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Preached by Dr. Gene Scott on March 6, 1983 Fret not . . . Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass. Psalm 37:1,5 With the heart man believeth . . . and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Romans 10:10 TURN IN YOUR BIBLE TO PSALM 37, a Psalm of David. It begins with the words “Fret not.” Please circle those words in your Bible. Three times we are told “fret not,” in verses 1, 7 and 8; and when God repeats Himself, we had better pay attention. If you have never fretted, then I have nothing to say to you today, but if you have, this message is for you. I have been preaching a series of messages on how to make faith work right where you live. There are two men in particular in the Bible who knew how to make God’s word and His ways fit where we live: David in the Old Testament and Paul in the New Testament. David and Paul are able to speak to us because they have been where we have been and have lived life where we live. So much of what the modern church teaches is far removed from the realities of life. I remember growing up in the church and having to listen to “testimony services” where ten to twelve-year-olds would come up to the altar and say, “I thank God for saving me from a terrible life of sin!” Tragically, that might be truer in today’s world than it was when I was a kid. But there are people who grow up in the church and go right into Bible school, and they come out thinking they are ready to save the world. They know as much about sin as I know about flying spaceships. They know nothing about real life and cannot speak to us where we live. But David speaks to us right where we live. David begins with the words “Fret not,” but he never gives us a command and just leaves us there without giving us any direction. He tells us how to get out of our fretting condition, and in verse 37 concludes, “for the end of that man is peace.” This psalm shows us how to get from fretting to peace, and it lays out a formula to make the journey. There are five simple things that we must do and five big things that God does, which eliminate fretting and bring peace. The first thing we are told to do in verse 3: “Trust in the LORD.” In the Old Testament, there are two different Hebrew words that are most commonly translated “trust.” Both of them are action words. Mere “belief” is not sufficient: you must act on your belief. One of the two words means “to run to the shelter of a rock or a mother bird’s wings.” You don’t just think about running to it; you have to actually run to it! The other word is used to describe the act of leaning on a staff. It was a common word in David’s day, but he was the first man in the Old Testament to use this particular word as an expression of faith in God. Years later, in Hezekiah’s day, Sennacherib’s foul-mouthed representative stood outside the walls of Jerusalem when Sennacherib’s army besieged the city. He accused God’s people of forming an alliance with Egypt, and he said that if they trusted in Egypt, it would be like leaning on a staff made of reeds that would break and splinter and pierce their hands. David used that same word for trust and applied it to man’s relationship to God and His promises. It does not mean just thinking about leaning on a staff; it means actually transferring your weight onto it. “Fret not.” How do you stop fretting? Someone might say, “Well, if my problems would just go away, I would stop fretting.” That’s obvious! But look at the lives of Paul and of David. They lived in circumstances that were overpowering. Read Paul’s record in 2 Corinthians 11: “Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods . . . thrice I suffered shipwreck . . . in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren,” in peril after peril, falsely accused and pressed down. Like Paul, David was always in some kind of mess. He started out happy, herding sheep. The worst he had ever confronted was a lion and a bear, and he whipped them both. Then God called him, anointed him and ruined his life ever after with one mess after another. When he had finally settled in his kingdom, his lousy son, Absalom, rebelled against him. David knew what it was like to be in messes, but he learned that the way to stop fretting is to get your eyes off of your circumstance and onto the source of help right where you are. “Trust in the LORD.” I doubt there is anyone in church today who can say, “Not me! I never have any problems. I’m richer than Rockefeller, and when I drive down the freeway everyone else pulls over!” Everyone is under some kind of pressure, but I have been teaching for years that you can take God at His word, and God’s word says, “Fret not.” Whenever you are under pressure and the circumstances are crowding in on you, lean on the Lord. The New Testament way to appropriate God’s word is simple: “With the heart man believeth . . . and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Literally, declaration or proclamation is made unto salvation. You must wash your