God Has A Wonderful Plan For Your Life
Written by Ed Allen
Saturday, 31 August 2002 19:00
Opening Quote, Karl Barth: (Brilliant German scholar who defied categorization; people on left and right often had difficulty with him, but he is most influential theologian of the century.)
Barth came to Chicago to do a symposium; journalists outside asked him: "What do you consider the most profound theological truth?"
Barth said, "Jesus loves me; this I know, for the Bible tells me so." This may be the most profound theological truth knowable. Today's truth may be second. God has a wonderful plan to your life. This is a profound truth that is difficult for us to completely get our minds around. Believe that God has a wonderful plan for your life.
At the risk of elevating the goofy factor completely off the chart, let's all stand and say, "God has a wonderful plan for my life."
PRAYER: God, massage that truth deeply into our hearts. Open our stubborn hearts today and may we hear your Voice."
We have been working our way through Jeremiah- today is our last lesson on Jeremiah. Jeremiah, the prophet of doom, speaks words of hope into our lives today from 2600 years ago echoing across the centuries: God has a wonderful plan for your life.
Implications:
1. Not only does God exist, but God CARES.
Jeremiah 31:3: God says, "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with lovingkindness." Theme of book of Jeremiah: God's demanding love.
2. God is in control. Psalm 33: 6-11
By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; their starry host by the breath of his mouth. He gathers the waters of the sea into jars; he puts the deep into storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord; let the people of the world revere Him. For He spoke, and it came to be; He commanded, and it stood firm. The Lord foils the plans of the nations, he thwarts the purposes of the peoples. But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever; the purposes of His Heart through all generations.
God is sovereign; He is in control.
3. I matter to God.
About a month ago, after a powerful lesson from Jeremiah about the futility of empty religion and then someone stood up and delivered a word from God: alive and fresh, poignant, pregnant with emotion. I talked to someone on the phone from my home fellowship after that, and I asked him, "What did you think?" He said he was a little blown away that God was working so hard to rebuke us. But he was even more overwhelmed that God cared enough to speak to us in that way. You matter to God.
Psalm 139- You are fearfully and wonderfully made.
Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.
1. God's plan is sometimes disagreeable and often difficult.
In this generation we've lost sight of that, but that was not always true. For almost 200 years the book, Pilgrim's Progress, was the second most widely read book in the world other than the Bible. In the story, Pilgrim (ie., your average Christian) is making his way across the landscape to the celestial city. EVERY DAY, Pilgrim is tossed to and fro. His only traveling companion sinks in the slough of despair. He thinks of giving up his faith throughout the whole book. He is tossed by difficulty, trial and internal doubt.
God's plan for your life and mine is sometimes disagreeable and often difficult. Jeremiah is writing Chapter 29 to the exiles. Jeremiah has been announcing now for decades: if you don't repent God is coming in judgment. The people began to talk to him in derision. Other prophets said, "Oh no, everything is going to be fine." The people nicknamed Jeremiah "Violence and Destruction." In 597 BC, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, just as Jeremiah had predicted, marched into Jerusalem and took with him the entire intelligentsia and all of the royal court and most of the priests as hostages back to Babylon. He didn't ransack Jerusalem; that would happen in 587 BC. These people were now living as captives in exiles. Don't you know they were saying, "What is this? Why are we here? Everything that has been promised us has been taken away- we need to hear from the Lord." And they consulted prophets and even mediums in Babylon. All of those prophets were telling them, "Two years- then Babylon will fall, and all will be restored." And just as they are celebrating that great news, Jeremiah writes them a letter and says, "NO- it's going to be 70 years, and things are going to get worse before it gets better."
Do you remember, some of you, the last night of His life, Jesus went into the Garden of Gethsemane and called out, "Father is there no other way?" And the answer was no. God's plan is sometimes disagreeable and often difficult.
2. God's Plan requires that we do the next thing with obedience and obedient integrity.
What do you do next? God just wants you to just do the next thing with obedient integrity. Oswald Chambers, June 4, "My Utmost for His Highest":
Hebrews 13:5- I will never leave you nor forsake you. What line of thinking do my thoughts take? Do I turn to what God says or to my own fears Am I simply repeating what God says, or am I learning to truly hear Him and then respond after I have heard what He says? ? He has said, I will never leave you or forsake you, so that we can say, "I will not fear; what can man do to me?" He will never leave me for any reason: not my sin, or selfishness, or stubbornness, or waywardness. Have I really let God say to me that He will never leave me? If I have not truly heard this assurance of God, then let me listen again.
