Proverbs 16.3, commit thy works
unto the Lord and thy thoughts shall be established. Commit
thy works unto the Lord. Now you might think of this,
committing your works unto the Lord, you might think of this
as doing more for the Lord. I want to do things for the Lord
in the sense of supporting and furthering and engaging in the
ministry of the gospel. And that's not wrong. That's
not wrong. That's not an unfaithful understanding
of this. When the Lord himself was here
in person on this earth, He said, I must be about my father's business.
That was the ministry of salvation, the work of righteousness as
the representative of his people, preaching the kingdom of God.
And then of course, doing that work, which we all preach, him
and us, the sacrifice that he offered unto God on Calvary on
behalf of his sheep. We preach Christ crucified and
he is. Christ crucified. He said also when he was here,
he said, my father hath sent me and so send I you. He said,
I'll make you fishers of men. He said, go and preach. And so
we know that when we talk about committing our works, what we
do, commit that unto the Lord. Well, we know what he sent us
to do. That's pretty clear, isn't it? There's nothing really in
the life work of a believer that doesn't have something to do
with that, with the gospel, everything we do. Our Savior's business
concerned the souls of men and ours must as well. His business
was the glory of God in the declaration of and in obedience to his word. And we are also to do all to
the glory of God. So it has something to do with
what your works are, committing your works unto the Lord. Wouldn't
you say? It would be impossible to commit your works unto the
Lord if you're not doing what he's given you to do. If your
works have nothing to do with his works, his word, his ministry,
his commission. What is God doing in this world? What does God do? Clearly he's
doing something, isn't he? What is it that the end of this
world is waiting on? Well, the salvation of his elect.
He's doing what he's always been doing. And when he's done, he's
done with this world. Are we in on that? That's a question
we have to ask ourselves with regard to our text this morning. But this needs to be said also.
We all do works every day that seem to have Little or nothing
to do with the kingdom of God Does mowing your grass have anything
to do with the gospel? Here's the point now if God gives
you grace to heed our text this morning in Proverbs 16 3 and
he gives you grace to be a doer and not a hearer of the word
only and then it absolutely does have something to do with the
gospel, doesn't it? Everything you do, everything you say has
something to do. Commit your works, all of your
works unto the Lord. Remember this verse in Proverbs
21 four, and high look and a proud heart and the plowing of the
wicked is sin. That's kind of a shocking verse,
I think, to people in general. It tells us that plowing, plowing
a field is evil before God. And you know, in Isaiah chapter
one, God says, your church going is
an abomination in my sight. Did he not? It's not so much
what you're doing, it's why you're doing it. And that verse there,
Proverbs 21, four tells us why the plowing of the wicked is
sin. Let me read it again. And high look and a proud heart
and the plowing of the wicked is sin. You know, these Proverbs
are self-contained. That's why we take them one at
a time. These are self-contained sayings, parables, Proverbs. And we're to understand a gospel
message from the Lord in each one. Why is the plowing of the
wicked sin? Because he's got a high look
on his face when he's doing it. He's got pride in his heart.
He's saying, look at my beautiful, look what I'm doing. Remember
Cain? He offered the fruit of the ground, the fruit of his
labors that he thought, the fruit of his plowing to the Lord and
he was rejected. The Lord had not respect unto
Cain and his offering. If God's going to have respect
unto you, it's going to have something to do with your offering.
And it better not be your works. We commit our works unto the
Lord, not as righteous in his sight, but because of who he is and
what he's done for us and Christ being our righteousness. Faith
worketh, not by law, but by love. faith worketh by love we commit
our works unto him out of a heart of love for him and we love him
because he first loved us we love him because of christ crucified
so it all goes back to him and his Glory, commit your works. Think about that. If the plowing
of the wicked is sin, how come? Because he's like Nebuchadnezzar.
