No Plan B

The Secret of No Plan B

The last three weeks the Spirit has had me digging into the book of Jeremiah. 2-3 chapters per day, highlighting things, writing down what I am observing and learning.

Jeremiah was a prophet sent by God to speak to the people of Israel.

Specifically he was sent to call the people back into a relationship with Him.

The people of Israel had forsaken their true God and were worshiping other gods.

This theme of forsaking God is brought up in nearly every chapter of the book.

I did a quick search and found at least 80 verses talking about idol worship.

27 They say to wood, ‘You are my father,’ and to stone, ‘You gave me birth.’ They have turned their backs to me and not their faces;

Jeremiah 2:27

8 They are all senseless and foolish; they are taught by worthless wooden idols.

Jeremiah 10:8

As I was reading Spirit highlighted a number of things for me but one question in particular stood out to me.

“How did the Israelites get to the point that they turned their backs to God and made the decision to serve other gods instead of Yahweh?”

Story:

A few months ago I counseled a family who was struggling with a decision. (No need to worry about who it is because this family doesn’t attend church here at ECC. I do have permission to share this. I would never share without permission).

They were struggling with a life altering decision. They could not get the thoughts out of their minds about what to do. The morning I met with them they told me:

We were up all night thinking about what is before us and the decision that has to be made.

Last night we slept terribly, maybe a few hours at best. This has been going on for a few months now.

We are not at peace.

I could see the anxiety ruling over them like a massive weight around their necks in regards to the fear of making the wrong decision.

After they fully explained what was going on they made one final comment, “We do want you to know that we have prayed about it.”

After that last comment The Spirit nudged me to probe into the prayers.

I looked at them and said, “Please be honest with me in regards to a question I am going to ask you. Be totally honest. Don’t answer from what you think I want to hear. Answer from the actual truth. Last night when you could not sleep, when did you pray? Did you pray before you went to bed? Did you pray as soon as the feelings of anxiety started to come over you? Did you pray all night? Or did you sit in bed for hours, spinning sleeplessly, finally resorting to prayer………only when you remembered you should pray?

The answer was “We resorted to prayer when we remembered it is what we should do”.

What does the story about the Israelites turning their backs on God, this family resorting to prayer, and our current series The Secret Place all have in common?

If you did not listen to the message two weeks ago that Trae preached AND the message last week that Shawn preached; I encourage you to go back and listen to those messages.

I will give you two comments from their messages that are building blocks for the message today:

Trae - Everything is about the heart. The posture of the heart matters. AND

Shawn - Proper preparation matters.

Having these two points laid as building blocks; let me slightly rephrase the question I asked earlier.

“How did the Israelites……and the family in the story……get to the point that they turned their backs to God and made the decision to serve other gods instead of Yahweh?”

You might be thinking right now:

“Nate, are you claiming that the family in the story are serving other gods?

That is a bold statement Nate.

They turned to God in prayer.

If they eventually turned to God in prayer, how are they serving other Gods?

Let me answer those unspoken thoughts & questions by looking at what God said to Jeremiah about the Israelites.

14 “Do not pray for this people or offer any plea or petition for them, because I will not listen when they call to me in the time of their distress.

Jeremiah 11:14

12 Although they fast, I will not listen to their cry; though they offer burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them………

Jeremiah 14:12

Why? Why does God say such a thing? They turned their backs away from Him and turned their faces back to Him. If they turned towards Him, why does He ignore it?

13 “.........declares the Lord, I spoke to you again and again, but you did not listen; I called you, but you did not answer.

Jeremiah 7:13

“They greatly love to wander; they do not restrain their feet. So the Lord does not accept them……...”

Jeremiah 14:10

Here is something awesome. A fresh word for your soul this morning from my Secret Place this week.

Coming back from vacation, I had a busy week.

Wednesday morning I got up at 5am to do my time with the Lord.

I was tempted to finish the sermon instead of doing my time with Him (I had a jammed packed day ahead the next two days and I really wanted to get the sermon done).

I was going to not spend the time (I justified the why).

Spirit says, “No! You need to read the word today. It’s important. They need to know my heart!”

I obeyed and opened up my bible and read Jeremiah 34.

The verse I just went over with you are are from chapters 7, 11, 14. In those chapters God was done with Israel.

However, in Jeremiah chapter 34 the Babylonians were besieging against Israel.

The Israelites turn towards God and repent. They made a decision to obey a command from long ago to let all of their Hebrew slaves go free.

CHURCH HEAR THIS WORD. IF YOU HAVE CHECKED BACK OUT CHECK BACK IN AND HEAR THIS ONE POINT TODAY……God loves freeing slaves!