mind through the study of God’s word and ask yourself, “Is the Lord trustworthy?” I preach with one purpose, to show that “God is not a man, that he should life; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?” This is the fundamental question that separates the Christian from everyone else: is the Lord someone you can lean on? You will never know until you try. And you try in the New Testament frame by simply talking to the Lord. That is why Jesus talked about having the faith of a child. Find a corner somewhere or stay right where you are and start talking to the Lord, and give your problem to Him. That is why I don’t counsel people in my congregation. Someone recently asked me, “Can I talk to you about my problem?” and I said, “No! I don’t even want you to talk about it, much less do I want to listen to it and encourage you to talk about it.” Talk to the Lord; that is what prayer is. I read of one old saint who would put a chair in front of him and would talk to the Lord as though He were sitting in that chair. But before you do anything else in your circumstance, you need to ask yourself: is the Lord trustworthy? If He isn’t, then quit messing around with God at all. Whatever your problem, it isn’t as important that you define the problem as it is that you put your focus in the right place. This psalm defines the focus. If you don’t know how to do it any other way, I suggest you set down a chair and talk to the Lord, and say, “I have made up my mind. I am going to trust You in this circumstance.” This message applies to our individual lives as well as to the church. Jesus said, “I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” I can trust the Lord, which is why I can say with no fear of being contradicted, “We made it through this year!” The second thing we are told to do in verse 4: “Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” This verse is found in every “promise box.” If you don’t know what a promise box is, it is a little box of cards sold in most Christian bookstores. Each card has a Bible verse on it that has been lifted out of its context, and Christians supposedly are to pull out a card and read one every time they have a problem. Now when I was growing up, I would get my promise box, pull out this verse and read the first part in a hurry so I could get to the second part: “Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart!” John Wright Follette has said that most Christians grab a promise of God and wave it at Him like a stick, and say, “Hey, God, I got You now. I delight in You. Now, You have to give me the desires of my heart!” But that is not what this verse means. Let me attempt to make an illustration from God’s perspective. Imagine for a moment that I had everything at my disposal, and I could give you anything in the world. In reality, I don’t personally have everything at my disposal, but I can tell you how to get anything from me within the limits of what I have. Do you want to know how to get it? It is easy: just want from me the things I want to give you. If you want to get from me whatever you want, then you must change your wants. You must get into a state of mind where more than anything else, you want to make me happy. And to make me happy, you must want from me what I want to give you; it is that simple. That is what this verse in Psalm 37 is saying. Why did you come to God in the first place? Did you come to God because you wanted a super bellhop, a super butler, a super banker, a super doctor, a super nurse, a super counselor or a super crying-towel-carrier? Did you come to God so He could help you? Or did you come to God with the realization that “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way?” The Bible says “all have sinned,” and I do not mean the silliness that most of the church world calls “sin.” Sin, at its root, means “I want to be the boss, and I want to be given everything I want.” Repentance means to turn from your way to God’s way. The Christian comes to the crossroad where he begins to understand that man was created for God; God was not created for man. Right there in the midst of your problems, you can apply these simple spiritual laws. Number one, “Trust in the LORD.” Number two, “Delight thyself also in the LORD.” The Scripture says that God’s way is not our way. If you want what the Lord wants, not something you think you want, the Lord will give it to you. I don’t believe in making Christianity super mystical. Romans 5 says, “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” The parable of the treasure in the field in Matthew 13 teaches that Jesus died to pay the price to buy up the whole field of mankind. He bought up everyone in the field to get what He wants. If He died for us while we were rebels, while we were sinners, then He certainly cares for you and me. I am totally convinced from God’s word that if only one person had responded, He still would have died for that one person. If out of the whole field of the world only one person would trust Him, He still would have done it. I