have shown the benefits of gratitude on mental health2, and theyve put all their research into a book called The Gratitude Project.3
But in all that research, the benefits of gratitude come when we practice it regularly. When express our gratitude, and put it into words. In all the studies, participants would either keep a thankfulness journal, or write gratitude letters, or just make a regular habit of putting their thankfulness into words.
Because our words are powerful, and words can shape the way that we think about the world around us.
The writer of Psalm 34 (King David) understood the power of words. Listen to how he starts the Psalm:
1 I will extol the Lord at all times;his praise will always be on my lips.
2 I will glory in the Lord;
Fun fact about Psalm 34. This Psalm is an alphabetic acrostic in the original Hebrew language every line in the starts with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet (aleph, beth, gimel, daleth, heh etc).
1 https://news.usc.edu/163123/gratitude-health-research-thanksgiving-usc-experts/2 https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_gratitude_changes_you_and_your_brain 3 https://www.newharbinger.com/gratitude-project
2
But come back to the idea that words are powerful. Because the Psalmist makes the choice to speak positive words into his situation, no matter what happens I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips. I will glory in the Lord.
The word extol is translated bless in many of the other Bible versions. And I think this represents a choice for David, the Psalmist. We could look at our circumstances and curse God, or we can choose to bless him. David says, no matter what, I choose to bless the Lord at all times.
The next two lines carry a repetition in the original Hebrew. Praise and glory have the same root in Hebrew both come from the hallelujah word. And so we could crudely translate v1b and v2:
A hallelujah will always be on my lips, I will hallelujah in the Lord.
There was a big worship song a few years ago that came out of a church in northern California, called I raise a hallelujah! You might have heard it on the radio. The words are all about continuing to praise God, to glory in him, to raise a hallelujah whether we are faced by enemies, or storms, doubts...
Regardless of what comes our way, David says, keep Gods name on your lips, keep praising him, and youll keep the right dialogue going on in your head... Because it is so easy to listen to words of the tempter, isnt it? The one who undermines our confidence. The one who loves to sow the seeds of doubt. The Devil loves to get inside our heads, doesnt he.
And thats why I love this Psalm so much. David writes this Psalm for people who have been listening to the wrong voices... verse 2b
let the afflicted hear and rejoice. 3 Glorify the Lord with me;
let us exalt his name together.
David wants those who are afflicted to listen to his testimony. He wants to come alongside them, he wants them to hear his bold choice to speak words of hope in danger. He wants them to hear and rejoice to listen and to have their joy restored.
I know that the last few years have been difficult for many of you. Some of you have shared those hard things with me, and weve prayed over illness and death and estrangement and mental health and all kinds of hardships and afflictions. Collectively weve all lived through a pandemic that has changed our day to day existence, and continues to produce uncertainty about the future.
Its easy to feel overwhelmed by it all.
3
But in this Psalm, David teaches us that there is something we can do to reorient ourselves in the middle of trouble, and thats to keep speaking truth about the greatness of God, no matter what enemy we see before us.
Thats what verse 3 is all about. The ESV and King James translate this verse: Magnify the Lord with me! We need to magnify God that is, we need to look closely at how big and powerful and majestic and wonderful God is. We need to keep making him great in our lives. Making him the biggest and most impressive thing we see.
Because its way too easy to let the hard things in life grow out of proportion. Our problems can seem insurmountable, unsolveable, unmanageable.
But when we look at them alongside the God who spoke creation into being, are they really that powerful?
Sometimes it takes a friend to help us see the truth. Thats what David does. He encourages all the afflicted to remember Gods greatness with him. To lift Gods name on high. To join him in the hallelujah...
What words are you speaking to yourself in the middle of the storm that is 2022? What is the narrative that youre telling yourself about this year? Is it a narrative that puts God firmly on the throne, that puts God unquestionably in control of today and tomorrow? Are you speaking a hallelujah over every day that the Lord has given you in 2022?
Thats your self-talk.
