Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / June 11, 2017 | Really? - God Has A Blueprint For My Life

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June 11, 2017 | Really? - God Has A Blueprint For My Life · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning in the Mulvaine Building and the College Avenue building.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: It's great to have you here.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: And uh I'm gonna have us open to our text for the morning.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: You may know it by heart.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: It's not an unfamiliar passage.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: It's the 23rd Psalm.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah?
0:24
SPEAKER_00: How about that?
0:25
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 23.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is my shepherd.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: What are the next words?
0:31
SPEAKER_00: I shall not want.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: Why do you even come to church?
0:35
SPEAKER_00: You know all this stuff already.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: He leadeth me beside the still waters, he restores my soul.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: Yea, though I walk to the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: Why not?
0:58
SPEAKER_00: For thou art with me.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: I rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: Prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: You anoint my head with oil, my cup runs over.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we thank you for this promise, this amazing psalm.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: No wonder it has been so beloved for thousands of years.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: We ask that it would help guide us this morning.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: So one of the reasons for this series, dumb thing, really dumb things smart Christians believe, is I'd like to encourage you to exercise the image of God in you, that rationality, and become a little more of an independent thinker.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: That is a thinker who doesn't necessarily just naively believe what the smart people say.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: You know, that is a tendency.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: We have this tendency to go, well, if smart people said it, it must be true.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: And so we simply buy into those things.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: And of course, once in a while, as you never read your bulletin, this thing that I write, spend about 12 hours figuring this out, and you never read it.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: So, but what I wrote in the bulletin this morning is what some of our most famous celebrities believe would shock you.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: I won't mention names like Sheen Aykroyd, Jolie, Silverstone, Couture, but some of our favorite Hollywood stars believe stuff like aliens from outer space are even now abducting people.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: 9-11 was an inside job.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: Racists inserted AIDS into the inner city.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: The government killed JFK, that's our government.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: And the British government killed Princess Dye.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: The number of lines in your forehead.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: Now this one's probably true.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: The number of lines in your forehead tells how many lives you've lived.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so uh obviously some of the people that we admire, some of the people we go to movies to watch, believe some pretty dumb things.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: But one of my favorite illustrations comes out of 2008.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: Some really smart people, Bob Rudd Woodruff and Crowd from ABC News, they had a special entitled, I think, Earth 2100.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: And uh they made predictions that frankly, if you didn't know that it was an ABC News special, you might have thought it was one of those small fundamentalist churches showing a video about the end of the world and making a prediction.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's a prediction.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: This happened, this was shown nationwide, 2008.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: Take a look at this one-minute-long video.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: In 2015, we've still failed to address the climate problem.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: We're going to see more floods, more droughts, more wildfires.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: Flames cover hundreds of square miles.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: We expect more intense hurricanes.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: Well, how warm is it going to get?
4:00
SPEAKER_00: How much will sea level rise?
4:02
SPEAKER_00: We don't really know where the end is.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: Temperatures at dangerous levels.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: Agricultural production is dropping because temperatures are rising.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: There's about one billion people who are malnourished.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: That number just continually grows.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: June 8th, 2015.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: One carton of milk is$12.99.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: Gas has reached over$9 a gallon.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm scared right now, but I have to get this out.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: Half gallons of milk,$13.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: No, that didn't happen.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: Gas over$9.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: Prediction.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: And the news special went on, you know, that the population of the earth would drop by 2015 to 2.7 billion.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: It was actually in 2015 7.2 billion, but 2.7 billion because of no clean water, uh, no no food, super high temperatures, and so forth.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: So I don't want to, this is not political.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: Whatever your position on climate change, which was then called global warming, whatever your position, that doesn't matter, but I think we can all get together on the fact that nobody at ABC News really has a right anymore to make fun of those fundamentalist Baptist churches that show end-of-the-world videos anymore.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that was that was absolutely, absolutely crazy.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: And all I want to say, the only point I want to make, do not come up and talk politics to me afterwards, is simply that smart people and Bob Woodruff and the rest of the crowd, there are smart people.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: Smart people can believe what kind of things?