know that Jesus loves and cares for me. And the One who dies for me certainly wants what is best for me. When I was thirteen, I thought my father and mother were absolutely crazy. But by the time I was twenty, I could not believe how much they had learned! They loved me and they wanted what was best for me. Kids buck against their parents who are trying to do what is best for them, but God knows what is best and He cares for you. You have to settle it: is God trustworthy? You don’t have to have some kind of “spiritual” experience. You don’t have to bawl and squall like some people think they have to do. You simply make a hard-nosed, cold-turkey decision. Your prayer can be as simple as this: “Lord, I want what You want, and I am going to accept whatever comes as being what You want. I’m in a mess! Do what You want, Lord.” And in verse 5, He tells you what to do next. “Commit thy way unto the LORD.” The Hebrew word translated “commit” literally means “to roll.” This verse is saying we are to roll our way onto the Lord. How do we do that? Again, God made it simple to appropriate His promises in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, it was a lot more complicated; there were diverse methods for taking delivery of God’s promises and receiving forgiveness of sins. You had to go to a specific place and to a specific person, the high priest. There were animal sacrifices and the laying of hands onto a scapegoat to transfer the people’s sins to that goat. There was a ritual of purification for an unclean person by the sprinkling of water mixed with ashes from a burnt heifer. All of those diverse methods in the Old Testament for appropriating God’s promises are encompassed by Romans 10, where it says that we don’t need to ascend into heaven to bring Christ down, and we don’t have to descend into the deep to bring Him up. What does the Scripture say? “The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth,” speak it forth. When you claim a promise of God, your mouth is the first instrument of action. “For with the heart man believeth . . . and with the mouth proclamation is made unto salvation,” which is a continuing process. How do I commit my way to the Lord? In your mind’s eye, set that chair down in front of you and talk to God about it. You might say, “My mess is so big, it would take me until next week to talk about it.” You don’t have to spell out all the details, just take the simple childlike step of faith and say to the Lord, “I’ve settled it.” If you cannot settle the first two steps, then don’t take another step. But you must come to a point where you can say, “I can trust the Lord. I believe that the Lord who died for me in my rebellion, my ignorance and my sin, wants what is best for me. And I want Him to have what He wants in my situation and in my life.” Now take the third step and commit your way to the Lord. What is “my way?” It is me always trying to be the chairman, directing my life, getting up every morning and deciding what I am going to do. You commit your way by simply saying, “Here, Lord, I believe with my heart, and I declare it with my mouth.” I remember a particular time in my life when I was in an awful mess. I was teaching a Bible class in San Jose, California, while dealing with personal and business problems that I thought would kill me. My mother was very sick at the time. She had a horrible case of shingles, the worst case her doctor had ever seen. I had to commute home to Oroville every week to help my father take care of her. I had videotaped my preaching on Psalm 37, and I took the tape home one day to have my mother watch it, thinking the message might help her. And as I was watching the tape with her, I suddenly realized I was listening to myself preach. I was in a mess, too big a mess to even tell my parents about. I was responsible for supporting orphanages overseas while supporting myself. I was also responsible for other nonprofit institutions and didn’t know how I was going to cope, having limited resources. I now look back and know God was training me to be the pastor of this church. I had thought of everything I could do to solve my problems myself. It was easy for me to tell other people what to do in their circumstances, but it was an entirely different matter when I had to deal with problems myself. I sat there and thought to myself, “You know, that’s pretty good preaching. It makes sense. Lord, I am at the end of my tether.” Then I went back to my motel room and did what I am telling you to do. I sat down and I talked to the Lord as if He were sitting in a chair in the room with me. I said, “Lord, here is this whole mess. I roll it onto You, take it. I trust You and I want what You want, even if it means failure for me.” I sat there awhile, but I didn’t feel anything happen. I waited and nothing happened, not a thing. That takes us to the fourth step we are told to do. Verse 7 says, “Rest in the LORD.” We spend years messing up our lives, and then we say, “Take it, Lord” and expect Him to work things out in an hour. Once