Dr. Jeff Schwarzentraub on Sunday Service
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Let us pray. Depart from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. Psalm 34 14 Dear God, help me to see beyond closed doors and focus on all the opportunities ahead of me. There will be moments when I do not know which way to turn. There will be times when people slam doors in my face. Remind me to stay focused on you when I become discouraged and uncertain. Sometimes there will be a fork in the road, and the hard way

will be the right way. Remind me to embrace the difficulty and abstain from taking the easy way out. I know I will find joy in my relentless pursuit of peace. Amen. Thank you for listening to today's daily prayer. For more inspiration and an incredible message from our feature pastor, stay tuned to Pray.com's Sunday service.

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Well, thank you so much for choosing to worship with us this morning here on Father's Day. And may that be our testimony. May his praise ever be on our lips.

We have 10,000 plus reasons to bless the Lord. I'm excited to preach today. I'm always excited to preach. I love our background, by the way, don't you? I mean, I really feel like I'm coming out to give a message on behalf of the King today, okay? And this is for High Five, which begins tomorrow. About 250 kids, yes. We praise God for that. Thank you.

So if you would join me in keeping our students and those investing them in prayer. And if you're an adult and you're not part of it, you may want to swing by sometime during the week to see what we're talking about. Pray for the salvation of young kids. Pray for Jesus to take them deeper.

It is going to be an awesome week. And there's just so much and so many people and time and prayer and effort and energy that have gone into this. And we're just trusting God for an incredible week. And then we'll have kids up here next week testifying as to how good our Savior is. Amen?

Let's pray as we prepare our hearts to hear the word of the Lord this morning. Jesus, we give you all the glory, all the honor, and all the praise. We celebrate who you are, and Lord, we just pray today that we would have our hearts ready to hear from you so that we could express to you who we are.

In you. And Lord, we just ask right now that our hearts would be receptive, that our minds would be alert to hear and receive what you have, that we could put into practice the very things that you have for us. And for all you're going to do in advance, we give you all the glory, we give you all the honor, and we give you all the praise in Jesus Christ's name.

Amen and amen. As we continue our series, Summer in the Psalms, we're going to look at a familiar psalm, Psalm chapter 34 this morning. Psalm chapter 34. And while you're turning there to follow along, I'm thinking about the song we just came out of, 10,000 Reasons.

And may his praise ever be on my lips. And in many churches, we think of worship as like a warm-up act for the preaching. In other words, it's good to get our hearts ready so we can get into the real thing, which is hearing the word of the Lord. But the fact of the matter is...

That one thing we can be sure of that we're going to do for all eternity is worship the Lord Jesus Christ. That worship is not a warm-up for preaching. Worship is the endgame of preaching. Worship is the endgame of evangelism. Why do we want to lead people to Christ? So that we'll have more worshipers of the Lord.

Worship is an expression of who we believe that God is, and God wants us to worship him in spirit and in truth. And worship needs to be expressive and verbal and heartfelt and emotive. And I know sometimes that scares people because it's not supposed to be emotionalism and all this kind of stuff. But worship

who we love, we're passionate about. And as David writes this psalm in Psalm 34, as he does many other places, he talks about his passion for the Lord. And he speaks about why we want to bless the Lord's name. And if you look in Psalm 34, this is really divided into two different sections, kind of the first 10 verses and verses.

Verses 11 through 22 as well. And we're going to take a look at this this morning in those two different sections. But my hope and prayer as we look into this psalm is that it would change your heart, give you a picture of who the Lord is in your life so that you can physically express your joy and your blessing for him. Notice what David writes in Psalm chapter 34 in the first three verses. He says this.

I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord. Let the humble hear and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me. Let us exalt his name together.

And David begins his song by telling us how to worship and who to worship. And really what we're going to see in the first 10 verses is David's invitation where he says this really, praise God and seek him for he is good.

Praise God and seek him for he is good. When we talk about bless, we're talking about verbally giving an expression of praise to. Bless the Lord, oh my soul. I'm giving praise. I'm giving honor. I'm giving adoration to this God. And how often should we do it? Continually.

At all times. In other words, for many of us as believers, we think the time that we're supposed to bless the Lord and praise the Lord and be verbal about the Lord is when we gather in a worship setting, which we are. That's one of the reasons why we gather on the weekend is to come together to worship the Lord and bless his name, right? But David writes, inspired by the Holy Spirit, that that should be an ongoing thing at all times.

that all of us should bless the Lord at all times. That throughout our day, we need to understand that the Lord goes with us wherever we go. So that in our homes and with our families and with our friends and in the workplace, that our lives are marked by lives that bless the Lord. Now, here's the truth about a blessing. You know, a song isn't a song until you sing it, and a bell isn't a bell until you ring it, and a blessing's not a blessing until you speak it.

