God Has A Plan
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. (KJV)
For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (ESV)
TRUST
Solomon, in his profound wisdom instructed us to trust in the Lord.
• Trust is a very difficult thing to truly exhibit.
• To trust someone else you must first relinquish your trust in yourself.
• This is exceedingly difficult for us humans.
o Many teamwork workshops include an exercise where every member of the team must fall backwards from a high ledge into the arms of their team members.
o It sounds and even looks easy.
o However, it is a genuine test of trust.
o It is very difficult to allow yourself to fall, backwards, into what you cannot see, on the slim hope that your coworkers – a bunch of people who have no vested interest in whether you live or die, are going to catch you.
o In that position you learn just how difficult it really is to trust.
• The problem is that, for many of us, the lessons that life has taught us have led us to the conclusion that the only person we can truly trust is ourselves.
o However, as it is with many of our carnal conclusions, nothing could be further from the truth.
o The Lord is the only one that we can truly trust, even above ourselves.
• The problem is that true trust in him is often a last resort for us.
• Like the woman with the issue of blood, we tend to exhaust every possible avenue available to us before we finally place our full trust in the Lord.
• We tend to come to him as a last result – when in truthfulness he should be you first resort.
• This is mainly because we have a predisposition to trust in what we can see and feel.
• We have been conditioned to trust our natural senses.
o We use them to define our world as well as our possibilities and impossibilities.
o In many cases we have simply learned that it is safest to walk by sight.
o We have learned that we can trust what we see and understand.
o We have learned that it is safest to sail in waters that allow us to keep the shore in sight.
• However, the wisdom of Proverbs declares, "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding." (Proverbs 3:5 ESV)
• What a difficult piece of instruction!
• Not only are we commanded to trust the Lord rather than our own ability, we are also admonished not to trust our own understanding.
Solomon has directed us to subjugate our senses to our faith in God.
• Trust the Lord, he declares, beyond, or even in spite of, your own understanding.
• Ignore what you can see, or understand, and trust in the Lord.
• Ignore what the balance sheet says and trust God.
• Ignore what the doctor says and trust God.
• Ignore what the lawyers may say and trust in the Lord.
• Ignore what the economy declares and place your trust in God.
• What a powerful admonition.
• Shut your eyes and fall backwards into what you cannot see.
• Leave yourself at the complete mercy of God.
• Don’t put your trust in your own abilities, don’t place your trust in finances, don’t lean upon your own strengths but, rather trust in the Lord.
• It's much easier to say it, however, than it is to live it.
The bottom line is that the instruction to trust the Lord is very difficult to assimilate into our own realities.
• Its one thing to talk about trusting God, but it is another altogether to do it.
• We know we should trust God, we like to say that we do trust God, but when a problem comes along we immediately spring into action doing our best o fix it, take care of it, or work it out.
• Trust is not an easy thing.
• But it is a necessary part of our walk with God.
• Only by trust can we truly walk in the places that he has determined for our lives.
Solomon admonished us to trust in the Lord and the scriptures bear evidence to the fact that when we ignore this simple wisdom bad things are prone to happen.
• Abraham was promised a child after his own understanding told him it was too late for he and Sarah to have children.
o Abraham fell prey to the tendency to trust our own understanding over the word of the Lord.
o He came to the conclusion that he needed to help God out.
• The next move that Abraham made caused him to father a problem instead of a promise.
o Because he failed to trust the Lord, he set in motion a struggle that continues to plague our world even to this day.
o All because he trusted what he could understand instead of trusting the Lord.
Tonight I want to try to help you with this simple issue of trust.
• I feel strongly that the Lord has directed me to remind you that you can trust Him because He has a plan for you.
• Jeremiah was a prophet both to Israel and Judah during the last few years of the kingdom of Judah.
• Jeremiah sent several letters to the Israelites in captivity.
• One of those letters is contained in Chapter 29.
• In the authoritative voice of a man anointed by God, Jeremiah spoke of judgment for Israel but he also spoke of promise.
• After pronouncing that the terrible captivity would last for 70 years he proceeded to pronounce a message of hope.
• In Jeremiah 29:11 the Lord declared through him:
• “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”
• Another translation, the ESV says, "For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
• These are undoubtedly among the most comforting verses in Scripture.
• The exiles in Babylon are to take hope in the fact that God knows the plans He has for them, plans to give them a hope and a future.
HOPE
In the O.T. “hope” invites us to look ahead in confident expectation.
• Hope says, this current circumstance is not final.
• Hope declares that this isn’t the end of the story.
• The Jews may find themselves in captivity in a foreign land, but hope stands up and declares that this isn’t where the story ends.
• The situation may be bleak, the surroundings may not be optimal, but hope stands up and declares – Put your trust in God.