Now I want you to think about the words that you speak into the lives of those around you whether they trust in the Lord or not. What testimony are they hearing from your lips? Are they hearing your testimony to Gods greatness, as you speak about 2022? Are your words bringing gospel comfort and peace and joy and hope and thankfulness?
Words are powerful... Thats our first big idea.
2. The Promise of Deliverance
Our second big idea is that our words dont fall on deaf ears.
Bookshops are full of self-help books, and books about the power of positive thinking. Is that the essence of Davids exhortation? Is that all there is to it? Think good things about God, and everything will turn out alright?
4
To push it a step further, should we expect to live a life free from affliction when we trust in the Lord?
That wasnt Davids experience. When we read the attribution at the top of this Psalm, it says:
[A psalm] of David. When he pretended to be insane before Abimelek, who drove him away, and he left.
This Psalm seems to be written during the time when David had to run for his life away from King Saul, who was trying to kill him. You might remember that the Lord had anointed David as king over Israel, but Saul was still on the throne. Things got messy. And David finds himself hiding out in the royal court of his enemies, the Philistines, when the Philistine King recognizes him and says:
Isnt this David, the king of the land? Isnt he the one they sing about in their dances: Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands? (1 Samuel 21:11)
David has jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire...
And so he pretends to be mad drools into his beard, and scratching the doors with his fingernails, until the Philistine king sends him away.
So did David live a charmed life because of his magical words about Gods greatness? No. Back in Psalm 34 David reminds us in v19 that:
The righteous person may have many troubles, BUT... the Lord delivers him from them all;
In this Psalm, David looks back on a difficult moment in his life, and he has a testimony about how God rescued him. How God helped him through the trouble. How God was faithful to his promise to bring David to the throne, by saving him from his enemies.
And we see that refrain time and time again throughout the Psalm God promises to deliver those who call out to him:
4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.
6 This poor man called, and the Lord heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles.
17 The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.
5
We have a promise-keeping God. He promises to hear us when we cry out to him our words are not hot air. They are words that remind us of the One who is able to do more than we could ask or imagine, and the One who is powerfully at work within us by his Spirit (Eph 3:20).
In some ways we are nothing like King David. We will probably never find ourselves on the run from one king and threatened by another. But there will be times when we fear for our jobs, for our health, for our families.
And the threat might remain, but listen to what David says in v4: 4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.
As we face all kinds of difficulties in life, the temptation will be to make that problem into the biggest thing in our life. To let it loom over us, to let it dominate our thoughts, to let it steal our confidence in Gods bigger plan for us...
Because God has a bigger plan for us. The Bible is absolutely clear about the future for those who trust in Jesus Christ. Its a future without evil, its a future without suffering, its a future where God keeps his promise to make us his children and heirs of the kingdom. Its a glorious future, just like David faced, only even better.
So what could get in the way of Gods good plan for you? What enemy is so big that Gods plans might be thwarted? Coronavirus? Cancer? Your mental health? Your physical health? Are any of those problems so great that they could prevent God from rescuing you and bringing you into his kingdom?
No.
There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, and nothing that will stop God from bringing about your ultimate rescue. Demons, death, disease they are powerless against the one who is bringing all of history towards the day when Jesus kingdom triumphs over all others. Even Satan cant stand in the way of Gods plans, because Jesus has dealt with Satans grip on our souls. Jesus has dealt with our sin and shame on the cross so that not even our unrighteousness will hold us back from Gods promises, if we ask Jesus to rescue us from it.
And thats the joy of the gospel that David knew also:
5 Those who look to him are radiant;their faces are never covered with shame. (Ps 34:5)
6
Whenever Moses would meet with the Lord, do you remember, his face would be radiant, literally. There was something about being in the presence of the Lord that made him glow. And David says its the same for everyone who knows God and trusts him deeply. There is something radiant about them. This is not about hollow words of affirmation, but an abiding trust in Gods promises experienced in the past, and the present and anticipated in the future.
