A Psalm of Boasting

Our Psalm today is Psalm 34 but we are going to begin in 1 Samuel21. And the reason we are in 1 Samuel 21 is because Psalm 34begins with the superscript that lets us know the occasion in whichthis Psalm was written:

Now we are going to spend a little bit of time on the story whichcreates the context for this Psalm. And there are two reasons forthat. First, I really think we miss some of the major application pointsif we don't recall to mind what was going on in the life of David whenhe wrote this Psalm. Second, I'm going to argue rather strongly for aparticular interpretation of our passage this morning and I want youto see from the Bible itself where this is coming from.

So open your Bible's to 1 Samuel 21 as we begin.

Much of 1 Samuel is the story of David on the run from Saul. Andbelieve me, he's running for his life. We alluded to this briefly lastweek, but I want you to get your head around how panicked andfearful David is during this period of time. This is a critical piece ofthe argument I am going to make. David was so, so scared.

To really appreciate the fear in David's heart, recall what led up tothis. Remember, David was a tremendous success as a young manin Israel.

He had been anointed future king by SamuelHe had defeated the Philistine champion Goliath.The women were singing of him, Saul has killed his thousands butDavid his tens of thousands.

And Saul began to burn with jealousy. And that jealousy slowlyconsumed him. It ate him up. As you read the story of Saul in theOT you can literally trace the progressive control of sin in Saul’s life.

First, you see these impulsive fits of rage where he tries to pinDavid to the wall in the palace.Next, he tries to orchestrate a situation in which the Philistines killhim.Then He tries to bring in his son and his own daughter into the planto kill him.Finally, the guy is just bloodthirsty and begins to hunt him like a wildanimal. He's personally leading the army of Israel to find him andmurder him in cold blood.

Now of course we know how this story ends. David becomes king.And we already know where the story is going and we see this asthe character building years of David. But man, knowing the end ofthe story always wrecks it.

Because of course David doesn't know how all this will end. Andhe's literally running for his life. He's terrified. There are at least 5Psalms that were written during this period of time and they all giveus tremendous insight into David’s emotional condition.

Psalm. 59 begins, A MIKTAM OF DAVID, WHEN SAUL SENTMEN TO WATCH HIS HOUSE IN ORDER TO KILL HIM.

Read the Psalm. David says his enemies are like howling dogs.

These are vicious wild dogs. This is the middle eastern equivalent ofwolves. Picture yourself in the woods late and night and listening tohowling wolves close in on you. Can you rest in any way? How doesDavid feel?

He's lurching at every noise in the bush.He's running and running and running realizing that every secondcounts.Whose going to be that guy who might turn him in?It's just pure terror.This isn't pretend. We aren't playing paintball here.He has seen the rage in Saul's eyes before. He knows this guy isn'tkidding around.His heart pounding out of his chest.

We will pick up this narrative in chapter 21. As the story begins youmy recall that scene where Jonathan is sending signals to David viaarrows. And those signals were supposed to alert David to the factthat Saul was bent on murder. And so after hugging Jonathangoodbye, David fled with a bottle of Gatorade and granola bar. Hedoesn’t have any weapons or protection. He doesn’t have any foodor provisions. This is serious stuff and he had Saul on his tail.

David has absolutely no place to go. So pick it up with me in verseone, he goes to the high priest at Nob. Now look at what David does:

Now David is lying. David is not on a secret mission for the king.He's running away from the king who want to pin his body to the wallwith a spear. Now I don’t think this lie is justifiable. It was certainlyexpedient, but it was not the right thing to do. Dilemmas like theseare called situational ethics. And the reason its called situationalethics is because you wrestle through whether or not a situationchanges your ethics. Is it ever ok to lie? Can you think of a situationwhere lying would be ok? The very fact that this sin is recorded let’sus know that even the great heroes of the Bible struggled with this.

Abraham lied about his wife.Jacob did the same thing.Rahab lied about the spies hiding on the roof.

And is often times the case, the lie seems to meet the need of agiven situation, but it has effects which are not perceived by the liar.That is the case with David. Later Saul is going to find out that thehigh priest helped David. And that is going to enrage him. And Doegthe Edomite will obey the orders of Saul and slay 85 of the high

priests. David did not think about the jeopardy in which he wasplacing the high priest by lying to him.

The point I want to make here is this: what would drive David to dothis? This is a bit out of character for David. I think the answer issimple. David is scared spitless. People who are panicked actirrationally. They do things they wouldn't normally do. And I thinkthat's what we see here.

David says, to the high priest give me the showbread and a swordI'm on a secret mission for the king. So the priest reasons, here isone of the most powerful respected servants of the king, coming tome alone with genuine need. Here is the man who stands next to theking as one of his most important confidants. And he is telling me heis on a secret mission. And the priest says, "Well I guess I can giveyou the showbread. David says, "Do you have any weapons? I hadto leave so fast, I don't even have a sword." The high priest says,well.

