The Solution To Fretfulness

The main ideas in this transcription are that Satan is the power of this world and we have to live with ungodliness and evil. Despite this, God has a word for us: "fret not". The alternative to fretfulness is trust in the Lord, delighting in the Lord, committing our way to the Lord, and resting in the Lord. We must recognize that God is always at work in our lives, even if we don't see it. We must trust in His ways and have faith in Him. The foundation of finding restfulness is trusting in the Lord. by Satan. You know, I hear people say sometimes, you know, well, God's sovereign. God's in control of everything. He's over everything. But there are things that He's not in control of. He has power over all things. He can take control in one second. But Satan is the power of this world. He's the prince of the air and the power of this world. And we have to live in this world. We have to live with ungodliness. We have to live with wickedness and evil. And God has a word for us in the midst of that. Fret not. Don't get uptight. Don't—literally, the word fret means don't burn up. Don't become angry. Don't become to the point that you just become consumed by your faults and by the things that are bothering you. But tonight, I want to talk about the solution, the alternative to fretfulness. And if you just begin in verse 3, for sake of time, we'll be looking at other verses of Scripture, but for sake of time, I want to begin reading in verse 3, and we'll read down through verse 7. Psalms 37, verse 3, Trust in the Lord, and do good. So shall 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 thy heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass. And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday. Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him. Fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in the way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass. And this passage of Scripture tonight, as we look at the solution to the alternative to fretfulness, we notice this morning that there are three basic reasons why we get uptight, and that is because of the injustices of life. We look around and we see good things happening to evil people, and we ask ourselves why. We see evil things happening to good people, and we ask ourselves why. We don't have the answer to all those things. We just understand and we know that there are going to be times in our life, as I said this morning, and you make a statement like that and it takes some people by shock, but life is not fair. Life is not fair. Satan is in control, and it's not going to be fair. It's not going to be sound and solid until Jesus Christ comes and establishes his kingdom. But the thing about it is that while we are yet living in this world, we are not of this world, and we can live a life that is not controlled by the things of this world, but we're transformed by the Spirit of God. Amen? We can be what God wants us to be, even in the midst of that which is contrary to our desires and our wills and our anticipation. But there are injustices to life. We see them all around us. We see, as I said, we see the evil prospering, as David points out in this passage of Scripture on three different occasions when he says fret not. But another reason that calls us to get up tight is the inactivity of God. We look at our lives sometimes and we see things going on and we see things happening and we wonder, God, where are you? You know, if the Lord would have been here, it would have been different. But we need to understand that the Lord is with us always. He never leaves us. He never forsakes us. I shared with someone a while ago in Philippians chapter four and verse six, it says the Lord is near. Now, you can take that in two different ways. You can take it as the second coming of Christ is near, or you can take it from the fact that He's near now in your life. He's near. He's just, as the little boy said, He's just a prayer away. He's near. He's available to us. He's promised He'd never leave us. He'd never forsake us. And we need to understand and recognize that God's always working. He's always at work in our lives. He has a plan and a purpose for each and every one of us, and He's working in our lives. But we get uptight sometimes because we don't see Him working. We don't see His hand. We don't see Him, and most of the time it's because we're ignorant of His ways. You know, one of the great studies of the Old Testament, if you want to take the time sometimes, in Exodus chapter 32, Moses asked God, said, God, show me Your ways. Show me Your ways. You know, we look at an individual, we talk about an individual, and we say, well, that's just the way they are. They behave that way because that's the way they are. Well, God has ways about Him. He's going to do certain things, and He's not going to violate His character, and He's not going to violate who He is. He's going to do things in a certain way, and He's going to do it in His time and for His honor and for His glory, and we need to recognize that God has a different time schedule than we do, and God has a different value system than we do. We value the things of this world, our house, our cars, our possessions and all these things, but they have no value to God whatsoever. God simply asked the question, what shall a man profit if he gained the whole world and lose his own soul? You know, the material things mean nothing to God whatsoever, but we get hung up on those things. But there's an alternative, and there is a life that we can live even in the midst of a world that's crooked and perverse. We can shine forth as lights, as Paul says in the book of Philippians. Now, as we look into these four alternatives tonight, notice he says in verse 3, verse 4, verse 5, he says, first of all, trust in the Lord. Delight thyself in the Lord. Commit thy way unto the Lord. Rest in