“Commit to the Lord whatever you do”
[Proverbs 16:1-3]
How are you planning your own management and the rest of your life? Elder Soo-woong Park, who came to our church few years ago and led the family seminar, set up his own management and plans for the rest of his life in his book ‘Soo-woong Park's Self-Management’ (Soo-woong Park): First of all, if we look at the ‘2002 Self-Management Chart’, the theme of self-management is ‘First, seek God's kingdom and God's righteousness’ (Mt. 6:35). And the “goal” of self-management is ‘Let's grow healthy and balanced in character, life, and ministry in the image of Jesus Christ and produce the fruits of the filling of the Holy Spirit in the Lord God (1 Thess. 5:23-24, Gal. 4:19, Josh 14: 6-15).’ In his management, he divided into two categories: ‘life area’ and ‘ministry’. In terms of life, ‘spiritual life’, ‘intellectual life’, ‘emotional life’, ‘healthy life’ and ‘family life’ , ‘occupation’, ‘church life’ and ‘finance’. Looking at the field of ministry, he is serving “JAMA”, “KOSTA”, “CCC(Campus Crusade of Christ)’, ‘family ministry’, “Christ's ambassador”. In particular, looking at his spiritual life in the realm of his life, he walks with God every moment with the Word, personifying the QT (the Word meditation), communion with God through personalization, and attends the early morning prayer meeting to God with his knees (Knee-mail), and aiming to go out and fill his thoughts with the word of God according to Psalm 119:9-11. In ‘Healthy Life,’ he set the goal of ‘Let's keep a modest diet so that I don't get fat, let's exercise golf once a week, and live in scale with a regular lifestyle.’ He set the goal to change his full-time doctor job to part-time, to yield to his hospital colleagues and to become an example as a Christian, to witness the gospel as a doctor who praises God, and to become a peacemaker so that the workplace becomes the kingdom of God.’ Another look at his ‘future resume’ he made plans from 1998 (his 54 years old) to 2023 (79 years old). I guess he is almost 70 years old now. His plans from the age of 60 (2004) include ‘retiring from the hospital’, ‘to completely pay off the bank loan for the purchase of a house’, ‘youngest son… beginning with marriage to make 2 boys and 1 daughter self-reliant’, ‘expanding the scope of ministry to the world.’ Looking at the 2006-2010 (ages 62-66), he said ‘join the young people ministry,’ ‘be faithful to the new vision from God’. Isn’t this amazing and challenging that he wants to be faithful to the Lord’s new vision at the early 60’s? In his 2011-2020 (age 67-76) plan, it says, ‘I will cultivate and cooperate with juniors as a mentor’ and ‘I will focus on resembling the image of the Lord in a whole person.’ And his future plans are ‘to publish the fourth book that ends my life’, ‘to give glory to God by completing the vision as written in my future resume’ and ‘preparing to enter heaven’. What a great future plan? If we are challenged, how about writing our own “Self-Management Chart” and “Future Resume”?
If we look at Proverbs 16:3, the Bible says “Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.” Focusing on this word, I want to receive a lesson from God as we meditate on today's text in three ways under the heading, “Commit to the Lord whatever you do.”
First, we must make the plan of the heart.
Look at Proverbs 16:1 – “To man belong the plans of the heart, but from the LORD comes the reply of the tongue.” The first thing we need to think about here is the word “the plans”. The word is plural, meaning “plans” or “considerations”, which are plans, considerations, ie, an orderly, purposed, arrangement of ideas with regard to future actions (Swanson). What do you think? Do we have in our minds now plans, considerations, arrangement of ideas about future action, that is plans for the future? I think that verse 1 can have some misunderstanding points. When we read this word, “To man belong the plans of the heart, …” we can think ‘Oh, we don’t need to make plans for our future since in the end only God’s sovereign will come true.’ Is this really what the Bible is talking about in verse 1? No. What we need to make clear here is that, in the tension between God's sovereignty and our responsibility, we must humbly and faithfully take our responsibility. For example, a brother in Christ told me a long time ago: ‘If there are people already chosen and predestined by God in His sovereignty, there is no need to evangelize.’ What do you think of this? This word is spoken without knowing the tension between God's sovereignty and our responsibility, evangelism (preaching the gospel). Jesus' command is to preach the gospel. Our responsibility is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is not up to us who are the people whom God has chosen and who are not. Having such thought is very dangerous. I think such thought is the thought that challenges God's sovereignty.
In Proverbs 16:1, the Bible is by no means saying that we don't need to have plan of the heart because from the Lord comes the reply of out tongues. Rather, the Bible urges us to make plans of the heart. The reason is because it is our responsibility. But we have to remember Proverbs 19:21 – “Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails.” When we have many plans in our hearts, we should only pursue the will of God. We must make plans for the future of our lives with desperate desire that only God's will be accomplished. For example, like Elder Park, the theme of self-management should be ‘Let's first seek God's kingdom and God's righteousness’. And there are times when we don't know what God's will is. But every time, like Jesus, we must make plans in our hearts by praying, ‘Not my will but God’s will be done’. I hope and pray that only God's will will be accomplished through the plans of our hearts.
