Taste and See | Psalm 34

This message explores Psalm 34 and centers on David’s invitation to "taste and see that the Lord is good." Rather than simply learning about God through information or the experiences of others, we are called into a personal relationship where we experience His goodness for ourselves. Reflecting on David’s escape from danger, the message shows that David’s response was not to celebrate his own cleverness, but to praise God for His faithfulness and deliverance. It reminds us that God’s goodness is present in both the victories and the hardships of life, and that walking with Him reveals His grace, mercy, peace, and faithfulness in ways that knowledge alone never can.

This message also challenges believers to move beyond simply knowing about God by actively experiencing Him through faith, obedience, generosity, serving others, and sharing the gospel. As we trust God's Word, follow His leading, and allow Him to work in our lives, we begin to discover His goodness firsthand. Ultimately, this message reminds us that a genuine encounter with God naturally overflows into worship and a desire to invite others to experience His goodness for themselves.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Maybe you're joining us for the first time or you've been part of this series all summer, but we are looking at some of the psalms over the summer, and I'm going to be looking at Psalm 34 this morning. And we are going to get there if you want to turn there, but not for a minute or two. I want to start out with this picture. Anyone recognize this commercial? Now here's the deal. This commercial came out about one to two years before I was born, to give you context. So early to mid-60s is when this commercial came out. You might recognize the one actor, Scene Wizard of Oz and The Cowardly Lion. Right? That's Bert Larr. He was the Cowardly Lion in that. He made this whole series of successful commercials, and it was for Lay's potato chips. Anybody remember that commercial? It started off in a I didn't take the time to totally memorize it, but it's it's a chip so thin, so light, so crisp, so fresh. I bet you can't eat just one. Does that sound familiar? Right? You can't eat just one of these chips. He made all kinds of different commercials based on that slogan. In fact, it turns out even today, superheroes cannot eat just one. It's still going today. Sixty years later, that slogan, Bet you Can't Eat Just One. Anybody with me? And I I just want to have a moment to connect with you. And you open a bag of chips and you're not even hungry, but you have one. And by the time you go, okay, I gotta stop, the bag's like over half gone. Anybody else? It happens, right? You taste one and you eat way more than you meant to, and you just can't stop eating until almost the whole bag is gone, even when you're not hungry. There are other things I find in my life similar. You ever walked by a bowl of MMs and went, I just want three or four of those just so I can taste them. Three or four handfuls later, you start to feel like I shouldn't have eaten all those MMs. Right? Popcorn? Yeah, you got you know, right? Jen and I will watch Turn on TV at the end of the day, like 8:30, 9 o'clock at night. Way too late to eat junk food, by the way. I don't recommend it. But we'll pull out a bag of popcorn and by like 10, we're like, where'd the popcorn go? Like it's a Costco bag, right? You're like, where did it all go? Or homemade cookies? Anybody resist the second homemade, fresh baked, soft cookie? No! It only takes one taste, and it leaves you wanting more because it's so good. Costco knows this truth. That's why they have all those little stations all over Costco with samples. Jen went this last week and actually got this protein bar I've never heard of ever. It was called Built Puff Protein Bar, like Built Puff, but it was puffy and full of marshmallows. And she got the whole thing. Like, here's the whole thing. Of course, behind them is this, you know, rack of industrial-sized boxes of built puff protein bars. But why do they do that? Because they're hoping you'll open that up and go, oh man, this is really good. I gotta get some more of these. Because once you've tasted it, you realize how good it is. The key in all of the things I have just mentioned is taste. It's a verb. It's an action. It takes movement on your part, it takes action on your part. You have to taste it before you know it's good. Most of us at one point in our life has made chocolate chip cookies, right? You might even have the ingredients memorized. You pull all those ingredients to a bowl, you stir it up, and it just as a side note, anybody get all the way to baking cookies before you have one? No, right? You scoop some dough out, and you're like, yeah, I better taste this to make sure it's good, right? But we'll ignore that for now. And you like stir it all up and you put it in the oven and it smells up the whole house, and you have friends over and you give them right off of the little, uh, right out of the oven, off the cookie sheet, one of the really yummy fresh cookies, and they eat it. And all that's great and wonderful. But if you've never had a chocolate chip