It's not just I'm blessing the Lord from within and me and Jesus have this private relationship. Blessing is I am verbally expressing my blessing for who the Lord is in my life. And David does this all the time, doesn't he? I mean, throughout the life of David, we don't know exactly why he was dubbed the man after God's own heart.

It could have been because he knew the Lord so intimately that he was to bring the presence of the Lord in the temple into Jerusalem. It could have been that whether he was sinning or living fervently for the Lord, that his heart was always going after God. But one thing we know about David is David verbally and oftentimes physically expressed his adoration for the Lord. Do you remember when they were bringing the ark?

back into Jerusalem. And what did David do? He was basically dancing in his ephod, which is his underwear. He's got his under armor on. He's dancing before the Lord.

And he says this as his wife's telling him, that's undignified for a king. Kings shouldn't act like that. He says, listen, I'll become even more undignified than this. In other words, my expression for the Lord trumps everything else that I do. And I don't care who sees and I don't care who hears. I want to express my blessing for the Lord.

So when David writes these words, it's not just like some monk sitting in a tower saying you should bless the Lord at all times. This is somebody who spent his life blessing the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. And then he says this, my soul makes its boast in the Lord. Let the humble hear and be glad. It's okay to boast in the Lord. Did you know that? It's okay to brag on Jesus. Did you know that?

When God does good things, it's okay to tell other people the good things that God does. Don't hide your blessings. Well, I don't want to tell them that God did this in my life because what if they get embarrassed by that? I mean, I see it in church a lot. Like somebody gets pregnant, but somebody else has been trying to get pregnant for a long, long time. And so when that couple gets together, they can't talk about the fact that they're pregnant because it might hurt the other person's feelings. No, bless the Lord. He's the one that gave you this.

Well, you know what? God's blessed us this way, but they didn't have that kind of health. Or God's blessed us this way, but they didn't have that kind of money, so I'm going to hide my blessings. Not according to David. Let the humble hear and be glad.

My soul makes its boast in the Lord. Every good thing I have is from the Lord. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. God's a good God. It's okay to brag on the Lord. It's okay to boast in what he's doing. It's okay to boast in what he's done. Why? Because what you're saying is it's my God that's so good, right? Why did the humble need to hear? Well, in the book of James, it says why? Because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

See, when sinners who are humble come before the Lord and say, Lord, I need you. I need your forgiveness. God grants forgiveness to who? The humble. When believers come before the Lord and show dependence and say, Lord, I need you. He grants grace. Who does God oppose? Those that say to the Lord through their attitude and actions, I don't need you. Stay far away from me.

David said, let the humble hear. Any of you who are dependent, any of you who need anything from the Lord, let the humble hear and be glad. Make your boast in him because that's who he comes after is people who need him. So praise him and seek him. Those of you who are dependent, let the world know. Let the humble hear and be glad. And then verse three, I love this verse. There's so many verses in Psalm 34 I love, but this is one. Oh, magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name. How? Together. Together.

It's not just, oh, come and let's celebrate. I mean, it's like, hey, let's throw a party. Come and magnify the Lord with me. It's an invitation to celebrate what God is doing in David's life with other people. Now, isn't it true when good things happen in your life, you want to tell other people?

I was in Chicago this week and yesterday I dropped off my rental car, got on the bus with my wife, made it to the terminal, checked in, checked our bags in, went through the long line through security only to get up in the line where I'm taking everything off and out of my pockets to realize I still have the keys to my rental car. And I'm reading on the keys that most lost keys cost about $250 to replace.

And I don't have time to go through and come back and do all this. So I'm going through, starting to make calls, figuring it all out. And then worked out that I could run back to the curb, give it to a national bus driver, take down her name, which was Yvonne, bus 55, call back to the management.

Let them know what was going on. She took care of it for me and I was so relieved that I started telling everybody I was so excited I'm telling you about it too because it was one of those cars, you know You don't to put the key in you just have it in your person and you push the start button So when I called back the manager call me back says it happens to us every single day like well Why don't you teach your people to ask for the keys back, you know, but I was so excited about I want to tell you right and

This is what David is talking about. He's like, oh, come and magnify the Lord with me. Let us exalt his name together. Why? Because there's power in the gospel when we get to celebrate what God is doing corporately and collectively among all of us. It's kind of like a home field advantage.

