Psalm 34 - Refuge

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0:12 Okay, the rest of us, we're gonna keep going on these Psalms and I mentioned last week that we are right at the tail end of the church year. So the church year ends actually before our calendar year. So the church year begins the first Sunday of the new church year kicks off Advent, which is the four weeks leading up to Christmas. And so the church year ends there that last week in November, the last Sunday in November is the first day of the new church year.

0:47 So we're really winding down the year here and we haven't done this yet this year, but the church prescribes the church kind of corporately across the world ecumenically has these readings that they assign for each Sunday of the church year. And it's called the electionary. And in the electionary there's an Old Testament, there's a Psalm, there's a New Testament, and there's a Gospel. And as I was thinking about how we finish off the church year together, I was thinking let's just look at the Psalms as we finish out the year, the assigned Psalms.

1:20 So last week we looked at Psalm 30, that was the Psalm they assigned, and this week the assigned Psalm is the second half of Psalm 34. And I mentioned I printed them for you there on the clipboards and there's a responsive version on the backside of there that we'll use during our worship. So you want to put your hands on that if you can right after the message, but Psalm 34. And we recap a little bit last week what the Psalms are and the punchline is basically that we feel like the Psalms are the ancient hymnbook of our people, that the Psalms are usually pretty a contextual, that they've been preserved almost in a liturgical order,

2:02 where it seems like they're grouped in the way that the church would use them over the course of the worship events. There's lemence, there's praise, there's Psalms of ascent, and so they're a contextual, they're pretty sure they're the hymnbook, so people have been praying and singing these Psalms for thousands of years. And so what I like about spending time in the Psalms myself is reading over them almost recursively, and what happens as you read them over and over again is different parts start to stick out to you, different words start to stick out to you.

2:42 And so that's why I printed these out too because I welcome you to take these little printouts home and read over the second half of Psalm 34 this week, just kind of let it kind of run over you and see which words stick out to you. We're going to spend some time in it here, Psalm 34. And you know, as I was like reading through this Psalm, I was having a little bit of trouble tracking the order. Sometimes Psalm 30 that we were in last week has a real order to it about the movement of the person praying, but this one was a little bit more didactic, and I finally read over it several times like I told you I like to do.

3:27 And I finally was like, I need to get someone a little bit smarter to help me put this together. And I was very comforted as soon as I cracked a commentary on Psalm 34, because the first thing it said is that this Psalm is an acrostic poem. And so you have to take each couplet almost individually because they're aligning it with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. So this poem, this Psalm has a couplet for each letter in the Hebrew alphabet, and the first couplet starts with that.

4:04 So it's written like an acrostic. And so it's a little bit of an amalgamation. If you were to read the whole Psalm, a couple of different things come together. But when we just take eight to the end, we can build a cohesive thought for us this morning to say, what might the original prayer been thinking about? What might we walk away with? So look with me at Psalm 34 verse 8. He starts with this like pretty phrase, O taste and see that the Lord is good.

4:39 Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. And there's two ideas there right at the beginning that we're going to spend a little bit of time in. But the first is this O taste and see. And it's an interesting idea that doesn't come up a lot in the New Testament but comes up some in the Old Testament that the goodness of God is something you can experiment with and try. I like the idea that the Psalmist is suggesting you might lean towards the goodness of God and you might like what you find such that you continue on further.

5:19 The Psalmist is suggesting that you might try out the goodness of God. You might just taste it. And he said, when you begin to taste it, you'll see that it's good. This is a principle they had about the scriptures in general. You know, they talked about the scriptures like honey on the tongue like all of the goodness of the earth and the goodness of the God is found in the scriptures. And so the second half of the Psalm, the Psalmist is inviting people to consider.

5:50 They might try out the goodness of God and find that they like it. Then this second idea, blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. And I'm thinking that this is what the Psalmist, how the Psalm writer is suggesting that we taste God is figure out how to take refuge in him. And I'll put those two ideas together. The Psalmist is suggesting that if you can figure out in your life how to take refuge in the God, you might find something that you really like.

6:35 I'm trying to get myself into a mindset of what that means. That was the first place when I read it several times that I stopped to take refuge in the God and I was trying to imagine where is refuge. And the first story that came to my mind is the story of Elijah in the carat ravine. Anybody remember that story of Elijah in the carat ravine? It's a very cool story. Elijah's just battled all of the prophets of Baal and God has demonstrated his power and supremacy in a miraculous way.

