God is So Good (Psalm 34) Brian Raby | Oct 5, 2025

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

Well, good morning.

I'm really grateful to be back with you all here again to open God's Word.

And uh I just want to echo uh the words of your pastor and sincerely just tell you how much I love and appreciate him in my life as a dear friend and ministry partner, and and likewise we know what's going on here in New Market, and we're so grateful.

We're praying for you guys.

We're uh excited for the way that the Lord's moving among you.

And um again, just the ministry partnership that we share, the commonality uh, of course, in the gospel of Jesus Christ, but also just as sister churches, is an incredible blessing, and and we don't take that for granted, we don't take it lightly.

We thank the Lord for it and for you.

Well, as uh Miles said, we're gonna be looking at Psalm 34 together in our time this morning.

And I know this summer, like us, you guys were going through a number of the different psalms throughout the Psalter, preaching through those, looking at those, and I'm sure you considered what we did uh really considered, which was that you know, this the Psalter is unique as a book of the Bible in that it really um speaks for us back to God.

It teaches us and trains us how to do that.

And and it really speaks to us in our lives across such a broad spectrum of circumstances.

No matter what we're going through, there are psalms in the Psalter for us that help us to pray and help us to sing and help us to think and process uh the circumstances of our lives and really show us how we ought to respond to the Lord.

And maybe even greater than that, they they show us again and again that the character of the Lord.

They they teach us about the God whom we love and serve and worship.

They show his mighty faithfulness, his mercy, his love, and they show his goodness.

His goodness, and that's what I want to look at with you today.

In Psalm 34, David really gives his own personal testimony of how he has tasted and seen that the Lord is good.

He says, I've seen it, and I want you to see it too.

He says, I want to tell you how, and I want to celebrate the goodness of God together with you.

And so that's what we're gonna be looking at, and there's a lot there.

So I just want to dig right in from here and read the whole psalm with you up front, and then we'll go through it stanza by stanza.

Psalm 34 begins of David when he changed his behavior before Abimelech, so that he drove him out and he went away.

I will bless the Lord at all times.

His praise shall continually be 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 and delivered me from all 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 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.

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.

Come, O children, listen to me.

I will teach you the fear of the Lord.

What man is there who desires life and loves many days that he may see good?

Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.

Turn away from evil and do good.

Seek peace and pursue it.

The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and his ears toward their cry.

The face of the Lord is against those who do evil to cut off the memory of them from the earth.

When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.

He keeps all his bones, not one of them is broken.

Affliction will slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.

The Lord redeems the life of his servants.

None of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.

It's the word of the Lord.

And as we read it, we hopefully say, along with King David, God is so good.

So good.

And if God is so good were the name of maybe a hiking trail, and Psalm 34 was the path through it, we could see a number of signposts along the way that would direct us in the path that we should go.

And the first one is from the opening stanza, that's verses one through three, and it's this God is so good, worship him relentlessly.

Worship him relentlessly.

And we'll consider in a moment what's gone on in the psalmist's life when he wrote these words.

But here, just think of this declaration.

I will bless the Lord at all times.

This gives us enough here just to meditate on for quite a while, doesn't it?

I will bless the Lord at all times.

I mean, whatever comes, whatever else might be important or urgent today.

Whatever I've been going through or continue to go through, whether it's the good, the bad, or the ugly, David here he says, I'm resolved to worship the Lord.

I'm determined to keep on speaking a good word about the Lord.

And I'm not gonna stop.

He says, his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

And if you know your Bibles, you know that out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

And so again, look at verse 2.

He says, My soul makes its boast in the Lord.

My soul, out of out of what's going on in the depths of my heart, I bless the Lord and I praise him continually.

You know, we can boast about a lot of things, and we do, don't we?

And sometimes it's out loud.

Oftentimes it is it is just in the heart, silently in the depths of our souls.

And what David says here, and what we need to learn from him and from his prayer, his song to the Lord, is that we need to concentrate on boasting about the Lord.