Because the Israelites take this step of freeing slaves God honors it and He turns away the Babylonians.

But what happens next?

The storm of the battle stopped and they turned their backs on the covenant to set slaves free and they took the people as slaves again.

God’s heart is always waiting for His people to turn to Him.

But He allows His people to choose to turn and He gives them what they choose.

He gives them what they turned to.

17 “Therefore this is what the Lord says: You have not obeyed me; you have not proclaimed freedom to your own people. So I now proclaim ‘freedom’ for you, declares the Lord—‘freedom’ to fall by the sword, plague and famine.

Jeremiah 34:17

Bob Sorge summarizes this best with this quote. “True worshipers are those who come to God first. They seek His face and wait to receive directions for the next step. The secret place is the threshold where they pause, seek His intervention, and cry for wisdom and revelation.

The Israelites and this family did not turn to God first. When we do not turn to God first that is a sign of two things:

The heart posture has chosen to depend upon the wrong thing.

AND/OR

The correct preparation has not been done.

Let’s look at Jeremiah 32:33 again there is a key lesson of response in this verse that we have to take to heart!!!!

33 They turned their backs to me and not their faces………..

Jeremiah 32:33

The option of turning is always before us. The question is which direction are you turning?

The Israelites did not turn away from God in a single moment.

We don’t turn away from God in a single moment.

The transition of the turn is usually done with lots of little decisions that reduce the hunger of the heart to seek God.

When we should be turning to Him we tend to look for the answer everywhere else first.

Many times we find solutions, in our own efforts.

Decisions made without seeking God’s direction, ever.

Slowly over time our turning to Father diminishes and is replaced with the turning to other sources.

Those other sources become our gods.

Most of the time the other source is “SELF”

This entire process, as Trae mentioned in the sermon two weeks ago, “Happens in the heart”.

In the messages Trae & Shawn preached the last two weeks they were building towards The Secret Place message for today.

One of The Secrets of The Secret Place is that there is No Plan B.

Father’s Plan is Plan A!!!!

Everything else is plan B.

Plan B is the game plan of the enemy who uses anything and everything to entangle us with one objective…………………..To get our trust onto something besides Father!

Plan B has an insidious way of slowly transferring our dependence on God to dependence on something else over time without us even realizing it. Anything that puts our trust of deliverance onto it and off of Father is a false god.

Money

Health insurance

Social Security

A job, career

Retirement plans

Drugs, alcohol

Entertainment, recreation, sports

Friends

Counselors

House, Food, Bed

Possessions

How do we combat against the silent enemy of Plan B?

We do what Pastor Shaw challenged us about last week.

“Properly Prepare”

Make the Practice of Seeking a “Relationship” with Father in The Secret Place The Obsession of Your Life. Make it your Plan A?

We always need to look to God’s word for guidance.

It is the light unto our feet.

Let’s look to our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ for wisdom in regards to His relationship with the Father and see what Plan A looked like for Jesus.

STAND FOR THE READING OF THE WORD:

12 One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. 13 When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: 14 Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, 15 Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, 16 Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

Luke 6:12–15

Pastor: This is the Word of The Lord!

Congregation Response: Thanks be to God!

Before you are seated, fistbump your neighbor and say, “Properly Prepare to Plan A”

As we look at this passage what can we learn from what we see Jesus doing:

He went out to a mountainside.

He went to the wilderness.

He went to His Secret Place (The place He was able to get alone to be with Father)

It took effort to get to this place.

To pray.

He went with a purpose.

That purpose was to commune with His Father.

Prayer is talking with God.

He spent the night praying to God.

He didn’t casually pray.

He sought communion with God and dedicated significant time.

He made communion with God His only priority.

God was His Plan A Source.

He called to himself all of the disciples following Him and He chose 12 of them.

This tells us Jesus had a decision to make.

This is why He spent significant time with Father.

What was He doing in The Secret Place?

He was getting guidance from Father, The Source of Plan A.

He did not act until He received “the guidance” from His Father.

Once the guidance was “received” He acted.

Like Jesus we have decisions to make all the time.

Some decisions are small.

Some decisions are big.

Some decisions are self chosen by us as our normal/casual/typical day to day life unfolds. These are decisions we make without really thinking much about it.

Other times decisions are harshly and immediately imposed upon us. These decisions come from the fierce storms that overcome us in which decisions “have to be made”. We can’t see the hand in front of our face because the storm is so fierce. The path forward is obstructed from view and like quick sand, that is pulling you down, fear and anxiety surround you.