Evidently, David after he had killed Goliath had placed that sword inthe tabernacle as a memorial of God’s faithfulness to Israel. So inverse 10

Now that ought to trigger something in your brain. What nationality isAchish king of Gath? Gath is one of the five Philistine cities. Andwho is the most famous Gathite Philistine in the Bible? Goliath.From just what we are told in the record,

David had killed their champion, Goliath,been involved in several raiding parties andslaughtered 200 of them to fulfill a dowry for his wife andnow he going to go parading into the city carrying the sword of theirheadless hero.

That is not going to put you on friendly terms with them. David iswell-known in a bad way. They know who he is.

Now why do I say all that? The fact that David goes to the Philistines

shows you just how desperate he was. I’m not sure what he wasthinking, but he's certainly desperate. Why did he think he would bewelcomed here? David must think he's on the brink of certain deathfor him to decide on such a risky course of action. Verse 11

So David realizes that he is not being received as he hoped and herealizes that he is in real trouble. So he feigns madness.

So the Philistines say the guy is crazy. No wonder he came to usand they let him go.

So that's the background of Psalm 34. Incidentally it is also thebackground for Psalm 56. You have two Psalms both of which creditGod with deliverance from this situation.

Now here's what's interesting. In both of these Psalms, if you didn'thave the superscript letting you know the occasion of the writing ofthe Psalm, I don't think a single person in the world would everguess that it was this drooling into the beard event that prompted thewriting of these two Psalms.

And that actually makes me excited. Anytime you are surprised bysomething in the Bible, there's usually some gold to be discovered.A lot of commentaries skip over the superscript and don't evenattempt to make a connection. They say something like, "Well, weare told the occasion of the Psalm but there is nothing in the Psalmthat connects the narrative of 1 Samuel 21 to the Psalm itself." And

then they just move on and read it generically.

But reading it generically is the exact thing the superscript wants youto avoid. I think the whole point of the superscript is that we wantyou to go back and read the narrative and interpret it in light of theevent. Otherwise you're just bound to make the mistake of reading itgenerically and miss some of the great application.

Overview

So with the narrative in mind, let's look at the Psalm. The Psalm isdivided in two parts. There's a hymn first and then a sermon.

So let's read the hymn first - it's found in the first ten verses. By theway, don't get hung up on the name of the king in the superscript. Ifyou're attentive you will have noticed that the Psalm says Davidchanged his behavior before Abimalech and yet the actual narrativesays the name of the king was Achich. Abimalech was simply thetitle of King. It's like the word Pharaoh. So the Psalm is just using ageneric title whereas Samuel actually names him.

THE PSALM IS AN ACCROSTIC.

Now one of the things you probably can't see in your Bible is thatthis Psalm is an acrostic,

I think one of the thing that tells you is that he wrote this Psalm later.He's had some time to reflect on this. When your freaking out in aprison cell in a Philistine city your not thinking about alliteration,rhyming, and acrostics. He's had some time to meditate.

And what is the conclusion of his meditation? God delivered me!

He says, "I sought the Lord and he answered me and delivered mefrom all his fears."He talks about the angel of the Lord encamping around him.This poor man cried out and the Lord saved him.

Now again, if you didn't know about the context of this Psalm whatwould a person think? An ignorant, flat-out reading without anycontext gives you a certain impression doesn't it? It sound like herewas this guy who was in desperation, he folded his hands to prayand bam, the Lord intervened in some sort of crazy way anddelivered whoever was writing it.

If I had to guess at an event I might have said the cave event, or thespear event, but I would have never guessed this.

Why wouldn't we guess the drooling in the beard event? Becausewhen you go back and read the actual narrative, you get a verydifferent feel. When you read 1 Samuel 21 you get the sense thatDavid is panicking and resorted totally to human means. He throwsdignity to wind. You get the sense that he just lost his nerve andfreaked out and did whatever human thing came to his mind in thatmoment of fear and started drooling and wonder of wonders, itworked! Would you look at that!

And everyone who reads Psalm 34 feels this tension. This Psalmfeels more like a Psalm that Peter should have written, when, while

chained to the wall in prison, the angel of the Lord came andreleased his bonds. Instead we are told that this was a Psalm ofDavid when he performed this weak-backed, trickery that saves hisneck. And it leads to this interpretation question.

Did David pretend to be mad being guided by the Holy Spirit or didDavid pretend to be mad being guided by his fearful impulses?