We need to forget about all the accolades that I think that I deserve.

And I need to focus on worshiping the King of Kings.

He goes on to say, let the humble hear and be glad.

You know, if you're proud, everything that I've said, everything that David has said so far, it just cuts right against you.

You don't want to hear any of this business about how this guy is unyielding in his worship of someone else.

But if you're humble, if you're humble, then you rejoice at this.

This is sweet music to your ears because you know that he and he alone is worthy.

He deserves all of the worship, all of the praise, all of the all of the blessing, and all of the boasting.

And so it's right for us to posture ourselves before him in this way.

Furthermore, we see in this opening three verses that the psalmist is intent on praising the Lord relentlessly, not only in a personal way and in a solitary way, but in community.

Look again at verse 3.

He says, Oh, magnify the Lord with me.

Let us exalt his name together.

And we've been doing that already in the service this morning as we sung to him and we prayed to him together.

David says, Come on, let's tell how great he is.

Let's do it together.

In his commentary on this psalm, Dale Ralph Davis writes these words.

He says, Praise is greedy because it is always seeking to multiply itself.

Praise cannot be content to be solitary.

It craves company.

Praise is always covetous for more praise.

It tries to be infectious.

It's always after a fellowship of praise.

Then he says, those who boast in the Lord are always on the prowl for fellow boasters.

So true, isn't it?

You know, some of the most encouraging times in my life personally have been when others, other brothers like Pastor Miles, have come alongside of me and just said, come on, let's praise the Lord together.

Let's praise the Lord together.

I trust that perhaps you're already thinking about how even these first, again, opening verses intersect with your own life.

And I just want to offer for us a few uh specific points of application here in this first opening stanza.

And the first is simply this resolve to worship the Lord relentlessly.

Like determine that in your own heart.

Decide that this is going to be a mainstay of your life.

Make this determination the way that David does here, and say, I will.

I will do this.

You know, I think there's something really powerful and helpful about making resolutions and expressing our determination toward righteous things.

And often maybe we are reluctant to do so because of a fear that we're going to fail.

And I just want to encourage you not to think like that, but but to think the way David here.

David knows he's not a perfect man.

He's not a perfect worshiper.

None of us are.

And yet he still says, I'm going to do this.

I'm going to do this.

And I want to encourage you, if you haven't done this even maybe lately in your life, decide that you're going to be a relentless worshiper of the Lord.

At all times.

At all times, again, in every circumstance of life.

Next, prioritize and promote corporate praise.

Be one to both accept the invitation and be one to cast the invitation to others to come and magnify the Lord together.

James Boyce in his commentary on this psalm says the person who has experienced God's mercy naturally looks to others to praise God with him.

Corporate worship is one of the natural instincts of the new life of Christ in God's people.

I mean, is there a better invitation you could make?

You know, we invite people to things all the time.

Come over, have a meal, let's go do something entertaining, let's go maybe play a sport, let's read a book together and discuss it.

All of these good invitations, but the best invitation that we could offer to someone else is come, let's praise the Lord together.

And you can do this both in formal and informal ways.

You know, invite people to the Sunday service, invite people out to your praise and prayer night in formal ways, prayer meetings, you know, informally as well, though, in your discussions with one another.

Hey, let's praise the Lord right here, right now.

It doesn't have to be a formally organized event.

Last point of application here before we move on, I'll say this: Acknowledge the Lord's hand in your life.

Acknowledge the Lord's hand in your life.

See again in verse 1, he he says, the psalmist says, at all times.

It's so important, right?

It is so important in this troublesome life, right?

We live in a fallen world that is filled with hurt and pain and suffering, and we experience this, it ebbs and flows, but um we're we're all at times going through difficult and hard times.

Sometimes we like what's going on, and sometimes we would rather things be going much different, and yet we acknowledge that the Lord is sovereign over it all, and that it is right for us and good for us, and he is worthy for us to worship him relentlessly, no matter what, at all times.