He says, look at this great kingdom I've built. And God took his
kingdom away from him and then gave it back to him so he would
know why he has a kingdom. It's the same with a field. It's
the same with your little kingdom, your home, your field. It's because of what was in that
man's heart that was plowing. It's because of the look on his
face. God hates a proud look. It's not the deed itself. It's
done with a proud heart and a high look that exposes that proud
heart. And then it's sin. But what if a man, a sinner,
but by God's grace plows his fields with thanksgiving in his
heart unto the Lord? What if he honors the Lord with
the increase of that field every year? And does so gladly, gladly,
by the grace of God. And rather than dreading the
hard work, which is part of this thing now, rather than dreading
the hard work, he does it with gratitude and humility. And because
he loves the family God gave him, And he bows to the will
of God who said, by the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread. We bow to that every day, don't
we? We have to. We should. When you mow your grass at home,
do you resent having to do that? Or some other menial labor, whatever
it is, maybe you don't mow your, Whatever it is, you see what
I'm saying? It's just an example. Do you consider yourself too
important to spend your time with such things? Did God not
give Adam a garden to dress and to keep? And was it not a blessing? Has he given you a garden, a
yard, a house to keep up? And is it not a blessing? And
it's how you do that. Commit your works unto the Lord.
You see the difference? and know this, that whatever work he gives me
to do is a blessing from God, but we do it because of the work
that he did for us. His work is salvation. Our work
is a result of that salvation from a heart of love that he's
given us, a new heart. Whatever you do, It can and should
be done to the glory of God with thanksgiving, worship, humility,
praise. If your attitude, for example,
is, well, I don't need to go to church. And that's the way
most people talk about the worship of God. Let's go to church. Well,
that's not what happens. But they say it that way, right?
I don't need to go, I can worship God anywhere. Is that your attitude? Then you don't worship God anywhere. But if you worship God in the
assembly of his saints, if you forsake not the assembling of
yourselves together in his name, if you gather with two or three
in his name insomuch that he, as promised, is here in our midst,
then you can and will worship him everywhere. when you're plowing
your field. You commit all of your works
unto the Lord. You do them for his sake. You
do them with gratitude in your heart unto him. And you do them
acknowledging his work. We don't do what we do to be
righteous before God. He did what he did that we might
be righteous before God. And we do what we do in gratitude
and thanksgiving to him for that. That's committing your works
unto the Lord. I'll tell you this, bragging
on your works is not committing them unto the Lord. That's spitting
in the Lord's face. That's trampling underfoot the
precious blood of his son. And that won't do. But also, let me say this, this
has to do, committing your works unto the Lord is trusting them
unto him. Because let's face it, what is
any work that we do without him? It's trusting your works unto
the Lord. Listen to me, when something
is beyond your works, In other words, you trust the Lord with
that. You can't do anything about it.
Your work has nothing to do with it. You're waiting to see, perhaps,
if someone you love will die or not die of some disease or
some injury, and it's beyond your works. What are you gonna
do? Nothing. So you're waiting on the Lord.
You trust him with that, right, as a believer? Well, let me tell
you this. Do you trust the Lord when there
is something you can do? when there is a matter that you
seem maybe to have complete control over. Maybe it falls within your
area of ability. You may think then that you don't
need to trust the Lord with it. I've got this. You need him just
as much when your own ability and resources are involved as
you do when you're utterly helpless. You're utterly helpless either
way. You just feel more that way in some circumstances more
than others. Commit your works unto the Lord.
You see that? You may know what to do and you
may be able to do it and feel quite confident in the outcome
because your command of the situation is fine and well. The Lord's
gonna decide that one, just like he will the cancer or the hurricane.
He's gonna decide that one too. Commit your interests unto the
Lord. When there's nothing you can
do, Cast all your care upon him when your hands are tied, but
also commit your works unto him, because whatever you do will
prosper or it will fail, not based upon your strength or wisdom
or riches. It will succeed or fail according
to the will of him that worketh all things after the counsel
of his own will. You see that we commit our works
unto him in that sense too. They're just means to an end,
one way or the other. It's in his hand. Psalms 37 five,
commit thy way unto the Lord. And you know, the way is your
walk, what you do, your life. Commit your way unto the Lord.
