Psalm 111

God's Works, Our Hands



And they sang the song… of the Lamb, saying,

“Great and marvelous are Your works, O Lord God, the Almighty…

Righteous and true are Your ways, King of the nations!   Revelation 15:3 

The Lord Praised for His Goodness

 1    Praise the Lord!

       I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart, in the company of the upright and in the assembly.

 2    Great are the works of the Lord, they are studied by all who delight in them.

 3    Splendid and majestic is His work, and His righteousness endures forever.

 4    He has made His wonders to be remembered – the Lord is gracious and compassionate.  

 5    He has given food to those who fear Him, He will remember His covenant forever.

 6    He has made known to His people the power of His works, in giving them the heritage of the nations.

 7    The works of His hands are truth and justice, all His precepts are sure.

 8    They are upheld forever and ever, they are performed in truth and uprightness.  

 9    He has sent redemption to His people –

       He has ordained His covenant forever, Holy and awesome is His name.

10   The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom –

       A good understanding have all those who do His commandments.  His praise endures forever. 

For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases Him 

The many people of God’s church come together as one, to serve Him by caring for and feeding the hungry all around the world.  We have the Lord Jesus Christ as our perfect example.  Our lives have been changed by our relationship with God through Jesus Christ, and it’s that encounter with Jesus that frees us to make a difference.  We bring glory to God by demonstrating what He is like.   

What are the good works for which we were created? Charles Spurgeon summarizes them as, works of obedience, works of love, works of faith, and what we do in everyday life.  Obeying the commands of Scripture, works of love includes both love for God and love for our fellow man.  In faith we do all in reliance upon Him and His promises. By all that we do everyday in our home, at work, when we travel,  or even when we are on a sick bed—we should always have in mind to do all for the glory of God.  We were saved by God’s grace and we should live with a God-ward focus, to please Him. 

God sovereignly ordained these good works before we were born, we are responsible to walk in them

God has prepared a path of good works for believers which He will perform in and through us as we walk by faith in obedience to Him.  It does not mean doing a work for God, but rather that God is doing His work in and through His people.  In Philippians 2:13, we are told, “For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”

 Many cultures lead us towards independence. We tend to idolize the “self-made man,” who gets it done on his own.  But Scripture teaches that when God saves us, the Holy Spirit baptizes us into the one body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:13). We are individually members of this body, each with a role to perform.  But together, we can reflect Christ back to community in a way that we cannot if we act independently of one another—or by not focusing on God’s work from the beginning.    

In closing, there are two things we must remember.  First, we must be sure to be a new creation in Christ. Have you truly been saved by His grace through faith in Christ alone?  The only way we can become a Christian is by God first doing His work in us. Only He can change a heart.  Stand back, and retreat from all self-works, for it is God who must create us to do good works in service to Him through Jesus Christ.  To feel this deceit in ourselves might very well drive us to the Lord in great despair. It would be to our benefit if we never again indulged a shred of hope in the work of our own hands, and were forced to accept the grace that God has for every man.  

Second, if you have been saved, the focus of your life should be, “Lord, what will You have me to do?”  The Apostle Paul asked God this question after his experience on the Damascus Road. The Lord answered in Acts 22:10, “Get up and go on into Damascus, and there you will be told of all that has been appointed for you to do.”  God had already prepared Paul’s future ministry.  Paul had to learn God’s plan and walk in it, and so must we.