5:38
SPEAKER_00: Dumb things, come on.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: That's the name.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: It's a series.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: So last week, dumb things smart people believe.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: This is what we're saying that smart Christians can believe dumb things too.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: Last week, the first dumb thing was godly homes guarantee godly children.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: Now, the second thing, this is today, that I think is a dumb thing, is God has a blueprint for my life.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: God has a blueprint for my life.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: Now, some people believe this, but one thing I know we all do is um is that we all ask the hard questions.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: We all ask the questions about the big things in life.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: We all wonder whether or not, you know, we ask for guidance because we feel like we're flying blind.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: You know, you feel like you're you're flying blind with these big decisions that you're in a plane and you're in a cloud and and and that and that you're flying by the seat of your pants, and and you wonder, should I marry him, should I marry her?
6:37
SPEAKER_00: What job should I take?
6:38
SPEAKER_00: Should we adopt?
6:39
SPEAKER_00: Which college should I go to?
6:41
SPEAKER_00: Should we move or stay here in Kansas?
6:44
SPEAKER_00: And we hope that God will be that air traffic controller who will come on over the mic and who will give us explicit, detailed instructions about where we are and directions on where to land.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: Or to change the metaphor.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: It's like we're driving across country and we don't have a map.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: And no GPS, of course, and and and we don't quite know where we're going, and we don't quite know the way, and we're hoping that God will be our GPS, or at least will give us a map.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's the third picture.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: We feel like our life and our life are building something, but we don't quite know how to get there, and we're hoping that God will give us a blueprint, the blueprint for life.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: And as a result, some of us hunt for that GPS, or we or we search for that map or blueprint, and the way we do it.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: Some of us is that we look for signs, we look for coincidences, we look for open doors.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are more internal, and instead of looking out there for signs and coincidences, we look deep within ourselves, looking for sudden insights or whispers or a sense of inner peace, you know, to show us the way.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: And others of us, and maybe some of the previous, go to our friends for advice and we accumulate wisdom, we accumulate advice, or at least we try to get their affirmation that what we're choosing is God's perfect will.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: And because it's a big decision, because it's about marriage or adoption or job or college or whatever else, we pray harder than usual.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: We go, Lord, please show me your will.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: Because frankly, that's what it's all about.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: It's all about finding the will of God.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: And I find that the more earnest and the more dedicated and sometimes, in some ways, the more pious Christian, the more likely it is that they will get frustrated at some time in their life and anxious, trying to find that elusive, that slippery, that hidden will of God.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: And it seems to me that there's a problem here.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: And the problem is that either God's at fault or we're at fault.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: Either God's at fault for hiding from us something that really is incredibly important for living a successful life, something that we need to know.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: Or we're at fault for going about this the wrong way.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: And as I read the Bible, I think the problem is us.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: I don't think the problem is God.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: And I think the problem is this.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: I think that the way that we think about God's will is different than the way God thinks about God's will.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: I think that we've come to believe that God's will is a kind of detailed blueprint.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: Or Larry Osborne puts it this way.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: We've been led to believe that God has a highly detailed blueprint for our life that includes a specific preordained job, career, house, spouse, car, and everything in between.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: Now then he goes on to say the idea of a detailed blueprint for our life is a myth.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: But before you come to that, you find yourself looking, as I did, as many of you do, for the right spouse, the right college to go to of the two, the right job.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a right one and there's a wrong one.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: There's a black and there's a white, and we spend our time searching, and we're anxious because we don't want to blow it.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to make a mistake.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: So this morning I want to ask the question is what does the Bible say about that?
10:10
SPEAKER_00: What does the Bible teach?
10:11
SPEAKER_00: Does God have a blueprint for our life?
10:15
SPEAKER_00: So that our chances for success in life depending on finding his will and begging him for grace to tell us what that is.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't find that when I open the Bible, I find that God never says that this is uh that he has a detailed blueprint for us.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: I do not find that this is the way that God's people in the Bible, Abraham, David, Peter, Paul, I do not find that this is the way that they lived at all.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: Instead, it seems to me that the Bible tells us two things, probably more.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: These are just my two, okay?
