Taste is a very powerful sense.
The power of taste is something that I am very familiar with because we grew up in a Dutch-background household which meant we had salted liquorice in our house.
For those of you who are familiar with liquorice … well you know you are experiencing something like heaven itself.
But for those of you who have not had salted liquorice you think you are experiencing hell. Because you put this piece of liquorice in your mouth and it is salt.
It is the strangest taste.
I used to go to school with salted liquorice and regularly my friends would ask for a piece.
I would say to my mates, “You’re not going to like it”
But they would say, “You just don’t want to share”.
So I would giving them one, knowing full well it is going to end up on the ground.
Every time it is the same. They would put the salted liquorice into their mouth and almost immediately spit it out.
Then somehow it would be my fault.
The power of the taste of salted liquorice.
The sense of taste is a hugely experiential sense.
If you don’t engage your tastebuds, you will never have the experience.
Indeed even the Bible talks about the emptiness that comes in life when you cannot taste.
Barzillai, who was a supporter of King David, says in 2 Samuel 19:35
35 I am now eighty years old. Can I tell the difference between what is enjoyable and what is not? Can your servant taste what he eats and drinks? Can I still hear the voices of male and female singers? Why should your servant be an added burden to my lord the king?
My life is miserable - I cannot taste anything anymore.
When the sense of taste is taken away, something rich is lost in our life.
That is not just a physical experience, but also as a spiritual experience.
Psalm 34:1-8 (Read)
This is a powerful section of Scripture because it is reminding us of the spiritual experience of being in a relationship with God.
David is seeking to give a description of what it is like to know God and respond to God and be in communion with God.
In verse 1 we are reminded that our relationship is a daily, ongoing, activity.
The point being made here is that you are either in, or not. None of this messing around or pretending.
I will extol the Lord at all times … praise is always on my lips.
David is talking about a relationship with is lasting.
This isn’t a grade 2 relationship where Mary’s love for you flourishes at morning tea by lunch time her love has died.
It is a love which is going to last … the love which comes when you meet Mr or Mrs Right. At the time you don’t know it, but there is this journey ahead and you are going to have 40, 50, 70 years of marriage until the relationship changes only because one of you has passed away. Every day this relationship was exciting and new and every day was an experience.
This is the relationship God is after … daily, regular, ongoing.
In verse 2 David further describes the relationship as one of hope and acceptance.
“Let the afflicted hear and rejoice.”
It is a relationship where the afflicted …
… where those who are suffering.
… where those who have guilt or shame.
… where those who have doubts.
… where those who are struggling
You put your affliction here
It is a relationship where you are accepted. They are able to be in a strong relationship with God. It is a relationship which says that no matter who I am, no matter what I have done, no matter what I feel about myself and the most negative thoughts I might have, no matter what my background is - I can still be in a relationship with God.
There is an acceptance in this relationship.
There is also an immediacy in this relationship. In verse 4 David says, “I sought the Lord and he answered me”.
God is a God who responds to us.
Admittedly sometimes it is not always easy to know what God’s response is.
It is not always easy to hear what God is saying.
We will talk about the hearing sense next week.
But what this Psalm is showing is that God is a God who is responsive.
God gives me a word.
Our relationship with God is not a monologue - it is a dialogue.
How many times have you had it. Where you are wondering what God wants to say to you.
So you open up the Bible and you flick through and you read a passage - and the word that you read is the word that you need.
God communicates with us - there is an immediacy in the relationship.
And David continues to describe the relationship - in verse 5 we see that this is a relationship which changes our perspective.
“Those who look to him are radiant.”
I don’t know if you have noticed it with young kids - particularly boys with their Dad’s.
You sees Dads and their sons walking down the street and the Dad is holding their son’s hand.
The boys are looking up at Dad in admiration. All they want to do is be with Dad.
That is what it can be like in our relationship with God. Like we are holding his hand and we are looking to him and we know we are loved and cared for.
We enjoy the radiance of being in the presence of God.
Verse 7 continues the description where we are reminded of the power of this relationship. “The angel of the Lord encamps around them.”
