SHARE YOUR TESTIMONY - Psalm 34

[Applause]

Oh man. Yeah. I feel like I should have

like dual membership, you know what I

mean? Like membership here. And our home

church is First Baptist Church of

Kennedy. That's where I pastored the

last 10 years uh before taking on this

new role as uh director of missions. And

so excited to have your church on board

with that. And we got a lot of exciting

stuff that we're doing. We got a

incredible fall planned as well. And so

I'm not going to give you the

commercial. I'll just say if you want to

learn more about the association and

what we do, you can get with Pastor

Roland. He can give you he and Eric can

both give you the links to the websites

and all that kind of stuff. So, you can

go check that out and we'd love to have

you uh be informed and we send out a

weekly email every Monday with tons of

info. So, if that interests you, we can

add you to our email list. Well, this

morning, enough about that. This

morning, this morning I want to ask you

a question. Do you have a

testimony that wasn't rhetorical? Let me

try again. Do you have a testimony

today? My encouragement to you this

morning is if you have a

testimony, tell it. If you have a

testimony, tell it. Now, um, weeks

ago, I walked into the memorial prison

unit. Used to be called the Daringer

Prison Unit. This is a max security

prison unit for men. Hold up to about

2,000 men. This is the worst offenders,

the worst of the worst. Really, you walk

through those doors, the day, the gate

closes behind you. The first sign you

see

is we do not

negotiate. What does that mean? If they

take you hostage, you're on your own.

Not very comforting, right? We walk

through the hallway.

prisoners just walking about. Guards are

there. I'm looking at these guards. I'm

like, I don't think that guy can protect

me. I don't know. I'm a little nervous,

you know. We go out the side door and we

enter into a two-story building. Used to

be their gymnasium. It's been remodeled.

And on the bottom floor, there's a

library, there's classrooms, there's

meeting space. On the top floor there's

there's office space. And I walk into a

room and there's about a dozen uh

inmates there.

Grove Norwood has arranged for these

inmates to share their

testimony. And these men tell me, they

all start out, I'm x amount of years

into an ex prison sentence, whatever it

is. And some of

them, I'm 20 years into a

life prison sentence. There is no hope

of parole for some of these men. The

worst things you can think of that would

land you in a prison like that, these

guys have done. And yet they sit

here at the Heart of Texas Foundation

College of Ministry being trained to be

ministers to those in the prison unit.

They're only chosen because they have

long sentences. Because the Heart of

Texas Foundation College of Ministry

wants to invest in inmates that will be

in the prison system in Texas for a long

time so that they can minister to

many and they're sharing their

testimony. And I got to tell you, I

mean, it we had two rounds of this.

Grove is the uh he's the founder and uh

the CEO of this ministry. It's a really

incredible thing. He he set this up

where there was two rounds of about 12

or so inmates that sat in front of me to

share with me. Some of them shared why

they were there. Others just shared some

statistics. But but there was one thing

in common among all but one. Visited

with over 20. And all but one said this.

At my lowest

moment, when I knew I was going to

prison, someone reached out to me with

the gospel. In my darkest days, someone

shared the light of Christ with me, and

it changed my life. And it didn't make

things totally easy. Didn't didn't end

all the trials that I was going through,

but I knew things had changed for me.

This was the

testimony of these men. And I almost

cried, but I thought you you you can't

cry in prison in front of inmates. I

mean, you just, you know, so you just

kind of gota, you know, uh, toughen up a

little bit. But it was incredible to

hear their testim. That was their

testimony. And I got to tell you, I felt

privileged that they would tell

it to me.

In their lowest moment, the Lord lifted

them up out of the pit of despair and

brought them hope. I wonder if perhaps

that sounds something like your

testimony

today. Maybe your testimony is a little

bit messy like that. Maybe your

testimony is incomplete. You're still

going through it. Maybe your your

testimony is is not something you just

want to share with everyone. might be

even a little embarrassing. I don't

know. But that was their testimony and

they told it to me. What an honor. I

want to encourage you today. God has

given you a

testimony. So tell it. When you tell it,

it glorifies God. When you tell it, it

helps others. When you tell it, it

confirms in you the work that God has

done in your life. And when you tell it,

I don't know about you, but when you

tell that

testimony, there's

joy to recount the goodness of God. So

even if your testimony is embarrassing,

incomplete, even if your testimony is

messy, tell it. And that's what David

did. Many of you know David in the Bible

is pretty well-known guy. If you've read

the Bible much, you probably heard that

name. He was anointed by a guy named

Saul. Saul was a

prophet and King Saul had failed God. He

was the first king over

Israel. And so God said, "I'm going to

anoint a new king and it was David." And

as you can imagine, if you have a an

existing king and then a new king is

anointed and the new king's pretty good

at the fighting, you know, and so he's

got a lot of battles. He's won so many

battles. People would sing songs about

how good he was at the battling. And so

everybody's really impressed with David.