we commit our way to Him, the Bible tells us to rest in the Lord, and the fifth step is “wait patiently for him.” I often use an illustration by V. Raymond Edman to show how some people commit their way to the Lord. He spoke of how people are willing to take life-changing matters and commit them to the postal service. Now imagine a man who is about to mail a letter to New York, but he just can’t turn loose of it. You see him standing in front of the post office with his hand in the mailbox, and you ask him, “What are you doing?” And he says, “Well, I want to mail this letter, but I’m not sure that they will take it the right way.” You say, “Oh come on, you can trust them.” So he finally drops the letter into the mailbox. But then you see him still standing there shaking in fear. He heard there is a storm in the Rockies, and he is afraid that they will take his letter through Denver instead of through Dallas. To make this illustration more ludicrous, why doesn’t the man charter a plane and follow that letter to New York? That is how some people commit their way to God. They say, “Hey, God, I gave it to You on Sunday night, but by Monday morning my problem was even worse. Give it back! When I gave You my way, I thought You were sensible enough to know the right way to go!” That is not how to commit your way. You need to go back to steps one and two. Can God be trusted? Do you want what He wants? It is a simple little transaction mixed with faith that hangs the body on the belief that He hears us. You say, “Take it now, Lord, and do it Your way.” But you wake up the next day and find your house is flooded, someone stole your car, and your bank just went out of business. You probably want to go back and have another talk with that chair. No, leave the chair alone this time. Just rest and wait patiently. It takes some practice to learn how to turn loose of things. You ask, “Does that mean I should do nothing?” No, it means you should take by faith whatever happens next and renew your commitment. You don’t have to sit and wait for God to speak out of the walls. But you start walking with a sensitive awareness that you have turned it over to God and things will start happening eventually, maybe sooner, maybe later. I will not panic tomorrow morning. I will trust in the Lord, rest and wait patiently. When God opens the doors, I will step in by faith. I will pray with that chair in front of me and say, “Lord, I gave my problem to You. If You want to talk, I think that I can hear as well as Paul did on the road to Damascus. But if I don’t hear anything, I will attack my problem with the same sensible approach I have been taking, but with a different attitude about it. Whatever solutions come, whatever works out, whatever happens today when the tidings come, I know that You are in control and I know that I will not be crushed. I made it through this year!” You have a new Driver in the driver’s seat. Rest and wait patiently. No more fretting, no more calling someone and saying, “Today is Doomsday!” No, today is God’s day! Trust in the Lord, delight yourself in Him, commit your way to Him, then rest and wait patiently. Those are the five things you have to do. Now let me show you what God promises to do for us. Let’s go back to verse 5: “Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.” That is not what the original Hebrew says. It literally says that when we commit our way to the Lord and trust in Him, “the Lord worketh.” God goes to work immediately after I commit my way to Him. If God had to wait for me to learn how to rest and wait patiently before He worked on my problem, He would have a long wait, because I am still learning. But God in His goodness instantly goes to work the minute I commit my way to Him. Our problem is that we sometimes grab the problem back before God has a chance to get His work done, and we say, “God doesn’t know what He is doing; I was better off when I was handling it myself!” The minute you commit your problem to the Lord, He starts unraveling the knots and setting things in motion. The Lord worketh. How does the Lord go to work? Verse 18 says, “The LORD knoweth.” He goes to work with knowledge. I don’t know what my enemies are thinking, but He knows. I don’t know what is around the corner, but He is already there. He is trustworthy, He wants what is best for me, He goes to work instantly with all of His resources and He knows every detail about me. There are a lot of people who misuse the idea of confession with the mouth. They think you can confess a Cadillac and God will give you one. That is not what the Bible teaches. We commit our way to the Lord, and say, “God, I trust You. I know You want what is best for me. I bow to Your wants.” Now back off, rest and wait patiently. Every single day, if it is fifty times a day, say, “Lord, I am Yours. I have given my problem to You. You are working on it and You are working with knowledge.” What is the third thing the Lord does? Verse 23 says, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD.” God orders our