LIFE: GOD’S PLAN OR YOUR PLAN
ACTS 16:4-14
FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH
JULY 25, 2004
RAY PRINCE
INTRODUCTION: I am a planner. There is just something about the structure of a plan that gives me a sense of security and comfort. I am not good at spur of the moment decisions about much of anything. Having a plan just helps me to have focus about whatever it is that I’ve planned.
Now, for all of you that are spur of the moment, spontaneous , never plan anything people, lets agree not that we will not make fun of each other at least for the next few moments.
I have a day planner. I receive emails, regular mail, and phone calls reminding me to renew my day planner. Most weeks I can tell you what city I will be in on a particular day. Not because my work demands it but because I plan it that way.
I am a planner. Last weekend we visited our daughter and son-in-law and during dinner I said, "Why don’t we go to a late movie?" Everyone just stopped eating and kind of stared at me. It is just so unusual for me to do something on the spur of the moment like that. Later that night our youngest daughter, Danae called and asked what we were doing and I said that we were at the late movie. She really had a hard time believing me. She knows that just not me. I am a planner.
Two weeks ago, Brother Bruce mentioned in his sermon that we were Atlanta Braves fans, which is true. I am a fan, while my wife and daughters are fanatics. In the interest of full disclosure, I also like the Cardinals and anyone that plays against the Mets and Yankees.
This past winter Major League Baseball installed a countdown clock on each teams website that counted down to the first day of spring training. So, on a dreary , cold day in February you could go on your teams website and see that it was only 22 days until Spring Training. When that day came the clock was reset and counted down to Opening Day of Baseball. There is just something great about the end of winter and the boys of summer and the green grass of a baseball field. I had looked forward to Opening Day for weeks.
On Opening day, April 6th, the Braves were playing the New York Mets in Atlanta. Russ Ortiz was the Braves pitcher. Russ won 21 games last year. I had made all the necessary plans to not be interrupted during the game. The cell phone and house phone were near by, I had my glass of tea right beside me, I even knew what snacks I would have for opening day. As a Braves fan I waited for that first pitch of the season. Usually it is a fast ball right down the middle that the batter just looks at and doesn’t swing. It’s kind of an unwritten rule that the first pitch of the season is a strike call that the batter
doesn’t even swing on. The umpire gives a loud strike call and the season is underway. The Mets batter was Kazuo Matsui, rookie shortstop from Japan. Evidently, Kazuo did not know about this unwritten rule of just looking at the first pitch because when that fastball came across the plate he swung. The first pitch of the season landed 429 ft. away which is only important if you know that the center field wall in Atlanta is only 408 ft. First pitch, home run. Final score, Mets 7, Braves 2.
All my planning, anticipation, and preparation was destroyed with the first pitch. Now, my life continued, I have recovered. But many times we spend much more time and effort and invest every ounce of our being in making life plans only to find them shattered, changed, or unfulfilled. And recovery is much harder to achieve.
I identify with Paul because he had a plan. The end of Acts 15 details for us the preparation stages of going to Asia. This is Paul’s 2nd missionary trip. Before, he had taken Barnabas with him. They had taken John Mark with them the first time and he had abandoned them. On this trip Paul and Barnabas argued about whether John Mark should go with them again and when they could not agree, Barnabas took John Mark and they sailed to Cyprus. Paul took Silas, Timothy and later Luke with him and intended to go to Asia.
PAUL HAD A PLAN
But, verse 6 says that when they tried to go into Asia that they were forbidden. Verse 7 says that they tried to go into Bithynia (modern day Turkey), and again were not permitted. We can only speculate as to why
they could not go.
But, Paul had a plan.
Verse 9-14 details for us an unusual occurrence of Paul having or seeing a vision of a man of Macedonia in the night and he was saying ,"Come over to Macedonia and help us."
Verse 10 says ,"immediately we sought to go concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them"
Paul could have said, "But, I have a plan." He could have become angry with God about not using his plan. He could have pleaded his case. He could have asked God to rubber stamp his plan. But instead, they immediately left for Macedonia.
Today’s messages is really about who’s plan do you and I intend to live our lives by? If you will allow me to just present a few points about each plan.
As intelligent as we all are we are limited in our ability to see everything that we need to make the best plan. You and I cannot see in the future. We many times make decisions based on "right now" facts because that’s all we have.
At times our emotions cause us to react or plan something that later we wish we had never even thought of
because it was not the right course of action. There are times and events that skew our thinking. Job changes, health, reversal of fortune, all can be factors in how we think.
Legendary college coach, Lou Holtz said that early in his career as a young coach he was fired. He went home and began to think about his situation of being married with children and then he just had one of those moments and began to write down all the things he wanted to do before he died.
