We are turning again, for the last time, I promise, we are turning again to Psalm 34, and I want to read it from the version that is on the handout in the bulletin. This version is designed to help us see a little more clearly the structure of the psalm, which is clear in Hebrew, but since not all of you bring your Hebrew Bibles, I've tried to show how the structure works, even in English. So let's give careful attention to the reading of God's own words, Psalm 34. Of David, when he changed his behavior before Abimelech, so that he drove him out and he went away. At all times I will bless the Lord. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. Boast, O my soul, in the Lord. Let the humble hear and be glad. Come, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together. Delivered from all my fears, because the Lord answered me when I sought him. Eyes which look to him will be radiant, and those radiant faces shall never be ashamed. Groaning, this poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. His angel, the angel of the Lord, encamps around those who fear him and delivers them. Indeed, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Justly fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack. Kid lions suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. Listen and come, O children, to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Man, doesn't he, desires life and loves many days that he may see good? Never give your tongue to evil or your lips to speaking deceit. Oppose evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. Pure eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and his ears hear their cry. Quickly, the face of the Lord is against those who do evil to cut off the memory of them from the earth. Righteous ones, when they cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. Surely the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Terribly many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. Understand, he keeps all his bones, not one of them is broken. Verily, affliction will slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned. But the Lord redeems the life of his servants. None of those who take refuge in him will be condemned. So far, the reading of God's Word. Well, we have been looking at this psalm, Psalm 34, because of the way in which it is a very careful, thoughtful, deliberately structured reflection of David on his own suffering. And our hope has been in looking at this psalm with some care and in some detail that David's reflection on his suffering will be a help to all of us as we face suffering. We looked first at the terrors David experienced, as we find it in the title or the opening of this psalm, when he had to flee from Saul and found himself in Gath amongst the Philistines, and how he found refuge in the Lord, and how then at the center of this psalm he called on people, to learn the truth of the Lord. And last week we looked at the latter part of this psalm and how David reflects on being crushed and brokenhearted by the experiences of his life. And today we turn to the beginning of the psalm. It may seem to some of you a somewhat peculiar way of proceeding that we sort of started in the middle and then went to the end and now are concluding at the beginning. But I think there is a reason for that. I think when we think about suffering and come to this psalm, we're drawn very quickly to what he says explicitly about suffering. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, he said. And we've tried to reflect some on that. But now we're ready, I hope, to see how and why he begins this psalm in the way that he does, with praise. because he had reached the point of coping with his suffering. He had come to the Lord in his suffering. And as he then wrote a poem about it, looking back on that suffering, he's encouraging us by saying, I can begin with praise. I can begin, despite the great suffering that I have undergone, I can begin by acknowledging the Lord and praising the Lord. And the opening of this psalm in a profound way is David's focusing on the Lord. The first ten verses, he uses the name of the Lord, the great covenant name of the Lord, nine times. And he refers to the Lord, pronouns referring to the Lord, some ten times. So in ten verses, he refers to the Lord some nineteen times. And thereby, he's saying to us, in the face of suffering, as we're able to stand back a little bit and reflect on it a little bit, we have to focus on the Lord. We have to return to the Lord. We have to turn to the Lord in our suffering. And so he focuses on the Lord, and what we want to look at this morning is the ways in which he focuses on the Lord here in these opening verses, these first ten verses of the psalm. And the first thing we see in terms of his focus on the Lord is this act of praise. I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. That's where he wants to start, with praise to the Lord. Praise that is very personal and very real for David. I will praise the Lord. It's the expression of his heart. This isn't just a duty. This is the reality for David. He has reached a point where he can praise God in the circumstances of his life that he has undergone. This is a reality for him. This is his dedication. This is his commitment. It's interesting. He doesn't begin saying, praise the Lord. He talks about how he's going to praise the Lord, how he's committed to praising the Lord. This is the action that he is dedicated to. This is his hope and his encouragement from his heart. In a genuine way, he is able to praise the Lord. And this personal praise is