Your Plan Or Gods?

Whether we realize it or not or whether we want to believe it or not, God has a plan for every one of us.

• Our lives are not just by chance. The very God who created us, also loves us and has a plan for our lives.

• Jeremiah 29:11 SAYS, “For surely I know the plans I have for you says the Lord, plans for peace and not disaster, plans to give you a future with hope.”

• Dictionary.com defines the word "plan" as, "a specific project or a definite purpose."

Sometimes though, our plans conflict with the plans of others. I’ll get up in the morning sometimes and my wife will ask, “What’s your plan for today?” I’ll tell her, but then I’ll get, “Well I think we should do this instead” or, “I wanted to do something different.”

• It’s normal for each of us to have conflicts with one another’s plans, because most of the time our plans are different.

• Our plans can also conflict with the plan our Lord has set for us. When that conflict occurs, we know the Lord is right.

• The question is ~ which plan are you going to follow? Your plan or Gods?

• In our Scripture this morning we see two plans. There is the Lord’s plan, and there is the plan of the disciples.

I). The Lord’s Plan (vv. 32-34)

A). Jesus had set his sights on Jerusalem, and He knew what was going to happen when He got there.

• Look at v. 32 the disciples were both amazed and afraid ~ but they still followed.

• Why? I would like to think it was because that Jesus was leading them ~ HE was out in front.

B). God’s plans do not always lead us into pleasant situations.

• We need to remember that He is continually out in front of us, leading the way.

• And yes, sometimes, what we perceive as suffering is a part of that plan, but remember what the Bible says about that…listen carefully to 1 Peter 1:3-7

C). Jesus’ plan to go to Jerusalem included suffering!

• Matthew writes, in this same event, that Jesus said that He will “undergo great suffering.” ~ and I think that’s an understatement!

D). What we have to receive here is the plan behind the suffering!

• Jesus was going to Jerusalem to go to the cross!

• God’s plan for His Son was a plan for servanthood and service.

• Read v. 45

• Had He not done that ~ had He not endured that “great suffering” there would be no redemption, no salvation, no free gift of eternal life that we can have today.

II). The Disciples plan

A). They wanted GLORY

• Go back and look at vv. 35-37 again (read)

• Even though Jesus is telling them all along that He was going to Jerusalem to die, the disciples are still expecting that He is going to set up His kingdom.

• James & John (at their mother’s urging, according to Matthew) wanted the two highest positions in the kingdom.

• They were looking for glory!

B). They had plans for greatness!

• We talked about this last week, in Mark 9, where the disciples were arguing with themselves on the way to Capernaum about which of them was the greatest!

• Now, in this next chapter, after Jesus had told them that “whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Here they are wanting to be the greatest!

• Look at Jesus’ reply: (read vv. 38)

• What was their response: “We are able” (are you kidding me!!!)

• They had plans for greatness!

C). Jesus’ response: “You will”

• You will drink from the sup that I drink from, and you will be baptized with the same baptism I am baptized with, but that won’t give you glory and that won’t make you great!

• Vv. 43-44 say, “You want greatness, you have to be a servant…you want glory, you have to be a slave.” To whom, to EVERYONE!

• That’s God’s plan: The greatest in the Lord’s Kingdom are the ones who are the best servants. The truly great servant, in God’s eyes, are the one’s who serve unselfishly.

What is your plan? Greatness and glory, or suffering and service?

Mordecai Ham was born April 2, 1877, in Scottsville, Kentucky. He came from eight generations of Baptist preachers. He came to Christ by the time he was eight years old and remembers: "At nine I had definite convictions that the Lord wanted me to preach."

But after high school, he changed his plans and went to Ogden College to study law. He was too young for a Bar exam, so his plans changed again and he took a job as a traveling salesman for a grocery company. From 1897 to 1900 a new plan…he was crew manager for a picture-enlarging firm in Chicago.