7:13 And in such that then Elijah wipes out all of the prophets of Baal, it's brutal and maybe misguided but he does it anyway. And then with some kind of super human, divinely aided capacity, he runs from the bad place. Like out runs chariots, right? And he's like lamenting. He finds himself in this ravine in the mountains. And he's lamenting that he's all alone. And God says, I'll take care of you.

7:47 And he lives in this little ravine. God guides him to this ravine and there's a little brook. And from the brook he gets all the water that he needs. And then in the ravine, birds bring him meat to eat. On a regular basis, drop it in front of him so that Elijah is sustained in the ravine. It's called the carat ravine by the creation of God and the provision of God through the birds down to bringing what he needs.

8:24 When I was thinking about the psalmist's encouragement to take refuge in God and trying to imagine who takes refuge in God. What does refuge in God look like? The first thing I thought of was Elijah in the carat ravine. Partly because I love the idea, I think, of being in a ravine and being cared for. I like the idea that my whole job during the day is to explore and enjoy the ravine.

9:04 I love that idea that all of the problems have been set aside and though I'm afraid and I don't want to go to the hardships of life, I have provided a safe space for me. And in the safe space all that I need is taken care of. I like the idea that Elijah had a period of time. He wasn't there forever after he had recovered God sent him back out. We talked about the widow of Zareff-Eth last week. But I love the idea that there is a ravine where you are protected and provided for.

9:38 The problems, the hardships, the necessities of life are not on you to figure out. I love that idea. So when I read about the refuge in God, I thought about Elijah in the carat ravine. The next thing I thought about was the story of the Holy Family, Mary and Joseph and Jesus in Egypt. Taking refuge in God, remember that Herod figures out that there's a king of the Jews to be born. And so he decides that he's going to kill all the boys in Israel two years of age and under.

10:13 And God in his wisdom, forethought, care, concern, provision, protection speaks it to Mary and Joseph ahead of time through the angel of Gabriel. It's like, get out of here and go to Egypt. I'll tell you when it's safe to come back. And so they get together and they go on the journey together. And somehow, miraculously, they find a place to live in Egypt. And they sustain for a matter of years in a foreign country. I don't know if they're intrigued by Joseph's Israelite carpentry skills.

10:45 I don't know if Mary gets a job as a midwife or a nurse. I don't know how they survive in Egypt, but I like the idea that God saw trouble coming for them and provided away. And they left Nazareth and everything they knew trusted in God and went to Egypt. And he protected and provided for him. The last one I thought about taking refuge in God. I was just like, you know, you read over these Psalms and a word sticks out to you and you just stay on that word.

11:18 And you might pray or ask, Lord, what does refuge mean? Where is refuge in your story? And the cureth ravine pops into my head and then the whole family making their way down to Egypt pops into my head. And then this is the last one I stopped asking after this because it got maybe too close to home. But like, I thought about the moment when Jesus is gathering his disciples and he walks by Matthew at his tax collector table.

11:48 And Matthew leaves his tax collector table behind and goes to work with Jesus. Can you imagine align the emotional position of Matthew leaving the tax collector table and Elijah in the cureth ravine? And Mary and Joseph on the way to Egypt. Somewhere in there, I think, is what the Psalmist means when they start to say, take refuge in God.

12:23 And remember, this is in the context of taste and see that the Lord is good. Take refuge in God. So, okay, we're two verses in, we've got to go faster. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. O 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. He is building ideas here. She is the psalmist going from taste and see that the Lord is good.

12:56 Hey, try it out and then fear the, take refuge in the Lord and then fear the Lord. And then this young lion's thing, the young lion's thing is really what got me into the commentary because I was bothered. It's such a, such a cool use of words, but I wanted to understand where it might have come from. And I thought, is there a lineage of like talking about young lions in the Psalms that I'm not aware of? And the answer is no. Whoever wrote this just liked young lions.

13:28 But the best we can to figure from the usage is he's trying to suggest the young lions are the least likely to go hungry. Because especially where they were in there, the ancient Near East in the Arabian Peninsula. There as they take care of shepherds and goats and things and bulls. The lions are the strongest, most capable predators. They're going to get what they need. Now you might imagine an old lion who's too old and can't any more hunt and kill.

14:03 An old lion might not get what they need, but nobody's keeping a young lion from what they need. And so when the psalmist says, the young lion's suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. He's trying to say that the young lion is the picture of self-sufficiency. And self-sufficiency will wear itself out when compared to trusting in the Lord God.