You can imagine King Saul, he felt

intimidated by that. He he felt

threatened by that, rightfully so. And

what does he do? He tries to kill David.

Not once, not twice, many times he tries

to end David's life. And David goes on

the

run. He is scared. He is afraid for his

life for good reason. He goes on the run

and he says, "Where could I go that they

would never find me? They would never

guess. I went

to there. Where was there? There was a a

place called Gath. Now, Gath is the

hometown of a guy named

Goliath. Again, if you know the story of

David, you even if even if this is your

first time to church, if it is, praise

God. I'm so glad you're here. You're at

a great church with a great staff and

great people. And I hope you'll make

this place home. If you're unfamiliar

with the Bible, you probably still know

the name David and Goliath. You probably

know the story a little bit that David

defeats Goliath. It was not paper rock

scissor. It was I kill you, I cut your

head off. So it was like, you know, it

was a total victory in

battle. And so he says, I'll go to the

place where Dave where where Goliath is

from. I don't know if he's just so

scared he's not thinking straight, but

you know what happens when he shows up?

when he shows up. 1st Samuel chapter 21

tells a

story. On that day, David fled from Saul

and went to Akish, king of

Gath. David, it says, was very much

afraid. Verse 12 of 1st Samuel

21. He's so afraid he does

[Music]

something crazy. Like literally crazy.

He acts crazy. He acts insane. He acts

like my children do when I give them a

chore at the house. Like, what happened

to you? Why do your arms and legs no

longer work? He's drooling all over and

he's acting mad. And the king of Gath

said, "I don't need this. Get him out of

here." It was in a crazy, insane way,

literally, how David escaped from the

hands of the king of

Gath. Uh 1st Samuel 22 tells us he

leaves and he goes and he hides in a

cave, the cave of Adulum. And we think

that it might have been in this cave

that David writes

Psalm 34.

So, I want to invite you to turn over

with me to Psalm 34 if you haven't done

so

already. You'll find at the very

beginning before you get into verse one,

a description of that psalm, which is

not uncommon in the Psalms. There's

there's often some little

description and it says Psalm 34 of

David when he pretended to be insane

before Aimilec. Now, that is the

Philistine title for a king. His his

actual name, Akish.

Philistine title for him,

Aimilec, who drove him away and he left.

Here's what I find amazing about

this. If I'm David, I'm not really proud

of the fact that I was fearful of Saul

and I ran and hid. I'm not really proud

of the fact that the the Gath Goliath, I

killed that guy. Now I'm back in his

hometown and I'm still afraid. Now I'm

afraid of the king.

I I wouldn't be necessarily excited to

share a testimony of fear in the

presence of

enemies. And David said, "I'm going to

write this

down. I'm going to make it a song.

People are going to sing this." Can you

imagine that? Not only that, but a

little interesting tidbit. Psalm 34 is

what's called an acrostic psalm. So,

every letter of the Hebrew alphabet

would form the first word of every line

of the psalm. Now in this psalm they get

one I think it's the six line is off but

pretty much it falls that way. Why would

they do that? It's almost like creating

a poem and every line starts with A and

then the next one B and the next one C.

That's kind of what they do. Why would

you do that? So you would remember

it. David's saying, "I've got a

testimony. I'm not proud of it, but I'm

proud of what God did. I want you to

know it. I want you to sing it. I want

you to remember it.

and he writes Psalm 34

perhaps hid out in a

cave. He writes it for us to

read. I won't read all of it, though

we're going to touch on quite a few

points, but I do want to read some of it

to you. As we do so, uh what I often do

is I invite people to stand for the

reading of God's word. So, if you're

able to stand, would you stand with

me? Psalm 34.

In verse one, listen to how David starts

this psalm. I will extol the Lord at all

times. His praise will always be on my

lips. I will glory in the Lord. Let the

afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the

Lord with me. Let us exalt his name

together. I sought the Lord and he

answered me. He delivered me from all my

fears. This is David's

testimony and he told it and now we've

heard it. Let's pray. Father God, I

thank you for this chance to come to

your word and examine this beautiful

psalm. We know that even though David is

the hand in which you use to write it,

you stand behind him and all of

scripture as the author.

And so we come to you now as the author

not only of your word, but the author of

our

lives that you are writing for us a

testimony. And I believe this morning

you're calling us to tell

it. Help us to do just that. So I pray

this morning, Father, that you'd clear

our minds of all the distractions that

could be filling it up.

you'd soften our hearts that your word

might find fertile ground to take

root. Father, you'd ready our hands that

we may leave this place and live it.

