June 4^th, 2006

What's Your Plan?

Proverbs 16: 1-9

Pastor Barry Clarke

There is a story is told about the well known scientist, Albert Einstein. Many years ago Einstein was on a train bound for New York City. As the ticket taker came walking through the car, Einstein reached into his pocket to retrieve his ticket, but could not find it. He frantically searched his coat pockets, turned his pants pockets inside out, but still could not produce the ticket. The ticket taker said, ‘Don’t worry, Mr. Einstein, we all know who you are. Forget about it.’ About 20 minutes later, the ticket taker came back through the car, and by this time Einstein was on the floor searching everywhere for the lost ticket. Again the ticket taker tried to reassure Einstein by saying, ‘I told you not to worry about the lost ticket. We trust that you purchased one, and that is good enough for us.’ Einstein looked up at the railroad employee and said, ‘Young man, this isn’t a matter of trust but of direction. I need to find the ticket because I forgot where I am going.” Sometimes life feels a little like that for me. I find myself active and busy but if I stop to think for a moment I am not sure where all my activity is leading. Like Einstein, I have a tendency to forget where I am going. Not literally, I usually arrive at the place I start to drive towards. ? But I do sometimes forget where my life is leading to. It is a matter of direction. And knowing what direction we are moving in requires intention. Intention, in turn, will require a plan.

Proverbs 16:1-9 is an amazingly insightful portion of scripture. And it has a lot to say about planning and how God engages and shapes the planning process in our lives.

16:1 Our plans: God has the final word.
“Mortals make elaborate plans, but God has the last word” (MSG)

• We are very good at formulating elaborate plans that we hope will achieve our goals.
• What we often fail to realize is that even the ability to begin to bring form and structure to our plans comes from God.
• It is God that enables people to put thoughts into words.
• God must give the ability to people to articulate our plans.
• And that gift from God, the ability to express what is important and to see how to get there is called wisdom.
• The Amplified version of the Bible sheds light on this when it says “the plans of the mind and orderly thinking belong to man, but from the Lord comes the wise answer of the tongue.”
• The bottom line here is that our plans are completely dependent on God. He makes the whole process possible and He has the last word.
• We can plan all we want but in the end seeing our plans come to be is God’s department.
• Need proof that things do not always go the way we plan? How many of you have read the story in the Whig Standard that tells about Glen and Linda Neff’s daughter, Lori. The paper reported this…”last Friday, Lori Lacombe was walking the aisles at Costco searching for the perfect birthday cake for her father’s birthday when she began to feel the pains. An expectant mother one day past due, Lacombe left the store without her pastry…By 2pm. Lacombe decided to call her husband and have him come home. She figured the baby would probably be born within the next 24 hours. She told him there was no need to rush.” If you know the rest of story then you know things did not work out the way Lori planned. At 3:18pm Mya-Lyn Marie Lacombe came into the world, in the back of an ambulance, on the side of Sydenham road.” Not exactly the way it was planned.

16:2 Our Plans: God sees what is good not just what looks good.
"Humans are satisfied with whatever looks good; God probes for what is good.”

• There is a significant difference between something looking good and being good. I have caught myself saying “sounds good to me” when listening to the plans someone was telling me about. Later I have often found out that those plans were not so good after all. Maybe things did not work out as expected or some assumptions were being made that I did not know about that were fatal to the plan.
• God is the only one who can evaluate our behaviour and plans because he knows our motives. He sees what is good when we often just “think” it is good.
• We might seem innocent in our own estimation but self-deception is often at work making our own perceptions unreliable.
• Assuming our motives are good is often premature at best or smug at worst.
• God is the one who weighs or evaluates our motives.
• We deceive ourselves so easily that we cannot fully evaluate our selves.
• God, by his spirit provides penetrating evaluation.
• We need to allow God to initiate a process in our hearts and minds that will allow us to see clearly what is good as we plan…not just what looks good.

