"Is It My Move?"

Illus: My plans fell apart when I took Jonah to the Cardinals game and the Arch. (Because of construction we could not park anywhere within reason.)

What about Topeka? We are under construction everywhere it seems like anymore. We're waiting, maybe confused, and trying to figure out where the heck our exit is to get to what's next.

Maybe you can be confused by our plans here in the church. You have seen a lot of changes the past couple of years, and many are waiting to see what the Lord does here in the future.

Fortunately, there's a great book that would talk about this. It's Proverbs. Let's go there right now. Proverbs, chapter 16. It's a great book about plans.

The focus of the proverbs, the upshot, the takeaway of the proverbs is that you need wisdom. You absolutely need wisdom. It's more profitable than gold. It's more precious than a jewel.

Wisdom can be properly translated as skill. If we're looking for wisdom, we're looking for skill, namely skill in the art of godly living.

I think the proverbs have a lot to say to us, because we all know we have plans. What I hope is we know we need wisdom just as importantly.

Let's go to Proverbs 16 and see what the Lord would have us say. Read: Proverbs 16:1-3

Proverbs 16:1–3 ESV

1 The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. 2 All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit. 3 Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.

There are three questions I believe are driven out of this text we need to answer dealing with plans. This is what we are going to spend the rest of our time with this morning.

1. _Who do your plans belong to?_

Okay, verse 1. Who do our plans belong to? Let's read it again. "The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord."

Okay, so there are two answers to this question. It's not a trick question. There are your plans, and there are His plans. Okay?

The word “plans” means preparation. This doesn't mean impulses. This isn't you driving down Topeka Blvd and you see Wendy’s.

Before you know it, you're in front of the drive-thru order, going, "What am I doing here? Can I get a number five with a Dr. Pepper?" We're not talking impulses; we're talking plans.

This is preparation. It would be used of an army being prepared for battle in their battle gear. These are plans. They're thought out.

For many of our plans, it doesn't get deeper than our hearts. It says this is the plan of your heart. Your heart constitutionally is a very basic identity word.

It's what you're determined to have, what you're motivated to have more than anything else. These are your plans.

All of us are different in this room when it comes to our plans. You have over-planners, and you have under-planners. Right?

You have your guy who is going, "Hey, by the time I'm 29, I'm going to be the executive vice president here. I'm going to live in this neighborhood. I'm going to have this many kids."

Then you have 29-year-olds here who are like, "Man, I should really start thinking about getting a job."

We have folks who, when they envision what marriage would look like, it's five kids on a farm somewhere.

Then you have guys who look well into their thirties and forties and go, "You know, I'm more than okay with being a bachelor for the rest of my life."

All different kinds of plans in this room, all kinds of hopeful preparations underway here at The CPCC. They're wonderful plans. They're our plans. They're the plans God has given us.

There's a second part to this verse. The plans are ours. They're our heart plans, but the answer to our plans comes from…whom? Comes from the Lord.

Illus: When I take Addy on dates. She likes IHOP followed with dessert.

It never fails, she mentions we need to have a date followed with dessert. I oblige most of the time, and we go get dessert.

She is offers up this plan just about every couple of weeks, but it's ultimately my call as her grandfather if I want to give her that or not.

There's this kind of thing going on between the two that we must see that our plans are uniquely ours, but He has final rights.

One commentator says it's important for us to see the necessity and the limitations of planning, that the created or us in other words, gets the first word, but He gets the last.

Then you notice to whom the plans belong. They belong to the Lord. When you see Lord, when you see that word capital L-O-R-D, that's not just a lord. That's Yahweh.

That's His personal name. That's the same word that's used in Genesis in the creation story. We're saying the God who hung Orion's Belt has intimately claimed a stake in the details of your life.

He has very much involved Himself into the minutia of your life. In fact, I would go so far to say He is proud of that.

What makes the Hebrew story of creation so distinct is Yahweh/Elohim/God takes pride in getting his Hands dirty and being in the details.

He has claimed an intimate stake in the details of your life because in your plans, the answer ultimately comes from Him. The second question to ponder on plans in this text is…

2. _What does God see in your plans?_

What does He see in our plans? Well, I'd say two things. He sees underneath your plans, and then He sees beyond your plans. Let's read verse 2. Read Proverbs 16:2

Proverbs 16:2 ESV

2 All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit.

2. What does God see in your plans?

If you looked at me in the face when I was 18 years old, I would have told you legitimately I would be playing football or writing funny commercials the rest of my life.

I'm telling you guys, I really, really, really thought I knew 30 years ago. I thought I knew! You think you know! The Bible says you think you know!

The proverbs say we have this natural tendency, right? Many see those under 35 expect rapid advancement, over-confident, and thinks they can have whatever they want to have.

There are some good qualities that come from that, but it also makes people think that everything they have in their hearts is within arm's length.

Then there are those of us north of 35. We have plans, right? What our family is going to look like. What our retirement is going to look like. We have ideas about how it's all going to look.

The Bible says God is looking underneath our plans. He gives us these desires, and He gives us this kind of creative energy to shape the way we want things to look.

Yet He is weighing our spirit. That word spirit means frame of mind. You know, God is thinking about the things we think about. He is weighing our spirits. He is asking these questions.

He is saying, "Why do you want that? Why do you need that? Why is that important for you?" This is a personal conversation. He is a Father. That's what He does.

He asks really good, heart-level questions. He is asking the questions underneath the questions. He is thinking about the things we don’t think about.