Second, we must check whether the motives of our hearts are right in the sing of the Lord.
Look at Proverbs 16:2 – “All the ways of a man are clean in his own sight, But the LORD weighs the motives.” Because we humans cannot see the other person's heart, we have no choice but to judge only by looking at the other person's appearance. A good example of this in the Bible is given in 1 Samuel 16:7 – “But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” As we already know, because God rejected Saul from being king of Israel, he pre-selected one of Jesse's sons (v. 1). When Samuel saw Eliab, the son of Jesse, he thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed is before Him (v. 6). At that time, God said verse 7. Even Samuel judged Eliab based on his appearance. Therefore, when we judge only by looking at a person's appearance, there are many chances of being wrong. The reason is because we are able to behave right outwardly, even though our heart’s motives are impure. The Bible Proverbs 16:2 says, “All the ways of a man are clean in his own sight ….” Here the word “clean” means ‘flawless’ (Swanson). In other words, our human instinct is to think that we are right so that our actions are flawless in our eyes. So even if the other person sees and points out our faults (defects), we not only deny it, but we even defend ourselves that we are never at fault to the point that we are offended and upset. Although there are countless times when God points out our faults through His holy words, we are unaware of our own faults, thinking that we have not done anything wrong. For example, we take Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament: “’A son honors his father, and a servant his master Then if I am a father, where is My honor? And if I am a master, where is My respect?’ says the LORD of hosts to you, O priests who despise My name. But you say, ‘How have we despised Your name?’ ‘You are presenting defiled food upon My altar But you say, ‘How have we defiled You?’ In that you say, ‘The table of the LORD is to be despised’” (Mal. 1:6-7). Although God clearly said to the priests of Israel, “O priests who despise My name” (v. 6), they said, “How have we despised Your name” (v. 6). Also, God said that they offered defiled food to God's altar, and the Israeli priests said, “How have we defiled You?” (v. 7) The Israeli priests firmly believed that they didn’t despise God’s name and didn’t defile the Lord in their own eyes. When I think about why the Israeli priests have come to this point, I think the cause is written in the first half of Malachi 1:2 – “’I have loved you,’ says the LORD But you say, ‘How have You loved us?’” In other words, they weren’t aware (experienced) of God's love, so they thought that there was nothing wrong with them.
It is very dangerous to think that our actions are right or clean in our own eyes. The danger is that we are guilty of God, but we don’t regard it as sin. That is why we continue to commit sins before God that we don’t consider to be sins. Rather, we must ask ourselves the question, “How am I in God’s eyes?”, not in our own eyes. The reason is because God sees our hearts (1 Sam. 16:7). The reason is because God weights the motives (Prov. 16:2). So we must remember that God weights our motives. God knows everything. He know whether we are pursuing His will and His glory, or whether we are pursuing His will and His glory outwardly, only in people's eyes with impure motives in our hearts. Therefore, we must also listen to Proverbs 21:2 – “Every man's way is right in his own eyes, But the LORD weighs the hearts.”
Third and last, we must commit our works to the Lord.
Look at Proverbs 16:3 – “Commit your works to the LORD And your plans will be established.” Here, the original Hebrew word for “commit” means “roll”. In other words, it means to entrust our works to God with sincere heart and earnest desire, as if rolling a stone (Swanson). But the problem is, we often worry again after praying to God and after we leaving all the works to God. It's like rolling the stone and looking for it again. Think about it. The fact that we have rolled the stone is that it has already been left from our hands. And if we have left all of our works to God in prayer, it is like taking our hands off the stone. However, if we are worried and anxious about the prayer topic that we have left to God, it has not been completely entrusted to Him. The word ‘roll out’ is also found in Psalms 22:8 and 37:5 – “Commit yourself to the LORD; let Him deliver him; Let Him rescue him, because He delights in him” (22:8), “Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, and He will do it” (37:5). The psalmist uses the words ‘to commit’ with the word ‘to trust.’ That means that we commit our ways to God, to rely on Him and to trust in Him.
We must commit our ways to God. We must entrust our ways to Him and trust in Him. What is the reason? The reason is stated in Proverbs 16:9 – “The mind of man plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.” The reason we must commit our ways to God is because it is God who directs our steps. Also, the reason is stated in Proverbs 19:21 – “Many plans are in a man's heart, But the counsel of the LORD will stand.” Even if we have many plans in our hearts, only God's will will be fully established. So even if we make plans of our heart, which is our responsibility, we must completely commit them to God. Like Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, we must commit all of our plans to God with prayerful heart saying, “… yet not as I will, but as You will” (Mt. 26:39). Then God will fulfill the plans of our hearts (Ps. 37:5).
We must a plan for the rest of our lives. And when we make the plan, we must do so with a heart of pursuing God's will. We must lay down our will and plan our lives with the heart attitude to pursue God's will. The reason is because God is weighting the motives of our hearts. And we must commit all the plans of our hearts to God. The reason is because only God's will will stand. May only God's will come true through our lives.