Psalm 34:14
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Good evening. So tonight's passage has one of the broadest applications that one could have in Scripture. It is Psalm 3414, as was just mentioned. But I think it'll help us to actually turn in your pew Bible, and particularly if you are under the age of about 15, And if you could find a Pew Bible and turn to page 464, and you'll see in a moment why that would be particularly helpful.
If you're under that age, I want you to know I'm not making this up. I want you to see it in your Bibles yourself. Because, well, I'll leave that in a mystery for a moment. So the verse is, turn away from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. And this is part of a little passage of scripture about the fear of God.
And the reason I'd like you to turn in your scriptures there is look up to verse 11, which introduces this section. And particularly, again, if you're a child here today, if you'll look at verse 11 and you'll see why I call this to your attention. Because this passage begins with a direction to you. It is quoted later in Scripture, in the New Testament, at 1 Peter 3, 11. And there, Peter applies it to all Christians.
It applies to all Christians. But here, the psalmist, and of course he's speaking on behalf of God, says this. Come, O children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord. So why does the scripture target children? And may I say, it's because you are important to God.
He cares about you. He knows every hair on your head. He knows you by name. He puts you together just the way he wants you. You matter greatly to him. And that's why he dedicates this portion of scripture to you. And he says specifically, he wants to teach you something. What is that? It's the fear of the Lord.
Now, what is the fear of the Lord? The fear of the Lord is not like other fears. It's not like the fear of a bully. It's not like the fear of a thunderstorm. It is perhaps most like the fear of a good parent. You know your parents love you, you know your parents want only the best for you, but you also know that you're supposed to obey them, and that things don't go well if you don't obey them.
That's because you're under their authority. You're required to do what they want. And it's because they have your best interest at heart. And they have been put by God over you. But it's this difference. The fear of the Lord is different in a way from our parents, even the best of parents. Because all of us parents, we're sinners. We're imperfect.
We don't always know what is best. God is perfect God knows everything He knows what your future needs and He is all powerful but this principle of the fear of the Lord is what makes the rest of the whole Bible make sense and when we don't understand it when people don't understand it the Bible will never make sense to them because they don't realize they're accountable to a holy God.
And if you think for a moment about what the fear of the Lord is, that accountability, then you can see how the scripture, the one sentence we have here, turn from evil and do good, It creates a big problem for us. Do we always tell the truth? Did somebody have to teach you?
You know, here's how you lie. We're born knowing that. That's true for mom and dad as it is for the smallest child in this room. Are we always kind to our brothers and sisters? Are we always kind to our spouses? The answer to all these questions is going to be no. We don't always turn from evil and do good. So we're in direct violation of what God says.
So the fear of the Lord presents a big problem for us. What can we do about that big problem? And the answer is absolutely nothing. We're helpless. We can't go back and undo things we've already done. And we know, even if particularly, even if we've tried over and over to do better, that we still sometimes fail.
And so this is where this command is first and most importantly applied. To turn from evil and do good. Because we can turn and we must turn from the evil of thinking it doesn't matter the fact that we don't do what God says. We can turn from the evil of ignoring him pretending he's not there or he doesn't know and we can turn to Jesus who has not that's not good that's not good that we do we turn to Jesus because he has done all the good for us he's lived a perfect life he always obeyed his parents. He always did what was right. He was kind when we were nailing him to a
cross. And if we will turn from the evil of ignoring God to Jesus Christ, we get the benefit of that life. And how does that work? It is literally a trade. Now, I'm sure every child in this room knows what it's like to trade something. I happen to know that there were some Pokemon trades that occurred in Sunday school class today. You have something, you trade it for something that someone else has now what do we have we have a life of rebellion against god we not saying we're as bad as we could possibly be we're made in god's image we we do good things we're we're we can be kind sometimes we maybe can tell the truth most of the time but you know when
they bring a criminal before a court and accuse the criminal of some crime it's not a defense to say you know but think of all the people I didn't kill we've violated God's law and so that's what we have to trade what did Jesus have to trade he's got a perfect life he did everything he never sinned and we get that life because Jesus if we'll make the trade Jesus has a perfect life to offer us and he took all of our sins to the cross with him and satisfy the cost of our sin so So, what do you need to make that trade?
You need to know that you need to make the trade. That's all we bring. You need the fear of God. And if you have the fear of God, it will come to Jesus. He makes that trade. And all you have to do is trust him to do so. Believe that he will do so. now as I said this passage applies to everyone and the reason I say that is that the whole Christian life from the moment that you become a Christian until you die it never changes that's the whole Christian life is turning from evil and turning to Christ and an amazing thing happens a supernatural thing happens if you
and when you turn to Christ and that is that supernatural thing is what we want changes and what you most want not always and not perfectly but it becomes what God wants because of what he's done for us. So what if you're here tonight and you're thinking, I don't know.
Boy, when we had vacation Bible school last year, I was here for the closing of it. It was a riot. Boy, I felt close to God then. I wanted to follow God then. I wanted to trust Jesus then. But I don't know if I did. I've done so many bad things since then. Or I've forgotten that. What do you do? Well, let me tell you what you don't have to do. You don't have to go back and try to figure out was that real or not. Or, you know, did it happen or did it not.
Because the difference between becoming a Christian and living as a Christian, the only difference is that when you became a Christian, It was just the first time that you trusted Jesus, that you turned from trying to do what you want, trying to do evil, to trust Jesus. That's what you got to do every day. Every day we start over and we turn from our sins, what we want to do, to trust Jesus.
So it doesn't matter whether that's the first time you did it or the hundredth time you did it or the millionth time you did it. You won't have that many days, but you see my point. It never changes. So do it today. Say, I want to trust you, Jesus, today. And that's what you need to do if you feel like you sinned before you got in an argument with your parents or your spouse before you showed up here today, this evening, or whether you're just considering becoming a Christian.
It never changes. We simply turn from our sins, turn from living for ourselves and trusting ourselves to trusting Jesus. The word turn, I've heard from Pastor Greg and maybe from others, I can't remember, but certainly from him because I heard it pretty recently. It's just the word repent, which you probably heard. It's a Bible word. It simply means to turn around.
It's a military term like about face. I think that's how Greg taught it to me. You just turn from living for yourself and turn to trust Jesus. So that's what we need to do today and every day. And if tonight's the first time you do it, do it. The fear of God leads to trusting Jesus. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, you know us better than we know ourselves.
And we ask you to help us to do what this simple verse says. To turn from evil to do good. We know we cannot do it of ourselves. That's why we're asking you to do it. Tonight, tomorrow, for the rest of our lives. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.