So you can once again, with the
help of the Lord, I'd like you to turn with me to the chapter
that we read, Psalm 37, and the text you'll find in verse
5. Commit thy way unto the Lord,
trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass. Although this
text really is right in the middle of what we hope to look at this
night, it's the word that came to me yesterday really, of committing
our way unto the Lord and trusting in Him. and he shall bring all
these things to pass. It's a great confidence to the
Lord's people to commit their way unto God. We have our own
experiences. We have many desires in our own
lives. We have many things which we
want to do and many ideas that we may think of about our lives. And we're not sure how these
things are going to plan out. We're not sure how we're going
to even achieve those things which we may think about in our
minds. And the people who don't have
God, they have their own thoughts, they have their own abilities,
they have their own schemes by which they may try and work out
their own will. their own desire. But the Christian
is called to commit their way unto God, to roll their concerns,
to roll their will unto the Lord, the all-knowing and all-wise
God, and then to trust him. to trust him in all that they
have given to him, that he has the power, the ability, the knowledge,
the strength, the sovereignty to be able to work out his own
will in the lives of his individual people. I was thinking the other
day, if you look at an ant's nest, sometimes you may lift
up a paving slab and you may look at an ant's nest and you
may see them running about all over the place. And you may be
able to focus on one or two and you may be able to look at what
they're doing. They may be picking up their
eggs and trying to hide that egg. But you can only really
focus on one or two at the same time. just see a mass of scurrying
and ants running this way and that way. But with the Lord,
he has all of his individual people. And although we're all
doing various things, we're all running this way and that way,
scurrying like ants, yet he's able to pinpoint and focus upon
every individual believer. He is well acquainted with every
circumstance of their lives. There's no one who is outside
of his vision at any time. And so we are able to commit
our way unto him and to trust him. For he is the sovereign,
all-knowing, self-sufficient, self-existent God who is all-present. As the psalmist tells us, if
I go down into the depths of the earth, he is there. If we
go right up into the heavens, he is there. He's been there
from the beginning. And so we can commit our way
unto him and we can trust him and we can be certain that he
will bring to pass. his will in our lives and it's
a great privilege to have our will so subdued, so humbled that
our will is resting in the sovereign will of Almighty God. As Jesus says, nevertheless not
my will but thy will be done. Christ's will was to do the Father's
will. And every believer wrought by
the Spirit of God is brought to that position. We can either
fight and resist and kick against the will of God in our lives
or we can commit our way unto him. We can trust in him and
we can rest in that fact that he will bring his desire, his
will to pass in our lives. And so this psalm begins with
fret not. There is fret not. There is trust
in the Lord. There is delight thyself in the
Lord. There is commit thy way unto
the Lord. There is rest in the Lord. And
there is weight on the Lord. The word threat here is don't
be angry, don't be boiled up because of the prosperity of
the wicked. When you look at your own life
and you become discontent and you see the prosperity of other
people, you see their lives going well, you see them maybe progressing
materially in life, Maybe it's that they've done extra whirling
their exams and you haven't done so well and you're envious. You
get angry about it and you start maybe blaming God. Why God, have
they done so well? They don't even trust in you.
They don't even pray. They don't even go to church.
Why is it that I'm having to struggle? Why is it that my life
is so difficult? And you become angry. You begin
to to fret and you worry yourself about things that you have no
control over. Maybe you're lying in bed and
you're tossing and turning and you're fretting about the pathway
that the Lord has put you in. And it's because you're dissatisfied. You're looking at the lives of
other people and believing that their life is better than your
life. Their brain is better than your
brain. Their physical ability is better
than yours. Their house is better. Their
car is better. Their academic ability is better. And you fret because of their lives. You know our fretting and our
anger and our discontent doesn't change the situation. It just makes our life miserable. Trying to wish that you were
somebody else. and being depressed that you
are not that person doesn't help you in any way. It's not going
to make their life suddenly come crashing down. It's not going
to make their life suddenly fall apart because of your fretting,
your lack of contentment. And the Bible tells us why we
should not worry about these people. Don't be envious against the
workers of iniquity or the ungodly for they shall soon be cut down
like grass and wither as a green herb. All they have is here. Everything that they work for,
they labour for, everything that they achieve is just for this
life. A person that rejects the existence
of God who lives a life of unbelief in the sight of Almighty God
is a fool. They have not seen the obvious. They have sought to heap up treasures
upon this earth and they've neglected to realise that there is an eternal
existence beyond the grave. And so he says don't worry yourself.
