Commit Your Works and Your Way Unto the Lord

Commit Your Works and Your Way Unto the Lord

Amen. Let's take our Bibles. Please turn with me to Psalm 37. We're going to read some verses from this passage as well as a verse in Proverbs this morning. So let's turn there together. Psalm 37, we'll begin in verse one, a Psalm of David. Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass and wither as the green herb. Trust in the Lord and do good. So shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord. Trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass.

And then in Proverbs 16, please, verse three. Proverbs 16, verse number three. It is there that we read, commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established. I know a number of times over the years we've looked at Psalm 37 particularly, and we have mentioned that the word commit literally means to roll, like the idea of rolling a burden on the Lord or rolling something over to him, committing it to him. So the idea of rolling something, and just as we think about here, we read in verse five, commit thy way, but we read in Proverbs 16 verse three, commit thy works. What are our works? Our works are our thoughts in action. Our words, we've said before, are spoken thoughts, but our works are thoughts that have been put into action.

Pastor Peek used to say something that helps him in business was, plan your work and work your plan. Plan your work, work your plan, and even when it comes to our Christian life, you know what, we sit here and we hear the preaching of God's word. When we open our Bibles in the morning, we read, or we read a devotional, or we listen to a message, audio recording, or something along those lines, a Bible study. As we're hearing those words that God is—and they are God's words that we're hearing—He's speaking to us through His word, then we need to be making plans, don't we? What do I need to do about what I've heard? How do I need to respond to God's thoughts, God's plans, God's words?

Well, if you remember, hold your finger here, but turn over to 1 Corinthians 10. We could just say it together without even turning there. Can we? 1 Corinthians 10:31. What does it say? Whether therefore you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, here's this all-important principle: whether you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God. Everything, that's your works, right? Commit your works to the Lord. That's what you're doing. You're eating, you're drinking, or whatsoever you do, all of it, do all to the glory of God. We just sang that hymn, "Be Thou Exalted." Well, our works, all to exalt the Lord. Commit them to Him. Well, commit your works. I cannot commit my works that I might do next year to the Lord. I've got to commit the works I'm doing right now to the Lord.

My wife and I were listening to something about, you know, we're going through that time of life where we have lots of people who have lots of things living in the same household, and we have clutter, you know, clutter builds up. And you know, the thing that the lady was saying on the little podcast we were listening to was something along the lines of, you know, you pick up the item and you say, where would I look for this? It's not where it should be right now, but where would I look for this? You know, I find that's the case, you know, with tools. Even if I've misplaced, I put something in the wrong place, you spend half the day looking for the things you need to work with if you don't know where they are. And that, if you haven't ever experienced that, I would just tell you it's kind of a frustrating feeling because I could be using this time to actually work on the project, right? Well, you look at that thing and say, where would I find it, and then when you go put it there, you say, is there, in that drawer, is it full? Is there something that's less important for this, or should I get rid of this thing, you know? And in the same way, we've got to take advantage right now. When the Lord is speaking to us, what am I going to do about what the Lord's saying to me? What am I going to do about these works right here? I'm not promised tomorrow, but I have the present moment to live for the Lord.

That's how God's will comes to us in every unfolding moment. What am I going to do about where I am right now, not look back and gloat over how God may have used me in the past, or look forward with fear to I don't know what, and I don't know about the uncertainties of the future. No, right now, in this moment, commit your works to the Lord. Commit your way, as we read in Psalm 37, but commit, in Proverbs 16:3, commit, roll your works unto the Lord. And it says the promise is that thy thoughts shall be established. The promise is future: if you entrust your works to the Lord and trust Him with your works, then the understanding is you're going to have peace of mind. You're going to have clarity of mind, you can have clear-mindedness and stability of thoughts. But if you don't commit your works to the Lord, if you instead take those works and say, I'll do what I want to do, I'll go the way I want to go, your thoughts will not be established, your thoughts will not be clear, you will not have peace of mind. You will be up and down, and you will be all over the place in your thinking, and you will not have any clear direction.

