In 'The Committed Life,' Peter Allison explores the concept of living a life dedicated to the glory of God, drawing from Proverbs 16. He outlines four main implications of this commitment: planning, evaluating plans by God's Word, trusting in God's plan, and understanding the totality of our commitment. The sermon emphasizes that while humans have a responsibility to plan, God's sovereignty ultimately directs our steps. Allison stresses that our plans should align with biblical principles and that true commitment involves trusting God's plan over our own. The sermon discusses how God ordains all things for His glory, including the actions of wicked men, without being the author of sin. The blessings of committing to God include the provision of atonement, preservation from evil, and the establishment of our works, thoughts, and steps. Ultimately, the sermon calls believers to trust in God's goodness and His plan, finding confidence in His eternal purposes.

Please turn in your Bibles to Proverbs 16. I'd like to read for our scripture reading this morning the first nine verses. Hear God's word. The preparations of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirits.

Commit your works to the Lord and your thoughts will be established. The Lord has made all for Himself, yes, even the wicked for the day of doom. Everyone proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord. Though they join forces, none will go unpunished. In mercy and truth, atonement is provided for iniquity, and by the fear of the Lord one departs from evil.

When a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. Better is a little with righteousness than vast revenues without justice. A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps." May God be praised at the reading and hearing of His Word, the Word which endures forever, the grass withers. The flower of the field fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Heavenly Father, You have given to us Your Word in writing.

You have written it also upon our hearts, and yet we have sought out many devices. We ask, Lord, this morning that you would prepare us, prepare our hearts to hear your word. We ask that you would bring to us your word through this vessel of clay and through these sinful lips. May your glory be exalted. May your name be magnified.

May your truth be made known. In Jesus' name we ask. Amen. We ask. Well everyone is committed to something.

Everyone. Every one of us is committed to something. Every person that God has made is committed to something. Some people are committed to money. Their goal is to make as much money as they can while they stay out of jail and then quit working.

Other people are maybe committed to more altruistic ends. But for a Christian, Our commitment is to the glory of God. That's our chief purpose. That's the reason that we have been created. To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

In fact, we often speak of the time of our conversion as when we committed our life to the Lord. When we gave our life to the Lord. When we turned over our life to the Lord. When we surrendered our life to the Lord Jesus Christ. And we committed to live for Him.

And we stopped living for ourselves. And we started to seek His glory. Now practically, What does that mean? Those are very true words. Those are glorious words.

That we are created to glorify God. That our chief end is to glorify God. But practically What does that mean? That we commit our life to the Lord. That we commit our steps and our way to the Lord.

What are the implications of that commitment? That's what we want to look at this morning. What are the implications of that commitment? To glorify the Lord. To surrender our life to Him.

I Want to look at it under four headings. The implications first of our commitment to the Lord is that we make our plans. Secondly, that we evaluate our plans according to the Word of God. Thirdly, that we trust God's plan. Then the totality of that commitment.

It's one of the implications of our commitment to the Lord. And lastly, the last implication we want to look at this morning of our commitment to the Lord is the blessing of committing our life to the Lord. So the first implication of committing our life to the Lord is that we plan. The preparations of the heart belong to man. It pertains to us.

In verse 3, it's given as a command. Commit your way to the Lord. But it belongs to us to plan. Committing our way to the Lord doesn't mean that we say, well, God is sovereign, and He is going to bring to pass whatever He has determined to bring to pass. And so we don't need to plan.

We don't need to plan for anything because God has everything planned and His plan is good, it's perfect, and He will bring it to pass. There is no one that can stay His hand, as Nebuchadnezzar recognized when he tried. He was brought to acknowledge that there is no one that can divert God's purpose. So some might think, well, why should I even plan? What's the purpose of my planning if God has planned everything?

I don't need to plan for anything then. In fact, I don't need insurance. As that thinking goes, God will direct my steps. And He brings to pass what is good. So if I get insurance, then I'm not trusting God.