about the workers of iniquity don't worry yourself about how
well other people are doing because they shall soon be cut down as
the grass and remembered no more. tells us in verse 16, a little
that a righteous man has is better than the riches of many wicked. For the arms of the wicked shall
be broken. Their strength will soon be broken. Soon they will
be taken to the grave and everything that they have ever achieved
will be either forgotten about or passed on to others. So the
little that a righteous man has is better than the riches of
many wicked. And so fret not yourself. In
Psalm 73, the Psalm of Asaph, he there also has a similar concern, that he was envious. when he
saw the prosperity of the wicked, that there were no bans in their
death, and their strength is firm. And he goes on to expound
all the different ways by which they are blessed. Their lives
seem to have no trouble. They seem to have no difficulty.
Even when they die, he says, there doesn't seem to be any
problem. They just slip from this world to the next. And as
we look round about us, maybe you have been troubled in that
way. You have been looking outside
and it's caused you to become depressed. It's caused you to
fret or to become angry about the pathway that God is leading
you in. But what you have in Christ Jesus
is worth more than all of the treasure that this world has
put together. the treasure of eternal life
is the salvation of your soul is worth more than all the riches
of this world. You see Asaph he went into the
sanctuary and he remembered their end. He went into the sanctuary of
God and understood their end. He says in verse 25, whom have
I in heaven but thee, and there is none on earth that I desire
beside thee. And so the prosperity of others
can cause the Christian to stumble, but that doesn't change anything
in the life of that person who you are jealous about or that
person that is causing you to be angry. All it does is bring
you down. All it does is turn your heart
to coldness. All it does is cause you to drift
away from God and to become neglectful of the means of grace. It doesn't change the external
situation but it causes you to drift away from your saviour. And so the psalmist gives us
really the remedy for troubled souls. With our bodies if you've
got a headache you take some paracetamol. It's a remedy. It helps you out. If you've got
muscle pain, you may take some ibuprofen. If you've got an infection,
you take some antibiotics. There's all different things
by which you can take to help your physical body out. And what about the troubles of
the soul? Troubles of the mind, spiritual
troubles? Those things which take place
on the outside can work their way in and affect the spiritual
condition of the Lord's people and cause them to fret and to
become angry. But the Christian has within
themselves the Holy Spirit of God. And those things that happen
on the external don't necessarily have to have an internal effect. They don't have to cause us to
drift from God. They don't have to cause us to
become cold and lukewarm and anxious and angry. And the Bible gives us the remedy
by which we don't have to plunge into spiritual anger and spiritual
despair. He tells us, fret not thyself
because of evildoers, neither be envious against the workers
of iniquity. So what is the remedy? It's to
trust in the Lord, to trust in God. They are not trusting in
God, they are trusting in themselves. They are achieving what they
want to achieve and in all their achievements they're drifting
away, they're going further and further away from God. But you
who look on and are discouraged, what should you do? Trust in
the Lord. Have faith. in him. Trust in his sovereignty and
his ability that you are where he has placed you. Faith is like cold water on the
fire of fretting. Fretting says I've lost control,
God has lost control but trust is rooted upon the rock, it's
faith. When we start looking outside,
when we start worrying about the progress of other people, we start losing faith. We start
becoming discontent and dissatisfied. And so the remedy is to trust
in the Lord. To trust in Jehovah. As we looked at on Sunday evening
as God appeared to Moses and he says, I am. The self-existent,
eternal, self-sufficient God who's not dependent upon anybody
or anything. All-mighty, all-powerful, all-wise. He says to trust Him in every
circumstance of life. You have to look like a little
child. A little child when they're anxious or afraid and they come
to the side of their mum or dad, they hold their hand, they are
trusting in them. They're able to calm down. They're
able to feel secure and peaceful. They're resting in the strength
and the love of their parent. And so the child of God, instead
of drifting away from God, is to run to God and to trust in
him and to rest in his attributes, his perfect wisdom, his perfect
power, his sovereignty. You see, if you think that God
can lose control, then you've shrunk him down to someone just
like you and me. a God of our imagination, but
the God who is here in scripture is a God who is in complete control
of every single thing. As the scripture says, nobody
can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest thou? He's the
sovereign ruler of the skies. He causes it to come. He causes the world to continue. All events are at his control
and he says the remedy for fretting and for anger is to trust him. Is to realise that he is in complete
control of every single thing. By his promises. That he knows the things that
we have need of. Jesus tells us before we even
ask of him. And so everything that you have
And the situation that you are in is where the Lord would have
you to be. If he wanted you to be as Donald
Trump with jets and great hotels, then there you would have it.