14:34 And now he's laid out this idea. You can taste and see that the Lord is good. You find refuge in him. The way you find refuge is to fear the Lord and trust the Lord. Get out of self-sufficiency. Now he's going to teach us what fear of the Lord is. So he says in verse 11, she says in verse 11, Come, O children, and listen to me, and I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Oh, that's great. So this is like they say acrostic ones are especially didactic.

15:07 They're just kind of teaching because it works better with the format. And we said also last week remember that we're pretty sure that in Jesus' time in the first century, the psalmity, like the 150 psalms was the very beginning of schooling. So like kids in the very first start of school would memorize all 150 psalms. So it's nice that some of them are explicitly instructor, you know. So it's not just all metaphor they're learning, but they get some instruction. So come, O children, listen to me, and I will teach you the fear of the Lord.

15:41 What is man? What man is there who desires life and loves many days that he may see good. He's like, you want to know, you want to live long and have a good life? Listen to me, I'll teach you about it. And then he says, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Turn away from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. I love how straightforward this is.

16:16 Can you believe how old this is? I mean, this is old, you guys. The text we have, the most reliable text we have is from the Masere to wrote it like the ten hundreds. And that's a tradition that goes back, but they're writing before they even are iterating vowels. Like this is an old text, and the instruction is so simple.

16:52 This is in the context of taste and see that the way of the Lord is good. Find your refuge in him. Fear the Lord and move out of self-sufficiency. What does fear look like? Don't be a person of deceit. Why? Because there's a God who's in charge. And has outlined there's a better way for you to live than to be a person of deceit. So out of fear of the Lord and the hope to take my comfort in him, I align myself with the God's way of thinking, I'm just not a person of deceit.

17:28 Taste and see that it might be good. And then he goes a step further, speaking deceit, and he says turn away from evil and do good, which is kind of loaded words because then we've got to figure out what evil is and what good is. But he goes a step further that's a little bit clearer. Move away from evil and do good. And then he says seek peace and pursue it. Now that was another one that stuck with me as I read over this several times.

17:58 I liked that image, that idea of the twofold things about peace, seek out peace, and then pursue it. And so as I stuck on the ideas of peace for a minute, the phrase from Philippians came to my mind right away. The peace of God which transcends all understanding, the peace of God which confounds and moves past all understanding. And then the next phrase that I like about the peace of God came to my mind reminding myself that the peace of God is not the absence of conflict,

18:34 but the presence of God that endures and removes, how did I hold on? I wrote it down because I thought about it. Oh, yeah. Supernatural elimination of panic or existential dread. That's a big word. But the peace of God is not the absence of conflict or problems, but the presence of God in such a way that it removes like existential dread,

19:11 like is my life going to matter? Will I survive or persevere? Do I have a sense of purpose in this face of hardship? The peace of God doesn't remove the hardship but comes in the midst of hardship. And so you and I, if we're going to seek peace and pursue it, we look for the presence of God amongst all of the things. And he said, you'll taste and see that it's good. It will remove the panic, the like crippling panic or the existential dread.

19:43 The presence of God will seek peace and pursue it. So, we're getting an instruction on what fear the Lord looks like. Keep your tongue from evil and speaking to seat, seek peace and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and his ears towards their cry. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil to cut the memory of them from the earth. When the righteous cry for help the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their trouble.

20:13 The psalmist here is stacking up for you how you can get to this place where you taste and see that the Lord is good. And he's suggesting that you fear the Lord. And that out of your, when you seek him for refuge, you fear the Lord. You fear the Lord by not being a person of deceit, by being a person of truth, by seeking peace and pursue it. And then he lets you know as you do this, the face of the Lord is turned toward you. And when these people who are seeking peace and pursuing it, finding refuge in God, cry out to the Lord, he will answer them.

20:47 His face is set away from the ones who are not seeking it, but it is pointed towards the ones who are seeking him. And when that washed over me, I thought of the story of the disciples on the boat. They're on the boat a couple of times because a lot of them are fishermen, remember. But there's one time where Jesus has finished teaching and he's like, hey guys, let's just get out on the boat.

21:20 And it's not clear where he wants to go, but he likes the idea of getting out on the sea of Galilee. And I've never seen the sea of Galilee, but Jesus does a lot of stuff there, you know, because Capernaum and Nazareth, they're all right around there where the disciples came from. So he's around that sea a lot, but it must be big enough that it's a problem. So it's not like Lake Yola, it's probably, I don't know how big it is, it's probably not like the Great Lakes, probably not that big, but it's big enough that if you're out there in the middle of it and the storm comes up, you get concerned.