cookie, even though you're the one that took the time to make it and put the ingredients together and bake it and even shared it, you hadn't tasted it yourself. You hadn't experienced it, and so there's no way you could truly know what that cookie tastes like. You have to try it. You have to experience it. It can't be just seen or described. You've got to act on it. It's no different than following God, than knowing God. You can hear about God. You can see what God is doing. You can read about him. Other people can tell you all about him. But eventually you have to experience him for yourself. You have to walk with him. Share your life with him. You have to taste his walk with you and you with him. You have to experience God for yourself. David knew this to be a truth. It's why he wrote Psalm 34. I want to put some context around this Psalm before we actually read it together. Because without the context, you're not going to fully understand why David wrote it. And so if you have your Bibles, your phone apps, whatever you have, we're just going to read the first eight verses, but we're going to look at Psalm 34 in a minute. But I want to put context around it first. See, David at this point, we heard a little bit from Curtis about some of David's life, but when he wrote this psalm, David has been anointed to be the next king by God through the prophet Samuel. Samuel has come to his home. You might remember the story, but he went through all of his brothers from the oldest all the way down. And each time Samuel said, Lord, I think this is the one, the Lord said, It's not this one. Finally he says, Do you have any others? Yeah, we got the youngest one out in the field watching the sheep, right? And so they call David in, and he ends up being anointed to be the next king. And so he has been anointed. He knows he's going to be the next king. He goes out and ends up serving in Saul's court, playing musical instruments and singing for Saul, calming him. He ends up in his courts. He ends up in part being part of his military and is really successful at it. In fact, it's recorded that the ladies, when he came in, would sing that Saul had killed his thousands, but David his ten thousands, and they celebrated all of David's victories and all that he had done for Israel. And Saul starts to get a little jealous at this point. See, I'm a little sick of hearing David's name. And he decides that he's going to kill him. Saul's son Jonathan gets wind of this and tells David, because they're really close friends, David, my dad's after you. You gotta go. And so David flees. He runs. And he runs to a place called Gath. A Philistine city. Because he's thinking, man, if I'm gonna run, I'm gonna run to where Saul won't expect me to go. And why would the king think I would go and live with our enemies? So he runs to Gath. You might remember the story as well of David and Goliath, the giant Philistine, that he takes out with a rock to the forehead. Give you one guess where Goliath was from. Go ahead. Gath! So he runs to the very place that the giant he slain was from. Trying to hide from the king, King Saul. And sure enough, eventually the servants see David. And they go and tell the king. Man, isn't this the one that they sing about? Isn't this David, the one that's killed his ten thousand? That's us. And they realize it's David that's been hanging out with them. And in 1 Samuel 21, it tells us what happened in this moment in David's life when he realized he had been found out. They've just told the king, and it says in verse 12, and David took these words to heart because he had heard it. He's like, oh man, this is not going to be good. And was much afraid of Akish, the king of Gath. So he changed his behavior before them and pretended to be insane in their hands and made marks on the doors of the gate and let Spittle run down his beard. David in this moment decides his best course of action is to act insane. And so he totally goes all in. And he goes up to the doors and he's scratching, he's acting all insane, spit running down his face, dripping off his chest, probably making all kinds of crazy noises and groans. And the result is in the next verses, the king goes, What is going on? And he says in verse 14 through 15 of Samuel 21, then Achish said to the servants, Behold, you see the man is mad. Why then have you brought him to me? Do I lack madmen? Look around my kingdom. I have enough people that are a little loopy in the head. Do I lack madmen in my presence? Oh, I'm sorry. Do I lack madmen that you have brought this fellow to behave as a madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house? The king's like, I've got enough of this kind of crazy. And rather than kill him, he says, just get rid of him. I don't want him around. He's not a threat to us anymore. I don't know what happened, but he's no longer with King Saul. He's no longer part of King Saul's army, and he's clearly lost his mind. Just let him go. And David is able to escape. You know what amazes me about this and David? And I want to encourage you to put yourself in that same place. I wouldn't have written what David wrote in Psalm 34. I would have written, man, wrote my job. I can't believe that worked today. I cannot believe I pulled that off. I mean, that was some quick thinking on my part in the moment, right? I thought I was done, all I had to do was act crazy, and I got out of there. But David doesn't brag and focus on himself and his quick thinking. He doesn't pat himself on the back for being so clever and getting himself out of that situation. Instead, he worships God. He says, look what God did. And he writes in Psalm 34, and we're going to read it. Psalm 34, 1 through 8. 