Three Tasty Tidbits

Biblical Text: Psalm 34:1-8

1 I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth. 2 My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad. 3 O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together. 4 I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. 5 They looked unto him, and were lightened: and their faces were not ashamed. 6 This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. 7 The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them. 8 O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.

How much does your life reveal about your faith? I'm not just talking about the frequency of your church attendance, or the number of ministries you belong to. Actually, like God, I'm more concerned with the quality of your service than the quantity of your service.

Most Christians agree that there are situations when it's hard to let your faith show. One of the toughest places is in the work place. Many Christians shy away from public declarations of faith because they worry what others will think of them. It would be amusing if it weren't so sad, that we worry more about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us. But think about that. Shouldn't we be more concerned about our relationship with the One who holds the key to all life? It gives us pause to wonder just how much we esteem the Lord.

I care what God thinks about me. I want Him to be pleased with the words of my mouth and the mediation of my heart. I want Him to know that my heart and His are in perfect harmony. I want us to be ONE as Jesus and the Father are one.

Isn't that the purpose of being a member of God's family?

• To be one with the Father, and to belong to a family of believers who share a common faith and concern for each other?
• To know that you have a Friend called Jesus who sticks closer than a brother?
• To know that no matter what mistakes you make, forgiveness is waiting for you if you confess and repent?
• To know that when you are weak, God is ready to provide you with strength, courage, and confidence?
• To know the Source of your blessings, and then to be gracious and grateful to the One who has given you all things?

Some people only verbalize their faith when the bottom falls out. They can be cruising along in La-La Land, and BAM! Their whole world collapses. What do they do? They start calling on God, and telling everyone how much they put their trust in Him. Have you ever wondered how God must feel toward those who become evangelists only when they start to fall apart? I don't propose to know the whole mind of God, but I know enough to be sure that I don't want to be one of them. I want a continuous and open conversation with the One who created me and knows all about me; and I want everyone I know to see the Christ in me, all day, every day.

King David knew the God that I know. You only have to read the book of Psalms to realize that King David took his role as God's armor-bearer seriously. He knew that it was his appointed duty to exhort or admonish the people to stay connected to God. David knew that he had been chosen as a catalyst to keep the nation of Israel conjoined with their Creator.

And that is every Christian's duty, you know. Each of us is charged to spread the good news everywhere we go. Don't use the excuse that you're not a missionary, or an evangelist or a preacher, or that you don't get out much or meet many people. Just bloom where you're planted! There's someone in your life whom God wants you to bring to Him. That someone could be in your home, on your job, at your supermarket, at the restaurant where you frequently have lunch, in your neighborhood. God has appointed YOU to win someone to HIM.

If your faith is going to have any influence on your world, it must first impact you in three ways. David said, "O taste and see that the Lord is good."So let me share three tasty tidbits that pop up in our text taken from David's testimony.

Tasty Tidbit #1 : A Christian must be confident. As we read our text from Psalm 78, you can pick out the verses that affirm David's confidence. David exuded confidence. In verses 1 through 3, David clearly paints the picture of a man whose hope is in God. He confesses that he prays continually, not just in private prayer, but openly and publicly, with his mouth. And not in a subtle, unassuming way, like ending every sentence with 'Praise the Lord', or 'Thank you Jesus'. David is BOASTFUL. He's not afraid to shout to the rooftops that God is his Father. That's because David has complete trust in the God of his salvation. He is absolutely confident as he invites everyone to join him in magnifying the name of the Lord.

Where did David's confidence come from? It came from his faith's journey. From boyhood, when he killed a lion, and then slew Goliath, to the protection God gave him when King Saul sought to kill him, and the battles he won as the king of Israel; with each victory, David grew to trust God in all things.

How confident would others say you are about your faith? Your faith's journey has brought you through some challenging situations. You've been tossed and driven, as the hymn goes, and you're still here. Doesn't God deserve a shout today, not just in here, but OUT THERE? If you've been a Christian for more than a year, you've got 365 reasons to boast about your relationship with God. If you're 75, and you've known Him since you were a child, we shouldn't be able to shut you up, not in here, and not OUT THERE!

