How to...Plan for the Future (Eve Service)

10 days ago I became quite ill through this virus known as the norovirus. I was not able to think straight at all and just wanted to get through it. I 'Googled' the illness and discovered I would be ill for 48 to 72 hours for which during and after I was to avoid contact with people, to not go to the Doctor, and not to go out.

I was seriously curtailed in what I could do. On that Tuesday my plan for Wednesday was to study Greek (as you have to keep it up to make it worthwhile) and to prepare a sermon but whilst I made the plan I could not actually achieve it. Instead I slept for almost 24 hours, getting up for brief periods of time before the bed called me back.

The next day, when I had originally planned to be at Foodbank, I was like a zombie, spaced out, not really on the planet - so much so that I was taken to other planets in the form of Star Trek films that Sky were so good to put on in order of their release. A profitable use of time you may say, well, I don't know! It was the only mindless entertainment I could cope with! I certainly can empathise with those who are on pain medications that slow our mental functions. I suppose it is part of the balancing act of having or not having pain. All-the-same, it is hard to focus when you are not well.

And so, I was housebound until Friday when the only time I went out was to take my wife, Irena, to and from work. I was better on Friday, though plainly not 100% however I was able to start the sermon preparation but after 2.5 hours I headed back to bed - I was shocked that I slept for 3.5 hours! I was almost late to pick up Irena.

Anyway, I have gone the long way round about what it is I want to say:

I made plans. It did not occur to me that they would not happen unless I wanted to change the plans. However, it is plain, that I could have done no different when I woke up in the early hours of Wednesday morning violently ill. We all make plans. I love making plans. I love to make plans about making plans!

But, seriously, how often do those plans come to fruition?

Now if it is because of laziness or procrastination then it is our fault we did not achieve what we set out to achieve however, even when it is with the best of intentions we find that our plans often fall to the wayside. This got me thinking about how to plan for the future and it led to today's two passages. The first passage came to my mind and the second to Irena's when I shared with her my initial thoughts:

James 4:13–16 NKJV

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.” But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

Luke 12:16–20 NKJV

Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.” ’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’

There is no point going through hardships in our lives if we do not learn from them. And this is my lesson from the week.

James, in his passage is trying to get our attention. Hey! Listen! Sshh! I have something really important to say. The word translated 'Come' is an imperative, it is a command. Don't ignore this! Come! So, we are going to do just that and learn the three things that we must be aware of if we are to learn How to...Plan for the Future:

1) The sin of presumption which contains…

2) The sin of pride

3) Deo Volente

1) The Sin of Presumption

At the bottom of all our planning is pride. We make plans. We say we will do this or that. But, who are we really? We are finite, we have incomplete knowledge, we are limited by our own bubble. The sin of presumption comes when we think we know it all, that we can live and plan without God. Central to this is the idea that our plans are somehow important to God. We find this in these verses that were given to me at my baptism and which have been at the centre of my life since:

Proverbs 3:5–6 NKJV

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.

In fact, we have this verse on our mantelpiece at home and quotes it slightly different in the:

New Living Translation says: Trust in the LORD with all your heart;…Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.

If we are making plans about our lives and saying either to ourselves or others "I will do this, I will do that, I will, I will..." the problem is you may be laid low like I was during the week:

Proverbs 27:1 NKJV

Do not boast about tomorrow, For you do not know what a day may bring forth.

There is nothing wrong with making plans if we are deliberately conscious of God. There is nothing wrong with making plans if they are put before God in prayer. How else should we understand in all your ways acknowledge Him? But we also have to allow that our plans may not succeed.

Being presumptive means that we don’t think that God actually cares about our plans, our decisions, our lives. Now, this can be broken into two parts:

1) We really do not think God cares about these things or

2) We think that we do not need God

So, let us look at these two: First:

We really do not think God cares about these things

He is interested not just in our plans but in the minutiae of our lives. Does this surprise you? He actually cares about every little thing about us. Isn't that amazing? There is biblical proof of this in one of the most quoted Psalms:

Psalm 139:1–4 NKJV

O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, And are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O LORD, You know it altogether.

Even getting up from our chairs God sees and is interested. Perhaps now we realise that we cannot make our plans without God being fully a part of it. For some of us this means a fundamental change of lifestyle. We just presumed that it did not matter to God...

we thought that surely God is only interested in whether we pray, read His word, go to Church on Sunday but now we discover He is interested in our daily living, our work lives, stones we lay, books we read, the mundane, daily, things like doing the washing up and lo, God is present and involved. Surely now we know that all that we do has to be done with humility before the eyes of God who is engaged in our every activity.

