Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Okay, Proverbs 16, verses 1 through 9. There's all sorts of sayings in our culture about how you should go and plan your life. Okay, here's a few of them. A failure to plan is a plan for failure, right?
[00:00:25] You don't hit the target. You don't aim for man plans. God laughs. That's not a Bible verse, by the way. So, like, if you go looking for that one, I don't think that's actually his response most of the time.
[00:00:37] Here's one Dwight D. Eisenhower paraphrased a little bit, plans are useless, but planning is priceless.
[00:00:45] And then one of my personal favorites, I use it at work, and I get teased for it all the time, is I say, I love a bad plan. It's way better than no plan.
[00:00:51] And all of these sayings, I think you get different people in the world trying to give you wisdom on how to go and plan your life. And there's bits of goodness in each of those, right? But today we're going to spend time digging into what Solomon has to tell us about what good planning looks like. If you're new to the church or you haven't been going through Proverbs with us for a little bit, you might be wondering, who's Solomon? And why do we care about what he has to say? Okay, so Solomon, way back in the day, he was the son of David. David was the super famous king of Israel, did a lot of good things. He dies and he leaves Solomon, the kingdom. So Solomon's in charge and. And he starts off his reign doing very good, right? He's listening to what God wants. He's doing the things God wants him to do. So God comes to him in a dream. In 1 Kings 3, we see this encounter and God says, hey, Solomon, well done. High five. You know what? I'm gonna give you whatever you want. What do you want? Tell me one thing that you want and I will give it to you. You want money? I'll give you money. You want long life? I'll give you long life. Just tell me what you want. Solomon thinks on this for a second and then he goes to God and this is what he says in First Kings 3, verse 9. He says, Give your servant, therefore, an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to govern this? Your great people? Solomon goes to God and asks him for wisdom because he knows that that's going to be the key to actually being the king that he needs to be for his people to be the servant he needs to be for God. God says, well, that's great. Actually brilliant. You know, you asked for the right thing. Wisdom will give it to you. You're going to have it in spades. Wisest man who ever lived. Also extra credit, because that was the right answer. You're going to get all the money and to live a long time too. Okay, so Solomon ends up really good with that. End of the deal. But Solomon goes through his reign. He's got this spirit inspired wisdom of the things that the Holy Spirit is feeding him of how to go be a good king and how to go be a good follower of God. So Solomon writes all of those down in the Book of Proverbs. Okay? So that's who Solomon is. Why we should listen to what he has to say about planning. Old king of Israel, spirit inspired wisdom, telling us how to go live our lives.
[00:02:58] And then just a real quick definition of a plan in case we needed it. It's just a set of decisions on how to do something in the future. Okay? Nothing fancy or revelatory about that, but I think we can consider that there are different levels of planning, right? There's the very easy plans, like what movie are you going to watch later tonight for pizza movie night? That's always a question. At the Wilkies, we come up with a plan for that. What are you going to have for L.
[00:03:22] I have the answer for you there. It's Cane's. Okay, go get raising. Cane's. Chick Fil a is closed today. The second best chicken, rather than the Lord's chicken is Cane's. Please go get that. But you also can have heightened planning, right? Maybe you're planning for a wedding, right? If you're a guy, maybe you're planning to ask a gal on a date and how to go do that. If you're a gal, maybe you know he's going to ask you out and you're planning on how you're going to respond, right? Is it going to be good? Is it going to be bad? You're trying to build up that plan so you don't get hit cold when the moment is going to happen. Maybe you're planning how to raise your kids, right? What's your discipline strategy? What are you going to do when your kids get in trouble? You got to do something over all of this. I think there's this mindset that as Christians, we should be doing gospel planning, right? In the small plans and the big plans, we should have this mindset of building up the kingdom of God and Pursuing God's glory first. And that's what Solomon tells us today. Let's take a look at verses one through three.
[00:04:17] Solomon says this.
[00:04:19] The plans 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 spirit. Commit your work to the Lord and your plans will be established.
[00:04:36] Solomon's takeaway here is that when we go and make plans, we need to plan as if it's about God and as if he is in control.