Are these the promises that keep you steady in the storm?
God kept these promises for David. God kept these promises for Jesus. And he will keep these promises for you, regardless of what difficulties we face...
Thats big idea 2 to remember Gods promises of deliverance.
3. The Proof is in the Pudding
And that leaves us with one last idea to finish: the proof is in the pudding.
It wouldnt be Thanksgiving without pie, particularly Pumpkin pie and Pecan pie. Until just a few years ago, I had never tasted pumpkin pie. Its just not a thing in Australia. You cant buy pumpkin in a can, you dont see pumpkin pies in stores, and even Starbucks didnt have pumpkin spiced latte until a few years ago.
And so when we got to our friends house one night for dinner, and the wife announced that we were having pumpkin pie for dessert, I have to admit I was a bit wary. Is there anyone else who thinks pumpkin pie looks like baby food?
Turns out pumpkin pie is pretty good. And so is pumpkin spiced latte. Sometimes you just have to try something to find out if its good.
David writes to people who are facing big enemies. People who are finding it hard to trust that God is bigger than whatever they face. That might be you. You might be listening today thinking, Im just not sure if God can deal with this thing that is going on in my life right now. Im not sure if I can trust what weve read today. Im not sure that I want to put all my eggs in that basket.
If youre thinking that way, youre not alone. Over the last 3 years, all of us have been thrown by events we never expected. Some deeply worrying events...
But I dont want those worries to keep you from experiencing the goodness of God. A bit like pumpkin pie, sometimes you just have to try something to find out if its good.
David writes in Psalm 34:9
7
8 Taste and see that the Lord is good;blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
Psalm 34 is an invitation to give God the benefit of the doubt. To try him for yourself and to see if his promises are true in your life. To taste and see that the Lord is good. Again, this psalm doesnt promise the perfect life. But it promises a blessed life. A life without shame, a life that brings peace (v14) and a life that experiences the comfort of knowing that someone hears you when you cry out. A life where there is something (and someone) greater than any difficulties you might face...
Thats worth giving thanks about... Will you pray with me?
1 I will extol the Lord at all times;his praise will always be on my lips.
2 I will glory in the Lord;let the afflicted hear and rejoice.
3 Glorify the Lord with me;let us exalt his name together.
8
Watch at: https://youtu.be/5aYtiRAjgr4 File Downloads: https://dq5pwpg1q8ru0.cloudfront.net/2022/11/20/21/14/10/8a8e8658-e203-4db9-a2e0-ca99f4c030af/11.06.22%20%20Sunday%20Sermon%20Transcript.pdf
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30 Days of Thankfulness1. Taste and See That the Lord is Good Dan Bidwell, Senior Pastor
Psalm 34:1-8
Two friends met each other on the street one day. One looked forlorn, almost on the verge of tears. His friend asked, What has the world done to you, my old friend? The sad fellow said, Let me tell you: three weeks ago, my uncle died and left me forty thousand dollars.
Thats a lot of money.
But you see, two weeks ago, a cousin I never even knew died, and left me eighty-five thousand dollars, free and clear.
Sounds to me that youve been very blessed.
You dont understand! he interrupted. Last week my great-aunt passed away. I inherited almost a quarter of a million from her.
Now the mans friend was really confused. Then, why do you look so glum?
This weeknothing!
~
Thankfulness. November is the perfect month to think about the idea of thankfulness. Of course we have Thanksgiving (the holiday) at the end of the month, but why limit our thankfulness to just one day?
The Bible is full of encouragements to be thankful thankful to God for who he is, and what he has done. Thankful for everything he has given us. Thankful for providing even when things dont seem to be going our way.
Being thankful is not always easy. It takes practice. And thats why I want us to spend all of November practicing thankfulness together, with a series Im calling 30 Days of Thanksgiving. Im excited to see what God will do in our hearts, as we cultivate our thankfulness and grow in gratitude together over the next 30 days.