But that's not what our text says. It says it belongs to us to plan. It says it several times. A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his step. The preparations of the heart belong to man, but The answer of the tongue is from the Lord.

We are to prepare our steps. We're to prepare even our words. We are to contemplate. We are to desire. We are to plan.

We are to purpose. We are to hope. This is our duty. This belongs to us. And if we have committed our way to the Lord, one of the first implications is that we will plan.

He has made us with the ability to think and to plan and to reason. And He calls us to do that. God's sovereignty is completely compatible with our responsibility, our duty to plan, and the necessity of our planning. Because it is through our plans, It is through our prayers of the saints that God brings to pass His will. I think that's obvious.

It probably doesn't need to be said. And yet there is this tendency that if we believe in the sovereignty of God and His plan, then we don't have a responsibility to plan. Or we can be forgiven if we don't plan. Excused I should say. Our sins can be forgiven, but we can be excused for not planning.

That somehow there is an element of spirituality in not planning. But that's not what the Bible says. Just the opposite. Just the opposite. If you just do a quick scan through the pages of Scripture, you See this.

God gave the animals to Adam and called him to go name them, to put a name upon them. When the Israelites were going to go into the land of Canaan, they sent spies to spy out the land. Why? Because if you're going to engage in a military conquest of a land, you need to have some intelligence about where you're going. You need to know where the roads go, what the condition of the roads is, What are the good roads and the bad roads?

What are the places that you need to avoid? What are the places of enemy's strength? What are the places of his weakness? And so there was extensive planning for this calling, this duty, that God had said He would give Israel the land of Canaan. But they didn't just say, well, then God's going to give it to us.

Let's go merrily on our way in ignorance. No, they engaged in an extensive spying operation. They made plans. They made plans. We read many times where Paul made plans.

He had purposes. He had intentions of where he was going to go to preach the gospel. And he speaks about those plans in the Scriptures. But in making our plans, one of the implications of committing our way to the Lord is that we evaluate our plans according to the Word of God. This too is obvious, I think.

So the first goal of our plans is to do what is right in God's eyes. See, the problem, we have a problem here at this point, And that is that we're sinners. We sin, we transgress God's law, we don't do what is right in God's eyes. But it's even more complex than that. We are deceived about our own sin.

And so when we come to make plans and we want to make those plans in accordance with the Word of God, we find that our eyes are blinded to our own sin. All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, But the Lord weighs the spirits. See, it's one thing to acknowledge that we are sinners. It's quite a different thing to acknowledge specifically that we have sinned and to acknowledge specifically where we have sinned. Almost everybody you meet, few exceptions, some of the perfectionists would not agree, but most people will acknowledge that they're not perfect.

That's not hard to do. But far fewer acknowledge that they have sinned at a specific point in time. Just think a minute. Have you ever in prayer gotten to the point where you are ready to confess your sins, But then you can't think of anything to confess at that point? Me too.

The ways of man are pure in his own eyes. See, we think that what we do is right because we are very quick to and very adept at rationalizing what we are doing. We can rationalize away our sins. We can do something that looks good outwardly, and we can point to that good deed. It looks good.

We know that everybody else looking at that deed might think, well that was a good thing. Because outwardly it was right. It was the right thing to do. But God knows the intentions of our hearts. Solomon says that God weighs, we think what we do is right in our own eyes, but God weighs the spirits.

God weighs our thoughts and our intentions. God knows why we did what we did, and He's just as interested in why we have done what we have done, as in what we have done. He evaluates our motives, our thoughts, our intentions, according to His standard that He has given to us in His Word. And so to commit our way to the Lord is to use His standard of what is right and what is wrong. His standard of what is good and what is not.

What is just and what is unjust and not our own thinking. In that case, it's better to not be quite as successful, but be just and right in our steps than to be highly successful and to make a lot of money or whatever other terms you are defining success in. It's better to be right in our steps and not to be highly successful, but to be completely above reproach. See, truth is more important than wealth. Justice is more important than our convenience.