[00:04:45] Okay? When I think of planning and I think of people, the two hyper extremes that I come up with are like the Type A dictators. Okay? For you Star wars fans, this is your governor Tarkins, right? Like the squeezing so hard to get control over something. And then you have your type B doormats, right? These are the people who won't build a plan to save your life, right? They are just happy to go with the flow. Somebody else has a plan, we're gonna go off and do that. It could be laziness, right? I also think sometimes we find people who are just so flexible that they're just comfortable walking into a situation with no plan. Cause they feel like they can adapt. Okay, if you've ever gone on a vacation or led a Bible study with somebody, right, You've probably experienced one of these two extremes and you're probably the other one. And it's super frustrating, isn't it? Like on a vacation, it was always my dad who was like, everything had to go exactly the way it had to be planned. We were going to leave at exactly this time. It was going to take you 17 seconds to get into the car and get buckled in. If it took longer than that, rage happened, right? The bikes needed to be stacked in this order on the back of the trailer. If they weren't in that order, then it wasn't done right. And we had to start it all over. And if you weren't exactly where he wanted you to be right when he needed you to be there, even if he didn't tell you, right, it was like just everybody, like put on your vests, you know, it was going to be a dangerous time. I love my dad. We have a really good time. This is also me, okay? So like my children are going to go through therapy in this for the future too.
[00:06:09] And then for the type Bs, right? Like it can be super frustrating if you're going on vacation and there's no plan. Like we've all had that Uncle Bob who's just along for the ride, didn't tell anybody whose car he was riding in because he just figured it would work itself out, right? Like if it's his day to plan dinner, he's like, it's just going to be fine. We can all eat whatever, you know, and that can be hyper aggravating too. Like, those are the kinds of people you go on vacation with. And it's like, I don't want you to be in charge because I actually want to have fun. And this may be fun for you to go wander through downtown and figure out what you're going to do. But I have three kids with me, so I need like, what are we doing today? Okay, it can be super frustrating with those hyper extremes of people who plan. And I think the root cause of all of that is that at the center of those extremes is a self centered mindset, right? When we're going through and looking at our plans, often we build them as if they're completely about us. Like the type A dictators want everything to go the way that they want it to go. Even if at the center of this, it's like, hey, I want the family to have a good time. I want the Bible study to be successful. They have come up with their own plan and they want it to go the way they want it to go, right? At some point you get less concerned about the outcome and more concerned about the process and that gets really difficult. And the type B folks, right, they're either planning is too stressful for them and so they don't want to do it, or they feel confident in themselves to not have a plan, but they don't consider that not everybody else is going to have that same level of comfort. And so I think Solomon gets to the root of this issue and here's what he says. The plans of heart belong to man and all the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes.
[00:07:46] Solomon is pointing out to us that we make our plans and are the heroes of our own story, but that they can fail because they are centered around us.
[00:07:56] So if self centered planning is prone to failure, then how does Solomon tell us? How does Solomon tell us to go and plan? He says, commit your work to the Lord and your plans will be established.
[00:08:09] Okay, commit your work to the Lord. What does that mean? It means that as we go and make decisions about how to do our life, we have to remember that our plans are not primarily about us first.
[00:08:22] Okay? We are in our plans, they are about us to some extent. But when we Take ourselves out of the driver's seat and put God in the driver's seat and center on him being the one who's in control.
[00:08:33] Our plans will be established. Okay, here's some kind of plans that we might consider with that. Where are you going to move next?
[00:08:42] Who are you going to marry?
[00:08:44] Should you marry? Like, Paul is, like, at that famous verse in the New Testament where he's like, if you're not married, maybe you shouldn't marry. And I think that gives us all, like, a little bit of a heart attack for a second. But his motivation there is because then you're much more free to do what God has called you to do.
[00:09:00] How many kids should you have?
[00:09:02] Should you have kids? Right? I feel like that becomes, like, a huge debate, but I mean, along the same lines of marriage, right? Like, maybe God has called you to partner with somebody on mission, but to not have kids. Those are big decisions. How should you have kids? Right? Should you adopt? It's a big question.