To help I have produced a downloadable 30 Days of Thankfulness prayer guide. I wanted to have paper copies printed for you but our printer stopped printing color this week, so youll have to be thankful for black and white notes, or you can easily read it on your ipad or computer. The idea is to focus every day on something youre thankful for. There is plenty of space to jot down notes or thoughts or prayers. I really hope it helps us learn thankfulness. Ill be working on this myself, so you can ask me what Im thankful for as wellJ
1
So the question we have to ask ourselves as we come to church this morning is, What are you thankful for in 2022? And how will you look back on 2022 and see blessing, and provision, and protection? And how can you take that thankfulness into whatever the coming season brings?
Were going to be looking at Psalm 134 to help us answer those questions, so why dont we pray and then well open the Bible together.
Our heavenly Father, as we reflect on the year weve had, help us to see your goodness and your sovereign hand over every circumstance. Give us thankful hearts as we remember your promises and your provision. Give us all joy in thanksgiving today. In Jesus name we pray. Amen
1. The Power of Words
I love the idea of thanksgiving. And scientific research shows that thankfulness is good for us! For example, a neuroscientist from USC found that there is a link between gratitude and the parts of our brain tied to social bonding, reward and stress relief.1 Other studies have linked gratitude with oxytocin production oxytocin is also known as the cuddle hormone or the love hormone, because its released when people snuggle up or bond socially. Researchers out of Berkeley have shown the benefits of gratitude on mental health2, and theyve put all their research into a book called The Gratitude Project.3
But in all that research, the benefits of gratitude come when we practice it regularly. When express our gratitude, and put it into words. In all the studies, participants would either keep a thankfulness journal, or write gratitude letters, or just make a regular habit of putting their thankfulness into words.
Because our words are powerful, and words can shape the way that we think about the world around us.
The writer of Psalm 34 (King David) understood the power of words. Listen to how he starts the Psalm:
1 I will extol the Lord at all times;his praise will always be on my lips.
2 I will glory in the Lord;
Fun fact about Psalm 34. This Psalm is an alphabetic acrostic in the original Hebrew language every line in the starts with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet (aleph, beth, gimel, daleth, heh etc).
1 https://news.usc.edu/163123/gratitude-health-research-thanksgiving-usc-experts/2 https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_gratitude_changes_you_and_your_brain 3 https://www.newharbinger.com/gratitude-project
2
But come back to the idea that words are powerful. Because the Psalmist makes the choice to speak positive words into his situation, no matter what happens I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips. I will glory in the Lord.
The word extol is translated bless in many of the other Bible versions. And I think this represents a choice for David, the Psalmist. We could look at our circumstances and curse God, or we can choose to bless him. David says, no matter what, I choose to bless the Lord at all times.
The next two lines carry a repetition in the original Hebrew. Praise and glory have the same root in Hebrew both come from the hallelujah word. And so we could crudely translate v1b and v2:
A hallelujah will always be on my lips, I will hallelujah in the Lord.
There was a big worship song a few years ago that came out of a church in northern California, called I raise a hallelujah! You might have heard it on the radio. The words are all about continuing to praise God, to glory in him, to raise a hallelujah whether we are faced by enemies, or storms, doubts...
Regardless of what comes our way, David says, keep Gods name on your lips, keep praising him, and youll keep the right dialogue going on in your head... Because it is so easy to listen to words of the tempter, isnt it? The one who undermines our confidence. The one who loves to sow the seeds of doubt. The Devil loves to get inside our heads, doesnt he.
And thats why I love this Psalm so much. David writes this Psalm for people who have been listening to the wrong voices... verse 2b
let the afflicted hear and rejoice. 3 Glorify the Lord with me;
let us exalt his name together.
David wants those who are afflicted to listen to his testimony. He wants to come alongside them, he wants them to hear his bold choice to speak words of hope in danger. He wants them to hear and rejoice to listen and to have their joy restored.