The glory of God is more important than our fame and the regard that we are held by others. To commit our way to the Lord means that we commit our very thoughts to Him. And we ask Him to search our hearts, to try our thoughts and see if there is a wicked way in us. And we look to the Scriptures and to what they say and not to our impressions or our, what we think is true or our opinions or the opinions of everybody else. It's very easy to hide behind the opinions of everybody else.

What is the culture saying? What is acceptable among this body here? Well just because we all accept it, does it necessarily make it right? So the implications of committing our life to the Lord is that first, that we plan. Secondly, that we evaluate our plans, even the thoughts, our thinking, our motives.

We evaluate this by the Scriptures, by the Word of God. And thirdly, we trust God's plan. He has a plan too. Our planning, in our planning, we are simply thinking God's thoughts after him. We are simply imitating him we've been made in his image and knowledge and righteousness and holiness and our planning is really just a an imitation of What he does and So to commit our way to the Lord is to trust His plan.

See the preparations of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. We can plan, But what actually happens is God's plan. And that's the plan that we need to trust. It means that we acknowledge that God is the judge of what we have done, and what we plan, and not ourself.

It means that we commit our works to the Lord. That There in verse 3, commit your works to the Lord is the heart of trusting God's plan. This is saying that we ought to cast our burdens on the Lord. That word commit here is usually translated role. Role.

Think of I was just watching a solo video the other day of this man or young young man Unloading a trailer of hay, you know those big round bales I think there are bigger round bales and smaller round bales, but all the round bales are pretty big. But this man was taking these bales and rolling them onto his back and then carrying them over to the pile and dumping them. Now most people use a tractor to pick those bales up, but this guy was rolling them. He'd get under the trailer and then he'd get that bail and he rolled it back onto his shoulders And he'd carry that bail Over to the pile and dumped it and go back for another one. I'm not sure and maybe because he didn't have a tractor But that's the idea of what we are to do regarding our works.

We are to roll them onto the Lord. Because our back isn't strong enough to carry our burdens. It's not strong enough to do the things that He calls us to do. It's not strong enough to execute our plans. So scripture tells us that we are to roll our burdens our plans Onto the Lord to commit them to him.

I think that word is a good translation of What is involved when you commit? Something to the Lord When if you have a small children in and you want to you and your spouse want to go out for the evening, You may give your child to somebody else to care for them. You are committing that precious baby to someone else to care for them. And you're going to be away and you're trusting that they will take care of that baby. They will protect its life, his life, his health, and so forth.

And so when we commit our works to the Lord, We are not only rolling over that burden onto the Lord, but we are acknowledging that we can't care for it, and that He can. This is not a commitment just in a general sense. Well, I committed my life to the Lord 23 years ago. But this is a commitment that is specific. We roll each work onto Him, each of our plans throughout the day.

We commit to the Lord. We look to Him for guidance and strength for each of our plans, for our specific works that we are going to do this hour or the next hour. We commit our day to Him. The psalmist speaks of early in the morning coming before the Lord, lifting up our praise to Him, and speaks of His Word, coming and meditating on it in the evening. Our daily work we commit each day to the Lord.

We commit our yearly work to the Lord And we commit our life's work to the Lord It's something that we have to do. It's not something that we just think about, but it's something that we actually must do. Commit your works to the Lord. How do we commit our works to the Lord in a specific way. Well, we tell the Lord.

We pray. I commit this day to You. I commit these plans to You. How do we do that? In practical ways, James says that, well, when you plan to go to a city and spend a year there and buy and sell, you acknowledge that you will do that if the Lord wills for you to do that.

He says that's how we are to speak. If the Lord wills, we intend to do this or that. Deo Volente, the will of the Lord. Lord willing. If the Lord is willing, this is what we intend to do.