steps. I commit my way to the Lord on Sunday night, but on Monday morning something lands on me that I thought would never happen. Now comes the real test. Is God really able to do what He said? Tomorrow morning you may be surprised by some things. You have two choices: you can either take back your way, or you can say with certainty, “I gave it to the Lord. He neither sleeps nor slumbers. I may be surprised by what happens tomorrow, but He will not be. I will rest and wait patiently” or wait enduringly. I am going to endure in the knowledge that He is in control, He cares, He goes to work, He knows and He is ordering my steps. Well, it is a big mess, but it is His mess. Just think of it: last week when the mess landed on you, you knew you were to blame. Tomorrow when you get up and a new mess lands on you, you can say, “Lord, You are in charge; You are to blame!” That at least might make you feel better! God is ordering your steps. What is the fourth thing God promises to do? Verse 24 says, “Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand.” I have preached for many years on the wonder of God’s grace. If you take one step toward God, He will keep taking unlimited steps toward you. You might fall down a thousand times. You will not be able to bring yourself to the disciplined living of Psalm 37 in one stroke. You will reach for that chair, figuratively speaking, and take your way back a hundred times, and stumble in the doing of it. You might lose your trusting state of mind when the pressure begins to build. You might fall into the ever-present temptation to say, “Can I be sure He is looking out for me?” You might not be able to wait as patiently as you ought to. Though your faith may falter as you begin to take these steps, the minute you commit your way to God, He goes to work with knowledge. That knowledge includes knowledge about you and your shortcomings. He will start unraveling your mess with all of His power and knowledge. He will start ordering your steps. Inevitably, you will get off the path and question and stumble. But as I preached in the previous message, “underneath are His everlasting arms.” God says the same things over and over again; He just says them in different ways. In this passage, God says to the man who trusts Him, who wants what He wants and who commits his way to Him, that though he falls, God will uphold him. I encounter people who struggle daily with some besetting sin. Let me assure you that no matter how many times you fall, this promise is still yours to claim: “Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand.” The Lord will shore up your path and uphold you when you begin to slip. As I said earlier in this message, the Lord would have bought the whole field to get only you. If only one person in eternity would live this way, He would have paid the price of His death. You can trust Him. You can be sure that if you want what He wants, it will come out right. Satan offered Adam and Eve something that sounded better, but it turned out to be something worse. God wants you to commit your way to Him, rest and wait patiently. He works the minute you make the commitment. Right now, you can whisper it sitting in your seat: “Lord, this burden, this problem, this mess, I give them all to You.” What is the fifth thing God promises to do? Verse 28 says, “For the LORD . . . forsaketh not his saints.” In the New Testament, the word “saints” is hagios in the Greek. It means those who have given themselves to the Lord. That leads us right back to the first steps. The Lord never forsakes those who commit their way to Him. There are some denominations that teach “eternal security.” They say that once you are saved, you can never fall away. I maintain that you are only “eternally secure” to the degree that you apply the message of this psalm and allow God to be in charge of your life. This is why I am still standing here today. With all my problems, the Lord has never forsaken me, and He will never forsake you. What is the end result of this psalm? Verse 37 says, “for the end of that man is peace.” This is a very practical message. The next move is yours: you can take it and start walking with it or you can just leave it there. I preach to this church as a body, but I also preach to individuals who have learned how to lean on God and become the uncommon man or woman who can make it through anything. God is not a man, that He should lie, neither the Son of man, that He should repent. All you have to do is five simple things, then God goes to work with knowledge, He orders your steps, He picks you up when you stumble and He never forsakes you. You have never had such a good deal. All you have to do is whisper a prayer: “Lord, take my mess, including me, and take charge. I am going to rest and wait patiently and learn how to walk with You.” It is that simple. Then you begin a renewed or new relationship with God. Will you give God a chance and not lose faith? If God be for us, who can be against us? 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