the Lord. I want you to note a couple of general thoughts about these commands that are given here, trust and delight and commit. And then we notice they're interrelated with one another. First of all, there must be trust. And then there's delight. And then there's commitment. And then there's rest. First, most people want to have rest in their life, and they want to be at peace, and they want to have victory in their life, but they don't want to trust in the Lord. Amen? They don't want to delight in the Lord. They don't want to commit themselves to the Lord. But there is a step process here that we must go through. First, there's trust. There's delight. There's commitment. And then there's rest. And then I want you to note the preoccupation with the Lord. He says, trust in the Lord. Delight thyself in the Lord. Commit thy way unto the Lord. Rest in the Lord. We need to come to the understanding and acknowledgement tonight that we cannot do anything without the Lord. Amen? We must trust Him. We must commit ourselves to Him. We must delight in Him. It's not a matter of just simply trusting. It's not a matter of just simply delighting or commitment. It's a matter of who we make that commitment and who we trust in. You know, the Bible says in Hebrews 11, verse 6, that without faith it is impossible to please God. But we need to understand that faith is no greater than the object that we place it in. Amen? If you place your faith in some things, they're going to let you down. They're going to fail you. But when we place our faith in the Lord, we can be certain and understand and know that we're going to have the victory and it's going to be ours. So let's look at these four things tonight. And notice what he says. First of all, in verse 3, he says the alternative to fretfulness is trust in the Lord. This is the foundation. This is the very bottom. This is the beginning of our trip to restfulness. Now, we're going from verse 3 to verse 7. We're going from being in turmoil and being fretful and being uptight and being envious, and we're going to a place of rest. But it begins with our trust in the Lord. The word trust in the Hebrew simply means lying face down on the ground helpless. Have you ever been in a helpless situation? Have you ever been in a situation where you were completely out of control? You were completely helpless and there was nothing you could do about it? It was going to happen and there was nothing that was going to change it. I was in an automobile accident one time when I was in high school. Me and another boy, we were doing some things that we shouldn't ought to have been doing. And we were going down an old country road a lot faster than we ought to have been going, and we came to a railroad track. And I told him about 20 foot before we got to that railroad track, I said, Philip, we just messed up. We just messed up. You know what happened, Keith, when that 57 Ford pickup truck lightened back in when it hit that railroad track? The next thing we'd know, we was clipping limbs out of a pine tree 15 foot in the air. Helpless. Nothing I could do about it. Nothing I could do. But guess what? I can remember it as if it was yesterday. One of the first things I did when that happened was I began to call on the Lord. Amen. I began to repent and have some change. But the picture of the idea here is of a godly man that David describes. He's totally surrendered. He's totally lying face down before the Lord. He's helpless and the only source that he has, the only place that he can go to find help, the only place that he can go to find relief is he must trust in the Lord. Trust in the Lord. Now, in what sense is he to trust in the Lord? He's to trust in the Lord, believing that such of a state of things are known to God, and God permits it. God allows it to happen in my life. In his infinite wisdom, he has a plan and he has a purpose and he's going to bring honor and glory out of it. That's the way we need to look at life. That's the way we need to look at the problems. That's the way we need to look at the trials in our lives. We need to look at them and understand God's in control. We need to trust him, believe him, believe him with our hearts that he knows what's taking place. He's permitted it to take place. He's allowing it to happen in our lives and in his infinite wisdom, he's going to receive the honor and the glory out of it. Amen? He's going to. It may not get better. That's why we must wait patiently. That's why he says, wait upon the Lord. I want you to note something interesting in this 37 Psalm. If you'll take the time, I'm not going to take the time to do it all tonight. You can do a little homework when you get home. But he says, and throughout this 37 Psalm, I don't remember now how many times, but he uses the word shall. Look in verse 2. He says, for they shall. You come on down to verse 3 and he uses the word shall. Verse 3, verse 4, verse 5, verse 6, verse 9, verse 10, verse 11, all the way through, he uses the word shall. And what he's saying is, this may be happening in the world. This may be going on around you, but I want you to know that I am in control and that which I desire and that which I have planned and that which I have allowed, I'm going to bring it to pass. It shall. This shall happen. You can rest assured of it. I want to tell you tonight, we're going to heaven. We're going to heaven. We can say with absolute confidence tonight that when I die, I shall go to be with the Lord. Amen. That's confidence. And that's what this word trust is. Knowing that God has a plan, God has a purpose, and God's going to work that through His infinite wisdom and what He has planned and what He has purposed is going to take place. What do we do? What do we do? If we try to interfere and we try to help God out and we try to work God's plan and God's purpose, what's going to happen? It's going to mess it