We need to give of our best to the Master, not give Him the scraps, not give Him half of our heart, so to speak, but give Him all. Give of our best. We have no right to do what we do for self-glory or self-pleasure, self-pleasing. I think about what David did with his father's sheep. He kept his father's sheep, and he did it. Was it just a small thing compared to maybe what he could have been? He could have been envious of Eliab, his older brother, and some of his older brothers who were in the battle. "I wish if I was just able to go up and fight against the Philistines." We don't read that. If there's an indication of that, he faithfully kept his father's sheep. He committed himself to that. And we don't read of any lack of contentment. In fact, we see that he was committed because later on we find out that God enabled him, as he was keeping those sheep, to sacrifice, to put his life on the line protecting them from a bear, from a lion. And he did what he did with all of his mind, didn't he? He committed those works to the Lord, I believe. It was the Lord who taught his hands to war. It was the Lord who blessed him even out in the sheep pasture as he was keeping his father's sheep.

He could have said, as we mentioned, you know, "I'd be happier if, I'd be happier if," but there's no indication. Even when his father told him, "Go take these things up to your brethren," turn over with me there and look in 1 Samuel 17. Where we read in verse 28, he's taking these goods, his father commissioned him, his father sent him to go. And as you go, take these goods, you see how things are going, and you bring me a report. You know, you go and see how they're faring. Well, in 1 Samuel 17:28, Eliab, his oldest brother, heard when he spake unto the men. David spake to the men, and Eliab's anger was kindled against David. And he said, "Why camest thou down hither?" Well, the true answer to that was, "Dad sent me." But he says, he didn't really want him to answer, he already had concluded and made assumptions about him. He says here, "I know thy pride." Well, he's good at gaslighting, isn't he? I think he's proud in his own way. "I know thy pride and the naughtiness of thine heart, for thou art come down that thou mightest see the battle. I know why you came down here. You're just a proud young man. You'd rather not be keeping those sheep back there." And David, that was not true, that was not true of David.

But David, I want to point out, David saw the situation very clearly. We're told, if we read that whole passage, the people, the men, the army was afraid. They were fearful. We were told back in Psalm 37 this morning, "Fret not thyself because of evildoers," and if we commit our works and our way to the Lord, then we will not be in fear. But we see that David, he wasn't afraid. He just saw things very clearly, very plainly. He was very clear-minded about it as he approached this situation, and God obviously gave him the victory. Part of us living a victorious Christian life, a huge part of it, is having clear biblical thinking about how God wants us to think about life, how God wants us to think about our enemies, how God wants us to think about evil, and how God wants us to understand the truth of His word. And David obviously did. In fact, the commentary later on in 2 Samuel, chapter 7, if you look over there with me, the commentary about David was this. 2 Samuel 7, verse number 8, it's there that we would read in verse number 8, "Now therefore so shalt thou say unto my servant David, thus saith the Lord of hosts, I took thee from the sheepcote, from following the sheep, to be ruler over my people Israel, over Israel, and I was with thee whithersoever thou wentest, and have cut off all mine enemies out of thy sight, and have made thee a great name, like unto the name of the great men that are in the earth." God made him great. God established him because he did what he committed his works to the Lord. He committed his way to the Lord, and therefore the Lord established him.

We read in Psalm 37, verse 5, "Commit thy way," but back in verse 3, we read, "Trust in the Lord." And what does that work, right? Do good. "Trust in the Lord and do good. So shalt thou dwell in the land, and thou shalt be fed." Well, this verse promises that if we trust the Lord and do what is right, He'll feed us. We know that, what is it, Proverbs 3:5-6, we often quote, "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, lean not unto thine own understanding, in all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths." He'll feed you. He'll direct you. He'll supply, He'll protect you. He'll meet all your needs. He'll establish your thoughts. He'll give you stability if you'll commit your works and your way to Him. And then it says in verse number 4, "Delight thyself also in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart." Before we comment on that, I did want to make mention, do you know the Lord does use, He delights to use and to exalt the weak, small, base, insignificant, those who don't get tied up in thinking, "How great I am, how great I am, how great thou art."