I mean, for those of you that have gone to a sporting event, I mean, some of you on the weekends during the fall, you put on an orange and you drive to Mile High Stadium to watch the Broncos. It's different when there's 76,000 people and you're one of the 76,000 people that's cheering. There's this party atmosphere. But if you and your family were the only people in the seats...

and there was nobody else there, it wouldn't feel the same. It wouldn't be as exciting. It'd be like, hey, I want to celebrate this with everybody else, right? And if your team does really well where they win a Super Bowl, then you get a million people together and go downtown to celebrate because there's something about celebrating in community together that makes it even better. This is what David's saying. Oh, come and magnify the Lord with me. Let us exalt his name together.

Has God done anything good in your life this week? Has God done anything good in your life this week? Hey, listen, just by show of hands, if this week at all, I mean, if you think about the fact that you've been given oxygen, I mean, you had enough health to be able to get here. Most of you are looking at me, which means you can see. Most of you are listening to me, which means you can hear. I mean, if God's done anything in your life this week, could you just raise your hand if he's blessed you in any way, okay?

Now, look around. Hold them up for a second. This is why we gather on the weekend, because we're coming together to say, see the God that we're blessing? It's kind of like when we come together, it's like we're high-fiving everybody, letting them know our God's good, isn't he? He did good things in my life this week. He's doing good things in your life. Let's celebrate him together. That's what David's saying. Let's praise him and seek him. He's good. We serve a good God. We serve a really good God, and it's our home field advantage.

And notice what he says in verse 4. He says, I sought the Lord. It means we're called to seek him. And he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Do you know we're called to seek him?

hey believer let me tell you something many of us have been taught that god is sovereign i would teach you that god is sovereign that means god's in control of everything that means god knows a word before it's on your tongue i believe that the bible teaches that but somehow some way god wants us to seek him as well and sometimes for many of us it's like well if god wants to do that then he'd do it if god wants me to be this then he'd make me this if god wants no

No, we're called to seek him. We're called to ask. We're called to knock. We're called to show how dependent we are on him. Why? Because humble people are dependent people. Humble people are glad people. Don't think for a moment, well, if God wanted to do this in my life, he'd just do it.

God would say, seek me. I want to know that you want me to do something. Seek my face. Know that you want me. That's what he says. And that's exactly what David does. He says, I sought the Lord. He answered me and he delivered me from all my fears. That's the same word as salvation. It's delivering you out of something. What does he get delivered out of? Into his fears and into a place of faith. Verse five says, those who look to him are radiant and their faces shall never be ashamed. You know, when you look to the Lord, you're

There's great joy in that. Those who look to him, their faces are radiant and they'll never be put to shame. I mean, it's the equivalent of like 1 Peter 3.15. Always be ready to give a reason or an answer for the hope that you have within you. What's the assumption? That you've spent time with the Lord and that you have hope in your life. Christians, we should be the most radiant people on the planet.

All of our sin has been forgiven. God's presence dwells in us. Everywhere we go, there God is. He's good. He blesses. He favors us. And our eternal security is all put together. And that all belongs to us. Our faces should always be radiant regardless of circumstances.

Those who look to the Lord, their faces are always radiant, especially in times of crisis, which we'll talk about here in a bit, especially in times of difficulty. Our faces can still be radiant because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Those who look to him, you know what? Their faces are radiant. They will never be ashamed. Notice how he refers to himself in verse 6.

This poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of, there you see, all of his troubles. Now, man, it's Father's Day today. Most of us wouldn't refer to ourselves as this poor man. And what about all this crying stuff? I thought real men didn't cry. I thought real men sucked it up.

I thought real men toughed it out. I thought real men got through things. Not real humble men. Not real humble men that are dependent upon Jesus. Not real humble men that believe that they don't have everything apart from him. Here's how I first understand. This poor man cried. I'm a desperate man in need of the Lord and I'm crying out to him because if he doesn't come through, I don't have what I need. The reason I'm so joyous and the reason that I bless the Lord is I know every good and perfect gift comes from him.

What's this poor man all about? This poor man is this desperate man without the Lord. This poor man is the man that doesn't have everything without God. And what's he doing? He's verbally crying out for the very thing that he needs. Men, can I tell you something? Being a great leader is not, I got it all put together and I know all the answers. Because everybody around you knows that you don't, right? So you don't need to fake it.

Being a strong spiritual leader means I'm desperate, I'm poor, but I know that the Lord can give me what I need to lead in the area that I need to lead. And so I'm just a desperate man crying out to the Lord asking for his help for the very things that I need. And you know what? There's strength perfected in our weakness.