a perpetual praise at all times. In fact, there are a number of alls in this psalm, and we may be inclined to pause over them and say, does he really mean it? Or exactly what does he mean by it? I will praise the Lord at all times? That's not even possible, is it, physically? We have other things we have to do. Even on the Sabbath day, apparently people don't spend the whole day praising the Lord. Well, do you? No, of course not. Some time has to be spent brushing teeth. So what does he mean here when he talks about his commitment to praise? Well, we can translate it a little alternatively and try to soften it just a little bit. I will praise the Lord at every time. I will praise the Lord at every time his praise shall regularly be in my mouth. We might re-translate it that way. Be okay, I think. But what he's expressing here is that praise is a central, recurring, vital part of his life. This is how he has come to see himself and his relationship with God. He is connected to God in his praise of God, in his turning to God, in his knowing God. And that's why this praise is not only personal and perpetual, but it's pointed. It points always at God. It returns always to God. It focuses on God. He's boasting in the Lord. Boys and girls, you know what boasting is, don't you? Most of the time you're told not to boast. But you can boast in the Lord. You can brag about the Lord. That's what he is saying here. We can magnify the Lord. What does it mean to magnify the Lord? It means to make the Lord greater. Well, now, those of you who are well catechized know we can't make God greater, can we? So what does David mean here? He doesn't mean we actually make God greater, but we make God greater for us and in us and for others. As we reflect on who he is and what he's done, we begin to see more and more of him. And in that way, he becomes greater and greater for us. This is what David is focusing on at the beginning here. Are you focused on God? Is God at the center of your life? That's what David has come to here in these opening verses after his struggle of faith. This sermon was pretty well done when I got the Los Angeles Times yesterday, and there was a whole section in the Los Angeles Times on entitled Spiritual Quest. So I read that with some eagerness. And it was all a talk about how, quote, a growing number of young people, that is people from their about 18 to 40 plus, I'm not sure 40 years old, so really all that young. But anyway, that was what the paper was saying. A growing number of young people have turned away from traditional organized religion and are embracing more spiritual beliefs and practices like tarot cards and astrology, meditation, energy healing, and crystals. Well, it's hard for a preacher not to avoid, or it's hard for a preacher to avoid quoting that. Now the article went on to say, don't take any of it too seriously. They dabble. They find what they like. And I did think this is really not new, isn't it? People dabbling in religion and people finding what they like in religion because what they're really after is what will keep them happy in religion, them satisfied in religion. What the Bible says is that this has been the human problem, not the human solution from the Garden of Eden. The devil came to Adam and Eve and said, why does God and his word have to be central in your life? Create your own life. Put yourself and your desires at the center of your life. And what David is saying here in this psalm is, that's not the way to life. That's not the way to peace. That's not the way to hope. It's certainly not the way to truth. It's not by making ourselves central that we will be satisfied. It's by making God central that we will be satisfied. That's what David is saying here, and that's what leads him to his commitment to praise, his reflection on the greatness and the goodness of God lead him to praise. And as I thought more about that, I thought, You know, the church itself has too often been confused about what praise really is. And I think, particularly in the last few decades, when there's been a lot of talk about praise, I'm not sure there's always been as much biblical understanding of praise. And David helps us think about that. One of the confusions of the church, I think, in recent decades has been the spoken or unspoken assumption that praise always flows out of joy. That praise always flows out of joy. That to praise God, we have to be joyful. Now, joy is a good thing. I'm not opposed to joy, absolutely. I mean, we Reformed people have always been a little ambivalent about joy. But we're not absolutely opposed to joy. But David says, I will praise the Lord at all times. I will praise the Lord at every time. I will praise the Lord in all circumstances, not just the joyful circumstances. You notice David doesn't really talk about joy very much in this psalm, except in verse 2 where he says, the humble will hear and be glad. He's not talking about his own joyfulness. No, he's talking about how he has turned to God, how he has seen God as central in all the circumstances of his life, and how he is praising God for that. And so joy is a great thing. We all want to be joyful. But it's not the foundation of praise. God is the foundation of praise. God's work is the foundation of praise. And that's what David is showing us. Another confusion that has crept into the church, I think, in recent decades is the sort of notion that praise is a matter of my feelings. Are you feeling it? My emotions. Am I really engaged? And the problem there, too, is that we then turn praise into something that's about me. It's about my feelings. It's about