And here's where I think it's appropriate to look at the context of this particular psalm.

The inscription that is above verse 1 in our English text is part of the inspired word of God that David wrote.

Again, he tells us that he wrote this psalm at the time after he changed his behavior before Abimelech and was driven away by the king of the Philistines.

If you know 1 Samuel, then you know that this is a time in David's life, again, when he was on the run from those who were trying to harm him.

And of all places, he finds himself in Gath before the king of the Philistines.

Actually, he he comes to the gates of the city.

And he's recognized.

He's all alone, and uh he has the sword that he uh took from Goliath and had used to slay the giant with him, and he's recognized, and the people they say at the city gates, isn't this David?

Isn't this the one of whom they sing about?

Saul has killed his thousands, but David, his ten thousands, like, what is he doing here?

And word gets to the king, and and David's like, uh-oh, maybe this was not a good idea.

And he finds himself in trouble, in hardship, in distress, and and David decides then and there in that moment that he is going to feign insanity.

Do you remember this?

And and he starts scratching at the walls or the um the doors of the gate, and and he starts foaming at the mouth, and and this too uh is brought to the king, and the king's response is simply this Do I lack madmen that I need another one?

Get him out of here.

And they they send David away, and and this is the safety that David needed.

David, at this point, he recognizes the hand of the Lord in his life, and he pens this psalm, he prays this prayer, he sings this song, and he doesn't take the deliverance of God for granted, but he turns it into praise.

And I just want to encourage you to do the same as well.

Each moment in your life has been orchestrated by God, and we don't want to take the deliverances of the Lord in our lives for granted.

Rather, we want to turn that back to praise and to worship Him.

Worship Him relentlessly.

In verses 4 through 10, David goes on to tell with more vivid language what has led him to this.

And we could summarize the direction in which these verses point us simply like this: God is so good, pursue him expectantly.

Pursue him expectantly.

In these next two stanzas, we see a few different things going on here.

A few different things intermingled together.

We see David describing his earnest movements toward the Lord, and at the same time, he's describing the responses or the provisions that he receives back from the Lord, while still at the same time, he instructs all of us who will do as he has done, to anticipate that the Lord will treat us in the same way that he himself has been treated.

He says, Listen, he will hear you when you call.

And not only will he hear as we can sometimes hear, but he will act.

The Lord will answer, he will deliver, he will calm your fears.

He'll cause your countenance to change, he will save you, David says.

He will be right there beside you, present with you.

He will bless you with a settled joy and peace in your heart.

And he will provide for your needs.

In other words, when you pursue him with a sincere and genuine heart, you can expect that you will taste and see that he is good.

That's what David is trying to get across in this psalm.

You know, often in the Psalms we learn by implication, we see by example how we ought to trust the Lord and what we ought to think about the Lord and how we ought to respond and pray and seek and pursue the Lord.

Not in this psalm.

This psalm has has in it an invitation to the reader to come in and to experience the very same things that David himself has experienced.

Taste and see that he is good, David says.

What do you think of when you think of God's goodness?

For me, I think back to the book of Exodus, and particularly chapters 33 and 34.

In chapter 33, Moses says to the Lord, he says, Please show me your glory.

The Lord's response to Moses is so fascinating.

He says, I will make all, listen to this, my goodness pass before you.

And I will proclaim before you my name, the Lord.

He hides them, remember, in the cleft of the rock.

And Moses is able to see the afterglow of God's glory.

He can't see the front side of God's glory.

And yet God says, I'm going to make my goodness pass before you, and I'm going to describe to you my name, who I am.

And we see this in chapter 34 and verse 6.

The word of God says that the Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands.

Oh, this is so good.

Forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.

But who will by no means clear the guilty?

Jay Packer has a really helpful word on this.

I think we're going to put it up on the screen here.

He says, All.