Sometimes it is not difficulty that makes me think God will forsake me, but drudgery. With no major difficulty to overcome, no vision from God, nothing wonderful or beautiful- just the everyday activities of life- do I hear God's assurances even in these?
We have the idea that God is going to do some exceptional thing- some extraordinary work by and by. But as we grow in His grace we find that God is glorifying Himself here and now, moment by moment. Having God's assurance behind us the most amazing strength becomes ours, and we learn to sing, glorifying Him even in the ordinary days and ways of life.
God's plan requires that we do the next thing with obedience and integrity. The exiles were looking for some great deliverance but Jeremiah said. "Just live your life!"
Listen to Chapter 29: 4-5:
This is what Lord almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: "Build houses and settle down! Plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters, give your daughters in marriage. Increase in numbers there and do not decrease."
Live your life with obedient integrity. If you don't know what to do today, do the next thing, with obedient integrity. If it doesn't feel like there is no great obstacle, no fantastic thing that God is calling you to do, then do the next thing. If it's too difficult to think about tomorrow then just do today- with obedient integrity. God's plan requires that we do the next thing with obedient integrity.
3. God's plan requires that we uninstall the old operating system and install a new one.
The old one says, "I'm going to do things my way." We need to install a whole new way of looking at life.
Jeremiah 29:7
Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for if it prospers you also prosper.
The people were probably thinking, "Are you kidding? Pray for the prosperity of this city- who robbed us of our kingdom, temple, and land? Everything is gone, the very things in life that matter- didn't you promise these things?"
God's operating system is a brand new way of looking at things. What I am requiring of you right now is a deeper dependence on me. And that's it- a whole new way of looking at life- depend on God.
So what is God's plan? God's plan is disagreeable, often difficult; it requires that we do the next thing with obedient integrity, that we uninstall the old operating system and put in a new one- but what IS the plan, specifically? Let's go to verse 10:
When 70 years are completed in Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place.
First, for the exiles, God's plan meant restoration after a time of difficulty. God may be speaking that word into your lives this morning. There is a marriage here that needs restoring. There is a broken spirit that needs restoration. God is in the restoration business.
But there is an even more important part to God's plan. That's not the heart of it, even though it's what we are looking for. He gives us an even more important work:
Jeremiah 29:12
Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, I will bring you back from captivity, I will gather you from all the nations and places to which I banished you and bring you back from the place into which I carried you into exile.
Not only restoration, but for relationship. God's plan for our lives is that we will know Him and that we will find Him, and that he will hear us. Some of you feel like your prayers never get past the ceiling.
With St. Augustine: My heart is at rest, only when it rests in Thee. God is the complete and total satisfaction of our desires, and we will have Him, fully and completely- and that's His Plan. Think of the result if this really sunk into our hearts. If we came to know this second most profound theological truth, what would the result be? No more fear, or anxiety, discouragement leaking toward depression or despair-absolute freedom, if we really knew that God had a wonderful plan for our life.
I remember watching a movie with my kids, and the hero was in big trouble, and things were dark, it really seemed that the good guy was going to get killed by the bad guy. At one point a little face looked at mine, and I smiled reassurance back: everything's going to be okay. In the end, the good guy won, the hands relaxed, the little face was full of confidence as the movie wound down.
That's what we know- the good guy wins!! And we daily get to look in the face of our heavenly Father. Is it going to be okay? He gives us reassuring glances- yes.
Don't worry about your life-Matthew 6: 25-34.
On the last night of his life, Jesus tells his disciples that he is going to be betrayed and killed. He says then "don't let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God. In my Father's house there are many rooms, and if it weren't so, I would have told you."
We look into the face of Jesus and we see His reassuring look: the Father has a wonderful plan for your life; He cares. He is in control. You matter. Absolute freedom.
Where are you today? In Jeremiah we learned that God's demanding love eventually required satisfaction. Jerusalem fell; the Israelites were judged. But because God's demands are driven by His love and not vice versa, God was not finished with them. Some of you need to hear: God is not finished with you, and He has a wonderful plan for your life.
In the story of Jeremiah we learned that repentance is required. When repentance didn't come, God judged the people; but because God's love is everlasting, judgment was followed by restoration and relationship. Some of you need to know that you will find God if you seek Him with your whole heart.
We learn that God's judgment sometimes means desolation, but because God's love is tenacious, that's not the end of the story. Jeremiah promised us that one would come- he called him a righteous branch, a shoot off the branch of David, who would reign forever and of His kingdom there would be no end.
The difficulty in your life today is not the end of the story; Jesus is the end of the story. In Jesus, the demands of God's love have been met. In Jesus, the extent of God's love has been demonstrated. In Jesus, the face of God's love has been revealed.