David had confidence in the Lord. But then we see something else.

Tasty Tidbit #2 - We also see that David was courageous. If I asked your closest Christian friends to make a list of courageous Christians, would your name be at the top of the list? Would it be anywhere on the list? Have you ever been in a situation where it took courage to stand up for Jesus? I'm not talking about having the courage to give a church testimony. For the sake of this argument, church testimonies don't count. Most Christians will eventually get up the courage to give a testimony at a prayer meeting, or a bible study, or a worship service. I'm talking about having the courage to testify to someone who is not saved and may even laugh at your Christian demeanor. Yeah, THOSE people. I'm talking about having the courage to witness to your neighbors and co-workers who plan their weekends like there's always going to be a tomorrow, and they're not studdin' God. Would you say that you've displayed courage in their presence? When they invited you to happy hour after work, did you just say 'no thank you' and make up some lame excuse, or did you seize the chance to tell them WHY you would not go? When your neighbors tell you to come to their Sunday barbecue, are you courageous enough to tell them WHY you must go to church? In other words, do you have the courage to share your testimony.

Persecuted Christians in foreign nations would call us wimps, and rightly so. We have no threat of persecution hanging over our heads. There's nothing stopping us from sharing the love of Christ with OUR world. David said, God "delivered me from all my fears" (verse 4). Has He delivered you from yours?

It takes courage to be a Christian, and not just when it comes to witnessing. It takes courage when things aren't going well, when the bills aren't getting paid, when your health is failing, when the world laughs and tells you that your God is dead. That's when your courage really has to kick in. That's when you have to find the courage to face the doubters and tell them that you serve a God who delivered David, and He will deliver you!

It takes courage to face the doubters and unbelievers in our lives and live with your Christian head held high. That's what David did. He was he king of a nation that was suffering as a result of their rebellion against God, but David still had the courage to tell them to repent. David used his faith's courage to move an entire nation beyond their rebellion, to repentance.

And finally Tasty Tidbit #3: Yes, Christians must be confident and courageous. But there' one more thing you need to learn to be, and that's CANDID. You have to live your faith out in the open. You can't be ashamed of God. There are too many closet Christians in the world. If you're confident that God is all-powerful; if you know that you know that He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think (Eph. 3:20), then don't be afraid to show it.
Spew out world and its vain riches;
Cough up the robe of unrighteousness;
And instead, taste and see that the Lord is good!
Be bold, be strong, the Lord thy God is with thee.

Have you tasted the joy of confident in Christ?
Have you tasted the joy of courage in Christ?
Have you tasted the joy of being candid about your faith in Christ?
If you have, then testify for Christ!

A father took his daughter swimming in the ocean. Both of them were good swimmers, but after a while the water got rough and the current dragged them both deep into the ocean. Fearing that his daughter would not be able to battle the strong current and make it to shore, the father said, "I'm going in for help. Don't worry. You can float on your back all day. Float until I come back for you."

As soon as the father reached the shore, he enlisted the help of the lifeguards and a rescue boat. For four hours they searched the rough seas for his daughter. Just when they were about to give up, they saw her floating in the current and they pulled her aboard. The rescuers were astonished at her calmness and said, "Weren't you afraid?" She replied, "Of course not. I floated on my back just like Daddy said to do. I knew he was coming back, because he said so. I never had any doubt that he would."

That little girl could taste her own confidence and courage, because she trusted her father. And she was candid with the rescuers about her faith in her father. Are you?
Then serve and shout like you trust your Father! No matter how stormy life gets, trust God.
Trust Him to ease your troubled heart.
Trust Him to deliver you from life's snares.
Trust Him to make a way out of no way.
Trust Him to be your Doctor in a sickroom.
Trust Him to be your Lawyer in a courtroom.
Trust Him to be your Anchor in a time of storm.
Trust and never doubt Him!
All you have to do is trust Him and stay afloat. He's coming back for you, sure enough!

O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.