10:53
SPEAKER_00: And the first thing it seems to me that the Bible clearly says is that God has already given us his will.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: In other words, repeatedly throughout the Bible, there is this implication, not that God's will is some elusive thing, but that it is present with us that we already have it.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: Let me throw some verses at you.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: Rejoice always, 1 Thessalonians 5, 16 to 18, Paul says, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: For this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus, implying here that God's already given us his will.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 5, 17 and 18.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: Don't be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: Don't get drunk on wine.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: Instead, get drunk with the Spirit, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: God has already given us His will.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: Romans 12, 2.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: Don't conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you'll be able to test and approve.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: You can't test and approve something that you don't have already in front of you, that you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: His good, pleasing, and perfect will, Romans 12, 2.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: God has already given us his will.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: And if you're not yet a believer and you're checking it out and you're not sure, I can tell you what God's will is for you.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: This is the will of my Father, Jesus said, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I'll raise him up on the last day.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: What Jesus is saying to people who have not yet come to the place where they've believed on him for eternal life, but are still trusting in their own efforts.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: As he says, listen, let me tell you what my Father's will is, God's will, is that you need to look on the Son of God, on Jesus, you need to believe in him, and then his will is that you'll have eternal life and you'll be raised up on the last day.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: But if you're already a Christian, you and I have need of endurance, Hebrews 10, 36, so that when we have done the will of God, implying that God's already given us his will, when we've done the will of God, we'll receive what was promised.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: Oh, one other thing that Jesus said, he said, anyone who does the will of God, that person is my brother and sister and mother.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: He certainly wasn't talking about some slippery, elusive, hidden will of God.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: He's certainly speaking about the revealed will of God, whatever that is.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: But whatever that is, we are assured that his divine power has already given us everything required for life and godliness.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: So, on the basis of that, you have some of the books that I recommend if you're studying this, if you're interested in this.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: Bruce Walkey, Finding the Will of God, a pagan notion, he asks, and his answer, I'll tell you, is yes.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: The pagans are always cutting open chickens and searching entrels to see if they can find out the will of God.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: Or using things like the Ouija board, but the idea of finding the will of God is not a biblical idea.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: Haddon Robinson, decision-making by the book.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: You can tell by that sort of a double-meaning statement.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: What he's thinking of is it's the book, the revealed will of God in the Bible that helps us make decisions.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: That's what God's speaking of when he says, I've already given you my will.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: And then decision-making in the will of God.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: Gary Friesen makes the same point.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: God's already given us his will.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's the first thing I see in the Bible, this sort of implication and statement throughout this assumption that God's already given it to us, so don't search for it.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: Now, the other thing I find that's really interesting is that God gives us lots of freedom in our life.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: It's not like a blueprint.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: God has this freedom, uh, Galatians 5, 1.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: It's for freedom, he says, that Christ has set us free, so don't return to this yoke of bondage or slavery.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: Or a couple of illustrations in 1 Corinthians.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: There's this problem they had in the early church in Corinth.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: They had a thriving pagan community, and they were very well-to-do, third largest city in the Roman Empire.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: So people would take their pigs and they would take their cows and whatever, and they would, and they would give them to the priests of the pagan religions, they would sacrifice them, and then to make money, the priests would pull the meat off the altar and they would sell it in the marketplace.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: And of course, the church was divided.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: Some Christians said, you can't do that, you can't eat that kind of meat.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: That meat has demons behind it.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: That meat's been offered to idols.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: You need to avoid that meat.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: Even though it, you know, it's discount meat, you know, but you need to pay a little bit more.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: You need to have Christian meat or whatever.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: And Paul said, Paul says, listen, eat anything that's sold in the meat market, asking no questions for conscience' sake.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: Why?
16:06
SPEAKER_00: His argument is the earth is the Lord's and all that is in it.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: If one of the unbelievers invites you over and you want to go, and you know he's going to serve meat offered to idols.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: If you want to go, go, eat everything set before you without raising questions of conscience.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: Now he says later, if someone raises a question of conscience, then you need to deal with that and you need to be humble and you need to flex.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, really?
