Have you been in situations where you were hit by debilitating anxiety? Maybe it's the thought of starting your career off in an economic recession where businesses are less willing to take risks. Or perhaps you’ve been working for awhile and you’re seeing your investments nosedive in value. For others, you could be worried about what to with your money after working for a while. Today’s psalm gives us a real picture of what it’s like for a Christian to work through anxiety.
(A) Fight anxiety with Godward praise (Ps 34:1-7)
Psalm 34 was written by David in a specific season of his life. He wrote it when he changed his behaviour before Abimelech, so that he drove him out and he went away. This incident is recorded for us in 1 Samuel 21:10-15. Saul, the first King of Israel was threatened by the God given success of David and the favour David was beginning to accrue with God’s people. Instead of accepting God’s divine rejection, Saul sought to kill David, and so, David went on the run. We do not know why, but David ran to Achish: one of the rulers of the 5 major Philistine cities. Maybe he wanted to serve Achish as an anonymous mercenary or perhaps he thought that serving with Achish would give him his best protection against Saul.
David fled to Achish but when he arrived, the people recognised him and they knew that he killed many (1 Sam 21:10-11). Furthermore, these words of praise were said about him defeating the Philistines - the very people he was seeking refuge with. They know what he had done against their own people. David had a reason to be very afraid because his plan had completely backfired and he is now vulnerable and exposed, in the hands of the people of Gath. Have you experienced a similar desperation and felt powerless? What did you do? See what David did.
David changed his behaviour before them and pretended to be insane, and Achish releases him (1 Sam 21:13). It is an extremely unlikely resolution to a completely disastrous situation, and it could also surprise us. But see God’s faithful protection of David in his moment of desperation.
This therefore forms the context and backstory to psalm 34, and helps us to better understand the psalm.
David commits to blessing the LORD at all times, with praise for Him continually being in his mouth (Ps 34:1). Last week, we read about what it means to bless God. It is common to hear of God blessing his people like “May the LORD bless his people with peace” in which the LORD is invoked to speak a good word about his people for their well-being. And we learned that for a human to bless the LORD, it is for us to speak about God’s character like his goodness and generosity to his people. In the vocalization of God’s worthy attributes back to him, we affirm his character, we agree with it, we celebrate it, thank him for it, we are reliant and dependant upon his character and we bask in it.
Notice too, how it will take place “at all times” — indicating that it is a perpetual act. Its frequency says something of its significance! To mortal humans, this reminds us of how finite we are and how infinitely good God is. This is a perpetual, never-ending praise of God for who He is is well-deserved! But David also knows that perpetual praise of God at all times and continually is needed for his own soul.
David’s soul also makes its boast in the LORD (Ps 34:2). If Psalm 34:1 was done in solitude, Psalm 34:2 is conscious of how his words have an impact on others. To boast in the LORD is to talk with pride & satisfaction in the LORD so that others might know of his goodness. David’s soul boasting would mean that such conviction of the goodness of God would be pressed out from the inner man fully agreeing and committing to declare the goodness of God to others. When his physical mouth boasts, it is in complete agreement with his whole person. The prophet Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 9:24, speaks a word from the LORD about how God’s people are to boast: “but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”
What good comes from this boasting in the LORD? The humble will hear and be glad (Ps 34:2). It is God’s explicit desire that God would be known. It is his desire that we know his character and what Hee delights in. And if we are to be proud of anything, let it be that we know the living God. This is not just for our own personal good, to rein in our own tendencies of pride and self-centeredness but also that others might hear of God and be made glad.
His boasting finally ends with an open invitation to others to magnify the Lord and praise His name together. In Psalm 34:3, David progressively moves from individual worship, to public declaration to open invitation of others to join him in magnifying the LORD and exulting his name together. It is a beautiful picture of what worship looks like in the life of a believer. It doesn't stop at the personal level of marveling at God and praising him, but it spills out to telling others about his goodness and explodes into a loud host of God’s people singing together.
This psalm reminds us that worship is not about whether we sing well or whether we enjoy music. Worship goes beyond our preference of musical styles and musical abilities. The focus, for the Christian, is the content of the song to be sung. Praise and worship is about God, and we are called to join us voices with others to magnify his name. Paul picks up on this in the New Testament, when he wrote to the church in Ephesus in Ephesians 5:19-20. He exhorted them to walk in love, “addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Are you part of a local church where you regularly meet to join voices and praise God? Our instinctive response to anxiety is to curl up and worry on our own. The beauty of church is that when we are stuck in our own anxieties, God’s gathered people, magnifying Him through song, pulls us out of ourselves. It is an earnest, warm hug of a reminder of who God is to us individually and collectively, it brings us to the realization of the smallness of our troubles and the greatness of our God.