[00:09:18] What job are you going to take next?
[00:09:20] And I think the one that we always use in churches is, what church are you going to go to?
[00:09:24] Like, if we look at these questions through the lens of society, they are all questions that are about us.
[00:09:30] Marry who makes you happy. Move to the house that makes you feel comfortable and where you want to be. Go to the church that makes you feel the happiest, right? They got the free donuts and the free coffee in the lobby in the morning. It's like, you're set. And the worship pastor doesn't wear skinny jeans. It's like, whoa, I have to triple threat, you know? But I think those questions should not primarily be about us and our happiness.
[00:09:51] Like, the first question we should put forward when we're considering the plans that we're going to go and make is, what does the Lord have in store for me based on how I make this decision?
[00:10:02] Solomon's first piece of advice is for us to stop pretending that we control the outcome. Stop pretending that our plans are primarily about us and start acting like it's about Jesus.
[00:10:13] Okay, just to be clear, for our Type B folks in the room, like, Solomon's not telling us not to make plans, right? I think sometimes we get into this trap of, like, well, the Lord has this overarching plan, and so I don't need to make a plan. I just got to go with the flow. Okay?
[00:10:30] Solomon writes in a different book. Okay, so if Proverbs is Solomon's book that he writes and, like, his. His nerd and, like, Glass of bourbon and pipe by the fire era, right? Where he's just, like, writing down the wisdom that has come to him. He writes another book called Ecclesiastes. And Ecclesiastes is Solomon's, like, goth era, okay? It's, like, moody and dark makeup and, like, slightly depressing if you read it without the right mindset. He says things like, everything is meaningless and all of your plans are prone to failure and there's nothing new that has ever happened, right? So Ecclesiastes, but we're going to pull out of here. Solomon says two things in Ecclesiastes that are important. One, he says in Ecclesiastes 12, the end of the matter, all has been heard. I've heard it all right? I've gone through everything. This is what you need to do. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. Then he says in Ecclesiastes 8:15, he says, and I command joy, for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of life that God has given him under the sun. I think Solomon also wants us to go and make good plans for our lives. He wants us to be joyful. Like the wisdom that God has given him, Solomon tells us, is, hey, fear God and keep his commandments. Put that first in the decisions that you're making. But it doesn't need to be this, like, depressing, like, wallowing through life and, oh, well, I guess I'm just going to go wherever God tells me to go. It's like, no, there's joy in store for you in those things as well. Okay?
[00:11:58] So those are the two things Solomon wants us to plan as if it's about God first, right? And take ourselves out of the center primarily of our plans.
[00:12:09] A quick note on verse two, just because I wasn't sure how to wedge it in, but I'm going to stick it in because I think it's important. Proverbs 16:2 says, all the ways of man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit. It's really important to have people speaking into your plans. Okay? This is why there's, like, lawyers and why we have counselors, right? Like here at Redemption Hill, we have a care team that wants to speak into your life. This is why you should have Christian friends who are going to speak into you and tell you what it's going to look like. Gals, if all of your friends are telling you that you shouldn't go marry that guy. Maybe you should listen to that. Or if all of your friends are telling you, no, that dude is solid, maybe you should go listen to that. Assuming that they're believers and speaking into you and have your best interest at heart. Our plans, our ways are pure in our own sight because we have these blinders on and can't see the flaws that we might have in our own plans. So really important to make sure that you have people speaking into your heart to help you make your plans.
[00:13:05] Okay, that's big point. One, quickly summarized, as in plan as if it's all about God, I think the question comes up, why should we plan as if it's all about God? Like, I think it's easy to think through that and to just say that and to just say it all needs to be about God. Okay, click check the box. Moving on. But I think it's really important to unpack why we need to plan as if it's all about God. And Solomon tells us in verses four through eight, then it's because God is the one who is in control.
[00:13:34] Take a look at verse four.
[00:13:37] Solomon says, the Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.
[00:13:44] Okay, I feel like that can be really hard to hear.