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, I and delivered me from all of 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 of 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. He writes this right after he escapes from King Achish. He gives all the glory and the credit to the Lord and he says, Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Don't skip over the word oh. In the Greek, it carries a whole lot of meaning. It's emphatic. It says, please, come on. Oh, I want you to experience this for yourself. Don't miss this. It's emphatic. Think about the best dessert you ever had. I'm kind of on a roll with food this morning, but it goes with taste and see, right? So if you're getting hungry, I apologize. But think about that best dessert, and it's melting in your mouth, and you are amazed at all the flavors on your tongue, and you're like, that was good. No! Like, oh man, that was so good. You've got to try some of this. Here, have a piece. You'll be amazed. This is so good. You've never had anything like it. That is what David is saying here. He's not simply inviting us to hear about God and what God did in his life. He's inviting us into a relationship with God, to experience God, to taste and see, to try it, to walk with him, to experience him and see that he is good, to trust him, to know him personally. Saying, don't take my word for it. Take that step of faith. Experience it for yourself and taste and see that the Lord is good. Because just like Lay's chips, just like Costco, David knows that if you'll take that taste, you will see that God is good and you will want more. And so he cries out, oh please. You've got to experience his taste and see that he is good. David had experienced God's goodness in the past throughout what we spoke of and all of the victories he had in his life and all that he had been through. But David also experienced God's goodness in the most difficult of times, of which there would be more in his life. And yet he had tasted, he had experienced, he had seen that God is good. And so even in the difficult times, David was able to find peace knowing that God was with him because he had experienced God's mercy, God's goodness, God's grace, and he's inviting you and I to join him in that experience and that walk with God. I can stand up here and tell you all that God's been and done in my life. The mercy he's shown me, the grace. Jen's heard me say it. I'm thankful for his mercies that are new every day. Because I don't know about you, I need his mercies every day. I start out every day going, Lord, I wasn't perfect yesterday. I'm gonna try to do better today. Thank you for your mercy. Thank you for your grace. I can tell you all that I've experienced in my walk with the Lord. I can share with you my testimony, which I love doing. But the reality of it and the truth of it is I can share it with you all I want, but you won't know God until you truly taste him for yourself. Experience him for yourself. Spend time with him, walk with him, trust him. Once you've tasted, you'll discover what David discovered and what I've discovered. That God is good. When life gets difficult, the trials come. God is good. When life is going well and we seem just to have an abundance of blessing, God is good. Like Paul, in all things, I can be content. Rich, poor, sickness, health. In all areas of our life because God is good. Even when it seems like the only thing you have left to do in your life is go crazy and scratch at doors and let Spittle run down your face. God is still good. Maybe you're sitting here and you're asking yourself this morning, yeah, I hear you. And I hear it's not just hearing. I need to taste, I need to experience. How do I do that? Maybe you're here and you've never really experienced God in your life, the presence of God in your life, the guidance from God in your life, the peace and joy found only in God. How do you move from simply knowing God and knowing about God to actually experiencing Him? I want to go over just quickly some ways that you can actually taste God and see that He is good. And the first is to taste His forgiveness. If you truly want to taste the goodness of God, it all starts with what He did for you on the cross. That's where we all start in our Christian walk. On our knees before the cross, where God's grace and mercy and goodness is seen the most clear. See, maybe you are here and you've heard, but you haven't experienced it. Maybe you haven't heard. But Jesus is God. He was in heaven in all of his glory, and he was willing to step out of heaven and become in the likeness of us, flesh, man. Still all God, but now all man on the earth as well. Displaying