But he will have you where you are. And he keeps you where you
are so you can trust in him, to rest in him, and to have faith
in him. But not only are you to trust
in him you are to do good. You see when you are paralyzed
by fretting when you are paralyzed by discontent you tend to be
like a snail that cowers back into its shell. You become useless. You're so worried about the lives
of everybody else you're looking at, the lives of everybody else
and you just shrink away. But he says trust in the Lord
and do. Trust in the Lord and do good instead of being gloomy
about your own life. Look at the situation of other
people. Instead of thinking how miserable
your life is and how hard done by you are, look outside and
see other people. I remember when we used to go
to the hospital with Jesse and he would say, as we were taking
him round, well my condition's not actually that bad. Because
you see other people in completely worse situations. than you are. You may think that your life
is quite difficult and no doubt it probably is but then as you
look outside and you begin to scan the horizon you begin to
see people who are in greater depths of despair and difficulty
than you are. To cast your eye, he says, to
those in need, trust in the Lord and and do good just like the
Lord Jesus Christ filled with compassion fulfilling the royal
law as he looked for the good of his neighbours the poor, the
needy, the struggling, the sick There
are always people that have something going on in their lives, those
who are lonely, those who are struggling to get through the
day, that need a bit of company, that need a bit of help. Trust
in the Lord and do good. The saying is, isn't it, the
devil makes work for idle thumbs. And we're fretting, we're not
doing anything. like a snail shrinking back into
its shell, more in a despondent state. The scripture says trust
in God, trust in his sovereignty and do look out at those who
are less fortunate than yourself and busy yourself Turn your eyes
outside instead of having our eyes inside. It's so easy, isn't
it, to mope and to be discontent and to think
that our life is the worst life. And it seems that the devil,
we see, don't we, the people, they play the violin and it comes
along. Yes, it's true. Your life is
so difficult. Yes, you're so, you know, just
sit here and mope. But the scripture says, the spirit
says of the Lord's people, trust in God. Look to him and do good. And you shall dwell in the land
and verily thou shalt be fed. As you look to the needs of others,
as you look to the concerns of others, God will then look to
the concerns of you. He will provide and be your strength
as you draw from him, as you draw from his grace, as you draw
from being in Christ Jesus, being strengthened by his spirit in
doing, God will give you all that you need. He will be all.
that you need, your strength, your wisdom, your ability, your
provision, as you look to seek to trust in him and to obey him
and to walk in his ways, he will shepherd you. I looked at this
word and truly or verily thou shalt be fed. It's like truly
the Lord will shepherd you. as you seek to shepherd others
and to guide and to tender for He will then take care of you. And then delight thyself in the
Lord. The image that is being portrayed
to us is that the ungodly who are delighting
themselves in the things of the world are causing the believer
to lust and covet after their life, their lifestyle. And the
remedy for that covetousness is to trust in God, to do good,
but also to delight in the Lord. as the world did light in the
things of the world. So the believer is to delight
in God. He is to be their happiness and
their joy. Think of Psalm 1. It says, blessed is the man that
walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the
way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, but his
delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law does he meditate
day and night. He shall be like a tree planted
by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither
and whatsoever he doth it shall prosper. There it is. He delights
in the Lord. He delights in the Lord's words.
He delights in the Lord's words, his law. And that law is meditation. Young people you say that you
delight in sweets and you enjoy having sweets. You savour them. You hold them in your mouth and
you taste them. It's your delight. But the scripture
says those who love God, those who have God as their delight,
they delight that the words of God are like sweets to them,
like honey to their mouth. And they delight in his law.