Remember the little boy with his lunch. What was it? The five loaves and two fishes, five barley loaves and the two fish. The Lord, what did he do? He committed that. We don't read that he was reluctant at all. He committed what he had to the Lord, and the Lord used it, and the Lord certainly blessed that little boy. We see Paul's nephew. He had information, right, and he told it. He had information, and he told it, and God greatly used that young man to spare Paul's life. And so it is with us. We could give hundreds of examples as we look through the Scripture of how individuals like Esther, in the moment of great decision, great significant consequences that were waiting for whatever decision she would make, she chose to hazard her life, and she chose, "I must commit my actions, my words at this time to do what I know clearly God wants me to do. Pray for me. Fast, proclaim a fast, and pray for me that I will have the strength to do what I know is right in this moment, in such a time as this, and do the right thing." Sometimes big decisions come to us, and we're not given a lot of warning, and then all of a sudden, we've got to do the right thing, right? We've got to commit that matter to the glory of God. Whatsoever we do, do all to the glory of God. Well, there was no question what she needed to do, there was no question.

And then we see, we just read, "Delight. Delight in the Lord. Delight thyself also in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thy heart." It may be that you're not facing a huge decision at the moment. Maybe you are, maybe you're not. Maybe it's just the mundane everyday tasks of life, and part of committing ourselves to the Lord is also delighting ourselves in Him. Delighting, what does that look like? Where we're told to make melody in our hearts to the Lord, aren't we? Making melody in your hearts to the Lord. We're to sing to the Lord. We are to meditate day and night in all of His precepts, in His truth. We have to meditate on it. It's so easy in this world to delight ourselves in so many other things that would distract our attention. And it doesn't mean that we don't involve ourselves in other things, but our delight must be in the Lord. That's where our delight, our joy should be. Delight thyself in the Lord and commit thy way. He's going to give you the desires of your heart and commit thy way unto the Lord. Trust also in Him. When we've already seen that, haven't we? Trust in the Lord. But trust in Him, commit thy way unto Him, and trust in Him.

You know, the more we commit our way to the Lord in the instances of life and we trust Him, the more reason we're going to have to delight in Him, the more things that we will… Look at David. He looked back, and he would sing unto the Lord and remember and rejoice in the Lord of all the faithfulness of how God had been with him in the past, how God had delivered him, how God had blessed him, how God… Delighting himself in the Lord and giving thanks unto the Lord. But here we see we're to commit our way. Don't worry about tomorrow. Don't worry about the future, as the song says. But God will grant the good desires of our heart. He might give them in a different way than we thought. He might bring them in a different avenue or in a different manner than we were anticipating, but if our desire is to do His will and be used of Him, He's going to grant that in His own way, in His own time, in His own manner.

I think about this family we've had on the prayer list for some time, the Marlowe family, and from time to time, we hear more about some new development with them. The Peads usually update us on them. This man was a pastor, I understand, and I've never met him, but he was a pastor in North Wilkesboro, I believe, and he, I guess he ate something. I'm not sure how he actually contracted the listeria, but he got a listeria infection, and it just basically turned him into a vegetable. I mean, he's been in so many surgeries and so much life support and so many things over the years. He's gotten to times where he's been a little bit more independent, then he's reverted back, and they've had many family tragedies, family issues. His wife, I understand, just recently fell and shattered her knee, and she's having, she had surgery on Wednesday. He's in the hospital, and you know, they have, from all the indications I've seen, they've committed their way unto the Lord. They probably never dreamed their way would look like this. Probably never dreamed that they would go through these things. But you know what? I believe God has used them and people like them to minister. Yes, He's giving them the desires of their heart amidst the great reconstruction and the reworking of all what they imagined it would be like. But they probably have a broader ministry than they would have had even in that, just, and not downing the pastor of the local church at all, I'm just saying they probably have reached many more people that they would have never reached for the Lord through the ministry of suffering, through the ministry of suffering. And we could think of many others that are like them. And the Lord has taught them many things through that avenue, I'm sure.