This we pray in Jesus name.

Amen. So, what is your testimony this

morning? You may be seated. What is your

testimony this morning? Whatever your

testimony is, I want to encourage you to

tell it. When you read the entirety of

Psalm 34, you get kind of a picture of

of what could be the content of our

testimony. What was the content of

David's testimony? He talks about being

afflicted. Verse

two. Verse two, afflicted carries with

it some of the similar ideas that we

find throughout the psalm. Being poor,

being troubled. Troubled's mentioned

many times. You can imagine David

felt afflicted and in trouble. It

carries with it the idea of being in

over your head. Have you ever been in

over your head? Some of you just

graduated high school, right? You're

about to enter into college. If you

don't feel in over your head, you

should, right? Going to that first job,

you feel in over your head. You get

married in over your head. You have kids

in over your I mean, this is a common

occurrence in our lives that you and I

are going to feel at moments in our

life. We're in over our head.

You take a shepherd boy and you make him

king. And the current king is out to

kill him. I would fill in over my head.

David says, "I am

afflicted." He

says, "I'm in trouble." He says, "I'm

poor. I am in

need and God provided." That is his

testimony and he told it. And maybe

that's your testimony today. A second

category is fearful. We've already

covered this again. Some of the things

you and I can be fearful of makes total

sense. You share that with someone else.

You say, "Here's the

diagnosis. Here's the bills and here's

the bank account." Like, there's there's

good reason to be

afraid. David wasn't, you know, being

weak or wuss. People really did want him

dead and he was

fearful but God

delivered. And what's he say? We read in

verse four, he delivered me from all my

fears. So it may be fears about the

future. It may be fears about this

current

moment. It may be fears you can put your

finger on. Or it may be just a

generalized fear that you feel. But

right now, that's your testimony. and is

God going to bring you through and give

you the courage to face the next moment.

Third and final category that I think we

can find in Psalm 34, I think is perhaps

the the ground on which we could stand

and have one of the stronger

testimonies is the brokenhearted. It may

be one of those verses that you know out

of Psalm 34, even if you don't know

Psalm 34. Well, verse 18, he says, "The

Lord is close to the brokenhearted and

save those who are crushed in spirit."

Some of the people I know that have the

strongest testimony have gone through

heartbreak. Perhaps the the the greatest

heartbreak of all is losing someone you

love, someone close to you.

And the testimony

is the pain didn't all just fade

away. Everything didn't just become

okay, but God drew near. God walked with

me and it got a little bit easier. See,

maybe maybe that's that's your testimony

this morning. Your testimony might be,

I've been

afflicted, but God brought me out. I've

been fearful, but God gave me her

courage. I've been brokenhearted, but

God gave me comfort. I don't know what

your testimony is today. Maybe something

completely different than those three,

but I want to encourage you. Whatever

your testimony is, tell

it. Here's some ways I think you could

tell it. I think you could show up at

work tomorrow and tell

it. You kids, you start back to school

in the in a couple months. I think you

could show up to school and with your

classmates, you could tell

it. I think you could show up to your

small group or Sunday school class next

Sunday and you could tell

it. I think after church today, you

could get on the social medias on the

Facebooks and the Twitters and all that

stuff. And whatever you do, wherever

whatever you use, if you use any of

that, and you could tell it. There's no

end to the number of ways in which you

could tell your

testimony. But if God has brought you

through

something and you have a

testimony, tell it. And here's what I

hope happens this morning. I hope by the

end of our service, by by the end of our

time together today, God has clarified

for you what testimony he wants you to

share and how he wants you to share it.

It may be around the lunch table even

today.

But if God has given you a testimony

like he gave David and it may be messy,

it may be incomplete, you may not be

entirely proud to tell it, but tell it

anyways because that's the testimony

that God has given you. But I think

there's a reality is that sometimes that

testimony, we're in the middle of it,

right? What do we do in the middle of

it? Here's something else I learned

about this psalm is that, you know,

there's different categories of psalm.

You probably heard that there's praise

psalms and uh this one is a wisdom

psalm. Wisdom psalms stand out because

usually there's two things that mark a

wisdom psalm. There is a

teaching and part of that teaching has

to do with the fear of the Lord. Both

those are present in this psalm. And

that tells us something. David intends

to instruct us in this psalm.

He is using his most challenging moments

in his life or some of them and he says,

"I've learned from this. God has taught

me something in the midst of this. I

want others to hear this too. So let me

teach them

something." And you see it right here in

verse 11. Come my children, listen to

me. I will teach you. I will teach you.

