Committing Your Way To The Lord

Sermon Text: “Commit your way to the LORD, trust in him, and he will act.”

Have you ever wished you could travel by car wherever you went as you do on the Interstate? I personally think they’re great, with a relatively well maintained roadway (at least they should be with all the construction you see on them!) controlled access and exit ramps, you can just set the cruise control on your car at a legal, comfortable speed, and there’s little for you to worry about. Now if you had a built in guidance system that could keep your car on course with no possibility of crash or mechanical failure, some people might think “hey, now that’s the way to travel! It’s safe, it’s comfortable, no responsibilities, no worries. That would be great!”

In a similar way, as we ponder the graduation of our high school seniors this year, wouldn’t it be wonderful if all I had to do tonight was stand up here, and tell you graduating seniors that life was just going to be great from here on out, that everything in your life was going to be under control, nothing will ever go wrong, you’ll never have any problems, or responsibilities, or anything that will trouble or harass you. But, as many of you probably already know, that’s not the case. Even though many of you have had the privilege of growing up in Christian homes, under the care and guidance of myself and the other Pastors and churches in our community, and the relatively quiet peace and tranquility of life in a rural community like Audubon has to offer, we’re not immune to the tensions, burdens, frustrations, and issues of life that the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh cause. It’s part of living in a sinful, fallen world, the sinful, fallen world we’re sending you out into. However, tonight, we’re going to find some comfort and strength to send you out into the world with, the knowledge of the One who holds all things under His control. I’m going to tell you about the God who loves you.

For you seniors, tomorrow I understand is your last day of school. Being the “young pup” among the Pastors of our community, it wasn’t that long ago (13 years to be exact, I know, I know, to some of you it seems like forever, because you’d have been in pre school or kindergarten back then) when I had my last day of high school. It was an exciting time, and yet to some degree a sad time, when you realize that commencement on Sunday will be the last time that you will all be together in the same place at the same time as a class. On Sunday, you’ll be leaving High School, facing the tensions and temptations of the world under less controlled circumstances than what you’ve experienced up to this point in your lives. So on this occasion, it’s appropriate to reflect on the verse of the 37th Psalm that I shared with you. Through this verse, God is encouraging you, and all of us here tonight, to trust our lives to His care and keeping.

Commit your way to the Lord. In this Psalm, God is telling us not to envy the wicked, not to get upset by evil people, or jealous of those who seem to “get away” with doing wrong where if you tried the same thing, you know you’d be in big trouble. And you know what, it’s very easy to fall into that. In the workplace, you may work hard at your own job, but notice a co-worker is slacking off on their responsibilities, and yet, they seem to get by without anyone saying a word, whereas if you so much as take a bathroom break, your boss is right there to harass you. Or, while you’re trying to do the right thing, and you get passed over for a promotion, the person at your work who uses others to get ahead, and takes credit for their work, gets that promotion you had your eye on and the big raise that comes with it. It may seem very tempting to say “Well, God, you have told me in Your Word how you expect me to live my life, but it sure isn’t getting me anywhere right now!” And maybe, to some extent, you’re already thinking these things. But in the words of the 37th Psalm, God is telling us not to get wrapped up in all of that.

Instead, we’re told simply “Commit your way to the Lord.” The word we translate into English as “commit” is actually a Hebrew word that means to roll over, as you would a stone. In other words, one could say that in this Psalm, God is encouraging us to “roll over your cares and burdens onto Jesus Christ” or “Commit all of your concerns as you leave high school to God!”