The beauty of congregational worship is that you realize you are not alone in your struggles with anxiety and there are many saints from different walks that are bringing their own struggles to God and find their rest in him.
The beauty of congregational worship is that everyone there has to set aside their own preferences to join voices in unison to praise God together in a meaningful way.
Psalm 34 calls us to join a local church where we can meaningfully look around and say: Oh, magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together! We fight anxiety by worshipping God at all times continually, and with God’s gathered people.
The beauty of church is that it is God’s gathered people and when we sing together, we are drawn out of ourselves. We see the smallness of our troubles and the greatness of God. We realise that are are not alone in our struggles and see that other saints and also struggling and finding their rest in Him.Congregational worship also means we all set aside our preferences and turn our eyes away from ourselves!
We see how David sought the LORD and God answered and delivered him from his fears (Ps 34:4,6). Psalm 34:4 Psalm 34:6 are recollections of things that happened in the past and have a similar pattern — David did something and God did something. Both Psalm 35:5 and Psalm35:7 summarises the truths about God that he has learnt. He learnt that those who seek God will not be disappointed at what they find (Ps 34:5). Those who see Him and HIs glory will have their countenance changed and be radiant.
Do we reflect on what God has done in our past and allow the lessons learn to be carried forward into our future? And in our own difficult times and anxious situations, do we turn to God and acknowledge our own helplessness? Are we self-sufficient or do we realise our utter and complete helplessness?
Do we also think that what we are experiencing is too trivial or that God does not care? See David’s example here — he turns to God and is not disappointed! David’s experience is that God hears, God answers and delivers out of all his fears and troubles. God may not answer it in the way that we expect or want, but he will deliver us completely.
David also shares honestly about his story of deliverance — this whole psalm is dedicated to it. Do we desire to hear each other’s story of deliverance? As we gather in our local churches, one way is to ask those around us about how God has delivered them, and be encouraged by their testimonies! We fight anxiety by declaring and hearing of God’s grace and faithfulness.
(B) Fight anxiety with Godly reverence (PS 34:8-14)
David exhorts his readers to taste and see God’s goodness (Ps 34:8). Taste is a wonderful analogy because David is calling the readers to a personal experience. It is not enough to read of David’s account of God’s faithful deliverance. David is calling them to experience God for themselves. He is confident that those who seek and find God will not be disappointed. He calls people to come and know God personally.
One of the ways we taste God is to take refuge in Him and find true protection. We place our vulnerable selves in Him and we find protection, and an experience of His goodness there.
In 1 Peter 2:3, Peter also tells believers to long for God’s word in the way infants long for milk. It is through our knowledge of God through His word that we come to repentance and faith that leads to salvation. This means that if you have repented of your sins, and put your faith in Christ’s finished work on the cross, you have tasted that the LORD is good. You have ultimate refuge from God’s righteous anger which was poured out on Christ, and you can taste the goodness that flows out of that: you now have access to God, communion and fellowship with Him. If you are reading this and not yet a follower of Christ, speak with a Christian! Like David we want to share with you the meaning of knowing God’s goodness by experiencing it for yourself.
These verses show us how we fight anxiety by taking up God’s invitation to experience him for ourselves.
David also exhorts his readers to fear the LORD, “for those who fear him have no lack” (Ps 34:9). What does it mean to fear God? Matthew 10:26-28 tells us that the fear of God is rightly acknowledge His power and rule in this world. In Matthew, the fear of man is contrasted with the fear of God. God knows and sees all sins, and what is done in the dark will be revealed and brought to light. Therefore, we are told not to fear those who kill the body only, but rather, fear the One who can also destroy both body and soul in hell.
Hebrew 12:28-29 goes on to describe God as our consuming fire. But God is not just to be held at arms length. Hebrews also tells us to approach Him with reverence and awe, and we are receiving a Kingdom that cannot be shaken! If we have tasted that God is good and are saved by our faith in Christ then we have received the kingdom that cannot be shaken. Fearing God then means to thankfully approach God to worship him in awe, but also to reverence and fear him knowing he is a consuming fire. So we obey his commands, we submit to his discipline when we go astray, and we respect his rule over our lives.
We can thankfully approach him because he has already poured out judgement on Christ for our sins. But we revere Him knowing that He still hates sin and we do not take Christ’s death for granted. David is trying to point us to this. Fear and reverential awe of God is how we are to live our lives. He assures us that when we live in the right fear of God, we will lack no good thing.