I think David by example and by his very

uh very words in the text teaches us two

things. When you feel like my testimony

is incomplete, I don't know if it's time

to tell it. I'm right in the middle of

it. I haven't seen the end of it. I

don't know how God's going to work this

out. I want a testimony and I want to

tell it, but I'm just not there

yet. I think we can find in Psalm 34 two

instructions that are very helpful to

us. The first one is to seek him. And

the second one is to fear

him. When you're in the midst of God

building a testimony into your life,

seek him. This is not a hard one, right?

Like when you're in the middle of it,

what do we do? We are more than willing

to pray when times are tough, when when

we're facing challenges, when we're in

over our head, when we're fearful, when

we're afflicted, like we don't have a

problem praying in those moments.

But here's something you and I know.

It's not a one-time prayer. We keep

coming back to him. Verse four, I sought

the Lord. Verse five, look to him. Verse

six, this poor man called out. Verse 17,

the righteous call out. Carried with it

the idea of refuge, a place to go and

hide, a safe place to be.

We seek

him in incomplete in the middle of the

stream

testimony. We seek him. Not only that,

we fear him. Again, fearing the Lord is

a key component to a wisdom psalm, which

this one

is. And David teaches the people to fear

the Lord. But what's interesting, so if

you look at verse 11 through 14, this is

where he talks about it. Come my

children, listen to me. and I will teach

you the fear of the Lord. Now, when we

think of that, we may think of fear as

in trembling, cowering, scared, and

afraid. And I think if I was in the

presence of God literally, like if like

if he just showed up and and he

manifested himself in this place in a

unique

way, that's probably exactly what I

would do. I don't think I would say,

"Hey guys, man, it's great to see you.

So glad you're here. How have you been?"

You know, I I think I'm pretty sure I

would cower. I would fall to the ground.

In fact, every time an angel of the Lord

shows up in the Bible, seems like people

are just falling to their face because

the sight of God or the representative

of God is awe

inspiring. But I don't think that that's

what David's talking about

here. It's not an emotional reaction to

the presence of

God. It is a decision of the

will. A decision of the will to do what?

Because when you're in the middle of the

testimony, you and I may be

tempted to reach out to many other

things to try to deal with our fears,

deal with our

affliction, deal with our

needs. We may become frustrated that God

is not acting quickly enough on our

behalf.

we may reach to something

else. And David says,

"Listen, I want you to fear him." And

then he tells us what that

means. He says in verse 13, "Keep your

tongue from evil, your lips from telling

lies. Turn from evil and do good. Seek

peace and pursue it." When he says fear

of the Lord, what he's saying is I want

you to have such awe, such respect of

God, that you want to honor him even

when it's hard. See, if you're a

Christian here this morning, it's not

too difficult to honor God when it's

life is easy. But when life gets

hard, those are the moments of testing

that God is using to develop your

testimony. And the question is, will you

fear the moment or will you fear God?

Will you give into the moment or will

you give God free reign in your

life? For example, when the money's low

and God still says, "I want you to

give." When the schedule's full and God

says, "I still want you to

serve." Those are the moments that God

is building a testimony and he wants to

build that in you. And when you have it,

you can tell it.

When you have that testimony, my

encouragement to you today is find a

way, find a people and tell

it. Your testimony may be messy. It may

be in some ways even embarrassing and it

may be

incomplete. Well, that's

David. That's it. You're you're in the

same boat as David.

And yet he told

it. He told it anyways. He told it in

such a way that the people could

memorize it. He told it in such a way

that they could sing it. He told it in

such a way that he would instruct them.

He would teach them in the midst of

it. And one of the things he

writes is it's a prophetic word and it's

a promise.

And if you read Psalm 34, it may be one

of those verses you just fly

by, but I want to double click on it.

Look at it with

me. Verse

20. He protects all of his

bones. Not one of them will be

broken. And you may be thinking, really,

that

one? You know, we're winding up. It's

getting close to lunch. We're going to

end on that one. Yeah, we're going to

end on that one.

It's a prophetic word and it's a

promise. The promise to David

is it's not going to be easy, but I will

sustain

you and this will be your

testimony. Saul still wanted him dead.

He could not go back into Gath because

the king of Gath wanted him

dead. Many challenges laid before. If

you know David's life, you know this is

not the last moment he is going to be

afflicted, in trouble,

challenged. Many more moments will come,

but it's a promise. I've got my hand on

you. I'm going to look out for you. I am

going to protect

you. Your body may be beaten up, but

your bones will not be broken.