up. Just ask Abraham. Abraham. He'll tell you it's better to trust God and wait on Him. Ask Moses. He'll tell you it's better to trust God and wait on Him. And I'm sure tonight if I asked some of you, you would say the same thing. You know, I try to help God out. I try to bring this to pass and I try to bring that to pass. You know, it just ended up getting worse and worse. Wait upon the Lord. Wait patiently. In His due time, He will turn the tide. He will change the direction. Secondly, not only are we to trust Him, waiting upon Him patiently, but we are to continue in obedience before Him. Notice what he says in verse 3. He says, trust in the Lord and do what? Do good. Somebody asked me one time, said, preacher, what do you do when you don't know what to do? And all of a sudden, I never have forgotten it. I skipped the answer back to it. You keep doing what you're doing until God tells you to do otherwise. Amen? If I was in God's will this morning, listen to me, if I was in God's will this morning and today my whole life has turned bottom side upwards, I don't know what's happening. I don't know what's going on. If I was in God's will this morning, what I need to do is keep doing what I'm doing because I was in God's will this morning and I need to stay in God's will until I know what God's will is. Amen? We need to wait patiently, but we need to wait in obedience. We are to continue doing what we know is right before God. Folks, we cannot become like the world. That's the problem with the church today. The church has become more and more and more like the world, thinking that it's going to give us influence over the world, but all it's done is destroyed the power and the purpose of the church. It has, I'm telling you. Why? Because we try to change things. We try to make things right. We try to make people want to come to church. We try to make people want to do the will of God. But I'm going to tell you, after 58 years in the ministry, I can show you a little truth tonight. You can't make people do anything. But I tell you what, you can make them hungry and thirst after it and their desire to do it on their own. But what are we to do? We're not to allow the things of the world. We're not to allow the things around us to overcome us. But we are to continue patiently waiting upon the Lord and continue in obedience before Him and continue to work for the Lord so that the Lord can continue to work in us. Listen to this verse. I know you've heard it many, many times, but I want to read it to you again. Philippians 2, verse 12. Paul writing to the church at Philippi, and he says, Wherefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not in my presence only, but now much more in my absence. And the part of this verse that we all know so well, he says, Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Now listen to this. For it is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure. You see, we're able to work out our salvation. He's not talking about earning your salvation. What he's talking about is taking that which is on the inside and bringing it to the outside, make it manifest. We're able to do that because He's working in us. But at the same time, we're working so He can work in us. When we stop working, God can't work in us or through us. Amen? When we are not doing God's will, when we're not being submissive to Him and we're not obeying Him, God can't work through us. That's why Paul preceded this statement about working out your own salvation with the statement of, he says, Wherefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not in my presence only, but now much more in my absence. You know, Paul was riding to the church at Philippi, and he's kind of like a father talking to a kid, a child. You know, when I'm here, you do what I tell you to do. And I like that. That's important. But what's more important is that when I'm not here, you continue to do what I tell you to do. Amen? My dad worked construction work. Sometimes we ran a dairy. Sometimes he was gone for five or six, eight weeks at a time. And every time he left, he would always leave a list of stuff. And he'd say, my brother and I, he'd say, Now, I want you to do this while I'm gone. This fence needs to be built, or this needs to be done, or that needs to be done. I want you to be working at it. A lot of times, being a kid, what we'd do is we'd wait, and we'd say, Mom, when is Daddy coming? Well, he called last night, and he's going to be here. This is Monday, maybe, and he's going to be here Friday. Boy, we'd get real busy. We'd get real busy. But what we should have been doing was doing all along what he told us to do, knowing he's coming home. Amen? We need to be working, knowing that the Lord is watching over us, and He's providing for us. And we need to be patient, and we need to continue in obedience before God, and we need to obey God, and we need to comply to God's will and God's purpose in our lives. When we can't see it, and we can't understand it. As I said this morning, when we can't see the hand of God, we need to trust the heart of God. I think about Joseph in the Old Testament. He's an excellent example of proper conduct that we are to manifest. Joseph was hated by his brothers, sold into prison, sold as a slave, and carried down into Egypt, and all the things that happened to him, and all the troubles and the trials and the tribulations that he went through. But when it was all over with, and it was all said and done, and his brothers had come, in Genesis 15, verse 20, Joseph said unto them, You thought it evil against me, but God made it unto me for good. Folks, listen to me tonight. One day, one day, we'll be able to look back, and we'll be able to look at our lives, and we'll look at the valleys, we'll look at the trials and the tribulations and the heartaches and the disappointments and all the things that came upon us. We'll