16:3 Our Plans: God requires us to submit ourselves to his plan in order to see true success.
“Committ to the Lord everything you do then your plans will succeed”

• For our plans to succeed we must depend on God.
• The result of compliance to God is success in matters of his will. In other words if we are concerned with placing God’s plans at the heart of our plans then success is more likely.
• The questions we have to ask ourselves is…”What is God’s plan? What is God up to in my life? How can I best make a plan that allows me to follow his lead?”
• The word Commit in this passage enfolds the meaning of “Roll”- it refers to the idea of rolling one’s burdens onto the lord.
• What this image does for us is portrays a complete dependence on God. God is carrying our needs, plans, concerns on his shoulders.
• In order to really commit our plans to God and to see success requires.
• • Humility-Realizing that God is in control and not us.
  • Prayer-Communicating with God about what he is doing in our lives and how we can hear from him what the plan should be.
  • God’s approval-When the plan we are pursuing is God’s plan he obviously wants to see it succeed-for our sake and his sake.
  • Our ordinary lives provide a setting for doing the will of God if we only take the time to really find out what that will is.

16:4 Our plans: God is Sovereign.
“The Lord works out everything for his own purposes. Even those who do wrong were made for a day of trouble” (NirV)

• What does it mean for God to be sovereign. It means that not one thing happens in our lives and world that God does not allow. He does not actively make every thing happen in our lives and world. But nothing catches him by surprise. He uses each aspect of our lives for his purposes, even the horrible things, to fulfill his plan for us. Nothing is wasted.
• God ensures that everything in life works to fulfill his plans.
• This is a challenge for us to get our minds around. We do not easily find deeper meaning in times of struggle and pain. But God wants to help us see the deeper meaning that can come from struggle.
• All acts are enfolded into God’s plan-There are no loose ends in God’s world.
• Does not mean that God enacts all things that happen but that he enfolds them into his purposes.
• God ensures that everyone’s actions and the consequences that result corresponds. He has set in place an order to our world that we are part of. For every action God has mapped out a corresponding reaction.
• Every act has a corresponding consequence. Think about that. Our every choices matters to God. He formed a world that we have the power to shape and change.
• For those who do wrong there is a consequence the ultimate consequence is disastrous for them.
• God shows his power even to those who pursue evil. In the end evil will be judged.

16:5 Our plans: God opposes the proud.
“God can’t stomach arrogance or pretence; believe me, he’ll put those upstarts in their place.” (MSG)

• God sees clearly what is going on in our lives.
• He knows the underlying attitude that is motivating us. He sees through arrogance. He pierces the veil of pretence like it is not even there.
• It is really about God disciplining people. God’s desire is to see people become all that he really wants them to be.
• God’s priorities will not allow a person to set themselves up in the place of God. We cannot force our will upon God.
• The strong implication of this is that those who humble themselves and submit to God will not be punished with the proud hearted but will in fact be free.

16:6 Our plans: Love for God and faithfulness to Him helps us to avoid evil.
“Through love and truth sin is paid for. People avoid evil when they have respect for the Lord” (NirV)

• The moral quality of conduct that God desires is sometimes summed up as love and truthfulness.
• God wants our lives and plans to be shaped by these two qualities.
• Love for him ensures that we are always looking at things through the filter our relationship with him. We are always viewing how our actions affect the one we love.
• Truthfulness ensures that we act in ways that line up with God’s priorities for us generally and specifically. It could also be called faithfulness.
• These are qualities of a holy life-a life set apart for God.
• When people repent of sin and bring their lives in line with God’s will then God forgives and withdraws his judgment.
• In a matter of speaking Love and faithfulness “atone” for sin because through them we are lead into a right relationship with God through Jesus. They lead us deeper into relationship with God.
• Faithfulness to the Lord brings increasing freedom from Sin/
• God is angry about sin but our love for him (Christ) and faithfulness to him turns away his anger.
• Through Jesus it is as if we had not sinned.
• Essentially this kind of reverence for God prompts us to turn from doing wrong in our lives.

16:7 Our plans: Pleasing God, following his plans, living at peace.
“When God approves of your life, even your enemies will end up shaking your hand.”

• A lifestyle that pleases God helps to decrease tension in relationships.
• Better relationships flow naturally out of a lifestyle shaped by God.
• Working towards peace with those we conflict with is a quality of a life lived for God.
• Our lifestyle can disarm those who we conflict with.
• We can experience a God empowered lifestyle that builds relationship instead of breaks down relationship.