I know that the last few years have been difficult for many of you. Some of you have shared those hard things with me, and weve prayed over illness and death and estrangement and mental health and all kinds of hardships and afflictions. Collectively weve all lived through a pandemic that has changed our day to day existence, and continues to produce uncertainty about the future.
Its easy to feel overwhelmed by it all.
3
But in this Psalm, David teaches us that there is something we can do to reorient ourselves in the middle of trouble, and thats to keep speaking truth about the greatness of God, no matter what enemy we see before us.
Thats what verse 3 is all about. The ESV and King James translate this verse: Magnify the Lord with me! We need to magnify God that is, we need to look closely at how big and powerful and majestic and wonderful God is. We need to keep making him great in our lives. Making him the biggest and most impressive thing we see.
Because its way too easy to let the hard things in life grow out of proportion. Our problems can seem insurmountable, unsolveable, unmanageable.
But when we look at them alongside the God who spoke creation into being, are they really that powerful?
Sometimes it takes a friend to help us see the truth. Thats what David does. He encourages all the afflicted to remember Gods greatness with him. To lift Gods name on high. To join him in the hallelujah...
What words are you speaking to yourself in the middle of the storm that is 2022? What is the narrative that youre telling yourself about this year? Is it a narrative that puts God firmly on the throne, that puts God unquestionably in control of today and tomorrow? Are you speaking a hallelujah over every day that the Lord has given you in 2022?
Thats your self-talk.
Now I want you to think about the words that you speak into the lives of those around you whether they trust in the Lord or not. What testimony are they hearing from your lips? Are they hearing your testimony to Gods greatness, as you speak about 2022? Are your words bringing gospel comfort and peace and joy and hope and thankfulness?
Words are powerful... Thats our first big idea.
2. The Promise of Deliverance
Our second big idea is that our words dont fall on deaf ears.
Bookshops are full of self-help books, and books about the power of positive thinking. Is that the essence of Davids exhortation? Is that all there is to it? Think good things about God, and everything will turn out alright?
4
To push it a step further, should we expect to live a life free from affliction when we trust in the Lord?
That wasnt Davids experience. When we read the attribution at the top of this Psalm, it says:
[A psalm] of David. When he pretended to be insane before Abimelek, who drove him away, and he left.
This Psalm seems to be written during the time when David had to run for his life away from King Saul, who was trying to kill him. You might remember that the Lord had anointed David as king over Israel, but Saul was still on the throne. Things got messy. And David finds himself hiding out in the royal court of his enemies, the Philistines, when the Philistine King recognizes him and says:
Isnt this David, the king of the land? Isnt he the one they sing about in their dances: Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands? (1 Samuel 21:11)
David has jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire...
And so he pretends to be mad drools into his beard, and scratching the doors with his fingernails, until the Philistine king sends him away.
So did David live a charmed life because of his magical words about Gods greatness? No. Back in Psalm 34 David reminds us in v19 that:
The righteous person may have many troubles, BUT... the Lord delivers him from them all;
In this Psalm, David looks back on a difficult moment in his life, and he has a testimony about how God rescued him. How God helped him through the trouble. How God was faithful to his promise to bring David to the throne, by saving him from his enemies.
And we see that refrain time and time again throughout the Psalm God promises to deliver those who call out to him:
4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.
6 This poor man called, and the Lord heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles.
17 The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.
5
We have a promise-keeping God. He promises to hear us when we cry out to him our words are not hot air. They are words that remind us of the One who is able to do more than we could ask or imagine, and the One who is powerfully at work within us by his Spirit (Eph 3:20).
In some ways we are nothing like King David. We will probably never find ourselves on the run from one king and threatened by another. But there will be times when we fear for our jobs, for our health, for our families.
And the threat might remain, but listen to what David says in v4: 4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.
As we face all kinds of difficulties in life, the temptation will be to make that problem into the biggest thing in our life. To let it loom over us, to let it dominate our thoughts, to let it steal our confidence in Gods bigger plan for us...