be able to look back at those things and we'll say, He made it for good. Amen? I think He's going to comfort us by letting us know that through all of those... Ever read the foreign footprints in the sand? Sometimes we wonder, God, where are You? And there's only one set of footprints in the sand. They're not ours. They're His. He's carrying us. But we do it in the Lord. Trust in the Lord. Our focus is either going to be on the Lord, or it's going to be on the problems and the things going on around us. I must hasten. The second thing He says, first of all, the foundation, trust in the Lord. The second thing He says in verse 4 is, delight thyself also in the Lord. Delight thyself also in the Lord. The reason that we are fretful, the reason that we are out of joint, the reason that we are so upset is because of the trouble and the restlessness and the lies that are without, not only without, but the things that are going on within us. Every person, every person desires that which he delights in, or that which he believes will bring him happiness or prosperity. Every person. If you ask a young person, what is your goal? What is your aim? What is your desire? What is the thing that you delight or the thing that you want most in life? They'll give you their want list. And most of the time it's about prosperity. It's about things that will bring them happiness in their lives and so forth and so on. But we need to understand and recognize tonight that our delight is in the Lord and in the things of the Lord. Our desires will control our thoughts and our thoughts will control our actions and our aims and our desires will be manifested by the things that we do. Godly men delight in the Lord. They desire the Lord. They put their focus on the Lord and on things that are eternal. As I said, the problem is our delight is in material things. One thing that I've learned and one thing I've discovered about material things, you know, whether they're made in the United States or whether they're made in China, they all wear out. And most of the time they wear out, they wear out teeth when I need them the most. I got my drill out the other day. I was going to sharpen some more blades and everything and I plugged it in and sparks went everywhere. And out there in front of me, it just burned up. I said, boy, that's a doozy. What am I going to do with my blades now? How am I going to sharpen my blades? You know what I did? I went back and got one of them old book piles and did it by hand. But we need to understand and recognize that the things of this world, they wear out. They don't last forever. And if we put our delight in them, we're going to be disappointed. We're going to look at those things one day and we're going to say, you know, I thought this would last forever. I thought this would satisfy me. I thought this would bring me delight to my heart. But we discover that it doesn't. What did Jesus say in Matthew 11, 28, 29, 30? He said, Come unto Me, all you that are weak and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. I will give you rest. Trust in the Lord. Delight in the Lord. And then the third thing He says in verse 5, Commit thy way unto the Lord. Trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. Commit your way unto the Lord. This is a picture of someone shouldering a heavy burden. You have a heavy burden. You have something that's weighing you down. You have something that's just pressing down upon you. And the thought or the idea here behind the word, Commit your way unto the Lord, is the idea or the thought that Jesus comes along beside me and I take my burden and I roll it off on Him. And Peter says, Cast thy burden upon the Lord. Folks, we don't need to be carrying some things that we can get rid of. Amen? If we can give them to the Lord, why do we keep carrying them? Why can't we keep dragging them around? Why do we keep hanging on to those things when the Word of God teaches us that if we commit our way to the Lord, if we cast our burdens upon Him, if we roll it over onto Him, He'll take care of those things. Look again at verse 5, what He says. He says, Commit thy way unto the Lord. Trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. What is He going to bring to pass? Huh? If I delight in Him, He's going to bring to pass what delights me. Amen? And I'm going to be pleased with what He does. And I'm going to look at it and I'm going to say to myself, You know, Lord, that's what I wanted to do all along. That's what I had in mind. When we commit our way to Him and we cast our cares upon Him, when we become obedient to His Word, when we become submissive to His will and we walk in His way, He shall bring it to pass. But what does it mean to commit to the Lord? It means complete reliance. Complete reliance. You know, if I roll 99.9 percent of my burdens upon the Lord and I keep one-tenth of a percent, am I committed? Nope. Nope. It's got to be all or none. Commit thy way unto the Lord. That's where we get in Romans 8, verse 28, and we know that all things work together for good to them that love the Lord. That word love there is agape, but it can also be translated delight in the Lord. When we delight in the Lord, then whatever He brings our way is going to be delightful to us because we know it's the will of God. We know it's for His purpose and His goal. Commit thy way to the Lord. And then we come to the last, verse 7. He says, trust in the Lord, delight in the Lord, commit thy way unto the Lord, and then we can rest in the Lord. Rest in the Lord. Take my yoke upon you for my burden's light. Rest in the Lord. Now, think about that word rest. Rest. It means to be silent and be submissive. Trust, delight, commit, rest in the Lord. You know, when I was a child growing up, there were two places I could always find peace no matter what was going on. In my grandmother's lap and in my mother's lap. But as