16:31
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, God gives us lots of freedom.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: Or even if you think about a big decision, and that would be choosing a spouse.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: Paul says something else that makes him sound horribly unspiritual.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: He says a wife is bound as long as her husband is living.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: They had a in Corinth, they had young widows, he speaks of.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to anyone she wants, only in the Lord.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: Wow, are you kidding?
17:03
SPEAKER_00: I could have done much better than that.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: I could have said what you need to do is if you're thinking of getting remarried, you need to pray and you need to ask for guidance, and you need to go ask your pastor Jim, and you need to, you know, giving him a list, you know, to get permission.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: But Paul sort of casually speaking from the Lord says, literally, one condition you have to marry in the Lord, but there's a there's beyond that, there's freedom.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: This idea that God gives us lots of freedom directly contradicts the idea of a blueprint, doesn't it?
17:42
SPEAKER_00: John Piper, in a devotional uh that actually was on Galatians 5, 1, it's for freedom that Christ has set us free, commented, sometimes we get bogged down in a quandary about God's will.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: And often we worry about decisions which are simply not a great issue with God.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: Where to go to school, what job to take, where to live, etc.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: We need to orient our lives on the clear statement of Scripture regarding God's will.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: And here's one for freedom, Christ has set us free.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: Christ's will for you is that you enjoy freedom.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: Where you go to school, what job you do, where you live, et cetera, are not nearly so crucial as whether you stand fast in freedom.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: So, for instance, if a real sign of your spiritual priorities and even your spiritual maturity is if you're living in some sort of bondage, then the question is: do you spend more time praying on your knees and talking to God and studying how to how to live a free life free of that bondage?
18:53
SPEAKER_00: Or do you spend more time praying to God, asking for wisdom as to which car, which house where you should live, what job you should have.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: Because God's priorities are clearly the moral ones, clearly the freedom.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: Put first, my enjoyment of freedom is more important to God than where I live or where I go to school.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it seems to me, and this is why I began the sermon with Psalm 23, it seems to me that really the model passage for our relationship with God in life is Psalm 23.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: That this is the picture of how God handles us, leads us, for he is a shepherd.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: It's called the shepherd song, and we are the sheep, and we tend to stray, right?
19:46
SPEAKER_00: Be prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
19:50
SPEAKER_00: Not you.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: Okay, just me.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: But you know, tend to stray so we're sheep, and he has to care for us and watch over us.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: So the Lord is my shepherd, I won't lack for anything as he leads me through life.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: He makes me lie down in green pastures, that's rest.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: He leads me beside quiet waters, he'll give me refreshment.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: He restores my soul, that's emotional healing, that's restoration.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: He guides me in paths of righteousness for his namesake.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: That's guidance.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I'll fear no evil, for you are with me.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: That's protection and presence.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: Your rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: That's comfort.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: That's abundance.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: You anoint my head with oil.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: My cup overflows.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: That's God's affection.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever, and that's eternal life.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that wonderful how God cares for us, not the government, but cares for us from cradle to grave.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: Cradle meaning the moment you become his child, you enter into his flock, you're one of his sheep, he watches over you, and part of his care for us, part of that promise is guidance.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: He guides every believer.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: He leads me, that is to say, in the ways of behaving that are right.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: That's what God cares about.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: He cares so deeply, not which college you go to, but that whatever college you go to, you behave in ways that are right.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: He cares, sure he cares where you work, but he doesn't really care which of the two places you work, so much as he cares that you work with integrity, that you behave in a way that is right.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: That's what he cares about.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: In other words, it isn't a blueprint.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: We're going to steal what Larry Osway, Larry Osborne put it.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: It's not a blueprint, it's more of a game plan.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: And the difference is significant, isn't it?
