A Sermon on Psalm 34
We looked last week at Psalm 13, which is a lament. The psalmist complained about beingafflicted by an enemy and feeling deserted by God. In desperation he asked how much longer the crisis would continue. He implored the covenant God of Israel to come to his rescue, and he promised to praise God when the answer to prayer eventually came. I tried to relate Psalm 13 to our own trials of faith and said that we, during dark days, must remember what God has already done. God’s unfailing love in the past gives us hope for deliverance in the future. Even so, Psalm 13 ends with the crisis unresolved. The psalmist does not know when or how God will come to his aid.
Today, we look at Psalm 34, which is not a lament but a thanksgiving song. God has heard the earlier lament and delivered the psalmist from the crisis. The storm clouds have parted, and the sun is shining again. Or maybe I should say that the psalmist’s face is shining, even beaming. The external cheeriness in verse 5 reflects the internal jubilation. The psalmist is bursting with realized hope; he cannot contain his happiness. Now he makes good on his earlier vow to thank God for answering his prayer.
Thanksgiving songs, however, do more than just express gratitude for answered prayer. They usually have a didactic section in which the psalmist tells us what he learned through the ordeal that occasioned the earlier lament. Psalm 34 has one of the longer didactic sections—verses 8-22. As you read verses 8-22, you almost forget that the psalm is a thanksgiving song. What did the psalmist learn, and what does he want us, his readers, to learn?
Let’s start with what the psalmist wants us to learn about God. The psalmist has learned, and he wants us to learn, that God cares for his people. This truth is repeated in several ways. God hears us when we pray (4, 6). He surrounds, protects, and delivers us (7, 17, 19, 20). He provides for our needs (10). He watches over us (15). He eliminates those who would do us harm (16, 21). He draws near to us when we lose hope (18). He redeems his servantsfrom condemnation (22). The God of Psalm 34 is no distant, uninformed God. To the contrary, he is quite active on our behalf. Notice, though, that the word God never appears in Psalm 34. Instead, Yahweh is the only name used, and it occurs sixteen times. Yahweh, of course, is the covenant name for God.
God’s covenant name emphasizes how he enters into relationship with us. This covenant God neither abandons his people nor reneges on his promises. In other words, God is faithful and therefore trustworthy. The earlier lament complained about God’s perceived absence, but now the psalmist realizes that God never left him. In fact, God encamped around him and always had him surrounded. Nothing was going to harm the psalmist. Martin Luther likened God to a mighty fortress and a never failing bulwark. That imagery comes from the psalms, especially these thanksgiving songs. Because of God’s faithfulness, the psalmist was always secure.
The same is true for us. Romans 8 assures us that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Jesus. When we consider what God has already done for us—how Jesus shelters us from God’s wrath and Satan’s accusations, how Jesus is with us always unto the end of the age, how Jesus has sent his Spirit as a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance—we realize how secure we are in Christ. To suppose that God would ignore or disown us makes no sense. Why?
Look at verse 15. God’s eye is always looking at us, and his ear is always listening to us. We’re never out of God’s range of seeing or hearing. In other words, God pays close attention to us, he cares for us, and he does so because of the significance of his name Yahweh. He has entered into relationship with us and pledged his loyalty to us.
Besides giving thanks, then, Psalm 34 offers assurance. Survival in life, much less success, does not depend so much on our skill or cunning. We simply cannot master all of life’s variables and vicissitudes. It is not self-sufficiency that gets us out of the crises that lie behind the laments. In fact, the lion, or self-sufficient person, may unexpectedlylack what is needed. Life goes well, instead, for those who deny themselves and seek God’s will. As we entrust ourselves to God’s care, hetakes responsibility for us and provides what we need.
So how does this truth about Godaffect the way that we live? Along with the frequent use of Yahweh’s name, Psalm 34 gives more than a few imperatives: glorify the Lordand let us exalt his name (3); taste and see that the Lord is good (8); fear the Lord (9); keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies (13); turn from evil and do good (14); seek peace and pursue it (14). If we single out the command to taste and see, the psalmist has learned that he has to discover God’s goodness by experience. God is not known simply by reading about him or theorizing about him. He is not an abstract concept but a person. As we get to know anyone else over time and through shared experience, so we enter into a closer relationship with God through the ongoing nitty-gritty of life. Through a difficult stretch, the psalmist has learned that God sticks close to him. In other words, his relationship with God is not the same as it was before the crisis. The relationship has grown and deepened. The psalmist relates to God in a new and more mature way.
Thanksgiving psalms show heightened appreciation for God’s grace and power. As is evident from the recollection of the earlier lament, the psalmist knows what it is to be desperate and hopeless. Yet somehow God has now done the impossible. He has given new life and an open future where none seemed possible. The psalmist cannot help but marvel at what God has done. He has no explanation. He is lost in wonder, love, and praise.
God’s goodness, then, is discovered and appreciated in the context of assumed trials of faith. Verse 17 refers to the troubles of the righteous, which may be many (verse 19). Verse 18 is up front about the psychological or emotional toll. God’s people can be brokenhearted and crushed in spirit. We as followers of Jesus are not immune from overwhelming circumstances. Even Jesus felt forsaken by God at the cross. It is at such times, though, that God confirms his love for us. As the psalmist has learned, God is always sufficient for our every need.
The psalmist has also learned something else, viz., that he and we are part of the relationship. If we know that God is committed to us and cares for us, we’ll behave in certain ways. How we speak to and deal with other people reveals our true convictions. If we are committed to God as he is committed to us, if we are allowing him to direct our steps in his time and manner, then such trust in his good providence will take the form of ethical conduct. Being kind to others is the evidence of our trust in God’s faithful care of us. Seeking their good tangibly expresses our heartfelt thanksgiving to God who has done good to us. Turning from evil and doing good defiantly says “No”to the cynicism that threatens to corrode our confidence in God’s love and care. Keeping these imperatives is an act of hope in the God who rules over all circumstances and orders them secondarily for the redemption of his beloved servants and primarily for the exaltation of King Jesus.
My sermon last week was a bit autobiographical. This sermon today has been more challenging. It is hard to preach a thanksgiving song when you are still in the laments, but maybe some of you can relate to Psalm 34 more readily than I can at this moment. One of us recently thanked God for deliverance from injury and death in a car accident. God is continually involved in the lives of his people, even you and me. Through occasions of lament and thanksgiving, he draws us closer to himself and conforms us more to the likeness of his Son. In short, Psalm 34 thanks God that we live for something bigger than our pleasure and comfort. That something is the building of Christ’s kingdom in our midst.