Because God has a bigger plan for us. The Bible is absolutely clear about the future for those who trust in Jesus Christ. Its a future without evil, its a future without suffering, its a future where God keeps his promise to make us his children and heirs of the kingdom. Its a glorious future, just like David faced, only even better.
So what could get in the way of Gods good plan for you? What enemy is so big that Gods plans might be thwarted? Coronavirus? Cancer? Your mental health? Your physical health? Are any of those problems so great that they could prevent God from rescuing you and bringing you into his kingdom?
No.
There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, and nothing that will stop God from bringing about your ultimate rescue. Demons, death, disease they are powerless against the one who is bringing all of history towards the day when Jesus kingdom triumphs over all others. Even Satan cant stand in the way of Gods plans, because Jesus has dealt with Satans grip on our souls. Jesus has dealt with our sin and shame on the cross so that not even our unrighteousness will hold us back from Gods promises, if we ask Jesus to rescue us from it.
And thats the joy of the gospel that David knew also:
5 Those who look to him are radiant;their faces are never covered with shame. (Ps 34:5)
6
Whenever Moses would meet with the Lord, do you remember, his face would be radiant, literally. There was something about being in the presence of the Lord that made him glow. And David says its the same for everyone who knows God and trusts him deeply. There is something radiant about them. This is not about hollow words of affirmation, but an abiding trust in Gods promises experienced in the past, and the present and anticipated in the future.
Are these the promises that keep you steady in the storm?
God kept these promises for David. God kept these promises for Jesus. And he will keep these promises for you, regardless of what difficulties we face...
Thats big idea 2 to remember Gods promises of deliverance.
3. The Proof is in the Pudding
And that leaves us with one last idea to finish: the proof is in the pudding.
It wouldnt be Thanksgiving without pie, particularly Pumpkin pie and Pecan pie. Until just a few years ago, I had never tasted pumpkin pie. Its just not a thing in Australia. You cant buy pumpkin in a can, you dont see pumpkin pies in stores, and even Starbucks didnt have pumpkin spiced latte until a few years ago.
And so when we got to our friends house one night for dinner, and the wife announced that we were having pumpkin pie for dessert, I have to admit I was a bit wary. Is there anyone else who thinks pumpkin pie looks like baby food?
Turns out pumpkin pie is pretty good. And so is pumpkin spiced latte. Sometimes you just have to try something to find out if its good.
David writes to people who are facing big enemies. People who are finding it hard to trust that God is bigger than whatever they face. That might be you. You might be listening today thinking, Im just not sure if God can deal with this thing that is going on in my life right now. Im not sure if I can trust what weve read today. Im not sure that I want to put all my eggs in that basket.
If youre thinking that way, youre not alone. Over the last 3 years, all of us have been thrown by events we never expected. Some deeply worrying events...
But I dont want those worries to keep you from experiencing the goodness of God. A bit like pumpkin pie, sometimes you just have to try something to find out if its good.
David writes in Psalm 34:9
7
8 Taste and see that the Lord is good;blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
Psalm 34 is an invitation to give God the benefit of the doubt. To try him for yourself and to see if his promises are true in your life. To taste and see that the Lord is good. Again, this psalm doesnt promise the perfect life. But it promises a blessed life. A life without shame, a life that brings peace (v14) and a life that experiences the comfort of knowing that someone hears you when you cry out. A life where there is something (and someone) greater than any difficulties you might face...
Thats worth giving thanks about... Will you pray with me?
1 I will extol the Lord at all times;his praise will always be on my lips.
2 I will glory in the Lord;let the afflicted hear and rejoice.
3 Glorify the Lord with me;let us exalt his name together.
8
Watch at: https://youtu.be/5aYtiRAjgr4 File Downloads: https://dq5pwpg1q8ru0.cloudfront.net/2022/11/20/21/14/10/8a8e8658-e203-4db9-a2e0-ca99f4c030af/11.06.22%20%20Sunday%20Sermon%20Transcript.pdf