How is this fear imparted? This is taught (Ps 34:11). It is not created in our own minds and neither is it an amalgamation of our experiences. It is dictated by God and HIs word. He shows us how to live our lives. Will we revere God in the way He dictates and has shown us in His word? What do we do with God’s word?
Psalm 34:13-14 also provide small glimpses into how we can fear God. We are to keep our tongue from evil and lips from speaking deceit. It also changes our actions, as we turn away from evil and do good, and seek peace and pursue. shows us how we can fear God. Fearing God has practical implications on how you live your everyday life. How do we know whether we fear God? Psalm 34 calls us to observe our actions and speech. Are our actions acts of peace or do you wake up and choose deception and evil? If we say we fear God, it needs to permeate into our everyday actions. Are we a God fearing people from what we do and say?
It is also important to read these verses in context. David is not just primarily focused on the actions. After all, those who do not know God can also do these things. But the difference lies in the motivation — is it out of a fear of God? David is talking about a set of behaviours that flow out of a mindfulness of who God is, and also who he is as a result.
The last line of the hymn, “This is my Father’s world” reads:
This is my Father's world:
O let me ne'er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the Ruler yet.
This is my Father's world:
Why should my heart be sad?
The Lord is King: let the heavens ring!
God reigns; let earth be glad!
Let us remember that God is the ruler of this world. Now, we may not object to this statement but consider: is God still the ruler when life doesn’t go your way? Why are you anxious? Can it be because we forget or are unwilling to submit to and accept God’s agenda for us? Will you accept and agree to God’s will for you by being persuaded of his wisdom, holiness, sovereignty and goodness? Will you admit to your own limited views of the unfolding of world events and history?
May we see the events that cause us much anxiety to be ordained by God, happening to us according to his good purposes to produce good in our lives. May we fear the LORD, revere him in our struggles by joyfully accepting our circumstances knowing that God chooses better for us than what we could have chosen for ourselves.
(C) Fight anxiety with God's promises (ps 34:15-22)
Two types of people are mentioned in Psalm 34:15-18 — the righteous and the evil. God’s eyes are towards the righteous, indicating his favour and how He regards them well. He is attentive to the plight of HIs people. He is not distracted and neither is He ambivalent. This stands in contrast with Psalm 34:16. His face is against those who do evil and their existence won’t be remembered in all eternity. God hears, sees and cares, and in Psalm 34:18, we read of how He draws close to His people. Those who are brokenhearted and humbled will have His presence. We fight anxiety with God’s promises that he will be near. He hears our cry and sees our struggles.
Notice how both the righteous and the wicked will experience affliction (Ps 34:19). Afflictions are not a marker of God’s displeasure with His people. It is not for the righteous to avoid. There are many afflictions in life! Take heart — this is not an abnormality! You are walking through life as God ordained it.
The important distinction lies in what God does with the affliction. He delivers the righteous out of the affliction and preserves by keeping all his bones. The latter is David’s metaphorical way of speaking about God’s preservation of God’s people. Certainly, there are no broken bones that God cannot fix. But there was one whose bones were truly unbroken as prophesied in scripture and John the writer of the gospel of John picks up on this in John 19:36. It was common practice to break the legs of those on the cross to hasten their death. But in Jesus’ case, He had already died, thus, HIs bones were not broken, and this was to fulfill Israel’s practice to not break the bones of the Passover Lamb (c.f. Exo 12:46).
The wonder of it all is that it is only in the fulfillment of Scripture in Christ, that we can cling onto these last few words in this psalm. We have sinned so gravely even in our own anxieties, as we distrusted God and persisted in stubborning going against His will. We deserve to be treated like the wicked as we opposed God. But it’s because of Christ, who was divinely sent to faithfully fulfill every requirement in Scripture, that we were redeemed, redeemed by His precious blood. Because of that, we can say we are not condemned for all our hope is in the trustworthy refuge of Christ.
This truth changes how we experience and fight anxiety. As we fight anxiety and seek refuge in him, we are again and again reminded of the deeper significance of relying on Christ our Saviour who is our refuge from the righteous wrath of God. We learn to cling to the Christ who rescues us from eternal condemnation, and taste and see His goodness again and again. We fight to see how those who fear Him have no lack, even though our present circumstances may say otherwise.
What are you struggling with today? Will you fight anxiety with God’s promise of our saviour Jesus Christ? If we don’t see resolution for our troubles in this life, we know for certain that all things will be made perfect when Christ comes back again.