All the particular perfections that are mentioned here in Psalm 34, verses 6 and 7, and all those that go along with them.

Psalms 34:6

God's truthfulness and trustworthiness, his unfailing justice and wisdom, his tenderness, forbearance, and entire adequacy to all who penitently seek his help, his noble kindness in offering believers the exalted destiny of fellowship with him in holiness and love.

These things together make up God's goodness in the overall sense of the sum total of his revealed excellences.

I think for me personally, that's the most helpful thing I've ever really seen on God's goodness and what it means for God to be good is it is, again, look at the final line there.

These things together make up God's goodness in the overall sense of the sum total of his revealed excellences.

Like all of what God has told us about himself, if we were able to fathom the depths of it all and add it all together, that would be an accurate picture of the goodness of God.

David invites us here in Psalm 34, says, taste and see that the Lord is good.

When you pursue him, when you pursue him, he will show his goodness to you.

That's a promise.

David says, He'll do it for you just like he did it for me.

I went to him, he says in verse 4.

I sought him out, and he responded favorably to me.

You'll never have to be disappointed that you look to him in vain.

That's what verse 5 is getting at when David says, Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed.

I think of you know one who looked to the Lord and whose face was radiant in the scriptures.

And by the way, I do believe we're seeing here uh David reaching back and recalling the Exodus story, and maybe perhaps thinking about the imagery of Moses' glowing face after he'd met with God on the mountain and the the angel of the Lord, verse 7, who was there, who was there with them, who was protecting the Israelites at the Red Sea.

But listen, I I also think about Stephen in the New Testament, in the book of Acts, when he was brought before the council and he was charged with blasphemy, and he was lied about by false witnesses, and he was about to be stoned to death, and whose face it was said was like the face of an angel.

So you can be in a real hard situation, and your face can still be radiant in the Lord.

That's good news.

Do you know what it's like to fix your eyes upon him when no matter what's happening around you or to you personally, to have the expression of your face reflect the expression of a joy-filled heart?

Psalm 34 teaches us how we can know this in our lives.

See, when you seek to, or when you seek the Lord and you cry out to him, and when he is your true refuge, like no one else or nothing else is, he will grant you a sense of the nearness of his presence.

As if you knew that the angel of the Lord was encamped around you.

And in these moments, you will taste.

If you seek him, if you pursue him, you will taste and see that he is good.

Verse 9 tells us to fear the Lord, and we're gonna look at this in just a moment.

Verse 10 talks about the young lions and what David, I think, is doing here.

He's just simply offering a bit of a word picture, a short and concise illustration.

You see, of all uh of all the people or animals in the world, the young lions are the most unlikely to go hungry for very long.

And yet, what David's saying here is listen, even if the young lions are found wanting, if you seek the Lord, you will experience his goodness, and therefore you will have everything that you need.

He will provide for you.

You know, my family this summer we were in Colorado Springs.

That's where my wife's family is, and every time we go there, I'm again struck by the beauty of the Colorado Rocky Mountains, both during the day when the sun is shining, and then at night as you drive towards them and they're like purple during the day, they're like this orangey pink color.

I don't know if any of you have been there.

And and we're fortunate because uh Pauli's parents live like 10 minutes from the national park.

I I think somewhat kind of ironically, is called the Garden of the Gods.

I one one person I was talking to there visiting said he just took off that ass.

He says, This is just the garden of God, and it is just stunningly beautiful.

And so I always look forward to going there.

We you get to walk around the paths there.

It's one of those places where in the parking lot you see like all the states and even some of the provinces on the license plates.

Everyone's just flocking to come and see God's creation.

Um, but another thing I always look forward to uh when I go on vacation or or when I go to Colorado is just enjoying some food, maybe some food that we don't typically get to eat up here.

And so, you know, on this vacation this summer, I enjoyed some really, really nice tasting food, and I saw some beautiful scenery, and and I just wonder if describing that to you today, can you taste it?