how I'm reacting to it. And David here is trying to turn us away from ourselves as the central focus and to turn us to God as the central focus. It's all about God, David is saying. And that's what leads me genuinely to praise, knowing God. Another notion about praise that has been promoted in some circles within the church is that praise needs to be something that sort of transcends the mind. It has to be just a heart experience. But that's not at all what we find in David or what we find in the Psalms generally. It's engaging the mind in recognizing who God is. It's engaging the mind to reflect on what God has done. It's engaging the mind to see that God is with us and blessing us and strengthening us. So David really does help us focus on God in all circumstances and leads us on the path of praise that puts God at the center. And then David moves from praise in the psalm to pondering the saving acts of God. Here's the mind engaged. Here's the mind reflecting. Here's the mind not just repeating, but considering and meditating and reflecting on the character of God. David says in these opening verses, In my need, I turned to God and he answered. He delivered. He saved. The stress here is on God as the one who acts. God as the one who is not distant. God as the one who will be with his people to preserve them. That's the promise here that David experienced. And when we see God acting, David says, it's a blessing for us. David experienced that blessing. He calls on others to experience that blessing. Verse 8, The one who takes refuge in God will experience that blessing. And what is that blessing? Well, this psalm celebrates the blessedness of God in the lives of his people in several ways. One is that we'll not be put to shame. Maybe that doesn't immediately grab us as a blessing. What does that mean, that we'll not be put to shame? Well, when we look at other places in the Psalter of what it means to be put to shame, it's to be publicly humiliated and condemned for disobedience to God. And you notice that theme of being condemned in the last two verses of this psalm. The wicked will be condemned. The righteous will never be condemned. We'll not be put to shame before the Lord. But the Lord will vindicate his people. We may have to wait until the last day, but the promise is vindication, blessing, preservation. And David is able to look back and say, you know, for all that I suffered at the hands of Saul, I was never put to shame. I was never publicly humiliated and abandoned by God. He was with me. He preserved me. He blessed me. And David could go on to say, he blessed me so much that I was radiant. What does that mean exactly? Well, in the King James Version, it said, I was lightened, I was lit up, I was beaming, I was glowing. There was a blessing of the Lord so real, so solid, that it was visible. I don't think David has in mind exactly what happened to Moses when he came down from the mountain, and his face so shone with glory that he had to put a veil over it. But we've seen people in their really good moments, in their really blessed moments, in their really happy occasions in life where they do seem just to be glowing heavenly. And that's what David is anticipating here, that the blessing of the Lord will be so strong upon him will be really visible in the reflected glory that David is enjoying from the blessing of the Lord. And then he says, the blessing of the Lord on his people is that they will lack no good thing. You see that in verses 9 and 10? 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. Well, that's just not true, is it? See, I'm trying to get your attention. I'm not saying the Bible isn't true. But I am saying when we read that, we have to sort of scratch our head sometimes, don't we? The righteous lack no good thing? I bet you could make a list of things in your life that you would like that you don't have. And not all of them just silly things. You know, the health and wealth preachers are famous for saying that they can have a Mercedes. I've always said that if I were going to decree a car for myself, I'd have a Rolls Royce and a driver. I mean, why settle for a Mercedes? But, you know, if we made a list of the good things we would like in life, most of us wouldn't put these selfish things on them. You know, we'd put health on there, or we'd put strength in various ways on there. What is the Lord really promising us here when he says we'll lack no good thing? he knows that in life you lack things. He acknowledges that, doesn't he? In verse 10 where he says, the young lions suffer want and hunger. Why does he say the young lions? Well, you remember in 1 Samuel 17 when he's about to fight with Goliath, David had said, when I was out keeping sheep, I had to fight lions and I had to fight bears. Lions are usually brought into a psalm as a poetic expression of strength. What David is saying here is, even the strongest lack things in life. We've all seen that. Even the lions who are so strong as hunters, they're hungry sometimes because they can't find prey. So what does David mean then when he says the righteous will lack no good thing? Those who seek the Lord lack no good. Well, I think the place to look is in Deuteronomy chapter 2 at verse 7, where Moses wrote as the people were about to enter the land of promise, For the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He knows you're going through this great wilderness. These 40 years the Lord your God has been with you. You have lacked nothing. Now, wait a minute. They lacked all sorts of things in the wilderness. Some of them they complained about. No onions. No onions. Just