I don’t know if angels have wings or swords or what they particularly look like.
But I do know this. There is one angel in the Bible which is able to hold back the four winds of the earth. That is a lot of power isn’t it.
That is just one angel.
And these angels encamp around those who fear him.
It not a picture of the angel pitching his tent for a little while and then breaking camp and moving on.
To be encamped is to be permanently in place.
He is around you constantly holding you, protecting you and guiding you. He brings security - watching over us.
There is power in this. If that is what the Lord does what do we need to fear?
Of whom do I need to be afraid.
I know we have only touched it briefly, but this Psalm is laying out for us the power of God and the power that comes in the relationship we have with him.
And we sit here and we say, “Yes this is great, it is good to know all of these things”.
But we need to go one step future.
Not just have the knowledge - but to taste.
We need to take hold of these truths and realities and make them ours.
It is no good just believing that Jesus died on the cross, if we also don’t think that Jesus died on the cross for ME.
If we don’t taste then all we are doing is listening to historical facts.
There are plenty of people who historically believe there was a man called Jesus.
What they don’t believe is that this man is able to save us from sin.
An historical Jesus who didn’t die for you is worthless. It is only when you taste. It is only when you see. It is only when you experience that point in your life that God is reaching out to you and he wants to hold you and he wants to give you security.
Only then is the power of the relationship real.
Only then do you have what you did not have before.
The enjoyment of taste.
But there are so many people who are just so stubborn.
How many times have you been in this situation …
If you are a parent you have definitely been in this situation.
There is all this food which has been lovingly set out on a table. And then there is that person.
A younger person.
An older person.
“I don’t like it.”
“Have you tasted it before?”
“No I have never tasted it before but I don’t like it”.
“So you have never tasted it before but you know you don’t like it”
“No I don’t like it.”
“But why won’t you try?”
You know exactly what I am talking about.
But how many people are like that with God?
How many people think that they don’t like God … but they are also not willing to try and taste.
You talk to them about the wonders of Christianity and how it has changed your life. And you say to them, “Do you want to …”
“I don’t like it.”
“How do you know you won’t like it if you haven’t tried?”
“I just know that I won’t”
There are so many people in this world have that approach to God.
Or maybe they have had a small taste when they were younger and they have decided, “No. God is not for me.”
There are a lot of people like that.
They are the sort of people who are experts at NRL.
They watch Wayne Bennett and the Broncos do their thing. And they talk though the whole game saying, “This is how they should play.”
“Wayne Bennett should have told the players do this and this and this … and then they would have scored the goal.”
I’m heard Wayne Bennett talk about this. He was asked what does he say to the players.
Basically all he tells them is, “Get the ball to the other end.”
Some of these players are not so smart and Wayne doesn’t want to confuse them.
So Wayne keeps it simple.
But there is all people who say, “But they should have done it this way or that way.”
And you say to these people, “How many NRL games have you played?”
“None.”
So how much football experience do you have?
Well played football in grade 11 at school … for one semester.
They think that is small experience gives them the expertise they need.
So many people are like that with God. They have had a small experience … sometimes not a good experience … but they feel that that experience, makes then an expert and they are convinced on the basis of that experience that they don’t want a relationship with God.
They are theological spectators.
They think they know all they need to know to not want God - but the reality is that they need God even more.
It is because they haven’t tasted.
When people taste God you don’t come back from that.
When you really are drawn into a relationship with God through Jesus you don’t come back from that.
That is what we are. We are those who have tasted.
Psalm 119:97-104
(read)
The power of God to transform so that … as in the metaphor … there is the sweetness of the word in my mouth.
We perhaps don’t appreciate the strength of this metaphor because we don’t realise how difficult it was to come across a sweet taste in the Old Testament time.
When they find honey they get a chance to have a sugar hit … we get that hit all the time.
But for them it was so rare. The contrast to most of the food they ate was so great.
This experience is what it is like when we read the word.
It comes to me and revives me and gives me energy.
That is how powerful the word is.
That is what we have been given haven’t we. We have seen what the word has done. From where we were to where we are now. The experience of the Word which has brought us onto a new journey.
