How's Your Taste Buds?

Bunbury

Wed pm

20/10/2010

“How’s your taste buds?”

Intro: *** In the final years of my parents lives they lived in an area where there were a number of retirement units. It was good for them b/c they met new people their own age, mixed w/ them, had a seniors club they went to & generally had a good time.

I remember one couple in particular they met & b/ca good friends w/. The husband had throat cancer a number of years earlier & due to surgery had permanently damaged his ability to taste anything. I remember my mother telling me how his wife asked him what he would like to eat & he would just say ..... it doesn’t matter I can’t taste anything anyway!

For this man eating was simply a matter of staying alive. Enjoyment was no longer a part of his dinning experience.

Thinking about this it gives us a parallel w/ something that can happen to us spiritually.

We can come to the place as Christians where we lose our ability to taste & even more imptly enjoy God.

As our nourisher / provider / Saviour God not only wants to feed us but ..... the W of G makes it clear that it’s His will for us to enjoy Him.

This then opens up an impt question to think about ......... ‘How’s your taste buds?’.

Text: Psalms 34:8 (NKJV) 8Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!

Let’s think firstly about those familiar words that we’ve all spoken to our children as parents & that is ......

# 1. Taste it!

A. Half the problem w/ trying to get people to eat new things is getting them to taste it.

*** Jesse our youngest son was by far the fussiest of our three children when it comes to food. When eating a pizza he would remove all the toppings & only eat the base w/ the cheese on it! The biggest problem w/ him was getting him to taste things in the first place!

He literally decided there were things he didn’t like b/4 he had even tasted them!!! Even today he has a fairly restricted diet b/c there are so many things he won’t eat.

a. But ......... you can’t tell if something’s good until you taste it.

i. And this is why we are being urged in our text to taste God!

Vs 8. 8Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good; .....

ii. How many times are we involved in outreach / evangelism offering the lost eternal life & even as they approach you they hold up a hand & wave you off.

iii. How different it is many times however as a friend / family member gets saved & says ..... “You should taste this – it’s fantastic!”

iv. Then it is a different story – curiosity is aroused – maybe He tastes a lot better than I thought??

v. That’s why evangelising the people you have r/s w/ is so impt ...... They have seen that you have tasted & He’s good!

b. First impt hurdle is a willingness to taste.

i. If you’re not even willing to taste then you can never make the discovery of how good God is.

*** A number of Americans used to come & preach in our church in Suva while I was pastoring there. One of my missions w/ the Americans was to ‘convert’ them to Vegemite. Since none of them liked it (Or at least thought they didn’t like it) I made it my mission to educate them on how to eat it properly. I would explain to them that it’s all in how you apply the Vegemite to your toast. I would spread it thin & then give them a sample to try. The brave tasted & saw that it was indeed good! Alas ..... there were some though that never tasted & b/c of this will never know the heaven of Vegemite!

ii. But it also means that for us to be able to convince others how good God is that we must fully taste Him ourselves.

iii. I’m not just talking a little nibble but a full feast of the Almighty God .... indulging yourself in His goodness!!!

B. It’s not just the unsaved that fail to taste.

a. It would be easy for us to think it’s just the unbelievers that don’t taste.

i. But the truth of the matter is that there is much of God to be experienced.

ii. Sometimes as Christians the problem is not that we won’t taste at all but that we don’t take time to savour the taste of what we’re tasting.

iii. The problem here is that we lose the value of what God wants to put into us.