But what do we have to serve God with? What do we have that we can serve God with except the opportunities that are right in front of us, right? Well, "I wish I was over here. I wish I had, you know, these gifts, and I wish I had that thing, and I had these, you know, I had this much money, and I had that." Don't do that. You're just going to make yourself miserable, and you're going to be confused and disgusted and full of doubts. No, we must be available to God. Make ourselves available to God and use what He has made available to us for His glory, not wishing I had this, that, and the other, you know, and then I could really serve God. No, God may, God may not always have each one of us where we are. We're going to go into different chapters of our lives. We may be in a different location. Some of you, I mean, I think about some of these people at Breckinridge. I say, sometimes I'll say to them, but probably, you know, we might not have envisioned that we would have even been in a place like this. Some of us, most people would like to live out their final days in their own home. Most people would like to end their life surrounded by family, right, in their own home, but sometimes it doesn't work that way. Sometimes we might have wished for something greater that we thought of, and yet, that's not, at least at this moment, what God has appointed for us.

But availability, I think God prioritizes, I believe when we look at God's word, God prioritizes availability over ability. God, He wants us to be, no, He loves it when we have, and He can use those abilities, but He wants to, He wants to see first of all, are you willing to commit your works right where you are to Me? Are you willing to do My will right where you are? Sometimes, you know how we are. I know how I am. But, but, you know, no, no, but… God will make the most of what you have if you commit it to Him. And He'll give you more. Look at Joseph. Joseph was, you know, he was in prison, but he was faithful in prison down there in Egypt. He helped the, what was it, he spoke with the butler and the baker in prison, and even though it seemed like he had been forgotten in the prison, God hadn't forgotten him. And then the day came where it was almost as if in one fell swoop, he was promoted, right, to one of the highest positions in the land, right under Pharaoh. And he had new opportunities he never had before. You may have opportunities right now in your life. You may have opportunities that you never had before. We've got to take advantage of those opportunities. We've got to, because the Lord could take those opportunities away from us. He could remove those from us. We had the opportunity to raise our children right now. It's not going to be there forever. We've got to take it. You know, I dreamed about days like this when I'd have my own children, and now I have them, five to twelve years old. Before long, they're going to be grown and gone. We've got to be available and let the Lord, and commit our works to Him and say, "This is what You, I know this is, You put it right in front of me. It's right in front of my nose. The will of God is not out there in some place for it. Maybe in the future, God may take us to some place, but right now, this is what He's got for me. So I'm going to commit my works to the Lord right here."

We need to be, as we said, available. Look at, God respects more of the two mites if it's committed to Him than He does a lot of money if it's just kind of for show, right, to Him. Yes, we might have great riches that we can give to the Lord, and we might have two mites. It really doesn't matter. The difference in the quantity doesn't matter. It's the heart. It's the heart of that commitment to the Lord. If we commit our way, our path to the Lord, just know that you might, I think about, you know, in recent times, we've lost some friends because of the path we've taken. And maybe they'll come back around, who knows, but that's okay. Commit your way unto the Lord. I think of the words of the hymn, "What He takes or what He gives us shows the Father's love so precious. We may trust His purpose holy to His children's welfare solely." He knows what's best for us. The Lord knows the way that's best for us. If we commit it to Him, we can trust that He will do what's best for our lives.