the attributes of the Father to us and walking a perfect, sin-free life, knowing that every step he took took him one step closer to why he truly came. To die on a cross for your sins and for mine. To be that perfect Lamb, that final sacrifice that we could be forgiven our sins, past, present, and future. And he did exactly that. He willingly went to that cross for you and for me. That we could not only know about him, but we could truly taste and see that he is good. We could experience a relationship again with him that we couldn't as we walked in our sin. And it's not something you work towards, it's not something you earn. It's a free gift. And he says, all you have to do is invite me in. I shared with the kids in VBS this week that God is standing there, and he's not a God that's gonna barge into your heart, he's not a God that's gonna barge into your home, he's gonna stand there until you invite him in. You don't have to bribe him into the door. I'll start being good, I'll do less of this, I'll do more of that. He's just saying, just let me in. If you open the door, he'll come in. He'll give you that free gift of salvation, peace, joy, and you will truly taste his goodness, his mercy, his grace, his forgiveness, his peace, his love. Even when times are hard, have you truly given your life to Christ? If you want to taste and see that he is good, it has to start there because everything else is head knowledge until you are actually walking with him. If you want to do that this morning, can I encourage you to talk to me, one of the other ministers here, one of the deacons, just find somebody that looks like there's somebody in authority and just say, hey, I need to talk to somebody, or go to the welcome counter. Hit that tap tag and say, Man, I want to know more about Jesus. It's on the list. Whatever you choose to do, reach out, and we would love to share more about that with you. But it has to start there. I encourage you to taste his mercy, grace, and forgiveness at the cross. And if you haven't, don't leave here without discovering how really good he is. If you've done that, the second thing I want to encourage you to do is truly taste him through obedience to his word. Do you know the Bible is still one of the number one, in fact, the number one selling book on the planet? There are more Bibles and more homes across the world than any other book ever, ever, ever printed. Now we have it on our phones. Not too long ago, the UVersion Bible app hit over a billion downloads. Think about that. A billion Bibles put on people's phones. Many people know the Word of God. I know people that have memorized the Word of God. Whole chapters. Even one person that memorized a whole book. It's like anybody memorized a whole book of the Bible?

unknown 23:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

But you know what I know? There's a difference between knowing God's word and living God's word. There's a difference between knowing God's truth and living God's truth. You can know it all day long. You can read it all day long, but until you're obedient to it and you actually walk in it, trusting the Lord in it, you will not taste and see and experience God's goodness through his word. God didn't give us his word just to simply fill our head with information. He gave us his word so that our lives would be transformed. That we would become more like him. That we would find the blessing and the grace and the abundance that he wants us to have. To taste it, to live it out. James says in chapter 1, verse 22 don't just listen to God's word. You must do what it says, otherwise, you're only fooling yourself. Oh, but I read God's word every day. Yeah, but you're not applying it. I read God's word every day. Yeah, but you're not bearing the fruit because you're not actually living it out and being obedient to it. Guys, I don't say this to chastise anyone. I say this because I know that when you walk in obedience to the truth of God's word, you will find abundance and blessing and joy and peace. And I want the very best for you, and you're missing it if you're not being obedient to what he has for us through his word. God's goodness is found on the other side of obedience to him and his word. When God tells us to forgive someone, the goodness of God is found in the forgiveness of that other person. He's leading you to forgive. Not on their response, but on you forgiving them. When God tells us we need to control our words, tasting God and experience God is found in obedience to that and choosing kindness over the anger that we want to speak in that moment. When God tells us to put him first, we experience God's grace and goodness. When even when we're super, super busy, we keep God first. I can tell you I am not perfect. Jen and I were talking. I'll call us out. This week was VBS, you might have heard. It was a little crazy around here. We have a routine every morning where we come together, we read our devotions, we pray together, and this week, having to be here as early as we were, we messed that up a little bit. God's not up there going, oh, you missed a day. But we did miss a day in experiencing God in that moment. When we don't just