And so to commit our way to the Lord is to acknowledge God's sovereignty in all things. His propriety over us, that means He owns us and has a right to direct all of our affairs, to govern the circumstances, to either bring to pass what we have planned or to bring something else to pass. And so we plan for the Lord to bring to pass what we have planned. That's what a plan is. We plan for the Lord to bring to pass what we have planned.

But when we commit our way to the Lord, when we are surrendered to Him and we are trusting in His plan, Then we won't be upset, we won't be ungrateful, we won't be fretful, we won't be despairing, or we won't be fearful when God brings something other than what we have planned to pass. Because we know that His plan is good. His plan for us is good. He's promised that what He brings to pass is for our own good. What He sovereignly brings to pass is for our own good, as well as His glory.

So we don't need to be afraid. When we're afraid, then we're not trusting in God's plan. We haven't committed it to Him, And we're not resting in His strength and His power and in His goodness to bring to pass what is good for us. We're not upset when we don't get our way, Because we've committed our way to the Lord. How can we be upset if we don't get what we want?

Our commitment was that God would have His will in our life. We don't despair either. We aren't filled with self-pity. That's really just being focused on ourself. We're sorry to be despairing or to be filled with self-pity is really to be unhappy that we didn't get our way.

To be committed to the Lord, we won't be despairing. We won't be filled with self-pity. And when we are, we know we need to tell ourselves not to be. We need to teach ourselves the Word of God. See, God has a plan.

And we don't know what God's plan is specifically. It's His secret will. And it's not for us to pry into God's plan. As someone once said, ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do and die. If we have committed our life to the Lord, then we have entrusted, just like young parents entrusting their baby to somebody else, we have entrusted our life and put it in the Lord's hands and said, take my life, Lord, and use me as you see fit.

And we don't pry into His plan. We're not worried about what it is. We just trust it. What He's revealed belongs to us, but His plan, Moses said, belongs to Him. We know that God has revealed to us that He has a purpose for everything that He has made.

And He has a purpose in everything that He does. Our text says that He has even made the wicked for the day of judgment. When His justice, His perfect justice and His righteousness will be on display and will be glorified. He will be glorified in His justice and in His judgments. His purpose in everything is His own glory, because He is God.

And everything that was made was made by Him. For by Him, by Christ, all things were created that are in the heavens and that are on earth, visible and invisible. Satan was created by Christ. The devils were created by Christ. The power, every power, every principality, visible and invisible, was created by Christ.

Whether it's in the heavens or in the earth, It was created by Christ. If you can see it, or you can't see it. If it exists, it was created. Whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers all things were created through him and notice those last two words for him created by him created for him and he is before all things and in him all things consist And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn of the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. In all things.

That means in every aspect of our life, in every aspect of our plans, when we commit our works to the Lord, We are asking that He have the preeminence. And He will. The Bible says that God will work all things to His glory. Even the wrath of men will praise God. The psalmist says, Psalm 76 and Psalm 145.

God has ordained the wicked. He has ordained or determined everything that comes to pass. Even the acts of wicked men. Even our sins. That doesn't mean He's the author of sin.

God is not the author of sin. He doesn't cause the wicked to act differently from the way they want to act. The wicked sin and are responsible for their sin because they act exactly in the way that they want to act. God isn't compelling anyone to act differently than they desire to act, than their will. But God is, at the same time, ordaining and determining everything that comes to pass.

Everything. Even the fall. Even our sin. Even the acts of wicked men are ordained by God. Now how this can be is a rather thorny topic of apologetics and philosophy.

And we're not going to delve into that today. It's an interesting discussion. But I want to just point out that this is what scripture clearly teaches That God has ordained everything that comes to pass even the acts of wicked men But that we are also fully responsible for those acts because those acts represent what we wanted to do. And they are put together in several places in scripture, but one of the most clear and direct is in the book of Acts, in Peter's sermon at Pentecost, when he is addressing the people who crucified the Lord of glory. He said, men of Israel, hear these words.

Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves also know. Him, Christ, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God. The determined counsel and foreknowledge. Yes, God knew this would happen. He had foreknowledge, but it wasn't just a foreknowledge of something that He was permitting, as if He didn't want it to happen, but was permitting it to happen.

No, Peter says very clearly that Christ was delivered to death, to be crucified. He was delivered by the determined purpose, by God's decree, by God's plan, by God's will. God ordained that. Him being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you, right in the same sentence, You, He says, have taken by lawless hands and crucified and put to death. Lawless hands, wicked hands.

You wicked people, you are responsible for crucifying the Lord of glory. Of course, God raised Him up, having loose the pains of death because it wasn't possible that he should be held by it. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified. There is no doubt about who was responsible, humanly responsible, for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. But there is also no doubt that God ordained that very thing.

So the Lord has made all things for His own glory. He has ordained everything that comes to pass. Yes, even the wicked He has made for the day of doom, the day of judgment. Scripture puts these two things together. And so to commit our way to the Lord means that we trust in God's sovereign plan.

We rest in it. We rest peacefully in it. Knowing that He is sovereign, that He is all-powerful, and that what He brings to pass is good. But notice also the totality of our commitment. The totality of this commitment.

It's not partial in any way. It includes our thoughts. Just in our text we see it includes our thoughts. It includes... Commit your works to the Lord and your thoughts will be established.

The preparations of the heart, the heart is in the Old Testament, it represents us. The seed of our emotions, the seed of our thinking, our will, our intellect. That's our heart. The preparations of the heart belong to man. Our words, our works, the totality of our existence.

Our life now is Committed to the Lord each step is committed to the Lord When Nehemiah Was called before the king he took a very important step that very step He committed to the Lord in prayer When Esther was to step before King a hash you eras and risk her life She committed that act to the Lord by fasting for three days and calling upon the Lord in prayer. And then she went saying, if I perish, I perish. She committed her works to the Lord, the totality of her life she placed in His hands. And she trusted God's plan. Each day We commit to the Lord morning and evening as we wake up as we go to bed Calling upon the Lord meditating upon his word Each week we commit to the Lord you are here today Committing this week to the Lord by beginning this week in celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

You're not out at the football game. You know, The NFL owns a day in our culture that used to be the Lord's Day. Be more honest to call it NFL's Day. Those who are committed to the Lord, we commit our week to the Lord. We begin our week.

We set aside the very first day. This is not the week end. This is the week beginning. This is the first day of the week. We commit our week to the Lord by spending the first day in public and private exercises of worship, in a corporate assembly, getting together with God's people to praise and thank the Lord.

We commit each year to the Lord. Don't you mark your years? How many years you are alive? Don't you celebrate the years of your marriage? In a sense you are acknowledging that the Lord has given you those years.

We commit our life to come to the Lord. You see, this commitment is really an act of worship and service We presenting our bodies as living sacrifices to the Lord. This is your reasonable service This is what it means to commit our works to the Lord and The Bible says we can't serve two masters We can't serve we can't be committed to the Lord and also committed to something else We can't be fully committed to the Lord and committed to other things too. See, all of the commitments of our life, and we have many. As spouses we have commitments, marital commitments, marriage vows.

As parents we take vows before God's people to the Lord regarding our children and our instruction and care for them. And all of these commitments, The commitment of a husband to love his wife the commitment of a wife to submit to her husband the commitment of children to obey Their parents the commitment of a servant the work of a servant for his master that corporate commitment They all have to flow out of and be submitted to our commitment of our life to the Lord. And the Bible says that when we commit our way to the Lord, when our life is dedicated to His glory, when it's lived according to His Word, when we have surrendered by His grace to Him, our life to Him, then He, then our thoughts, even our thoughts are established. And so there is then the blessing of our commitment to the Lord. The last implication we want to look at this morning of being committed to the Lord is the blessing that He has promised to those who commit their way to Him.