Trust also in him and he shall bring it to pass. You're not
gonna bring it to pass. I don't care what your way is,
He's gonna bring it to pass, right? And He's just gonna use
you to do it. And in that sense, commit your
works unto the Lord. Bow to that, acknowledge it,
be grateful for it. I'm glad your works don't have
anything to do with what happens, except God just uses them to
do what He's doing. I'm glad mine don't either. David
when he was waiting on God to see whether his son Would die
or live you remember that? Can you imagine how he felt you
talk about helpless? He wouldn't eat he wouldn't sleep
in so much that the people that cared about him the people around
him said you're gonna have to eat something He was crying out to God God
have mercy let him live He committed his way unto the
Lord then. And also, when David the warrior
prepared for battle, prepared to fight, something he was good
at, he slew his 10,000s. He knew how to do that. When
he strapped on his armor and he gripped his best sword in
his hand, he committed also his work unto the Lord. He asked
the Lord, are you gonna go with me? Are you gonna bless me? Am I gonna win? Are we gonna
be successful? He asked the Lord that. And then
when they were, when the enemy lay defeated before him, he said,
the Lord hath brought a great victory for us today. That's
committing your works unto the Lord. And the promise here is that your thoughts will be
established. Your thoughts will be established.
And of course, again, self-contained saying, proverb, parable. And so it has to do with your
work, right? It has to do with before you
ever do what you're gonna do, your thoughts, your purposes,
your plans. God doesn't plan, but we do.
God purposes. God just announces what he's
gonna do, and then he does it. We plan, though. We're to commit that, the outcome
of that unto the Lord, dedicate it to Him, thank Him for the
work, and thank Him for everything. But listen, the word thoughts there, as I
said, is plan or purpose, and we do that, and I want my plans
to become reality, don't you? That's the whole purpose of planning. The purpose of purposing so that
it might come to pass. I don't sit around and dream
about stuff that's never going to happen. I dream about stuff
I want to happen. I think about things that I want
to happen and I determine to do them. What is the point of purposing
if it never comes to fruition? God says here that if what you
do, you do for his glory, if it honors Christ, whose work
is righteousness, and you do what you do, not to establish
your own righteousness before God, but to honor him who did
establish righteousness before God for all of his people. If
you do that by his grace, and that's only gonna happen by his
grace, trusting him, Acknowledging him and honoring him in it then
all of your purposes will be established This is parallel
to many scriptures in the Word of God It doesn't mean that sometimes
His purposes are gonna overrule our sometimes they're gonna coincide
Because he puts in our heart. He knows your thought all together
before you think it and He knows that word when it's
in your tongue. Remember in the scripture? And
if his purpose is cross ours, then his purpose shall come to
pass and not ours. And you know something? We like
it that way. If you pray to change God's mind,
then shut up. Because he's perfect and good
and all, and you're not. If you're praying in order to
change God's mind, then quit it. Listen his purposes over ruling
and superseding ours does not limit this promise in Proverbs
16 3 it does not limit it it expands it It not only means that God will
establish our thoughts But it means that on top of that In
addition to that, as a beautiful bonus to that, you can't mess
that up. That's what it means. That's not a promise with a stipulation. That's not a promise with a,
what's the word I'm looking for? With a limitation. That's a promise
with a bonus. Thank God. for this, yet another of his
precious promises to his sheep. When he saves a sinner, and that
sinner submits to the righteousness of God, which is Christ. Christ
is the end of the law, which is your work with regard to righteousness. He's the end of the law for righteousness. And when we bow to that by his
grace, we see that, we see that the more we work, the more we
sin. in the sense of establishing a righteousness before God. And
we submit to God's righteousness, which is Christ. And all that
we do is in honor unto him who is our righteousness. God said,
I'll establish your very thoughts. And it's in this sense, it's
purposes, our purposes. Remember that scripture, I believe
it was, Job that said, I know that thou canst do everything.
Here's Job on the ash heap. He's learned something. Here
it is. I know that thou canst do everything and that no thought
of thine can be hindered. No purpose, nothing that you
think to do, nothing that you determine. Nobody can stop you
from doing it. That's the sense in which the
word thought is used here. God will establish your thoughts
if you're his. And he'll bless all that you
do. He's promised to do it. And what a precious, precious
promise. And may he give us grace to commit
all our works in all of these ways unto him. Paul said, know this, your labor
is not in vain. Lord that's the key in the Lord
Isn't it good to know your labor is not in vain In the Lord may he give us grace
let's pray together I