read God's word, but we follow what He's given us in it and through it, we begin to see and to taste God's goodness, God's faithfulness, God's grace. So this week, as you read through God's word, and I pray you are, even if it's just like we encourage you, read Psalms every day. What is God asking you to do? As you read and say, Lord, what do you want me to get from this? What direction are you giving me in this? How do I need to apply this in my life? Where do you want me to go? What do you want me to do? How do you want me to take my next step of faith? And then take that step because when we obey his word, again, we discover what David already knew: that God is good. Another way we find and can taste and experience God is in our generosity. He invites us into his goodness by being generous with the things he has blessed us with. He even goes so far as to challenge him and test him and to try him and see if he's not good and see if he is faithful. It's like the original version of I bet you can't eat just one. It's found in Malachi 3.10. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house. Test me in this. Taste it and see. Experience it. Test me in it, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will be no room. There won't be enough room to store it. God wants you like David wants you. He says, Oh, taste and see. God says, Oh, try and test me in this and see. Put me first. I'll prove to you I'm faithful. Be generous with all that God has blessed you with. It's one of our values. We are generous people because we are grateful people for what God has put in our lives. This week, ask God. How you can better trust Him in certain areas of your life. Yes, finances is one. I'm gonna say it. And somebody's like, I knew he was gonna talk about money. It's not all about money. But I can tell you one of the last hurdles I had was giving my wallet to the Lord. Being generous with what he had given me. And I'm not gonna share it this morning, but you're welcome to come up and ask me. There's a testimony in that for me that changed my life. When I started being generous rather than holding on to everything I had. Are you being generous financially? Maybe it's your time. You know what's different between time and money? You can make more money. If you're generous with your time, it's really truly our most precious resource. We can't get it back. It's gone. You give somebody an hour, it's gone. You miss an hour of work, you can get it back. It's hard sometimes to be generous with our time, and yet God wants you to give him and others your time. Other resources, gifts, talents. Taste is faithfulness by being generous, by being open-handed with what God has blessed you with. And you'll see that God can be trusted, and you've probably heard it before, but it doesn't make it any less true. You cannot outgive God. It's not like you'll be generous with what He's given you. He's got, oh man, I would love to help you and bless you, but I don't have anything more to give you. We're generous people with our times, our talents, and our treasures because we are a grateful people for what God has done in our lives, and we want to bless others with it. Which leads me to the point to taste God's goodness by serving others. Sometimes God's goodness is seen most clearly in our lives when he uses that to bless other people. I don't have it in here, but since it's not quite three o'clock yet, um I came to this church for a number of years before I actually started serving. I was in the choir, which was awesome, and I loved being in the choir. You're glad I'm not? But I personally loved being in the choir, even if people didn't appreciate me being in it. But I ended up serving in the middle school ministry. I can tell you, I kicked against the goads on that one a little bit when God said, Why don't you serve in the middle school? And I thought, I didn't even like middle school. Didn't like being in it. And have you seen the kids that are in it today? And I'm just being transparent with you. I was a parent. It's like, I don't know if I want to do this. And I stepped in obedience and faith to what God was calling me to do, and I started truly serving here at the church, and it changed my life. Changed the entire course of my life. I found purpose and I found meaning and I found joy and I found all the things I had been looking for. I had tasted and seen the goodness of God in giving me something I didn't even know I needed or wanted. Jesus Himself said he came not to be served, but to serve. To follow his example in that, to find the goodness of God in and through us as he serves in and through us. To experience God in that way. If you've been on a missions trip, you know you come back and you are pumped because of what you saw God do while you were serving others. Jesus tells us in Acts that it's more blessed to give than to receive. He designed us in that way that the greatest blessings that we can find in our life is when we stop focusing on ourselves and start focusing outward towards others and serving other people. So this week, I want to just encourage you to encourage someone else this week. Help someone else, serve someone else purposefully, meet