that lousy manna, day in and day out. God gave them the bread of heaven, Psalm 78 says. The bread of angels. And they got tired of it. So when God says to the people of Israel, after their experience in wandering for 40 years, you lacked nothing, what does he mean? He doesn't mean they had Rolls Royces to drive through the desert. He means you had me. And in having me, you had life. And I led you the path you needed to walk, to learn. And I blessed you to bring you to this point where you're about to enter the promised land. You've lacked nothing good that you really need because I've given you myself, is what the Scriptures say. And what David has learned, I think, in this psalm, as he's pondered, as he's reflected, as he's tried to grow in faith, is that it's really true. If we have God, we have everything we need. not everything we want, not even everything that we can legitimately enjoy, but everything we need, God is going to give to us. You know, having got through the period in his life where he was fleeing from Saul and where he was delivered from Achish, the Philistine king in Gath, David's life doesn't just become easy, does it? The other historical psalms we find in the Psalter from David often reflect on his trouble with his son Absalom and how he was persecuted by Absalom, how he was driven from his capital by Absalom, his own son tried to kill him. David's life didn't become just easy. But even in the face of Absalom, David would have been able to say, those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. That's our help and our promise, our expectation. Lack nothing. I discovered, I don't think I'd ever really thought about before, that that same word is used in one of the most familiar verses in all the Scripture. Psalm 23, verse 1, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. We could just as well translate that. the Lord is my shepherd, I will lack nothing. Because the Lord is our shepherd. Because the Lord is our guide. Because the Lord is our life. And the Lord who blesses his people personalizes that blessing in this psalm, in the angel of the Lord. You notice that here. It's easier to find if you're on the right page. Verse 7 of Psalm 34. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them. The angel of the Lord is only mentioned in two psalms in the Psalter, Psalm 34 and Psalm 35. And in Psalm 35, the angel of the Lord is presented above all else as power, the Lord's power right with his people. So that's the background, in a sense, of what we read here in verse 7. The angel of the Lord encamps. When Israel made camp, they usually had a wall or at least a tent wall around them to protect them. And the image here is of the angel surrounding his people to protect them with his power. We don't have any statement in the history of the Old Testament that David literally saw the angel of the Lord. But David is reflecting on what he knows about the character of God. He's personalizing the presence of God in this figure of the angel of the Lord. And the angel of the Lord, we know, always points in the Old Testament towards the Lord Jesus Christ coming to be with us. God personalizes His presence, personalizes His power, personalizes His protection for us in Jesus. There's where we see it all. There's where we see the deliverance. There's where we see the greatness and the goodness of God. Jesus who comes. Jesus who meets with us. Jesus who blesses us. Jesus who promises always to take care of us. And what an encouragement that is. we see the face of God in Jesus. We see the love of God in Jesus. And that's what David has a taste of and leads us toward here as he ponders what God has done for us. And then he goes on in this psalm, thirdly, to plead with us. He's praised God, he's pondered God, now he pleads with us to come to God. He's the king, he's the leader, he has responsibility for the people God has given him. And he says to this people, come and join me. This isn't a praise of David alone. He says, my soul makes its boast in the Lord. Let the humble hear and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me, he says. It's in the fellowship of praise. It's in the fellowship of pondering the great works of God that we are strengthened, that we are helped. I think anyone who has suffered greatly has testified that being alone, having a sense of being alone, is part of the very worst of suffering. And David, knowing that and recognizing that, calls the people of God together to join with him, to be part with him of knowing the Lord, of praising the Lord. And so for those of you who are particularly suffering, and for those of you who will suffer, this psalm should be a great encouragement for us, a great encouragement to call us to the Lord, to call us to Christ and His blessing, and to call us to keep the Lord central in our lives by praising Him, by pondering Him, by joining with others to praise Him, so that even in the worst of suffering, we can find strength, and we can find help, and we can find blessing. And tonight we'll have an opportunity to see the signs that God has given us of the presence of Jesus with us. And God grant that we come and see that blessing tonight together. So, may everyone here find in God the strength that they need. Amen. Let us pray. O Lord our God, how very good you are to us. And although your ways are not always our ways, and although your thoughts are always higher than our thoughts, we pray that we might find our hope, our strength, our joy, our life, and even sanctify our suffering in you to the praise of your name and to the strength of our living. For we pray in Jesus' name, amen.