Which leads us to our second point:

The sin of presumption is also a

2.Sin of pride

We think that we do not need God

We think we can do it without God. We may not like what Scripture has to say about how much room we have for free-choice but if we are disciples of Jesus we are now His servants, His slaves rather than slaves to this world and slaves and servants of sin. We are not at liberty to live our lives how we like. God will have His way and it is better for us to fit His plan. Why? Because He really wants to bless us and because He already knows the future. Our lives are not in our hands, like some of us may think, but in His.

God has to be acknowledged for who He is. He is the creator of all our days. It is this reason that we can wake up to a new day and say this is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it. And why not find joy in every day? Why not count the blessings that we have lived to see yet another day and the workings of God in it. Seeing He creates each day then our days and times are in His hands and we should look forward to God's working in our lives.

Who here expects that today or tomorrow we may not live to see another day? No, when we wake up we do not think that it is going to end but it will be the end for over 153,000 people today.

Moses, in the only Psalm he wrote, said:

Psalm 90:12 NKJV

So teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Pride can blind us to the fact that we are limited, very limited. We truly are here today, gone tomorrow. Our knowledge is limited. We do not see the whole picture.

The idea of a goldfish in its goldfish bowl is only aware of what is going on in that bowl and just beyond the periphery of it. We are just like that goldfish…we see where we are and may be able to see just a little further but we have no experience of life further outside of it. They cannot see the rest of the room, the house, the street, the world, the universe. How do we think we can make plans without God? Truly pride is a sign of idiocy. We are limited. God is not. He surely sees the whole picture.

We are naive if we think that even the little we know is enough to make the right plans.

Isaiah 55:8–9 NKJV

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.

We have to grasp this to not be a proud people, we have to grasp this to understand we here today and perhaps gone today. To not acknowledge God in all our ways is to commit the sin of presumption. To assume we can live our lives without God and without His say so, to presume that it does not matter to God what our plans are for today, tomorrow, next year. Or to presume, as some have said, that God wound up the universe like a clock and left it free so that we can get on with our lives without respect to Him. God is not like that as we have already seen.

Consistently, in Scripture, we are warned not to take for granted the plans we make. We must hold onto them lightly for what God wants must take precedence. And why fight against God?

Proverbs 19:21 NKJV

There are many plans in a man’s heart, Nevertheless the LORD’s counsel—that will stand.

Which leads us to our final point today. There were three points: the first: the sin of presumption that contains the sin of pride, which was our second point. And the third point: was

3.Deo Volente.

Deo Volente? What is that? I remember older Christians when I was younger saying: "We'll see you next week, D.V." Ever heard that? I always thought it was silly to say D.V. as if it was supposed to be a code between Christians. Well, D.V. means Deo Volente, which is Latin for, ‘God willing’. Yes, even our language must change. I’d rather not say: “D.V.” but “if God allows” or “if God wills”. This is not just some change to our language but a change in our approach that by doing this we are truly letting God overrule us and direct our paths. It is letting Him have control.

When we say; "if God wills." It is not a fatalistic saying of 'what shall be shall be' but a positive acknowledgement of the Sovereignty of our God in our lives and the acceptance of His will for we know that He is loving and merciful and has our best at heart. We need no further proof of this than in God sending His own Son who, in His greatest, neediest hour, declared to His father: Not my will but yours be done. He accepted the plan of God. And the deal was signed in blood.

Conclusion

There is nothing wrong with making plans. Perhaps our plans are not big enough! I think the bigger the better. Why? Because we have a bigger God than we can possibly imagine. Why not think and plan big, dream big and pray bigger? But all our plans have to acknowledge God who is Sovereign and Lord of all including the details of our lives. It seems better to me to plan to be used by God for His Kingdom than to plan for selfish reasons. What really are the plans for our lives? How to stay healthy? How to make enough money to get through retirement? I hope we are not like the man in the story who wanted to build bigger and bigger storehouses. We plan for the future as if we are here to stay. And we know that cannot be true. So, why not plan for the future of life-eternal, instead? Building an inheritance there instead? And, we all know, that if we seek first His Kingdom and righteousness then God will supply all our need in this life too. This is really the start of...How to...Plan for the Future

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