[00:13:48] And just to preface this point, right? Like, if you're struggling with the whole big question, and it's a good question to wrestle with of, like, how could there be a perfect God and yet be an imperfect world where bad things happen. I don't think we're going to answer all of that today. That's like an entire sermon series, probably. But I do want to address it because Solomon brings it up here, okay? He says, the Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble. I think the first thing we have to realize when we read that is to recognize what it's not saying. Okay? It's not saying that God causes evil. It's not saying that God causes us to sin. Okay? Look at James 1.
[00:14:26] James tells us, let no one say, when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Okay? We are the ones who are responsible for our sin. But that doesn't mean that God is any less in control. He doesn't cause us to sin, but he does create sinners and let some of that play out. Right? And if, like, you think it's A bad idea that God has created sinners. Like I just take a look in the mirror before you say that too far because all of us are sinners, okay? Like if God didn't create sinners, we wouldn't be here having this conversation today, okay? So have to keep that in mind that God is in control. He has even made the wicked for the day of evil.
[00:15:14] When we dig a little deeper into the why of that, here's what Paul has to say in Romans 9 says about God has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump of clay one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory. For who? For the vessels of mercy which he has prepared beforehand for glory. So Paul comes to us and says, hey, God is in control of these things and has prepared this so that he can demonstrate his glory, which God is primarily about. God is primarily about his glory and he's going to demonstrate it to the vessels of mercy. Like, if you're a believer today, that's you. And I think like a big part of everybody's testimony in here to some extent, right? Is there was this sin that I had, right? Or maybe there were these things that were done to me and yet God saved me from that situation. He saved me from my sin, he saved me from the evil that others would do to me. And he did it for his glory so that he could demonstrate his grace to us. Us. Okay?
[00:16:28] So God even makes the evil for the day of trouble. Solomon follows that up in verse five saying, even the arrogant in heart, who is an abom, Everyone who is arrogant in heart, excuse me, is an abomination to the Lord. Be assured he will not go unpunished. So God makes them, but he is also so in control that he is going to be the one to discipline them. Okay, and if that like floats over you for a second about like, why the ability to discipline is so important to God? Being in control. Like any of you who have multiple kids and you hear them bickering to each other and then like, what's the first thing one of them says that you've probably said? You know, it's like you're grounded.
[00:17:01] It's like your seven year old is saying that to your five year old, right? Or like you lose iPad for a week.
[00:17:06] What is the other kid's first response? They're like, you don't get to tell me that, like, you're not in charge here. You don't get to discipline me. Like, you're not the one who I have to listen to. But God is, right? Like, He. He actually doesn't just threaten discipline, he enacts it. And that's what Solomon tells us in verse five. He's like, everyone who is arrogant will be punished. God is going to be the one doing the punishing because he's in control. He is in authority, and he has control over every situation. And so Solomon tells us we need to plan as if God is the one who is in control. We need to build our plans as if God is the one. Even when everything seems to be going wrong and out of control for everyone around us, including ourselves. It's not out of control for him.
[00:17:48] Right? He is in control of every situation, including the bad ones.
[00:17:54] Okay, the next part that Solomon tells us about control. God's control isn't just over the bad parts. It's over the good parts too. Look at verses 6 through 8 in Proverbs 16.
[00:18:05] Solomon says this.
[00:18:07] By steadfast love and faithfulness, iniquity is atoned for by the fear of the Lord. One turns away from evil when a man's ways please the Lord. He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.
[00:18:20] Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice.
[00:18:25] Think of those verses through the lens of James 1:17. James tells us. He says that every good and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Okay? Those blessings that Solomon just listed in verses six through eight, they all come from God, right? Steadfast love and iniquity comes from God, like He places that in our hearts. Turning away from evil comes from God. Peace with our enemies comes from God. Blessings and revenues come from God. Like, he is the One who gives all good gifts. And Jesus tells us about the Father. He is a Father who likes to give good gifts to his children.
[00:19:05] God is in control of all of the good things in our life too. And he wants to bless us with many good things.
[00:19:14] Just a point of clarity, like, that's not prosperity gospel. Okay? Like, God wants good things for you. That is true.
[00:19:22] God also allows us to go through hard things. That is also true. Right. I think we have to recognize that in both of those situations, God is in control.