The reason it's confusing is because this Psalm appears to linktogether this disguise of madness and this great outcome of theLord, so that it might be inferred that the same Spirit by whom helpDavid write this Psalm somehow suggested this strategy to the mindof David, and directed him in deceiving King Achish.

But the whole way that question is framed is wrong. It makes itsound like at any given motive we have either pure motives or faultymotives. Our motives are like a glass of water you scoop up from thepond. There some pure water in their but floating through it andimpossibly mixed into it are all these suspended impurities. I thinkDavid's motives here are impossibly mixed. I think he's half trustingin God and half relying on his own purely fleshly instincts.

The fact that we frame the question in this way, "Did David's trust inGod result in his deliverance?" shows a confused understanding ofGod's blessing. Listen, the blessing of the Lord is not contingent onour performance.

Was David's beard-drool stunt trusting in God or trusting in himself.Yes.

And you want to know what David is doing here? David is reallypraising God for delivering him through the stunt and despite the

stunt.

God does this all the time in our lives. ALL THE TIME.

Do you not think that God has blessed you despite your sin andsometimes even through your sin? I could list a thousand ways inwhich God has blessed my dirty mixed up motives.

Do you remember Jacob. His mother told her Jacob to go in anddeceive his father. And he received the blessing and yet throughsinful means. The sin was Jacob's and his mother's; the blessingwas God's.If a couple get pregnant outside of marriage, it is still the blessing ofGod to give them a child. The sin is theirs. The blessing is God's.I remember one time, I basically didn't consider the feelings of mywife and went on a trip she wasn't super happy about. She let mego but things were not 100% good and I kind of knew it. But I kindof ignored that and went anyway. That trip was the best trip of mylife. The sin of selfishness was mine. The blessing was Gods.

It's certainly tainted. Had the motives been more pure, it would havebeen better.

Jacob's blessing would have been more beautiful had it happenedGod's way.Pregnancy inside of marriage would have been better thanpregnancy outsideMy trip would have been better had I had the full approval of mywife.Perhaps David's deliverance would have been more like Peter's hadhe acted differently.

Sure. We could say this about every day of our life. Psalm 103,Does God treat us according to our inquities? No Way. We sin andinstead of punishment we get blessing. This is the way of God.

It's easy for the prideful to say, "Well, I shouldn't enjoy this blessing.I shouldn't praise God for this blessing because it's a dirty blessing.It's tainted. Should that stop us from praising God for the blessing?Absolutely not. Praise him. Praise him for giving us what we don'tdeserve. Praise him for not treating us according to our iniquities. Allblessing is exactly that: blessing - not wages!"

God is determined to bless his people despite their weakness, sinand poor decision making.

The reason I spent so much time on the introduction is I want to tryto make a strong case that David was terrified, fearful and acting outof pure instinct. It's not that he's outright sinning in the same way aman whose having an affair. He's just reacting. His behavior wasmore animal than human. It really wasn't all that noble. I have a hardtime imaging Jesus doing this as a way to escape from his enemies.I think very little of what he did running from Saul in those initialhours and days was very spiritual. He flat out lied to the priest at noband it cost those 85 priests their life. Read the Psalms while he is onthe run. He's a scared animal and you read mixed motives. And thenhe resorts to these crazy means to wiggle out from underneath thethumb of this Philistine king.

And David's story is very much like anyone else's story. Talk toanyone who is in the throws of suffering. Maybe someone in aserious health struggle, or going through a painful relational issue, orsomeone whose in anguish over a hard decision and what you willsee is genuine cries for help mixed with animal instincts of survival.

People who are really struggling with money feel tons of pressureand they often times resort to increased foolishness with theirfinances. They do faithless things, like ask people in manipulativeways for help. And they get helped. Is that not the blessing of God?

The sin is theirs, the blessing is God's.People who are insecure might be starving for a compliment. Andso they ask

I think when David writes Psalm 34, probably in the cave ofAddulam weeks later as he's reflecting back, he's thinking to himself,man, I was such a fool. What was I thinking, marching into Philistinecountry. I'm like King Achishes worst enemy.

And that whole feigning of madness stunt. I can't believe he didn'tsee right through that. God had to have been just laughing at thestupidity of that attempt. Here I was in my absolute idiocy and Godsaved me! Praise God for delivering me. This is really the angle I'marguing for. Not that God used the madness to deliver David, butGod delivered David, despite the madness.

We titled this Psalm a psalm of boasting. David boasts not in hisown strength, not in his wisdom or cunning. In verse 2 David says,"My Soul boasts in the Lord!" Listen to how he says it. Let thehumble hear and be glad. Let the humble hear about this stunt I triedto pull and be glad!

Last week we defined humility as seeing yourself accurately. If wesee ourselves accurately, we realize that all our perceived control isan illusion. We are creatures of impossibly mixed motives - strokingpride and trying to honor God in the same action. That's reality andto admit it is a step toward humility.