Can you see the mountains?

No.

You really can't, right?

You had to be there.

You had to, you had to put the food in your mouth.

You had to open your your own eyes and see the mountains.

And that's precisely what David is saying here.

Look, don't take my word for it.

Don't live on the coattails of someone else tasting and seeing that God is good.

You, each and every one of you, taste and see that the Lord is good.

And he'll meet you right there.

And he will provide for you a glimpse of himself, and you will experience him in a way, maybe like never before, or maybe in a way, again, that you need to experience him, and you will see, and you will testify with your own lips: God is so good.

God is so good.

Make him, church, make him your refuge.

Make the Lord your hiding place, your shelter in the storm.

You might say, Well, okay, tell me, how do I do that?

Just look to this Psalm.

Look at what David is describing here.

Seek the Lord, look to him, cry out to him, live in the fear of him.

And when you do this, he will answer, he will deliver, he will cause his face to shine upon your face, he will hear you, he will save you, he will bless you, and he will ensure that you lack no good thing.

So pursue him.

Pursue him and expect that you will, if you pursue him sincerely and fervently, expect that you will meet him and you will taste and see that he is good.

Nothing else satisfies.

I said we'd come back to the fear of the Lord, and that's where the psalmist really points us to next.

He says, in effect, in verses 11 through 18, the next two stanzas, he says, I told you to fear the Lord, and you want to know what that looks like?

Here's what it looks like: obedience.

Walk in his ways, do what he commands.

If you're taking notes, write this down.

God is so good.

Obey him vigilantly.

Obey him vigilantly.

That's what the psalmist is telling the reader to do.

So far in this psalm, the fear of the Lord has been mentioned a few times.

And here in verse 11, David says, Come, come, O children, listen to me.

I will teach you the fear of the Lord.

As if perhaps he's anticipating that some elaboration might be helpful.

What exactly do you mean when you say fear of the Lord?

What does it look like to live a life that is characterized by the fear of the Lord?

And this Psalm teaches us that the fear of the Lord has everything to do with turning away from evil and doing good.

You know that the world likes to take what is evil and call it good, and vice versa, takes good, what is good and calls it evil, and that's been going on since the beginning of time.

The Word of God tells us here that if we want to enjoy life, if we want to truly encounter the goodness of God, this is what verse 12 is saying.

What man is there who desires life and loves many days that he may see good?

You want to truly enjoy your days on this earth, walking closely with the Lord, then you need to be very careful how you live.

Specifically as it relates to how he has told us how we ought to live and how we ought not to live.

And then with parallelism explains what that means.

He says, who greatly delight in his commandments.

That is one way to define or think about the fear of the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments.

You know, people in the world, and sometimes us too, you know, we don't particularly like commandments.

We don't like being told what to do, and we need to, again, we come together, right, to remind ourselves of truth, to remind one another of truth.

God's commands are good.

Amen.

They're good.

His ways are all good.

When we are walking through this life and he says, stay on this path, it's because it's the good path.

It's good for us to walk in the way that he says.

Verse 13, Psalm 34 says, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.

You know, James in the New Testament says there's a whole world of unrighteousness just ready to go on inside of our mouths.

If we go on disobeying the Lord in how we use our tongues, then we cannot expect to taste and see that the Lord is good.

And so we are warned in this psalm to fear the Lord and to watch our mouths.

And it's such an appropriate place to go when it talks about fearing the Lord, because again, sin is so easily coming again out of our hearts and the overflow of our mouths.

We need to watch the unrighteousness that comes from our tongues.

But it doesn't stop there.

Right?

It doesn't stop there in verse 14.

David says, Turn away from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it.

See, this is holistic in everything.

Across the board, in every single area of life, in every thought, in every action, seek peace.

That means in everything that ruins relationships, we need to vigilantly obey the Lord and live the way that He's commanded us to live.

Another scripture that helps us to think about and define what fear of the Lord look like.