They meditate, it's like they savour the word of God. They
think about it in their mind and so it bears fruit. And it doesn't do them any harm
and what it does it feeds them it says you should be like a
tree planted by the rivers of water. You see the world and
you think that they're achieving great things and they're laying
down roots here upon this earth, they're building great houses,
they're building great bank accounts, they're setting a foundation
upon this world, yet the Bible tells us that this world is going
to pass away. I get the believer, the one who
loves God and trusts in him, his delight is in his word, his
delight is in the Lord himself. He is going to be like a tree
that is planted by the river of water. It's going to be unmovable. It's going to be constantly provided
for, constantly strengthened so he may bear fruit. And when
this well passes away, he will still be there rooted. by that river, that river of
living water, rooted in Christ Jesus, grafted into that precious
vine. And so he says, delight thyself
in the Lord. Psalm 16 also. In verse 11 it says, that will
show me the path of life and in thy presence is fullness of
joy and in thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore. You see as we look at the world
and we see what they're going after And you may walk through
the town and you may see them happy. You may walk past the
bars and you may hear them laughing and enjoying themselves until
late in the night. But their treasure and their
pleasure is just temporary. It's gone in the morning. All
they're left with is just the headache and the feeling rough
and the regret of what they have done. But true joy and pleasure
is to be found in Christ Jesus, he says, in me. In the presence
of God is the fullness of joy. The complete fullness as a cup
running over is the joy of the believer in the presence of God.
And in God's right hand, his right hand of strength is pleasure. true lasting pleasures not temporary
pleasures of this world fleshly pleasures but true pleasure in
the presence of God spiritual satisfaction eternal joy delight thyself in the Lord and he shall give
thee the desires of thine heart. If you truly love God, if you
truly delight in him, what you will desire from him is what
he desires for you. Remember Jesus says, if you ask
anything in my name, I will do it. Those who truly love God, who
are truly trusting in him, don't want anything brought into their
life that does not glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. The desire
of their heart is the same desire that God would have for them. If you truly love God, you will
only want in your life what he truly delights in. You won't
pray for things and you won't ask for things which are not
pleasing or glorifying for him. As Jesus says, as I said, not
my will but thy will be done. And so the true desires of the
heart of someone who delights in the Lord, they are godly desires. And if we come to the Lord with
godly desires, he will give us the desires of our heart. As Jesus says, if you ask anything
in my name, I will do it. And those things that you ask
for are things that you desire to glorify God in your life. And Jesus says
those things will be provided for. that our will is what God
wills for us. And then he says, commit thy
way unto the Lord, trust also in him and he shall bring it
to pass. I've said at the beginning, roll
it to the Lord. The same as in Peter, cast thy
burden upon the Lord and he will sustain you. It's similar words.
casting and rolling, committing your way unto God, asking for
guidance and direction, seeking to walk in his way and not your
way. That your will is so knit together
with his will that you delight in doing his will as the Lord
Jesus Christ delighted in doing the Father's will. To trust him
and to rest upon him and to to rest in his sovereignty, that
he will work out his will in your life and nothing will hinder
that progress. The Almighty God. Today, we were meant to look
at a house this morning. And in the morning, the estate
agent rang us and they said, we've lost the key. Now, if you
think of that, an estate agent losing a key is quite an unprofessional
thing to do. Maybe it's never happened before. And for him to lose the key on
the particular day that we were due to look at a certain property,
we haven't looked at a property for a long, long time, as a Christian,
we've committed the whole thing unto the Lord. And so is it the
estate agent losing the key or is it God hiding the key? Because
he doesn't want his people to progress in that way. And so as Christians we have
to look at these tiny things in providence that God puts in
the pathway. Sometimes he opens doors up very
easily for us to go through. We've committed our way unto
him and we've asked for guidance and direction. We've asked for
help. He hedges up our way. He enables
us to continue going forwards and he closes the door. You try
to go one way and he shuts that door and you realise, OK, I've
got to stop. And you turn another way and
you try another way and the door is locked again. And sometimes
the thought of it is a bit like these roadworks that we see all
the time. Sometimes you're going along and it's all clear. But
then sometimes you come to a roadblock. The road closed. And it's like
the Lord is how he deals with his people in their lives. He
closes a road. You've got to turn around. We've
got to take another route. Or sometimes we come to temporary
traffic lights. And it's a red. And we're told
we have to wait. We have to wait until it's green
and then we go ahead. And so the Lord deals with his
people just like that. Sometimes we're told this is
the right way, but you've got to hang on a little while. You've
committed your way unto the Lord. You're trusting in him that he
will bring it to pass. But he said, hang on a minute.