If I were to pull all the wives here today and I was to say, hey, who would you rather have? Would you rather have a man that on his own knows everything and can tell you what to do? Or would you rather have a man that's desperately seeking Jesus that would be honest enough with you to say, I don't have it all figured out, but I promise you this, I'm going to Jesus and I know he's going to give what I need to be your leader. I guarantee you 100% of the women would take that man over the first, right?

This poor man cried, David said, and the Lord heard him and he saved him out of how many of his troubles? All of his troubles. And then one of my favorite verses in the Bible.

The angel of the Lord, that's the pre-incarnate Christ in the Old Testament. That's Jesus. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and what? Delivers them. So it's not just like Jesus is encamped around the believer. He's encamping around them to deliver them and save them out of the things that they need saved from.

I mean, if you really think about your life, Lord, get me out of this. Lord, help me with that. That's deliverance. I need you to help me. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers him.

Now, I don't know about you, but when I grew up, I used to go to these things around the Halloween time called haunted houses. I'm not encouraging you to go. I'm just telling you what I did. And if you've ever been to a haunted house, you know what the house is going to be like when you go. You actually pay money to go in and get scared. Did you know that? I mean, that's the whole point. And so when you pay money and you go into a haunted house, you know that there are things that are going to come at you on purpose to scare you.

Why would you want to do that? I don't know, but that's what people do. And then they go in and obviously there's things that jump out at you and there's fake chainsaws that have like rubber bands around them that are coming out. And if you're really smart, when you walk through, you'll get somebody bigger and you'll have them kind of walk in front of you like this, you know, so that they can shield the blow from all the things that are coming. Why? Because you know there's things out there, then there's forces out there that are evil that are trying to get at you. But this verse says as Christians, we don't need to live like that.

See, a lot of Christians live their life like that. Like, I know something's going to get me this week. I know what's going to happen in the political sector by November. Hey, I know what's going to happen to our world's economy. Hey, I know what's going to happen to my job. Hey, I know what's... And they kind of go through life like this. No, no, no. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers him. It means this. Everywhere I go, there Jesus is.

And while the devil's not afraid of me, he's afraid of Jesus. Jesus is the light of the world. I do not have to walk in fear because the Lord walks with me and delivers me out of everything. So I don't need to hide behind a person. I just need to walk boldly with Jesus.

I just need to walk boldly with Jesus. It's the same thing we read in Psalm 23. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you are with me. Your rod and your staff comfort me. David's saying the same thing. I live my life in such a way where God's presence goes with me, and I know this. He's encamped around me.

Now you think about this for a second. If you had the opportunity between taking a Navy SEALs six team everywhere you go to protect you or Jesus, who would you pick? I'd pick Jesus.

He's already made the promise. I go with you everywhere you go. You don't need to worry. I'll deliver you out of anything. I'm that good. So what do I want to do? I want to spend time with him. See, I want to praise him and seek him because he's good. That's what David is saying. And then he throws this in there, another very familiar passage. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge or protection in him. Oh, taste and see. It's an invitation. It's an invitation.

I mean, it's one thing for me to tell you something's good. It's another thing for you to taste and see for yourself. So when I was in Chicago this week, one good thing about Chicago is people in Chicago know how to eat and they know how to eat really well. And there's really, really good food. So when I'm going back there, I start marking my calendar based upon the timeframes that we have of the different restaurants that I want to hit.

And so when we landed, first thing we did, we went to Portillo's for lunch. If you don't, if you're not from the Midwest, you don't even know what I'm talking about. And that's okay. But if I took you there, I would tell you, oh, taste and see that Portillo's is good.

And the persons, people that we met up with later in the week, we took them because, you know, it wasn't good enough to just go once. We had to go again. Right. And then we were downtown on Friday night. We had to go for deep dish pizza at Gino's East because that's the best pizza in the world. Right. And if you were there with us, I would have said, oh, come taste and see that Gino's East is good. And it is. But I'll tell you about the Lord Jesus Christ. He's really good.

He's delivered my life out of so much sin and shame and guilt and fear. And you know what? He continues to work in me. And every time I see him work in other people, he fires me up. And when I see these women that have been in Nepal and they're telling stories about how it's God's working through them to share the gospel with other people all the way around the world. And for those of you that don't know your geography, I mean, if you drilled a hole through the earth, you'd hit Nepal. I mean, it's way on the other side of the world. Okay. Okay.