[00:19:31] And so Solomon finishes out with verse nine. He says, the heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.
[00:19:39] So Solomon tells us our plans are not primarily about our glory, but about God's.
[00:19:45] And he tells us that God is in control during the bad times, during the good times, during all the times. And that's why we should plan as if he's in control.
[00:19:57] And God also wants us to please him, right? Like Solomon's verses there tell us, like, turn away from sin, turn away from iniquity. Be steadfast in your love towards the Lord. Listen to the commandments that he has laid before you. Plan your plans as if they are primarily about pleasing him, and the Lord will establish your steps. And I think if we keep in mind that God's blessings aren't the main object in there, that becomes a lot easier for us to do. What do I mean by that?
[00:20:28] I mean that the verse that talked about, like, better is a little with righteousness than much with evil.
[00:20:34] God is like, the main gift that God has given you is himself, and that's a good thing, right? Like, God is good and he has primarily given us the gift of himself. He's going to bless us with other things along the way, right? Relationships with friends, with a home in which to live, with kids with a good church to attend, right? With finances, he's going to bless us along the way. And I think as long as we keep in mind that the main blessing he has given us is his, him, then we will be very prepared to receive anything else that comes our way, right? Like, Solomon didn't follow God and plan his life to serve him because he was waiting for the day when God would appear to him in a dream and be like, I'll give you anything that you want. Like, there was very much just an additional blessing that God gave over to Solomon, but Solomon was still living his life and planning his life as if serving God as king of a country, as if serving God was the most important thing he could be doing on any given day.
[00:21:32] Okay? Paul reminds us in Ephesians, he says, in love, God predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Christ Jesus.
[00:21:42] Like, that is the great gift that God has given us today. And so we plan our lives as if he has already given us the greatest gift and as if there is more for us to come. Okay? It doesn't stop here. He's going to bring us into eternity with him and we're going to be able to live with him for all of time. And that's going to be awesome. I don't even have words for how awesome it's going to be, mostly because Anytime I think about it, it just, like, my brain explodes a little bit. All right? But it's going to be good. I can promise it there.
[00:22:07] Okay?
[00:22:09] As a guiding rule, oversimplification plan to please God. That's the whole point of today's sermon. However, I think we have to address something.
[00:22:20] I think it would be irresponsible not to address this third question that came to mind as I was preparing the sermon. What do we do when our plans fail?
[00:22:29] Right? We. We're. We're going through our lives.
[00:22:32] We're committing our hearts to Him. We're imperfect, and we know that, but we. We have. We have given our lives to Jesus. We have dedicated ourselves to Him. We want to move where he tells us to move. We want to talk to people, even when it makes us feel uncomfortable, because we want to spread the gospel. What do we do when we feel like we have good plans and they fail?
[00:22:51] And I just.
[00:22:53] Just to lead that off, every situation is different, and we're going to get to that in a second. I don't have all of the answers for you, but I hope that for anybody who's going through something tough, that we're not leaving your suffering on the stage unaddressed. Okay, let's dig in.
[00:23:12] Here's some plans that feel like they're inherently good that have failed for some of us at one point or another.
[00:23:20] I plan to get married.
[00:23:23] I plan to get a new job.
[00:23:26] I'm going to go to college.
[00:23:28] I plan to have kids.
[00:23:31] I plan to win the fight against sin this time.
[00:23:35] And maybe just to add a little bit of levity for millennials, I plan to buy a house.
[00:23:39] Right?
[00:23:41] You're just going to be renting forever, guys. I'm sorry, the wage difference, it's too big. For all the successful plans that are out there.
[00:23:48] There are plans that seem and likely are good in nature that God will not bring to pass.
[00:23:55] Or at least in some cases, he won't bring them to pass in the timeline that we hope for or anticipate. Okay? And I think that's okay. We are not the first people to go through this. I want to bring.
[00:24:09] There's literally six examples I have written down. I'm going to bring two of them to light.
[00:24:14] So the first one is from Acts, chapter 16.
[00:24:16] Paul and Timothy have just met. Okay?