You too, humble person, can be like David. You can pull of a classact stunt of foolishness where you take matters into your ownhands. You can allow your weakness to overtake you and try towrestle situations into your control. And God can save you, even

through it.

So, let the humble rejoice that our hope, our deliverance, ourboasting is in the Lord! God rescues fools. God saves fools who tryto take matters into their own hands.

Again, God is determined to bless his people despite theirweakness, sin and poor decision making.

Do you know how awesome of a truth this is?

The reason this is so rarely preached is that it feels so dangerous. IfI tell you, God will bless you, deliver you, help you despite your sinand maybe even through your sin, what does that do? That's goingto make you sin all the more. Right?

That is where I think the second part of this chapter comes in.Remember we have a hymn and a sermon. The sermon really doesactually address this abuse of Grace, what Bonhoeffer called 'cheapgrace'. If sin increases, then grace abounds. Why not sin all themore so grace can have a hay day? David actually marvelouslyanswers this question in the next section.

There are some beautiful gospel truths here, even in this OT, pre-Jesus, pre-new covenant era.

Remember the question is this: if we concede that God will bless usdespite our failures and sometimes even through our failures, where

does that lead? Won't we just stop caring about our failures?Doesn't that ignore passages about the discipline of the Lord? Howdoes this all fit together?

David says, listen I want to teach you the fear of the Lord given myexperience.

People who fear the Lord won't abuse grace.How do you learn the fear of the Lord?The fear of the Lord is taught to those people who receive the graceof the Lord.

David says, "Do you desire life? (v12) Do you desire to be happy?You want to taste the good things in this world? (v8)"

What's the formula for happiness? Draw near to God to this Godthat blesses even the failures of the world. Discover his path forhappiness.

You want to know why God wants this truth preached, you want toknow why God wants grace preached and proclaimed and sharedand spread in your family and among your friends? You want toknow why grace is more powerful than law?

Because sin looses it's power when we see the superior satisfactionof obedience in God. We are so scared to preach the grace of Godbecause we think, well man, the sinner is going to try to eat his cakeand have it too. He's going to try to participate in as much sin aspossible and then get forgiveness and blessing.

But David is correcting this. No! Listen my friend. Do you wanthappiness? Think back to that time that God blessed you despiteyour sin. If that is what God gives you when you sin and when you

spurn him and when you disobey him and when you ignore him andwhen you wrestle the control out of his hands, imagine what hegives you when you obey him, when you turn away from evil and dogood!

Taste and see that the Lord is good! Taste. Do what he says andtaste. Compare. Lay them side by side. Does this not taste betterthan that!

Let the blessing of the Lord through failure drive you to theincreased blessing of the Lord through obedience.

We actually have to allow God to bless us. We can accept wageseasy enough. In fact we get mad if we feel like we didn't get ourwages. But a blessing we didn't deserve is super hard to accept. Ifailed. I was sneaky. I wasn't entirely truthful and you blessed meanyway. Yes. And God blessed me anyway. Let me just speakpersonally. When I replay the motive video of my life, I see anembarrassing list of failures.

Why did you go into ministry, Jason? Well, I certainly loved theLord and wanted to serve him, but it sure didn't hurt that if you workhard and do a good job you get the praises of men.Why did you get married, Jason? Well, I certainly loved Lisa but Iwas 100 times more focused on what Lisa did for me. I wasn'tready to die to self and give my life up for her and serve her at everyturn. I wanted her to give to me.Why do you discipline your kids Jason? Well, I certainly love themand want them to experience the Love of following Jesus, but I alsoam super bugged and their sin inconveniences me and I want thatto stop, now.

What should my wages be for that stunt? What should my wages befor that kind of beard-drooling class act of foolishness. ZERO. And

then I look at my life and I say, "God why do you continue to blessme when my motives are so impure and mixed? Why do youcontinue to bless and bless and bless me when I look at the bigpicture and there is so, so little that is commendable. Gross."

When that moment of realization hits, you have a choice. You canrefuse to accept the grace and only accept wages which will only re-enforce habits of sin OR you can accept the grace and just praiseGod for his good character which will drive you to sin less.

God that you for blessing even the drool on my beard! What a goodGod you are!

David says, Those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. If youobey God, you will experience a type of blessing such that you willnot feel the need to sin to get more blessing. You will haveeverything you need!

Listen to the sheer joy of this guy who is seeking God.

the humble are what? Glad.those who look to HIM are what? their faces are radiant!taste and see that the LORD is good. How happy is the man whotastes this goodness!The Lord delivers, he comforts, he provides, he protects, andredeems.

Seek peace and pursue it.