This is what's going on. And every time I hear what God is doing great, taste and see that he's good. Every time I hear testimonies from our church of what God is doing to recenter people's identity in Christ and seeing that God is alive and he's good and he's putting marriages back together and he's healing hearts of people that have been broken. I mean, fires me up. That's what David's saying. Taste and see it for yourself.

So there's that Bible passage in Philippians 2, at the name of Jesus, where every knee will bow in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And some 20 years ago, I would have said, well, that means when Jesus comes back, those sinners, man, they're going to know, they're going to get down on their face, and boy, they're going to feel bad. But the longer I read the word and know of God's love, even when the most hostile sinner sees the beauty of the Lord and how awesome he is, they will fall at their knees and call him Lord. Lord.

The reason people don't worship the Lord is they just don't have a true picture as to who he is. Anybody that had a true picture of who God is would fall on their face and worship him. He's that good. Oh, taste and see. Check it out. If you're here at Harvest this week and you're like, I'm not so sure I believe in this Jesus thing, here's what I'd say. Taste and see it for yourself. Read his word. Check it out. Listen to others who are being touched by him. He's that awesome. He's way better than deep dish pizza and beef sandwiches. I want to tell you that right now. He's awesome. Taste and see that he's good.

And he says, "Oh, fear the Lord, you as saints. "For those who fear him have no lack. "You will lack no good thing. "The young lions suffer wanton hunger "and those who seek the Lord, "but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing." Listen, most of us, the reason we think that we lack is because we bring God our worldwide plan. We have an agenda for what we think goodness is and we've marked it all out.

We think we know who we need to marry, when we need to marry them, how many kids we need to have, where we need to live, how much money we need to make, the kind of home we need to have, the city we need to live in, when we need to live there, the type of friends we need to have, what we need to have access to. And all of this is what we want God to do. And God, if you'll do just all of that, then I'll know that I'm not lacking anything. It doesn't work that way.

But those who center their hearts on the Lord and say, I know you have my best and I trust you for what I need, always have everything that fills them up.

It's just a fact. He says even young lions, you know, lion is the king of the jungle. A lion can get food whenever a lion wants. Even the kids of the lion, the cubs of the lion sometimes don't get enough to eat, but not God's kids. God's kids always have what they need because God takes delight in giving things to his kids. If you flip over to Psalm chapter 37 in verse 25, it

As the psalmist reflects upon his younger years, he says, I have been young and now I'm old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread. It means God will supply all of his needs according to your glorious riches in Christ Jesus. That's who our God is. God loves you.

God cares for you. So praise him, bless him. Let his praise always be on your lips. Seek him. Here's why he's good. He's really good. He's really good. If you got into his presence, you would want to spend time with them. He wouldn't shun you. He wouldn't push you away. He wouldn't say, Oh, you're coming. Are you kidding me? No. If he saw you, he'd be like, thanks. He loves you.

Now as the psalm switches here, we start seeing about how we're supposed to live. If this is how God is good, then how are we supposed to live? And here's what the psalmist says. Fear God and live righteous, for he shows favor. He shows blessing. So fear him and live righteous. He shows favor. Notice what he says. Come, O children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Now we've seen this fear of the Lord throughout this passage in verse 9 and in verse 8.

verse 7. I mean, he's been talking about fearing the Lord. What does it mean to fear the Lord? To fear the Lord means to shun evil. To fear the Lord means to have a reverence for the Lord. It doesn't mean I'm afraid of him. It means I revere him. Yeah, I'd be fearful if he unleashed everything on me, but he's a powerful being, but I'm in reverence to him because of who he is.

I want to align my life because he's so good and he's so awesome. I want to center my life and do the very things he would want me to do.

So this is what the psalmist is saying. The psalmist is not just saying, hey, God's so good, he'll forgive all your sins, so go sin all you want and then keep asking for forgiveness. The psalmist is saying, our God is so good and he's such a provider and he's so loving and he's so awesome. Taste and see how good he is. And if you do, I will teach you how to live righteous. God will teach you how to live the way you need to live. And what you'll want to do is live the way God wants you to live. That's called maturity. That means you know you're growing in the Lord.

He says in verse 12, what man is there who desires life and loves many days that he may see good? It means, hey, do you really want to live? Do you really want to live a happy life? Do you really want to live a blessed life? Do you really want to live the full to your life and say, I'm living the life? He says, here's how you do it. Notice the first place he goes in verse 13. Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Now, it's really interesting to me that David would write this.