16:8 Our plans: God is concerned with character and not accumulation of stuff.
“It is better to have a little and do right than to have a lot and be unfair” (NirV)

• So many of our plans have to do with the ongoing collection of things.
• We plan in order to meet our needs.
• But It is God that defines and gives the “Good Life”
• It is better to be satisfied with what we have as a result of a God-lifestyle than to own a lot and be far from God’s path.
• This verse is not condemning possessions but is putting the ownership issue and the pursuit of possessions issue in context. How important is what we own to us? Will it cause us to cross the line into unfair, unjust, wrong action?
• Character is what is at stake when it comes to our possessions and not the possessions themselves.
• Our plans must include a proper attitude towards accumulation, ownership, and the world around us.
• Bob Biehl provides a challenging set of questions we need to ask ourselves when we are prioritizing our lives and plans.
• • What needs that I see in the world are of concern to me?
  • If I could meet any need in the world, what need would I meet?
  • What are the most urgent needs in my country, my community, my work, my school, and my church?
  • What age group or type of people naturally interests me?
  • What are the major needs among my neighbors, my friends, and my family?
  • If I do not meet these needs, who will?

16:9 Our plans: God wants us to look ahead, to look inside, and to trust his direction.
“We plan the way we want to live, but only God makes us able to live it” (MSG)
“In your heart you plan your life. But the Lord decides where your steps will take you.” (NirV)

• In the end we will discover, if are looking, that our plans are effective in direct proportion to the degree that they match God’s plans and priorities.
• It took me a long time to realize that God’s top priority is not my comfort. It is his purposes that drive his action.
• This does not mean that God’s plan at work in our lives is only going to cause us pain and will bring us no pleasure.
• It means that we can plan all we want but only he can give us the power to live out those plans. And he will only give us that empowerment when our plans match up with his plans.
• God determines the outworking of our plans. He decides where the steps we take will ultimately lead us. We do the walking he decides the destination.
• Implication of all of this is to find out what God is doing and to follow him all the way to success.
• There is often a gap between what we plan and what actually happens. God is found in that middle space. He is working to bridge our expectations with his plan for us. He is working to help us find the meeting point of his will and our plans.
• God dreams bigger than we do and we would not want to be limited by our plans. He is able to do more than we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20).
• We may look ahead and plan but it is God who actually enables us to walk out his plan for us.

Conclusion:

Proverbs 16:1-9 challenges many of our assumptions about what it means to make plans in our lives.

These verses leave us with nine questions we can ask when we are planning what lies ahead in our lives. If we honestly engage God in a conversation shaped around these questions I believe that we can emerge with a new sense of God’s purpose, guidance, and plan for our lives>

Nine Questions that must shape our planning process:

• What does God want to achieve through this plan?
• • What is God’s final word on my plan?
  • What goal does God have in mind?
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• How does my plan look from God’s point of view?
• What does scripture say about the goals of my plan?
• Has God directly addressed the objectives of my plan?
• What is God saying to me personally?
• Am I submitted to pursuing God’s purposes through this plan?
• • Does our plan reflect the priorities and motives of God?
  • Am I willing to submit to God?
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• Have I embraced the fact that God is in charge of the plan I am undertaking?
• • How will I respond to setbacks or not achieving my goal?
  • Do I trust God enough for him to say no to my plan?
  • How will I respond to success?
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• Is there any aspect of my plan that has come out of pride or pretence?
• • What is my motivation for pursuing this plan?
  • How important is the appearance of success to me?
  • Who is being served by my plan, God or me?
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• How does God want me to conduct myself in the pursuit of my plan?
• • What does it mean to be a loving person as I pursue my plan?
  • How can I be faithful to God as I work to achieve my goals?
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• What impact does my plan have on the relationships in my life?
• • How can I follow my plan and still build healthy relationships?
  • What positive influences can I have on those around me?
  • How will I deal with conflict if it emerges?
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• What influence does a desire for material possessions have on my plan?
• • Have I factored in God’s priorities into my plans when it comes to possessions?
  • What does it mean for me to have enough?
  • What does contentment look like to me?
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• Where is God giving me the greatest success in my plans and how can I follow his priorities?
• • Have I taken time to study, think, and pray about what is most important to God?
  • Have I taken Time to observe where he is giving success in my life?
  • How will I intentionally line up my plan with what I perceive to be God’s plan?

“This is a matter of trust and direction.
We cannot afford to forget where we are going!”