He had 100 items on his list. Everything was there, world travel, parachute from a plane, take a championship football team to the White House. When his wife came home he told her that he had been fired but it was great because he had come up with this list of 100 things to do before he died. His wife took his list and after looking for a few moments said that he had left something off. He couldn’t imagine what it was, he looked and looked but couldn’t think of a thing. His wife said "how about getting a job". Sometimes our thinking or the lack of it is a danger in our plan.
There are times when I am like Paul Newman in the old movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. He was always coming up with new ideas and plans to the point that one day he told Sundance, "Boy, I’ve got vision where the rest of the world wears bifocals".
Paul had a plan. He had a vision, but it was not what God had planned. I endanger myself when I race
ahead of God’s plan. But there is also the danger of lagging behind. Many of us live with, "I should have, I meant too, I wish I could go back". But we were lagging behind
Our limited knowledge, racing ahead or lagging behind are all dangers of our plan.
It seems ironic to speak about freedom when living by someone else’s plan. But, it is God’s plan that truly frees our lives.
A. God’s Perfect Knowledge-of everything.
God not only sees the "right now" but the "after while". While I am limited, God is not. In business today we talk about thinking "out of the box". God is great at thinking out of the box. He saw the zeal of Saul of Tarsus and turned him into a great missionary. He took Nehemiah, a lowly cupbearer for the king, and today he is used as a subject for leadership classes. God took ordinary fisherman and shook the world with their message. I wonder what God’s "out of the box" thinking could do with us? God knows things about us that we either don’t know or don’t recognize. He knows that I like the box. God gets us out of that box, out of our comfort zone because he sees our potential.
God takes care of the who, what where, when, and how. I don’t have to worry about whether I’m racing ahead or lagging behind as long as I’m in step with God’s perfect timing. In the days of Jesus ministry Simon Peter was often in the forefront of things that happened. At the Mount of Transfiguration he wanted to build three monuments but instead was told to listen. When soldiers came to take Jesus, Simon Peter drew a sword and cut off an ear. He was always racing ahead of the plan because it didn’t always fit his plan. In Exodus 3-4, Moses is told by God to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt. Moses begins by telling God that he is not eloquent in speech. But in God’s perfect timing , God said, "Your brother Aaron speaks well, he will be your mouth". In other words, God had it handled. But here we see God pulling Moses along to be involved with God’s plan.
Just like my baseball game, not all of my plans have a perfect ending. In Paul’s case , a church was established at Philippi with a wealthy woman, a slave girl, and a Roman jailer. That is not to say that
everything will always be good. In II..Corinthians 11 Paul lists some of the thing he went thru, beatings, stonings, shipwrecks, 8 times he used the word "danger", hardship, hunger and thirst. But he lived God’s plan not his own. He was not held accountable for how he lived his plan but how he lived God’s plan. When he wrote II. Timothy 4, when he said, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith, in the future there is a crown of righteousness." he was a man who knew of God’s perfect ending.
Karen Hughes was an advisor to President Bush when he was still governor of Texas and went to the White House with him and became a trusted counselor and speechwriter. In her book, Ten Minutes From Normal, she gives some insight into the days after 9/11. While planning the national memorial service it was her job to pick some of the scriptures. She said that as she frantically flipped thru her Bible it occurred to her to ask the author, so she prayed first. She found just the right scripture, Psalms 27, and said that from that moment her Bible went from her shelf to her purse so it would always be nearby. God is
the author or architect of the plan for your life. But you have to know it before you live it. The Bible gives us God’s plan.
God works with all of us on a tailor made basis. When God continually reminds me or impresses me about something, I’ve learned, thru trial and error, to pay attention and act. How His Spirit impresses and leads you may not work for me but that’s alright because he has a certain way to get my attention and lead me.
All of us need someone that we can call or see and speak from our heart about God’s plan for our life. We need Godly advisors just for us to bounce ideas off of or to say, What do you think about this?". Our church has great ministers as well as seasoned Christians that can serve you. If I were a teenager I would seek out Shannon Stokes. If I were a college student I would seek out Todd Rouse or Arliss Dickerson or one of my Sunday School teachers. We need to seek out people who are familiar with living God’s
plan for their own lives.
There comes a time in all of our lives when we have to answer the question about Life: God’s plan or My plan?
CONCLUSION: Maybe you don’t know anything at all about God’s plan. But, is your playour life really working out ? Why not give God’s plan a try?
Sunday, July 25,2004
Ray Prince
First Baptist Church
Jonesboro, Arkansas