[00:24:20] Jesus has already gone up to heaven and he's telling people to go spread the gospel. Great commission. All good stuff. Paul and Timothy just met. They make the great decision right after Timothy got circumcised to Go on a road trip, okay? Which, like, out of the poor plans you can make. Wait a little bit, all right? But they're going on the road trip to go spread the gospel, okay? In the first place, they're marching up through Turkey, okay? They got the big chunk of Turkey, and they're marching up through Turkey, and they say, hey, we're going to go to Bithynia. It's like northern coastline of Turkey, okay? Unreached people up there. God wants us to go spread the gospel there. We think that's where we're going to go. And in Acts, we see that the spirit of Jesus did not allow them, okay? They had this place that they were going to go on the mission trip. And they were confident that that was where God had called them and the Spirit stops them and it says, the spirit of Jesus didn't let them go there. And so they check and adjust. They say, okay, not northern Turkey. What about northwestern Turkey? And so they go start marching off to Troas instead, okay? So just right next door, those must be the people that God has planned for us to reach. And then it says that the Spirit comes to them in a dream and says, not there either.
[00:25:23] Okay? I want you to go to Macedonia. That's like, not even on the same street. Like, they have to get in a boat and sail to go over to the new place that God has called them to go, okay? Again, right? Like, this was not in their plan whatsoever.
[00:25:37] Second story. There's a woman in the Old Testament named Naomi.
[00:25:41] She's married. She's one of the Jews. So God's chosen people. God has promised good things to his people if they listen to him. They're going through tough times. And so Naomi's husband. Naomi's got two sons, too. So she's married, she's got a husband, she's got two sons. Naomi's husband says, hey, we're going to move to a different country for a little bit because things are really rough here. We're going to move over there, and maybe we'll wait this out. Maybe we'll settle this long term, but that's what we're going to go do. She says, brilliant. We're going to go do it. So they grab their two sons, they move over there. Her two sons must not be, like, terribly looking because they get married right as well. So everything's going good for Naomi. She's got the husband, she's got the two sons. She's got, you know, the sons who've been married, which is every mom's greatest wish, right? It's like, poof, that's taken care of. Excellent, we're good to go. And then Naomi's husband dies.
[00:26:30] Then Naomi's sons die.
[00:26:34] She's living in a foreign country, not next to any of her kinsmen, not next to anybody that she knows. Her husband dies, her sons die. She's got nothing to her name at this point. And she's just left with these two daughter in laws that don't even have the same cultural background as her, right? Like, maybe don't even worship the same God as her. Her. And that is the situation that she's left in.
[00:26:56] I told you there's lots of stories like this in the Bible. Moses's mom gets pregnant with a son when it's hyper illegal to get pregnant with a boy. And like the penalty is they're going to kill your kid. Okay. Probably like not the plan she had in mind for how she wanted her pregnancy to go.
[00:27:11] Samuel's mom, Hannah, couldn't have kids. And then when she goes to God to pray about it, the pastor comes up to her and thinks she's drunk and like, tries to kick her out of the church. And it's like, hey, you can't be drunk here. She's like, I'm just trying to pray, dude. It's fine.
[00:27:25] And then when she does have a kid, okay, when she does have a kid, she gives him up to the Lord, leaves him at the church and says, thank you, God for this son. I've been praying for him for so long. Here you go.
[00:27:39] I'll see him when I come to worship once a year, right? Like, I don't think that's how Hannah envisioned her life going. And then when she got a son, I don't know if that's like the plan that she had as a mom of how she wanted it to look like for her to have her first kid.
[00:28:00] I think again, we aren't the first people to go through our lives not looking like they're supposed to. And so this is going to sound like very churchy, but again, I think each of our situations is different.
[00:28:12] So how do we handle these things?
[00:28:15] I think we turn to the Lord, man. I get it. That sounds super cheap to go and say, but when you're struggling with real pain in your life, when there's real heartache that you're going through, especially when you have plans that are like, that seem like they should be good and they don't go that way. I think what we have to remember is what Solomon's telling us about how God is in control and we have to turn to Him.