How whole life has changed because we have seen the powerful transformation in Christ.
Another passage which reminds us of the power of taste is in 1 Peter 2:1-3 (read).
God you have come into my life and you have seen all the brokenness and you have seen all the sin. You have seen all the damage I have caused and the hurt I have caused - and the hurt I go through. You have seen the destruction I have made in my relationships - and the destructive relationship I have with myself.
And God says we can get rid of this.
We can come to a point where the envy, malice, deceit … and all the other causes of brokenness … we can get to a point where all of these things are gone.
What a life that is.
A life free from the burdens of being caught in the sinfulness of life.
It is the transformation that comes with tasting God.
We have tasted haven’t we.
And, because we have tasted we have a responsibility.
The responsibly to go out and let other people get a taste of the Lord.
To help others experience the Lord though our life.
We are called to pass on the good taste.
Have a look at Philippians 2:12-15 (read)
You have tasted. Now you go out and you show people what a person who tasted God looks like. And you do so making sure that you leave this good taste in their mouth.
So that they start to see … who Jesus is … what Jesus is doing … how Jesus is calling.
One very specific example of this in the Scripture is in 1 Peter 3:1 “Wives in the same way be submissive to your husbands (it is talking here about non-Christian husbands) so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words … without words … by the behaviour of their wives.”
It is a powerful image of the wife who has tasted Jesus. And she is going about her life.
So doesn’t have to say anything.
She doesn’t have to nag him into heaven.
She just gives the example of what it is to be Jesus on earth and he comes to faith.
That is how it works.
I’m going to call that “Japanese Rice Evangelism.”
My parents-in-law celebrated their 40th anniversary about 8 years ago.
They shouted us our for a nice evening at the God Coast and we went to a Tapinyaki restaurant. My nephew, who was about 6 at the time, he was sitting there at the Japanese restaurant and he said, “I don’t like rice.”
Which is difficult because we are at a Japanese restaurant … all the dishes have rice.
“I don’t like rice.”
His parents said, “That is true … he doesn’t like rice.”
So I said to Zac, “This is not ordinary rice this is special rice. This is Japanese rice. And I think that if you tried the Japanese rice that you will like this rice.”
So Zac tried the “Japanese Rice”. And for the next 6 years his parents gave him Japanese rice because that was the only rice that Zac liked.
It wasn’t until he was 12 that Zac realised that he had been conned and rice is just rice.
But now he couldn’t say, “I don’t like rice.”
And I wonder if that is how we need to evangelise. “Japanese Rice Evangelism.”
There are a lot of people who say, “I don’t like Christianity.” Or, “I don’t like God”.
But they look at our lives and they say, “But I do like that moral standard which you hold to.” “And I like the way your family runs.” “And I like the way that you deal with each other in your relationship together and the way that you speak.”
So, is perhaps our calling to go out and share the Gospel without even calling it the Gospel.
To give people a taste of what they really really need, but what they don’t think they need.
They are against Christianity and they are against God. But they look at us and they say, “There is something in that person that is attractive to me. Their life-style. Their choices. The way they function as a family.”
And maybe over time as they get a taste of what we have tasted they realise that they are actually tasting the relationship that they think they didn’t like.
“Japanese Rice Evangelism.”
Letting the world taste a relationship with God because they have tasted our experience with God. They have seen our response to God and they have seen our relationship.
That is the calling we have isn’t it.
We live in Australia where more and more people are faster and faster stepping away from God than at any other time in history.
Under the guise of “tolerance” we live in a world where more and more people are saying, “You do your thing, but don’t tell me what to do.”
The sad about this process is that we know that all these people are steadily walking to hell.
And we have a calling.
The calling to be the taste … to taste and see that the Lord is good.
Because we want to see them at the Great Banquet.
The greatest taste fest ever.
Sitting at the table in the presence of God with all the people from every tribe and nation and people and language.
What a time.
The banquet of the Lord. We pray that God will use us, as we have tasted that others will also taste the Lord and experience his grace.
Prayer