He says in Matthew 11, verse 29, Matthew 11, in verse number 29, you know, it will, "Take My yoke," He says here, Matthew 11, verse number 29, "Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light." Here we have the same principle mentioned to us. Take My yoke. Follow Me, go with Me, do My will. That's the idea of, you know, taking the Lord's yoke on us. We're both moving in the same direction. We're not fighting against Him. We're going with Him, and we're learning of Him as we go. "Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your soul," just kind of like having your thoughts established, having rest in your soul. And we learn, that's the only way God can teach us, as we learn as we go, right? We learn more about Him and how He works and what He wants as we trust and entrust our works and our way to Him and commit it to Him and take His yoke upon us. And then we have even more reason to delight in Him than we had before, delighting, delighting in the Lord.

Well, if we buck against God's will, we're not going to have established thoughts, are we? If we buck against God, we're not going to have clear thinking. We're going to be frustrated in our hearts. I was talking to one of you this week, and we were just talking about how, where God, I think you mentioned, where when God opens the, when God closes the door, He opens a window or opens another door, right? He closes one door, He opens another. And that's so, so true. Remember David. I was just reading this past week, and it stood out to me. David said in 1 Samuel 27:1, he said in his heart, "I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul." But he didn't. "I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul." It looked like it was going to, it looked like Saul was going to take his life, but didn't. Trust in the Lord. Commit thy works unto Him. Well, even if Saul kills me, I'm just going to commit my works to the Lord anyway. I'm going to commit my way to the Lord anyway. It's all in the Lord's hands. It's not in Saul's hands. Oh, but they meant it for evil, God meant it for good. They meant it for evil, as the devil and his workers have plans, but God's the one that overrules all those plans. He may permit them. He may stay them and restrain them in their plans. But God sees the eternal picture. He's omniscient. He sees it all. He sees the big picture, and we just see, we don't see the details ahead of time, which obviously was the case with David, right? He didn't know. He says he thought he was going to die at the hand of Saul. But we do not know, and so there's no need for us to worry about the future. Let's just live from day to day for the Lord. Just live from day to day for the Lord.

Abraham, when he offered up his only son Isaac on that altar, you know, we know when we look back and read over that passage, yeah, the Lord's not going to take his son. He's just testing his faith. He didn't know that. He didn't know that at that moment. He was prepared in his heart to do what the Lord told him to do. He was prepared to commit his works to the Lord in that matter in taking his son. If he had known ahead of time, you know, this is just a, God's just testing me, but it's not, you know, I mean, He's not really going to require me, so we're just, we're just kind of, it would have been would be going through the motions. It would have been like a stage act, you know, I'm pretending that I'm taking my son's life here. No, it's real. It was very real to him. The test on his faith was very real, and God brought him to the point where He saw clearly, Abraham is going to do what I want him to do. He has committed himself to Me in this, and that's all I need to know. There's a ram in the thicket over here. You can take him. That's what God was looking for. And when we willingly go and commit our works to the Lord and our way to the Lord, what a joy is waiting for us. What clarity and peace of heart and mind is waiting for us, even though we don't know what lies ahead, right? We know the Lord is in control.

May we do that. May we commit today our works to the Lord and know that our thoughts will be established. I think so often of that passage. Oh, may we live up to it. But "be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer," that's part of committing our works to the Lord, pray. "Everything by prayer with supplication and thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God." And we're promised that the peace of God will keep our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. That peace that passes all understanding will keep our hearts and minds. May we do, may we obey these passages today and trust the Lord to guide us each step of the way.

Let's pray. Father, thank You for these moments we've had in Your word now. We thank You that we have the opportunity to commit ourselves and commit our way and works to You. We know, well, we do not know what lies ahead. We do not know whether obedience will cause us pain or if it will bring promotion or what it will bring. But that's irrelevant, as long as we take Your yoke upon us and learn of You. That's all that matters because Your way is best. We pray, Lord, that You will help us to be like David, that we would be like Joseph, that we would be like even this little boy that was willing to give his lunch to the Savior. We pray, Lord, that You'd help us in these things in a very practical way today. Not, "Well, I'll do at some more convenient time, I'll do God's will." No, right now, where we are, help us in that. We pray and ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.