Proverbs 8 and verse 13 says, the fear of the Lord is hatred of evil.

Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech, I hate.

I hate.

Do you think that you can choose a different path than the path that the Lord has has laid out for you, contrary to God's way, and at the same time as that still enjoy the nearness of his presence in your life?

Do you think that you can walk away from the path of God and still taste and see in those moments that he is good and hear answers to your prayers?

Look at the contrast presented in verses 15 and 16.

David says, the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry.

The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth.

So we see that this is true in an ultimate sense.

And we'll even get more to that as we conclude the psalm this morning.

But listen, there's a principle here that's also true for here and now in this life, yes, even in the lives of believers.

The Apostle Peter, writing in 1 Peter in chapter 3, he quotes these very verses from Psalm 34 in order to encourage the church in doing good and at the same time to warn the church of what would happen if they were to persist in sin.

Listen, we we learn from God's word that if we do not fear the fear the Lord, his face will be against us.

But the good news is if we do fear the Lord, if we live the way the Lord commands us to live, his face will be toward us.

One writer says, it is worth whatever it might cost to have one's life revolve around doing good.

Look at verse 17.

When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.

And then verse 18, the Lord is near.

He's near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

Turn away from evil and do good.

Obey the Lord.

Be vigilant about your your living out the fear of the Lord.

Taste and see that he is good.

Finally, this psalm directs us ultimately in this way.

God is so good, trust him confidently.

Trust him confidently.

We see this in the final stanza, verses 19 through 22.

And we see here that the psalmist, he isn't under any illusions that God's people won't ever have to face any difficulties in life if they simply just make sure that they keep on praying.

That's not at all what David is saying.

Many, he says in verse 19, many are the afflictions of the righteous.

See, rather, David's not saying that if we just pursue the Lord, if we worship the Lord, if we obey the Lord, we're never going to experience any afflictions.

Rather, he's conveying that those who take refuge in him, for those of us who seek the Lord, like David seeks the Lord here, the trouble won't ever have the final word.

See how verse 19 ends?

But the Lord delivers him out of them all.

He delivers him out of all of his troubles immediately, not necessarily, sometimes.

Without any pain through it.

Again, maybe, maybe not.

See, it's so important when we look at a text like this.

As we celebrate that when we seek the Lord, he delivers us from all kinds of troubles, that we must remember at the same time that he will deliver us according to his timetable.

Yes, of course, there are times, like David in Psalm 34 with Abimelech, when the Lord changes our circumstances rather quickly, and like I said, when this happens, we need to acknowledge that it was his goodness and it wasn't us or them.

We need to thank the Lord and praise the Lord.

But God's goodness might not always look precisely how we might think or want it to look.

This is what David's getting at here as he concludes the psalm.

You know, he might take your fear away and not necessarily take your pain away.

Sometimes he'll remove us from the storm entirely.

Sometimes he'll allow us to get wet or beaten around by the wind, even knocked down, maybe bruised and bloodied at times.

He may even save you from the troubles of this world by taking you out of this world.

But ultimately, ultimately, he delivers his people.

That's what David is celebrating and wants us to fix our eyes on as we conclude this psalm today.

You know how we know David's thinking ultimately along these lines?

Look at again at verses 21 and 22, how the psalm ends.

Affliction will slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.

The Lord, verse 22, the Lord redeems the life of his servants.

None of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.

See, in our many afflictions, we can trust him confidently because he will not condemn those who take refuge in him, rather, he will redeem us.

To be condemned means to be found guilty and to be given over to the penalty of one's guilt.

On the other hand, to be redeemed means to be bought back by payment of ransom.

Redemption is very much on David's mind as he pens this psalm.

You know, we skipped over verse 20.

And if you know the crucifixion account of Jesus Christ, particularly as it is presented in John's gospel, the words of verse 20 are familiar to you, I'm sure.

We come here to Psalm 34, and maybe we ask this question what's going on?