Because if you think about it, if we as Christians were writing the Psalms and we said, hey, you want to grow in maturity? What would be the behavior you would tell people to shun away from? What would be the things you would tell people, don't do that? Okay? Where's the first place David goes? The tongue. The tongue. We probably wouldn't go there. We might go to sexual sin. We might go to drug use. We might go to murder. We might go to all sorts of things. Here's what David said. Watch your tongue. Watch your tongue. Why? Why?

Now, I don't know if you've studied anatomy, but spiritual anatomy, anatomically, your tongue is not connected to your heart, but spiritually it is. Spiritually, your tongue is connected right to your heart. So what comes out of your mouth is the overflow of what's right here. David says, guard your tongue from evil. Guard your tongue from evil. Why? Because there is power, there is life and death in the tongue. Now, I can tell you after being a pastor for five and a half years, I would totally agree with David.

Because, well, there's no sin I'm going to sit here and justify and say, oh, that sin's better than this sin or this sin's better than that sin. Those of you who are living sexually immoral, you're hurting yourselves and you're hurting other people. You really are. It's not good. It's a sin. It's wrong. But I can tell you this. Nothing's more hurtful in a church than a deceptive tongue. Nothing's more hurtful than gossip. Nothing has wounded my heart more than people talking about me. Nothing. Nothing.

We've got a lot of people that come to harvest that have lived sexually immoral. And while I hurt for them, you haven't hurt me. But your gossipy tongue, it does. Your slander, it does. Your malicious talk, it does. And the same is true of you. If you know people are talking about you, nothing cuts quite like a tongue. Why? Because it's connected to the heart. And when it's connected to the heart, it hurts, right? So here's what David says. David says, watch your tongue.

God is totally in my own heart over the last six and a half years. Like there's things I'll speak out about. Like there's things philosophically in this election I would speak out about and have no problem, but I'm not going to attack one person. I'm not going to attack one pastor. I may say that what they're teaching is not true, but I'm not going to attack them as a person. You know why? Because God made them. And I'm not going to let my tongue be a weapon of evil or deceit. Then he says this, turn away from evil and do good.

It means if you're aligned with the Lord, you want to do what God wants you to do. So he says, seek peace and pursue it. Pursue peace. Now, when we think about peace, most of us think like, ah, peace. Seek peace. Okay.

The Bible says in Romans 5:1, we now have peace with God. We've been justified with God. We now have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. But peace in the Hebrew, it was more than just a feeling of peace. It was the shalom of God. It was peace. It was completeness. It was safeness, health, satisfaction, prosperity, success. It meant every good thing in my life is aligned around the shalom of God. Seek peace. How do you know you have peace?

When it doesn't matter what your circumstances are and you're not rattled by your circumstances because you're centered on who the Lord is in your life. That's his peace. Seek that. Seek his peace. Seek his presence. Pursue him. Pursue that. That's what he says. Turn away from evil. Turn to the Lord. That's when your heart's going to be right.

Because the truth is you can live your life going for things or relationships or people or money or all things, and you'll never, ever, never, ever be satisfied. But no matter who you are, no matter what age you are, you can be satisfied and content right now when the peace of God consumes your life. He says, so pursue that. Pursue the peace of God. Fear God. Live righteous. He shows favor to that.

Verse 15, he begins to tell us how God looks at all this as he sees the world. He says, It's the idea that the Lord is looking around the earth. Everyone God created he loves.

For sinners, he's looking around the world to forgive them. But for those of us who already believe in him, it says in the Bible that the eyes of the Lord roam to and fro throughout the earth to see who he can strengthen, whose heart is completely his. God wants to give strong support for those who want to live a righteous life. Some of us today are struggling with a sin that's been going on and on. And well, I'll never get that. I'm just going to keep doing it.

And God's like, okay, keep doing it. But for some of us, we're like, Lord, I want to change. I just don't know how to change. Lord, I need to change, but I just don't know how to do it. But when you seek righteousness, like, Lord, I want to do that. The Lord looks throughout the world for those that are saying, I want to live your way, God. I want to do it your way. And he comes in and gives strong support and strength to those who want to live his way. That's what he does.

And what you see all throughout the Old Testament, you see this comparison between the righteous and the wicked. You know what I'm talking about, like Psalm 1. Blessed is the man who does not stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers, but his delight is on the law of the Lord. And on his law he meditates day and night. He's like a tree planted beside streams of water that yields its fruit in season. Not so the wicked. They're like chaff that the wind drives away and it ends by saying, the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. And there's this contrast here.

And we compare like righteous is like, I'm doing good, I never sin. And wicked is like, I'm bad, I always sin. And that's not really how the Bible talks about it.