It's a promise, but it's also a

prophetic

word. If you fast forward to the New

Testament, the writer of John, which is

John, I don't know if you knew

that, the Apostle

John saw those words in Psalm 34 and

through the Holy Spirit's inspiring him

to write the Gospel of John saw the

connection between what David went

through and what Jesus has gone through.

Now, mind you, many of Jesus's

disciples have run

away, but John's there at the moment of

his

crucifixion. When you're leading a

movement and everyone abandons you, does

that look like a complete

victory? It looks

incomplete. When you've been beaten so

severely that once they hang you upon

the cross, it doesn't take long for you

to

die, that is messy. I don't know if

you've ever seen The Passion of the

Christ. I know it's an old movie now,

but it's a pretty good description, a

pretty good visual picture of what

happened to Jesus. It was messy.

He's hanging there in front of the few

friends that he has at that moment and

his family, including his mother, and

he's either completely naked or really

close to

it. An embarrassing moment perhaps for

for you and me. I don't know what it was

like for

Jesus. And there he

is. And he's died so quickly that they

don't have to come and break his legs.

Is that what you That's what you would

do. The day is coming to an

end and the prisoners aren't dead yet.

And they would push up on the nails that

went through their feet so that they

could get a breath of air into their

lungs and it was a long excruciating

death which you know that's where we

actually get the word excruciating from

is from the word that we get or from the

Greek word for

cross. And when you couldn't push up any

longer, you

asphyxiated. And if you broke the legs

of the people on the cross, they could

not push up any longer and it would

hasten their

death. But Jesus had already died and so

they didn't break his legs. Story is

told in John

John 19:36

19 verse 36. It's a prophetic word.

these things happen so that the

scripture would be fulfilled. Not one of

his bones will be broken. Psalm

Psalms 34:20

34:20. What's that tell you? I'll tell

you what it tells

me. David had this

promise. Yeah, life's going to beat you

up, but I'm going to protect

you. Jesus lived a promise. Though he

would be killed, he would rise again.

And your greatest testimony and mine if

you're a Christian

today is that it doesn't matter what

happens in this life. There is a life to

come. That is our greatest testimony.

Death is not the verdict for us who

trust in

Jesus. There is more to come.

That's our greatest testimony that it

doesn't matter what happens to me in

this life, I have eternal life. Reminds

me of a a quote from one of CS Lewis's

books and he talks about that all of

life is like the introduction to a book

and at the close of this life we enter

into chapter one and he says this is the

great story which no one on earth has

read which goes on forever and ever in

which every chapter is better than the

one before. your testimony of mine. Our

greatest testimony is the incomplete

one. It's a here but not yet one. It's

yes, life is hard. It's challenging.

We're going to get beat up, but our

bones will not be broken. We have a

future ahead of us that's greater than

what's behind us. We go from being dead

in sin to alive in Christ. We go from

being blind from birth, but now we see.

We go from being lost to being found. We

go from heading to hell to heaven being

our home. We turn from sinners to

saints. We go from enemies of God to

children of God. What greater testimony

is there than this and that's

yours. So tell

it. Father God, we thank you for your

word. God, what an incredible word it is

that that David in the midst of his

fear had this testimony of your goodness

and couldn't help but worship you in the

midst of it. And may we do the

same. Help us, Father, to see that you

are writing our testimony. And it

doesn't have to be complete for us to

tell

it. But there are those in our lives

that need to hear

it. Give us the boldness, the courage to

share

it. This we pray in the name of Jesus.

Amen. It might be for you this morning

that God has given you a testimony. It

might be one of salvation that we just

talked about or it might be God bringing

you through some pretty challenging

circumstances. Have you shared that with

anybody

lately? Who could you share that to

with? When could you do that? Would you

use this invitation to talk to God about

that? To come to some clarity about that

and make a decision even this morning.

I'm going to tell that testimony to

these people. Would you do that? But for

some of you this morning, it might be I

want that testimony that seems

incomplete. I want that testimony that

it doesn't really matter what happens

between now and the end of my life. I've

got heaven as my home. I want that

testimony, but I don't have it

yet. I've been reading through Romans.

Some of my favorite parts of Romans is

talking about salvation.

And he talks about how let today be the

day of

salvation. What I think Paul is saying

is don't

wait. Walk out of here with that

testimony today so that you can walk out

of here and tell it to somebody

today. And you've got your your pastors

here this morning, Pastor Row and Pastor

Eric. They're going to stand down front.

They're going to be available to pray

with you. So it might be prayers for the

courage to share your testimony or it

might be prayers to invite Christ to

take over your life so that you are

living testimony when you leave this

place today. However the Lord leads as

the worship team leads us, let's respond

to him.