And I hope you didn't miss the biggest and most glorious blessing in all of Scripture right in our text to those who commit their way to the Lord. He provides atonement for our sins. In mercy and truth, atonement is provided for iniquity and by the fear of the Lord one departs from evil. Mercy and truth are the pillars that frame our salvation from the wrath of God. Psalm 85 says that mercy and truth are met together.

Righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Mercy and truth are met together. They are the pillars that frame our salvation. The truth is that we are guilty of eternal death, of suffering the wrath of God for all eternity. But in God's mercy, we are delivered.

In God's mercy, His wrath is poured out on Jesus Christ. In truth, in His truth, His justice is satisfied. And that is the truth. In His truth, His justice is satisfied. The truth is that though the sins of the holiest of Saints are more than sufficient to condemn them.

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, to those who have committed their life to Him. There is no more condemnation. There is no shame. There is no guilt. In the mercy of God and in the truth of God, Atonement is provided for iniquity.

But that's not all. The Lord also preserves from evil those who commit their way to Him. By the fear of the Lord one departs from evil. To fear the Lord is to reverence the Lord. To have regard for His Word.

We talked about that earlier about We evaluate our plans in the light of the Word of God. We have a reverence, a desire to serve the Lord, to please the Lord. And so this is what we would call the process of sanctification, the fear of the Lord. By the fear of the Lord one departs from evil. God preserves from sin and evil those who fear Him.

He also directs our steps. We plan our way. We evaluate that way according to the Word of God. We trust in His plan And God directs our steps. When we commit our way to the Lord, we can walk in confidence knowing that the Lord is directing our path, that He's guiding our thinking, that He's guiding where we go in our coming and going.

And that He will establish Our works. Establish our thoughts. To establish something is to confirm it. It's to make it happen. If it's a thought, to establish the thought means that it comes into fruition.

You see, what are the thoughts of a Christian? How we may glorify God and enjoy Him forever. How we can serve Him and commit our way to Him. The blessing of committing to the Lord is that He establishes our plans, even as He established the throne of David. He establishes us.

He gives to us an inheritance. He gives to us a heritage. He promises to be a God to us and to our children. And He is. And He is pleased to raise, to bring into His Kingdom many sons.

Establishing Our thoughts in verse 3, your thoughts will be established. And in verse 9, directing our steps, it's the exact same word in Hebrew. Commit your works to the Lord and your thoughts will be established. A man's heart plans the way, but the Lord establishes his steps. The Lord directs them, He guides them, He upholds them, He brings them to fruition.

And His purpose for His people is that we be made perfect. Perfect, sinless, and fully able to enjoy the Lord for all eternity. That's a glorious and wonderful plan. Where is your confidence today? Is it in your steps and in your plans and your abilities or is it in Christ's plan?

Are you trusting Christ's plan? Have you committed your life to the Lord and are you confident? Are you confident this morning that He is able to keep that which you have entrusted to Him against that day? Paul was and he could say I know whom I have believed and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed against that very day. Paul put his life in Christ's hands, and he was fully confident that the Lord would keep what he had committed to him to that very day.

Let's pray. Almighty Heavenly Father, we thank You that You are sovereign. You do govern in the affairs of men and of nations. Indeed, You have said they are but a speck of dust on the scales. And yet you are mindful of us.

You call us not only to plan, but as we commit our way to you, You establish our thoughts. You direct our steps. And in mercy and truth You have provided atonement for our sins through Jesus Christ who is the truth, who is the way, and who is the life. Father, where we are doubting of Your plan, of Your purposes and of Your goodness, we ask that you would give to us that confidence that you have given to Paul. That we can say with full assurance, I know in whom I have believed and am persuaded that you are able To keep that which we have committed against that very day.

Through Jesus Christ we pray these things. Amen.