Wait, I've got other, I've got greater things. There's other things that I've
got to put in place. You think of the Lord Jesus Christ.
and all the things that had to be put in place for him to be
born into Bethlehem, all the prophecies that had to be brought
together. When the fullness of time came, God sent his son. And so it's the same with every
great decision that believers have to make. When the fullness
of time comes, when God's specific point in history for you to do
this or to do that it will take place and nothing will stop it
but until that point he will guide you, he will direct you,
he will lead you, he will stop you, he will say go left, go
right until that time when he says go forward Commit thy way
unto the Lord. Trust also to him and he will
bring it to pass. Nothing will stop that event
happening when the Lord wants that event to take place. And
then he says, rest in the Lord. In verse seven, rest in the Lord. The word rest is sleep. Rest in the Lord. You know as
a little baby in the arms of their mother or
their father or their sibling they're resting, they're asleep.
That is the picture of what is being portrayed. They are completely
satisfied, they've had their milk They feel comfort, they're
warm and so they go to sleep. And so what the scripture is
saying is you're looking at all of these things that are going
on around about you and you're fretting. You're tossing and
turning and you're worrying and you're dissatisfied. But if you want to rest in Christ,
if you want to go to sleep, if you want true peace, then trust
in the Lord. Delight yourself in the Lord.
Busy yourself in works of righteousness. Commit your way unto the Lord.
Trust in him and he will bring it to pass. Rest in him and wait
patiently for him. We see the parable that Jesus
tells us of the vine that we are to abide in him. and as we
abide in him we are able to draw down from him that strength needed,
his spirit in us that we may bear fruit for his honour and
glory and one of those fruits or the segment of that fruit
is patience We go back to the illustration
of the roadworks and you're driving along and you hit some temporary
traffic lights and they're on red. It's frustrating. We're late for chapel and these
roadworks have appeared again. Impatience. We begin to fret. We begin to be annoyed. We're
not resting in the sovereign will of God. God knows that those
roadworks are there. God knows that you might be a
little bit late for chapel. Rest in his sovereign will. Sleep in his arms, knowing that
he has complete control over all situations. Delight yourself
in him. His timing is always perfect. The Bible tells us that with
God one day is as 1,000 years and 1,000 years is as one day,
that he exists outside of time, that his purposes are eternal
purposes, that he works all things after the manner of his own will,
that he's doing things, and I've said it too many times before,
doing things now which will have eternal consequences in the future. that his timing is perfect. We don't like waiting. We get
frustrated and impatient. Yet the fruit of his spirit is
patience. And so he says, rest in the Lord and wait patiently
for him. And fret not thyself, because
of him that prospers in his way, because of the man which bringeth
wicked devices to pass. And these things are written
because they're common things for believers to face. They're
common experiences. The Lord tests the righteous. The Lord causes his people to
pass through difficult and trying situations and it's very easy
when we're in those situations to look outside and to examine
our life with the lives of others. If we can use these remedies
for our troubled souls that when we're in these situations to
remember to trust in God, to remember to delight ourselves
in the Lord, to remember to busy ourselves in works of righteousness,
to commit our way unto the Lord, to trust in him and to rest in
him and to not be fretful. Then we can sleep. We can sleep like a baby. May the Lord add his blessing.
Amen. Well, let us sing from hymns
for worship number 146 to the tune Finlandia. Be still my soul,
the Lord is on thy side. Bear patiently the cross of grief
or pain. leave to thy God to order and
provide. In every change he faithful will
remain. Be still, my soul. Thy best,
thy heavenly friend, through thorny ways, lead to a joyful
end. Number 146. I saw, the Lord is on my side. Where patiently the cross of
grief obeyed, Here to thy heart, to order and provide. In every change, ye faithful
will remain. May still my soul, thy best,
thy every friend. Through thorny ways, each to
a joyful end. Be still, my soul, thy God doth
undertake, To guide the future as he has
the past. I am thy confident that nothing
shall ache. All now mysterious shall be bright
at last. Be still, my soul, the waves
and winds still know His voice who rules them while He dwells
below. ? The hour is hastening on ? ?
When we shall be forever with the Lord ? ? When disappointment, grief, and
fear all go on ? O safe and blessed we shall meet
at last. May the grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ and the love of God the Father, with the fellowship and
the communion of the Holy Spirit, to be with you all now and forevermore. Amen.