Let me ask a few questions to mediate on this week and talk with your small groups about: (Small Group Plug):

What is your habit of seeking Father in regards to your decision making process?

To use a military preparedness term, what defcon level hits before you go to Father?

What do your answers tell you about your heart?

REPEAT QUESTIONS

AFTER REPEAT - Pause - Give Them Space to Think, Ponder, and Write Down the Questions

In The Secret Place you “Properly Prepare” the “Heart” to be in alignment with the Father’s will!

This is what Jesus was doing all the time in The Secret Place.

This is what we do in The Secret Place.

One of the sweetest secrets to intimacy with Jesus is to come to Him as your only source of help and hope.

Bob Sorge

The only way to ensure that you come to Him as your first option, as Plan A, is to do what Shawn suggested last week, “Properly Prepare”.

How do you “Property Prepare”

You go to The Secret Place ALL THE TIME.

When you go often it becomes your habit.

When you go often it gives Father the ability to captivate your heart.

When you go to The Secret Place and commune with Father often, you will notice a few things:

It keeps your heart soft.

Your hunger grows.

You actually yearn to know His will and hunger for His help.

Going to The Secret Place often keeps your heart on Plan A.

All other postures divert your path to Plan B.

I want to talk briefly about the idea of Plan A and The Storms of Life that Come.

I recall being in a really hard season of life in the years 2005-1010, 5 years. We lost our son. I was going to church, I was praying, I was reading the world, and I was reminded this week, through a God ordained encounter on the loop trail, that I even ran away to Nigeria on a mission trip “to go do something good”. In that season I regularly used the term and believed in my heart that I was “faithfully disappointed”. I told my men’s group, “I feel like there is a battle going on for my soul and I feel like God is losing”.

I now look back on that season of life and I have come to realize that I was not going to The Secret Place. I was just doing religious activities. I wasn’t in a relationship with Father. I was just doing things. My eyes were opened one day by taking a walk in Tedford Park. I was yelling at God, “Where are you? I am in the place I did not want to be. I want to stand with you through this hard storm but I don’t know where you are.” The Spirit gently spoke to me, “You have been putting faith in the things of faith……..Not Me.” In the blink of an eye, in the snap of a finger, in an instant, I knew exactly where He was. He was with me the whole time.

When large storms like Hurricanes approach you can see them coming.

There are signs they are coming.

The outer bands bring heavy sporadic rain.

The waves start to build.

All of these warning signs come before the significant storm hits.

Why do you think these storms of life happen?

What is their purpose?

REPEAT QUESTIONS

AFTER REPEAT - Pause - Give Them Space to Think, Ponder, and Write Down the Questions

WORSHIP TEAM ENTERS (PLAY KEYS)

I've learned that the Lord will test us to prove our ownership……. He'll allow storms to see if we will reach reflexively for any source of relief within our grasp. Will we exhaust all our options and then turn to Him finally, almost as a last resort? Perhaps we need to change how we view the storms of life. Can we see God using our storms strategically to guide us to higher kingdom living? Can we approach life's trials as divine invitations to elevate to His realm of faith?

Bob Sorge

Bob Sorge’s point is that God uses all of the storms of life to test your hearts response. Is our initial response to run to Plan A or to Plan B?

The storms of life test your reach……….What you reach for.

What does Plan B look like?

There are many examples. I will keep it simple:

Getting angry at God.

Blaming God.

Turning away from God.

Not seeking God.

What does Plan A look like?

We respond like Jesus and we run into The Secret Place and pray ALL NIGHT.

Circling back to the Israelites in the book of Jeremiah and the story of the family, the honest truth is that if our heart posture is on Plan B; then God is not our God……..something else is.

There is nothing like a good storm in life to reveal the true posture of the heart.

We can easily hide the true posture of the heart in the day to day decisions.

We can’t hide the heart in the storm because in the storm the heart gets laid bare.

CLOSING:

This is a heavy message today.

The message of false gods and the challenge to assess one's life is not an easy message.

However, I want you to be encouraged as you spend time assessing.

God’s heart is for you!!!

His eyes are on you.

His heart is not to bring destruction to you.

His heart is to set captives free.

He is the God of freedom to those who turn to Him as Plan A!

28 Just as I watched over them to uproot and tear down, and to overthrow, destroy and bring disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,” declares the Lord.

Jeremiah 31:28

Prayer Team:

Come up to get prayer.

This is a safe place.

We are here to bear each other's burdens.

There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus.

Don’t rob your brothers & sisters from being able to pray for you. This is why we are all here, to worship God in community and humble ourselves together declaring “we need him”.