Wickedness really means poorly made, bad quality, ugly. Wicked are people that are doing things on their own that can never experience the fullness of God. Righteous are those who are living in the peace of God who want to do things God's way. And when you want to do things God's way, what does he do? The eyes of the Lord are towards those who want to live God's way.

What about those who don't want to live God's way? Well, he wants to cut their memory off from the face of the earth. Now you say, well, what does that mean? I still know who Hitler is. His memory's not gone. Oh, it will be someday. It will be when Jesus comes to reign and rule on this planet. Nobody's gonna be talking about Adolf Hitler. Nobody's gonna be talking about Stalin. Nobody's gonna be talking about all sorts of big sinners that lived in the history of the world. They're gonna be talking about who? They're gonna be talking about Jesus Christ. And who's gonna be doing all the talking? Those who are righteous. Those of us who are in his kingdom. Why? Because, see,

See, you're not just living for this world. We're living for the world to come. And the righteous will inherit the next world. How do we inherit it? Through the blood of Christ. Through what Jesus Christ has done for us. Not because any of us is righteous on our own, but we are righteous because of the grace of God. Now notice verse 18, because for some of you, that's the reason you came to church today. Because for some of you who come in and you hear all this, bless the Lord, bless the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord.

And you're thinking to yourself, Pastor Jeff, you have no idea what I've been through this week, this month, this year, these past 15 years. You have no idea. How could I even open my mouth and utter a blessing to the Lord because my life's been a living hell. You don't even know how bad it's been. That's why I love verse 18. Notice what it says. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those crushed in spirit. Where's the Lord?

Many of us as Christians, when we pray, here's what we think. God's up there or out there. He's not. God's everywhere. And for us as believers, he's in us. And guess who he's near? Guess where his presence is right by? The brokenhearted. He had a broken heart.

You've been wounded by somebody. You've been hurt. You've been kicked in the gut where you've lost your breath. You've had somebody very close to you deceive you. Where's the Lord? Oh, he's right near you. He's near to the brokenhearted. And what does he do? He saves those. He delivers those who are crushed in spirit. You know what the Lord is in business of doing? It's taking those when you feel like your life has a boulder that's just fallen on it. And you're like, I never expected this to happen.

I didn't want this to happen. I wish I'd never done that. Or, hey, I had no control over that and this just happened to me. Where are you? And God would say, I'm right here. It's for this very purpose that I've come. I can bring you the shalom, the peace right in the middle of your discomfort. I can bring you my joy, my hope. Your face can be radiant right now. Bless me. Seek me. Fear me. Live for me.

Don't you love that? See, some of us think that the Lord is for those who are living right. If the Lord is for those living right, the Lord would be for nobody on this earth. Who would he be for? Who's he for? He's for the brokenhearted. He's for those who've gotten hurt. He's for those who are crushed in spirit. One of my favorite things to do when I come home from a trip is see my kids. And my kids at the ages of nine, seven, and three, they love to come and jump on me.

and hug me, you know? I mean, they want to get close. And one of my kids in particular, my son, like he doesn't just like getting close. He likes to nuzzle, like snuggle, like get in, like, Dad, miss you, man. We just hug, right? He wants to get up close and personal. See, that's the picture of how near the Lord is.

Like some of us feel like, okay, he's near, but I can't feel him, I can't touch him. No, the Lord wants you to get as close as you want. Draw near to the Lord, he'll draw near to you. The picture is you and the Lord having this moment together where you know in the midst of all your despair, trial, hurt, and pain, there he is, he's right there. And he loves you.

And I can tell you, regardless of your trial, regardless of your circumstances, and I'm not standing up here saying I get it. And I'm not saying up here I've experienced even a drop of the pain that you've experienced, and I'm not. But I can tell you this. I know how good our Lord is, and he's greater than whatever pain you've experienced. He's near to you. He saves those who are crushed in spirit. That's our God. Fear him. Live righteous. He'll show favor to you. Because verse 19 tells you why. I mean, I love the Bible because it's so honest. Many...

I don't know how many, but many. Many is a lot. Many are the afflictions of the righteous. That's a great place for an amen. Many are the afflictions of the righteous. That means if I live for the Lord, it can be hard sometimes. Sometimes because I'm living for the Lord, it's harder than if I didn't.

Sometimes at work, if I didn't live for the Lord, my life would be easier. Sometimes in my family, if I didn't live for the Lord, my life would be easier. I mean, living for the Lord and doing things God's way make it harder. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but what? The Lord delivers them out of them all. I mean, we see the word delivers and saves all this time.