a need, get involved in a ministry. Be the hands and feet of Jesus, and you might be surprised at what happens. Like me, you may be surprised to find that when you stepped out and served and gave of your time generously, that you were the one blessed, not the person you were serving. And then the last thing. When you have tasted and seen the goodness of God, truly experienced it in your life, you can't help but share it. You want to tell others about it. When you experience something that just is over-the-top awesome, you can't wait to share it. I don't know what that is for you. For some people, not me. It's like we're going up to Julian and we're having apple pie because those apples are fresh from the trees, and there's nothing better. You have got to try Julian apple pie. Apple pie fans anywhere? See, there's some of you. Jen and I just went on a cruise and I could spend three hours telling you about all the things we saw and experienced in the wildlife and the train rides and the ship rides and the bus rides and the glaciers and all the mountains and all the stuff. It was exciting. It was really cool. And I would love to sit here and give you a three-hour home movie version of our trip. We can do it. Don't test me in this and see. But there's excitement, right? When you've tasted the goodness of God, you want to share it with other people. There's an excitement in it. Matthew 28 says, go and make disciples of all nations, and we think that's a command, and it is go and make disciples of all nations, but it no longer is a command to us. It's a joy to us. It's an excitement to us to share what Jesus has done in our lives to tell somebody about what we have found, what we have experienced, what we have tasted in God. We want to share that with others. In the Psalm we just read, I don't know if you remember reading it, but Psalm 34, 2 and 3 says, My soul makes its boast in the Lord. He's saying, Man, I'm not boasting in myself. I am boasting in God and what he has done. Let the humble hear and be glad. And then he says, Oh, magnify the Lord. What does it say? With me. Join me in this, in sharing what we have found. Oh, magnify the Lord with me. Come along, man. Let's do this together. And let us exalt his name together. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. This is how our unsaved family, our unsaved friends, our unsaved coworkers, our unsaved neighbors, those unsaved people God just puts in our life for a season are going to know Jesus and know how to know and follow him, is when we share the goodness we have found in him after we taste and experience him in our own life. David knew that and he encourages us, oh, taste and see that he is good, and then join me in worshiping God and sharing what we have found together. So this week, don't just know that God is good. Don't just read his word. Taste him. Experience him. Walk with him. Trust him. Taste his forgiveness. Taste and experience the truth of the blessing on the other side of obedience to his word. See if he is not faithful and will open up blessing in your life, not always financially, in fact, often in other areas. Taste his joy, taste his peace. Truly taste and see that the Lord is good. And you're gonna want to share what you found with others. Amen. Oh, taste and see. I'm gonna pray us out and just pray that God moves in your life this week, and then we'll be excused. And I'd love to meet you out in the foyer, hang out with you a bit, get to know you if I haven't met you yet. Father, we thank you so much for this morning for the opportunity to come together to hear David's words and hear the joy, the excitement, and the passion behind what he has experienced and what he's sharing with us this morning. And I pray as people hear this this morning, that they wouldn't be just hearers, they'd be doers, that they wouldn't just read your word, but they would truly taste it and experience it and be obedient to it so they could see and experience for themselves your goodness, whether it's generosity or serving, Father, whether it's just in a relationship with you through prayer. Father, move in our lives and let us experience you to such an extent that we, like David, can say, Come alongside me, join me in worshiping the Lord and celebrating Him together as we share it with others that you put in our life. Father, may you bless everyone that's here today.

SPEAKER_00 39:45

In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you so much for joining us today at Sunrise Church. We hope this message encouraged you and blessed you. If one of the ways that you choose to worship with us here at Sunrise is by giving online, there's a link right here that you can follow and it'll take you to that payment portal. Everything that you donate helps not only go towards reaching people in the greater San Diego area, but also all around the world through our ministry partners. If you want to get further connected, whether in person or online, you can email this email right here, and either myself or some one of our team members will be there to answer it and help you get connected in any way that you need. Thank you so much for joining us, and we'll see you next week.