21:57 It's big enough that especially the disciples in their age, they didn't like still water, they called it the abyss, because they weren't sure how far down it went. And so they were pretty sure it goes down to the primordial waters that the land is floating on top of this abyss of water. So it's pretty evil down there. So they can go out on the boat, but the fishermen who go out on the boat are pretty brave dudes because they're like venturing out on this little thing across the abyss, you know.

22:29 And so it's going to be pretty scary, and when the storm comes up, they get very scared, and it's washing over the sides, and Jesus is asleep on the boat, you remember? And they're like bailing water, and Jesus is still asleep, and they become afraid for their life, and Jesus is still asleep, and so then they wake him up. And they're like, hey man, what are you doing sleeping? We're all going to die here in this abyss.

23:00 And Jesus is like, you know, you can hear his frustration in his response. He's like, why? And it must have made an impression because the story is recorded in several of the gospels. They wake him up, and they record it just a little bit differently in each one. The first one, and one of them, he gets up and it says he immediately gets up and he rebukes the wind and the waves. Hey guys, be quiet, and immediately it does.

23:33 And then the other one, it has him immediately, and he's like, he's like, goes to the disciples and is like, what are you guys? Why do you have such little faith? And then he quiets the wind and the waves. The one where he quiets it first, he wakes up, quiets it down, then turns to the disciples. However they tell the story, they get both components. He calms the storm and he's frustrated with the disciples at their lack of faith. And I thought of that because of the affirmation here, when the righteous cry out for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.

24:11 The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Jesus, the psalmist recognizes that the ones who fear the Lord will find themselves in troubles. It's so compelling that the psalmist is sure, you can taste and see that the Lord is good, line him up as your refuge, fear the Lord and organize your life around it. And then when you find yourself in troubles, because you will, you call out to him and he'll come and answer you. The disciples are with Jesus and they're like, why are we having to put up with this storm?

24:47 And I think that Jesus would have preferred for them to either go, Jesus is here no matter how bad the storm gets, will be fine, or at the very least wake up Jesus and go, we know everything's going to be fine because you're here, but we'd prefer not to deal with this storm, would you wipe this thing out for us? But it's the like existential dread that bothers him. He's like, you guys are with me and you don't have the things. You like are overwhelmed by panic and I'm right here.

25:20 This is not how we live, he said. Oh, you have little faith. Why did you doubt? Then he goes on, many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers them out of them all. He keeps all his bones, not one of them is broken. The affliction of the wicked and those who have the righteous will be condemned. This last little thing here shows up in John's account of the crucifixion of Jesus, remember?

25:54 They're taking him down and they normally when you hang on the cross, you're hanging on the cross for a while and it takes you a long time to die and one of the ways they speed that up is they break your legs so that you hang there and you can't breathe, you suffocate faster. And so they were going to take Jesus off the cross and he died faster because he gave up his spirit because nobody takes the life from Jesus, he lays it down willingly of his own accord and so they get ready to take him down and they didn't have to break his legs

26:27 and John mentions this psalm in his recounting of the story of the crucifixion and said because he would be whole, none of his bones would be broken. What I'm getting to in this psalm, the one I'm taking from the second half of Psalm 8 is that there is deep and sustaining goodness from God that can be found. The reason a psalm like this endures though it's acrostic and a little confusing

26:59 is because it affirms something that our people over generations in every country through every political space, in every nationality, through all the languages have found that this is true, that there is a God who is good and that the goodness of God is something that you can move all the way into, take refuge in, like Elijah in the ravine, like the Holy Family in Egypt, like Matthew when he gets up and leaves his tax collector booth and bets all on Jesus,

27:33 people from all spaces and times have taken refuge in God because they fear the God. They recognize that the God has laid out the life and though they find themselves in hardship, they are not overcome with panic or existential dread. They have the peace of God which transcends all understanding. And finally, look at this last little bit, the Lord redeems the life of his servants.

28:03 None of those who take refuge in him will be condemned. Finally, when you orient yourself in the refuge of God, the posture of guilt is removed. The weight of condemnation is vanquished. And you can live free and fully alive in storms, in ravines, in Egypt, at home, at work.

28:41 When you take refuge in God amongst hardships of life and blessing, you can live with the ! It's the best way to live. Let me pray that like the psalmist, we might take refuge in God today. Hey Lord, thank you for the testimony of the psalms. And especially for this one, Psalm 34.

29:13 That's what it means to take refuge in you. Teach us what that means for us today. We might find little places to try it out, to taste and see that you are good. To step forward in proper fear of you, Lord, to seek peace and pursue it. To abandon all deceit. To cast our lot with you. Open our eyes to see the ways we can do that today.

29:44 In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.