Why would David say this here?

Why would David say he keeps all his bones?

Not one of them is broken.

I think it's fair to say that these words paint a picture of preservation through.

Affliction.

As if he's saying, you know, it's bad.

It's bad.

It's really bad.

But you're protected.

The hardship doesn't get the final word.

I think also what's going on here is that these words are a further allusion back again to the Exodus account where the Lord instructed that the Passover lamb would be one, none of whose bones were to be broken.

You remember that the Lord tells the Israelites on the night that he's going to deliver them out of Egypt, says, Take the Passover lamb and kill the lamb and paint its blood on the doorpost and over the door of your house.

He says, I'm going to pass over you.

You'll be covered by the blood, but don't break any of its bones.

It appears that what David's saying here is this.

He's saying, just as those who were aligned with the Passover Lamb were saved from God's judgment, so too would those be who were aligned with him.

Walking in the same path as he does throughout Psalm 34.

He's saying, just like there was deliverance back then, there's deliverance here and now if you'll walk in the fear of the Lord, if you will seek the Lord.

And then amazingly, what John is saying as he as he reaches back and he quotes these scriptures and he and he says that they're fulfilled at the death of Jesus Christ, he's saying, listen, David is the greater, or sorry, Jesus is the greater David, and Jesus is the true Passover Lamb.

Not one of his bones was broken.

If you're here today and you're not a follower of Jesus Christ, I don't want you to get the wrong idea here in what we have been looking at and in these commands we've been putting up on the screen, deriving out of God's word on how we are supposed to live our lives.

It's not that we worship the Lord enough and we pursue the Lord enough and we obey the Lord enough and we trust the Lord enough, and then that is what saves us from the penalty of our sin.

That is not what I'm saying.

That is not at all what the word of God is saying.

See, the reality is none of us could ever live good enough.

We all need to be redeemed by the one and the only one who is truly good.

Every single one of us, apart from a redeemer, would be the one in verse 21.

The one who would be condemned, characterized by wickedness and hating righteousness.

But Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into this world to make the ransom payment for sinners.

He gave his life on the cross, he spilled his blood, taking upon himself the judgment for sin, so that all who would look to him in faith, believing that he is the Son of God, He did come, He lived a perfect life, He died a sinner's death, and He rose from the grave.

All who trust in the name of Jesus Christ will be redeemed and brought into His kingdom and become a child of God.

And if that's, if you have not trusted in Jesus Christ today for the forgiveness of your sins, don't read Psalm 34 and hear what I'm saying about living our lives in this way as a means to earn your own redemption, it will never happen.

You need a Redeemer, and that Redeemer is Jesus Christ.

And I want to invite you today to put your faith in him.

See, David writes Psalm 34 from the perspective of one who has been redeemed.

He writes this psalm as one whose sins have been forgiven and who will not have to face the condemnation that he knows he justly deserves.

This psalm doesn't provide all the details of how this all works, but it does, I think we could maybe say, tip its hat forward to the anointed one who would come and whose bones would be kept and not one of them would be broken.

The Lord Jesus Christ came as the afflicted righteous man to rescue sinners so that we could taste and see that the Lord is good.

He is so, so good.

So let me just again in closing encourage you to worship him as redeemer, to pursue him as the one who has redeemed you, to obey him as the one who's redeemed you, and to trust in him as your redeemer.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we give you all the glory today.

We praise you and we give you thanks for giving us your word.

You've given us a window even this very morning through which we can see your goodness.

You are so worthy of praise and blessing and honor.

You are good.

The sum of all your perfections shows for us a picture of goodness.

Lord, we we ask that you would help us to walk in the fear of you.

Help us to seek your face and to bless you continually and to remember your redemption, your ransom payment paid for us in the blood of your Son Jesus Christ, and to live as we wait for him to come again.

Help us to live in your path.

And whatever may come, Lord, to bless you and to praise you, for you deserve it all.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.