I got older and I began to walk and seek and try to serve the Lord, I learned that the peace that God gave it is greater than anything that my mother or my grandmother could ever give. It gives us rest. And we can just rest in Him. Rest in His providence. Rest in His care. David said in Psalms 130, verse 6, he said, my soul waited for the Lord. More than they that watch for the morning, I say, more than they that watch for the morning, my soul waited for the Lord. Folks, we're getting too big of a hurry. We are living in a society that's instantaneous. We want it not now, we want it five minutes ago. Wait patiently, trust Him upon the Lord. Rest in God's providence. Rest in God's all-sufficiency. He will provide. He will take care and He will provide. Rest in God's wisdom and His counsel and His guidance. Look over in Psalms 37, verse 27 through verse 29. Depart from evil, do good, and dwell forevermore. For the Lord loveth the judgment and forsaketh not his saints. They are preserved forever, but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off. What's God saying to us in that verse? Those verses, what is He saying? He's saying, rest in my sufficiency. I will take care of you. I will provide for you. Follow my wisdom, my counsel, my guidance. Rest up on me, and I shall bring it to pass. Rest in God's truth and God's faithfulness. God's Word does not change, folks. And we can rest on it. Look at Psalms 37, verse 34. Wait on the Lord. Keep His way, and He shall exalt thee to inherit the land when the wicked are cut off, and thou shalt see it. Wait, and He will bring it to pass. You know, we can get upset. We can fret. We can become agitated. We can become irritated. We can become all kinds of taters, and we never change a thing. You know, getting mad, getting upset doesn't change a thing. But what will change it? When we trust in the Lord, when we commit our way to Him, and we delight in His will, and we rest in Him, He will bring it to pass. Go back to Psalms 37, and I'll read a couple of more verses, and then I'm going to close. Look at verse 13. The Lord shall laugh at him. Who's he talking about? Verse 12, the wicked plot it against the just and smash it upon him with his teeth. The Lord shall laugh at him. Have you ever had a child come at you, swinging his fist and he wants to fight? And you just reach out and you put your hand on his head, and you just hold him at a distance, and he's just standing there swinging at the air. That's where God has the wicked and the wickedness and the evil of this world. He says in verse 13, The Lord shall laugh at him, for he saith that his day is coming. The wicked have drawn out the sword. They have bent their bow to cast down the poor and the needy and the slaves such as be of the upright. Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bow shall be broken. A little bit a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked. For the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the Lord upholdeth the righteous. The Lord knoweth the days of the upright, and their inheritance shall be forever. They shall not be ashamed in the evil time, and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied. But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs, and they shall consume in the smoke and shall be consumed away. Right now we look around us in the world, and we say to ourselves, It's just not fair. The wicked prosper, and we have to go through trials and tribulations and so forth. Just wait. Just wait. The day is coming when the righteous will be exalted, and the wicked will be cast down. Amen? Solomon Gomorrah was destroyed, was it not? Huh? God brought judgment. He'll do it again. And we shall be exalted among nature. Brett Mott, trusting Him, delighting Him, committing away to Him, resting Him. I read the 23rd Psalm often. Oftentimes. I have to watch myself. I use it sometimes at funerals, and I always open my Bible to read it, but I'm so familiar with quoting it that sometimes I get to quoting instead of reading. David said, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Why? Because He maketh me to lie down. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restores my soul. Amen? He does it. He does it. All I have to do is receive it and rejoice in it. Amen? Verse 4, He leadeth me beside the still waters. Huh? Verse 4, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table in the presence of my enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil. Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Amen? You may... I hear people every day talk about how bad the world is. How bad the world is. And it is bad. No question about that. Somebody said earlier a while ago that we've already read the last chapter. We know that victory is coming. Trust it. And He'll lead you through. Let's stand. Brother Phillip, I don't like to preach without giving an invitation. I don't know how God may have spoken to your heart tonight. I don't know what may be on your heart. But I know this, that you can come to Him and you can find rest. You can find rest. You may be here tonight and you may be able to say, well, Brother Haynes, I don't have any problems in my life. I don't have any troubles. I don't have any tribulations. Everything's going great in my life. That's good. I'm glad to hear that. But watch out, brother. It'll change. Amen? How many of you know Jess? What's his name? Jess? He used to sing with the cathedrals. Jess, what was his name? My mind goes blank sometimes. That curly-headed guy? Huh? Jess. He said one time, he told Bill Gates that he said, this is my philosophy of life. It is very simple. He said things are going to get better. Things are going to get worse. Things are going to stay just the way they are. And that's true. But the Lord will be with us through it all. Amen? He will not leave us. He will not forsake us. Philip, what page? 279.