You know what, God gets it. You're gonna go through hard things. But he's near to you. He's present with you. Fear him, live righteous, he shows favor. And notice how he showed favor. Verse 20 says he keeps all of his bones, not one of them is broken. It's a idea that God protects those who are his, but even more so, it shows the prophetic nature of the Bible, 'cause if you flip over to John chapter 19, after Jesus is crucified, if you'll remember, the soldiers were gonna come, they broke the legs of the other criminals, they were gonna come break Jesus' legs.

And they put a spear into his side and blood and water flowed. So he didn't end up breaking his legs. And in John 19, 36, it says, for these things took place to fulfill the scripture that might be fulfilled. Not one of his bones would be broken. I mean, if we understood the unity of the Bible, if we would have been at the cross that day and the soldiers were going to go getting ready to break Jesus's legs, we'd have been like, no, they're not going to break his legs. It says all the way back in Psalm 34, 20, he keeps all his bones. Not one of them will be broken. Not going to break his legs. God wouldn't allow that.

See how awesome our God is? See how much unity the Bible has? See how true it is? He says this, affliction will slay the wicked and those who hate righteous, those who hate the righteous will be condemned or they'll be punished. Another way of saying that is evil people will self-destruct.

Evil people always self-destruct. People that live for themselves always self-destruct. Did you know that? If you don't believe me and you're living for yourself, you will self-destruct. If you live your life in a way that says, I know what God wants me to do, but I'm going to do just the opposite and I don't care, your life will self-destruct. It's a promise. But look at this. But the Lord redeems the life of his servants. None of those who take refuge in him or are protected by him will be condemned. They'll all escape punishment.

I mean the good news that we have in the gospel of Jesus Christ is no matter who we are, when we put our hope and trust in the Lord, he's our protector. He's our shield. He's our defense, not only in this life, but in the life to come.

As Christians, as we've said many times, you may fear how you're going to die, but you don't need to fear dying because if you have the Lord as your shield, as your protection, as your hope, as your refuge, you will be delivered from death to life in a moment and it will be the most glorious moment that you've ever experienced. Why? Because the Lord looks after his people. The Lord watches over the way of the righteous. The Lord has you in the palm of your hand. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and he delivers those who are crushed in spirit.

I love this word because it tells me that my life may not be perfect. It tells me I'm going to experience affliction. It tells me I'm going to experience trial. It doesn't promise me a bed of roses, but what the Bible does promise is that if I pursue the Lord, if I seek him, I can know that he's good. And so I'm supposed to fear him and live righteous because he'll show favor to me now and he'll show favor to me for all eternity. That's our good God.

He's worthy of our worship. He's worthy of our praise. He's worthy of our blessings for 10,000 upon 10,000 upon 10,000 of reasons. And if you sat down and began to write out, well, what's God done for me lately? And begin to make a list, your notebook would fill up fast. It's not like your page would get full or the back of the page would get full, but pages upon pages upon pages would be full and you still wouldn't be done blessing the Lord.

but here's the truth when i used to coach football just to tell you how the mind works there was one season i coached a freshman football team we were eight and oh going into our last game which i knew we were gonna win because we were playing the worst team in our league eight no 40 kids on our team 38 were awesome awesome kids their parents were awesome awesome parents i had two kids on that team drove me up a wall couldn't stand them they were jerks and their parents were even worse and you know what i went home thinking about after we won our eighth game

We're 8-0, 38 great kids, having an awesome season. Who did I go home thinking about? The two jerks of kids and their families. That's what I thought about, even though the blessings were everywhere. Do you know we do the same thing in life? You have so many blessings that are going on in your life, and you know what we tend to dwell on? The one, two, three, or four things that are like the real negative things, and then we make all those big things, and God, where are you? Here's a great way to make those things smaller.

Number one, recognize God's bigger than those little things that you're thinking about. Number two is he's really good. And number three, if you'll start writing down all the good that God's done, you'll recognize very quickly that he's done a lot more in your life. He's done a lot more in your life than the problems that you have. That you really do have reason upon reason upon reason upon reason upon multiple reason to bless the Lord. Amen?

Can we bless the Lord today? Can his praise be on our lips? Can we end by telling the Lord that we love him, that we care for him, that we want to give him our worship, that we want to give him our adoration, that we want to give him our praise? Would you stand with me this morning? Lord Jesus, as we come into your presence with singing right now, as we just sing a couple choruses.

Lord, we honor you. We give you praise. Lord, we're dwelling on the things that you are blessing us with that we can offer back to you verbally. Lord, we want you to know we love you. We praise you and we bless your holy name, the mighty and the matchless name of Jesus.

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