Walking in God's Plan // Taste and See That He Is Good, Part 4

If any sense of spirituality that we have in our lives is going to be any good – well it has to be relevant. Useful. In day to day life. Jesus can’t be just a stained-glass window.  He has to be a part of life….

I don't know about your life but mine's pretty hectic: ups and downs, joys, disappointments, stresses, and strains. In a way, all our lives are different. But in another sense, well, they're pretty much the same. And if we're going to consider any form of spiritual belief or experience, well, that spirituality has to be relevant, useful, (I mean), it has to help along the way. Otherwise, it's – it's just a candle or a stained glass window or a crystal, or whatever it is – but in the cut and thrust of daily life, pretty useless. So when it comes to experiencing a relationship with God, coming to believe that this Jesus is who He said He is, does it help? I mean does that faith make a difference here and now?

It turns out that there are kind of two ways of knowing something: knowledge, head knowledge, you know, a bunch of facts or precepts that we believe in; And experience, actually living that out day by day and experiencing it.

Three thousand years ago King David of Israel wrote this, He said:

Taste and see that the Lord is good. (Psalm 3:48)

As I've said over the last few days, it's a bit like knowing that we should eat more fruit because it's good for us versus really enjoying the taste and the experience of eating that rock melon or watermelon or orange or mandarin. And sometimes we can have this kind of stained glass window churchy image of Jesus that can be the set of facts that we have in our head. And yet, we therefore can't experience in our lives, really know and taste and see that God is good.

It was a real surprise to me couple of decades ago when I gave my life over to Jesus, when I said, “Yes, I want to follow this God, I believe that Jesus came for me.” It was an incredible surprise how beautifully and how sweetly and how intimately that relationship began to develop.

Over the last few days, we've been looking at the whole subject of having that experience and that relationship. And we talked about the need for there to be a desire in our hearts that I believe is a God-given desire. And then to come to God, just as we are and have that relationship with God.

But today, I'd like to ask the question, but what about that relationship in the heat of battle? If we should taste and see that the Lord is good, if we should experience the goodness of God, well, shouldn't that happen in life? I mean, day-to-day in the ups and downs?

That whole quote from King David, "Taste and see that the Lord is good," comes from Psalm 34, where David had just been through a really tough spot. I'm going to read all of what he said because I think the context is really important. He said this:

I live and breathe God. If things aren't going well, hear this and be glad. God met me more than half way. He freed me from all my fears. Look at Him, give him your warmest smile. Never hide your feelings from Him. When I was desperate, I called out to God, “'God get me out of this tight spot.” His angels set up a circle of protection around us when we pray. “God, get me out of this tight spot” (Psalm 34:4-7)

See, His angels set up a circle of protection around us when we pray. Open your mouth, taste that God is good because those who do, those who run to Him, they are blessed.

Isn't that great? I mean David was in a tough spot. And out of his experience, out of that experience of God's goodness and faithfulness, in that tough spot, he was able to write something as beautiful as that. Well, that was David then but what about you and me, here and now?

Well, I know that twenty years ago I was in a tight spot. It was the toughest time of my life. Everything came crashing down - finances, relationships, everything. It was just awful. And it was in that space, in that dark, scary space that I came to faith. You may have heard me tell the story before about a car boot sale (that we had at the church) that I had just started going to. Well, you'll have to bear with me.

The car boot sale. It was just a fascinating time for me because I've always been very wealthy back then, and at this time in my life I was flat broke. I mean I didn't have enough money to buy groceries for the next week because of the things that had been going on in my life. I had just recently come to faith in Jesus Christ and I’d just recently joined this little church in a little suburb called Oyster Bay in Sydney and we had a car boot sale. And so everyone went up there and I had a whole bunch of things that I didn't need anymore and opened my car boot, a chess set and some scuba diving equipment, as I recall.

I sold everything I had by 11 o'clock in the morning. And the other people around haven’t sold a single thing. And they all went, "Hang on, how come Berni sold all his stuff and we didn't sell anything?" Well, they didn't know (what I knew), I was on tight spot. God knew it. God knew I didn’t have enough money for the next week for groceries and I needed that money.

But it doesn't have to be a disaster. I had a difficult situation with a person just recently, someone who really matters to me. And it was an angry situation and this man was just, you know from where I sat, being difficult. And I stopped and I just turned to God (just for a fleeting second), in the middle of all of that and I was flooded with a joy and a peace; and the anger in my heart, it disappeared like that. The harsh words that I wanted to say, they stopped like that. And I was firm, but there was a wisdom, there was a measured, loving approach that I have to tell you simply couldn’t come from me. This is real stuff. This is real day-to-day stuff.

Just this morning I was praying and God gave me just a glimpse of something that He's planning for me in the future. Now, I get these sometimes. It's just a gift that God's given me where I can see into the future, something through the Holy Spirit. It's not a “ooh, hey” thing, it's just a natural thing that happens. And it's happened so often over the last couple of decades, that when God speaks to me in that way I just – I know that it's Him. I know that I know that I know.

You know when we launched these radio programs that you’re listening to now, we had to step out in faith. But we just felt that God was calling us to do this. This was the future He had planned for us. And here we are (all these years on), ten years later, on 1,100th station across 160 countries, including this station, broadcasting the very same program that you’re listening to now.

I was thinking just about one region and how to take our programs into that region. I prayed a little bit about it. And God just gave me some ideas that created a win-win between some radio stations and some other organizations, and off it went. It just took off.

When we have a relationship with Jesus, when we sit down and pray and ask, God knows before we ask everything that we need. And before we sit down and ask, He's already planned the outcomes. He's already there. He's already started doing things that we can't see that are going to bless us.

I believe that when we desire God, when we draw close to Him – not through our own good works, but by the grace of God in Jesus Christ, forgiven because He died and paid for our sins on the cross – when we spend those quiet and intimate times, it kind of ends up exploding your view on life. It certainly does with me.

This walk of life that I now walk in faith in relationship with Jesus Christ, it's a whole new walk, it's a whole new life. God in this mix, guiding and helping and intervening, this is where the rubber hits the road.

It's exciting. It's powerful. And on those really bad days, there's a joy and a comfort and a peace you just can't put into words. It's like biting into a piece of sweet fruit and go, “Man, that is sooo good!”

It’s not just me; it’s everybody who believes in Jesus, who puts their complete trust and faith in Jesus. And by the way, that includes YOU. Especially, it includes YOU.