• Jeremiah declares, your future is secured by your relationship with God.
• Because He is your God, He has plans for you.
• And those plans are good.
It is that perpetual hope, that forward facing faith, that gives rise to trust.
• We can trust in the Lord, even in difficult circumstances if we bear in mind that our hope is in the Lord.
• Trust arises from the fact that our hope isn’t n our abilities, our hope isn’t in our strength, our hope isn’t in the things we can work out, rather, our hope is in the Lord.
• When you struggle in trusting the Lord, the issue lies with your hope.
• If your hope is in the thing that only He can do then your trust is placed in him and him alone.
• It makes no sense to trust your own abilities if you come to terms with the fact that your abilities can’t accomplish God’s purpose for your life anyway.
God has a plan for you!
• If this trust, then is born of hope, where does the hope come from?
• Hope is born in our heart, according to the prophet Jeremiah by the knowledge that God has a plan for us.
• And his plan, the prophet reminded us, is to prosper us, not to harm us.
• His plan is to give us hope and a future.
• This, above all else, is the message you need to get today.
• This is where forward facing faith is born – out of hope that springs from the knowledge that God has a plan for you.
• You life is ordered by God’s divine plan.
• You didn’t get where you are by your own hand and you’re not moving to the next level by your own power.
• Trust in yourself, your abilities, or your things, will not move you to where God needs you to be.
• God has a plan for you and only by trusting in Him will you move into that place that he has ordained for you.
• I don't know about you but I am excited today by the simple yet profound knowledge that God has a plan – this is where hope springs from.
I want you to know this evening that you can trust in God because he has a plan for your life.
• You aren’t at the whim of circumstance and chance.
• You aren’t at the whim of the economy or political situation.
• Your life isn’t governed by random circumstance.
• God has a plan for you and you can trust in his plan.
• His plan is for your good.
• His plan is to bless you.
• His plan is to prosper you.
His plan may lead through some difficult valleys.
• His plan may take you through some turbulent storms.
• But his plan is for you good.
• His plan is to give you hope and a future.
• His plan is taking you where you truly need to go.
• It is this simple knowledge that gives the ability to trust the Lord and walk where he leads.
Perhaps that's why Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:7 that "we walk by faith, not by sight."
• This is the key to allowing God’s plan to work in your life.
• Sometimes he's going to take us in directions that, if we heeded our own understanding, we would never choose to go.
• Sometimes he's going to lead us into things that we, according to our own understanding, would do all that we could to avoid.
• However, the simple truth of the matter is that the road that leads us into God's plan for our lives sometimes leads through dry wells and barren wildernesses.
• The only way to survive those journeys is to learn, to trust in the Lord with all of our hearts, and not to lean on our own understanding.
• And that trust, my friend, is born from the hope that looks forward with faith to the thing that God has not yet done.
• Looking forward, through the lens of hope, we find the courage to trust the Lord.
• We can blindly follow, we can take the next step, we can fall backwards with our eyes closed into the arms of God, knowing that he has a plan for our lives!
• We will never go wrong trusting his plan.
Close
In the ancient Middle East sheep were precious symbols of wealth.
• Their wool provided yarn for clothing;
• Their bodies were preferred for sacrifice.
• Yet sheep are dependent creatures who must be guided to food and water and protected from wild animals.
• Sheep cannot survive alone in the wild, but must always be in the company of a shepherd.
• The Middle Eastern shepherd loved his sheep, gave each one a name, and cared for each one tenderly.
• Many a shepherd interposed himself between wild beasts and his sheep, and at night the shepherd lay down and slept in the single doorway to his sheepfold.
• Any enemy would have to pass him to attack his flock.
• David, a shepherd himself, presents to us, in one of the most beautiful of the Psalms, the image of God as our shepherd.
• “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” He says, “I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” Psalm 23:4 ESV
• As a shepherd David knew that he never took his flock where he had not already been before.
• He knew that he had already plotted a way through the difficult valley, that he had already put a plan in place to bring his sheep to the safety of the fold.
• So, David said, when I find myself in difficult places, in the shadow of the valley of death, I can trust in the Lord because my hope tells me that God has a plan for my life.
• It is God that leads us. He is our shepherd. He protects us.
• He is always with us, and he has a plan for us.
• There's something about knowing that God is with you that makes even the most difficult of places a comfort to the soul instead of a terror to the flesh
• We are never in situations the Lord is not aware of.
• He never leaves or forsakes us, He doesn’t sleep or slumber, He watches over our lives and I have to tell you tonight that you can trust in him.
• Tonight I want to encourage you to put your trust in God.
• Tonight I want to encourage you to take your hands off of your problem or circumstance and turn it over to God.
• There’s hope in this place tonight, and it springs from placing your trust in him.
• God has a plan for you…