[00:28:42] I think we also get encouraged by what David says in Psalm 84.
[00:28:48] David says, A day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.
[00:28:55] I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. The Lord God is a sun and a shield, and the Lord bestows favor and honor. And then he says this no good thing does the Lord withhold from those who walk uprightly.
[00:29:14] Okay, God has good things in store for you.
[00:29:19] It may not be exactly how we have envisioned, may not be what we had envisioned or the timing we had envisioned, but David says very explicitly that God has good things in store for us. And no good thing does he withhold from those who walk upright.
[00:29:37] When I say go to God, right? Like, I mean it in the fullest extent of that. Like, you don't gotta have your Sunday clothes on and become doing all prim and proper and prepped and you've got your notes ready of how you're gonna go make your case to him and outsmart him or anything. I mean, if that's the way that you gotta go do it to get your thoughts straight, go for it, right? But like we have examples of in the Bible, people going before God and yelling at him. Like, there's a prophet in the Old Testament who, no joke, you can read it, will go and say, like, I asked God why all these bad things were happening. And then you know what I did? I sat down and waited for him to answer because it was his turn. Okay, like when you're going to the all powerful God of the universe, like, have a little bit of respect and dignity, but like, don't shield your emotions from Him. Like he is able to handle them. Like he created you with emotions, right? Like, bring them to him and come to God. I think the worst thing we can do in these moments when our plans that seem good fail is turn away from God and start looking elsewhere. Because Solomon's already told us, like, that's, that's not going to work. Like, if you put yourself at the center of this story or you rely on somebody else who isn't in control of literally everything to go and solve your problems, it's not going to work well for you. Go to God. He is there and he is ready and he wants to hear you and he has good things in store for you.
[00:30:58] Paul talks about this in 2 Corinthians 10. He's got this. We don't know exactly what it is he just called it a thorn, right? He says, three times I went to God.
[00:31:08] Three times I went to God and asked him to remove it from me. Which demonstrates the behavior that we're supposed to have.
[00:31:15] And God's response to Paul was, hey, my grace is sufficient for you.
[00:31:22] In some of those other examples, Samuel's mom, Hannah, she ends up having, like, multiple other kids, right? I don't think that replaces the sacrifice of giving your first up to God to have him go live at the temple.
[00:31:35] But God rewards her, not in the way she had anticipated, but God goes and blesses her.
[00:31:40] Naomi, right? She doesn't have any more sons, but one of her daughters in law travels back with her and God reshapes her plan so that her daughter in law becomes David's grandma, right?
[00:31:54] And then in Paul's example, God just says, my grace is sufficient. I've given you what I'm going to give you for now. And I'm still calling you to go do the good work.
[00:32:04] Like, I don't say that to say that that's how God is going to respond to any of your situations. I say that to say we have to go to God and ask him how he's going to respond to this situation. So because he has a plan that is ultimately for our good, that he demonstrated when he sent his son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. And no plan that any of us could have made up so that some of us might be saved and go and live with him forever.
[00:32:29] So as we close, we'll go back to verse 1 from Proverbs 16.
[00:32:33] The plans of heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.
[00:32:38] So let's go and make our plans today, okay? Make plans for a good time, but make plans primarily to see what God has in store for you.
[00:32:50] Make plans to seek God, to put him first, to worship him, to remember that he, the Giver, is much better than the gifts that he's going to give us, but that he's still a father who wants to give us good gifts, okay? He has good things in store for you, and he loves you, all right? So build your plans upon those things. Let's pray.
[00:33:11] Father, we love you.
[00:33:13] And Father, we confess that we don't always know what your plans are.
[00:33:18] You are great and too wonderful for us, Father, and yet you have just completely blown us away by loving us, by adopting us, by sending your son to die on the cross for us.
[00:33:35] And so, Father, due to the love that you have shown us and the fact that you have shown us that you are always in control. We put our hope and our faith in you.
[00:33:43] Help us to do that today, Lord God. And when we do it imperfectly, help us to come to you and to bathe in the love that you have shown us and to remember that you have good things in store. We love you, Father. We ask this in the name of your son, Jesus. Amen.