Here is the part we don’t like about that. It takes us more out of the equation and puts Him into the lead. We need this, don’t we? It forces us to lean into Him more.

God will orchestrate seasons where we will wait, where we will be confused, where we will be annoyed. We respond either leaning into Him more or manipulating things to work in our favor.

Things aren't working out the way you want them to work out, and so you're trying to make things happen.

Because what you want your relationship, because it’s not happening quickly enough you find yourself out in the wrong places looking for the wrong people.

Maybe financially you're not where you want to be, where you thought you'd be 10 years ago, so you're just getting into debt because your plans told you that you should have more.

We struggle with this. This is legitimately a struggle in our culture. We only allow ourselves to fully trust in what we can see or control.

This can lead us to thinking, "God, I have to have this! I told you I wanted this, and you haven't given it to me yet. I'm going to make it happen."

You're manufacturing your plans, and you know what, God won’t condemn you. He won’t judge you. He will take a scalpel to your heart to help you see though.

He will say, "Look at how unbalanced and unhealthy it is that you need those things now when I, God, Who takes pride in the very details of your life, just haven't given you those things yet.

How do you do this if you don't have community. How do you do this if you don't have people in your life, and you're not seeking people in life to have these difficult conversations with you.

How do you do this? You don’t. If you don't have these kinds of people in your life, if you're not tethered to a church, you will struggle. God places them all around, but you need to be there.

You need people to speak into these things, but you need to take encouragement in the fact that God is looking underneath your plans anyway. He is underneath, but He is also way out ahead.

At the very beginning of the movie too The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf shows up, and Frodo runs in there and rebukes him. He says, "Hey, you're late."

What's Gandalf's response? Y'all know this. Gandalf's response is, "A wizard is never late Frodo Baggins, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to."

Some of y'all legitimately have no clue that when the psalms talk about God being your strength and your shield. Everybody wants him to be their strength.

We want Him to be the kind of power and strength and confidence they need to step into today, but I don't think we've scratched the surface of understanding what it means that he is our shield.

He is legitimately protecting us from thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of scenarios that would kill us if we stepped into those things.

Because He is God, He has the privilege and the pleasure of looking into the future and being able to read those things into your life now. He knows!

Part of the reason why our plans aren't coming through is he is protecting us. He is shielding us from things he doesn't want to happen to us.

This leads us to the final question that this text brings us to answer about plans and this is …

3. _What are we to do with our plans?_

I think probably the biggest question we should answer now at this point is what we are to do with our plans. I think verse 3 will help us there, so let's read that. Read Proverbs 16:3

Proverbs 16:3 ESV

3 Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.

3. What are we to do with our plans?

That's kind of a trick question. What are we supposed to do with our plans? That's flip-flopped, right?

The Bible doesn't say, "Commit your plans to the Lord, and your works will be established." He says, "Commit your work to the LORD, and your plans will be established."

The word commit means literally to roll over, to lay on top of, to put your full weight onto something.

God is saying if you lay all of yourself, if you commit the full weight of your life to the trust and to the service of Yahweh, your plans will be established.

I can see it on your face. You're like, "Okay, lay everything? That's costly." Yeah, exactly. God is asking you to abandon yourself, to lay all of yourself, all your works, over to Him.

This is through committing your life to Him. Then your plans will be established. Well, that means unconditional trust.

Jeremiah is this Old Testament prophet. He is asked to minister to people who don't want to listen. He is told, "You're going to have to wait a long time, and you're going to see very little fruit."

His conversations with God are just epic. I mean, he is emotional, cries, complains. He is like, "Help me! God, what are you doing? I don't understand.”

I'm telling you, one of my favorite things in the Bible here is God's response. He just gives him this wonderful range of what He allows and what He desires Jeremiah to say to Him.

"I know! I know, Jeremiah. It's hard, and it's going to get harder. Don't lose hope. Depend on me." He and Jeremiah had this great back-and-forth. It's like two or three conversations.

Then Jeremiah goes too far. He says, "You have become like an unreliable stream to me. You deceived me." God says, "No, you're not going to say that." He tells him to repent.

If you're coming to God and saying, "Listen, I trust you, but I don't understand. You don't seem to be in this. I don't have a clue what you're calling me to, but I trust you."

That is a world of difference from telling Him, "You've deceived me." Talk to him! Have a good, healthy back-and-forth dialogue with Him. Bring the desires of your heart to the Lord.

He is a good Father. Watch Him shape those desires while it's happening. Commit your life to Him while you're doing it.

This is the great invitation. You're saying, "I don't understand you, but I trust you." You get to bring your plans before the Lord, and you get to talk.

Sometimes He doesn't answer our prayers our desired ways because He has better things for us. Over time what that does is it allows us to just build up this bank of trust in Him.

God cares so much about the details of our lives that He will give everything and withhold everything that is necessary to conform us to the life of Jesus.

What is the everything He gave? His Son’s life. What is the everything He withheld? He withheld our punishment. He withheld what we deserved.

To be a Christian is to say, "You gave yourself totally for me to make me pure, to forgive me of my sins, and for us to be together.

Do not let anything come in my way. I couldn't even possibly be satisfied in getting every little dream of my heart if you're not in it. Don't give me something I think I want that's going to kill me.”

What do we do with our plans? Well, we trust this. We trust the gospel, and we get to keep asking and asking and asking because He is a good Father who loves to give good gifts.

Put your full trust in His trustworthiness. The Bible says as a result of your commitment of plans, everything He intends for your life, will be established. Let's pray.