22:09
SPEAKER_00: Because a blueprint, you can't fudge on a blueprint.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: You know, you can't cut corners.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: You can't make that wall a little bit longer.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: Or that stairwell a little bit shorter.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: A blueprint you have to follow.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: Every single detail.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: That's what a blueprint is.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: Every detail accounted for.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: The problem is that's not what the Bible shows us God does.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: Instead, it's more of a game plan.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: A game plan doesn't have all the details covered.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, maybe if you're New England Patriots, you script the first five plays, but then after that, you don't know what the other team is going to do.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: There are too many variables.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: Maybe on this play you plan a long pass.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: It's a post pattern, but that takes time to develop, and all of a sudden, you know, the quarterback sees that there's an all-out blitz from the linebackers on the other side.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: What do you do?
23:00
SPEAKER_00: You adapt, you flex, you change, you dump the ball off to your halfback.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: That's what you do because if you stay with a blueprint, you're going to get sacked, you're going to lose the game.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: But a game plan is sort of an overall plan.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: And in that game plan, you have goals.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: We have a better running game and they have a weak defensive line.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to run the ball this week a lot more than we did last week.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: Or on defense, you know, their offensive, you know, right tackle is really weak, and so we're going to blitz up that side.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: You see how that's a general plan.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: Or to change the metaphor, back to flying an airplane as J.I.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: Packer, generally regarded as the greatest Christian theologian of the last hundred years, puts it this way in his book, God's Will, Finding Guidance for Everyday Decisions.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: God's guidance is more like the career guidance.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: Actually, he says career guidance, marriage guidance, child guidance that a counselor gives that is received from a counselor, then it is like being talked down by the airport controller as one flies blind through the clouds.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: See the difference there.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: One is general guidance rather than it is detailed.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: Haddon Robinson uses a different metaphor.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: The Bible, he says, doesn't provide a map for life, only a compass.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: What he means by that is there's no detailed GPS or map that tells you where to turn and where to go at every stage of the way.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: Instead, what you have is, well, you need to you need to go north, not south.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: Or you need to go southeast if you're going to Florida.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: And if the compass, you know, reads northwest, you're going the wrong way.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: Or my metaphor would be, uh, since I lead tours to Israel, that God's God does not have a blueprint for our life.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't have an itinerary for our life.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: He has more of an overall plan.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: People want an itinerary.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: I want an itinerary.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: I come up with an itinerary for for, I take trips to Israel every couple of years.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: Next year, into May, early June will be a trip to Greece.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: And people want an itinerary, their friends want an itinerary, want to be able to know where they are.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: If this is Tuesday, it must be Mitsada, something like that.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, you come up with an itinerary.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: It's detailed.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: It, you know, has on the left-hand side, it has all these, here's where we're gonna go, and then we're gonna do this.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't include where we're gonna eat lunch, but includes a lot of other stuff.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes, uh be on a tour, and somebody will walk up from the back of the bus with the itinerary.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: They say, you know, this itinerary you gave us a couple months ago says that today we should be at the Sea of Galilee, but but what are we doing up here north at the Lebanon-Syrian border, you know, at Dan and Caesarea Philippi?
25:51
SPEAKER_00: I said, looking at the itinerary was your first mistake.
25:55
SPEAKER_00: You know.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: I think, you know, I say, you know, well, we had to change.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: We had we had to adjust our plans because there's a political situation today in Tiberias around the Sea of Galilee.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: We just were gonna say that we're going to Sea of Galilee tomorrow.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: We just swapped those two days.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: We had to, we had to flex, we had to adapt.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: When you get to Jerusalem.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: Any tour guy that gives you an itinerary for Jerusalem and believes that he's going to follow it is is leading his very first tour.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's really odd.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: Joe Hishman is on a tour of fellowship Bible writing, says leading his first tour by himself.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: So we had three hours of Starbucks a couple weeks ago.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: I finally said, Joe, just forget you can't itinerary Jerusalem.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: Jerusalem has as many combinations, permutations, and variables as a chess game.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: I used to play chess.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I knew what I scripted out my first.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: If I was gonna be white, I knew how I was gonna move, which gambit I was gonna use, if I was gonna be black, I knew which defense I was gonna play.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: I had a general plan.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: I knew that I wanted to control the center of the board.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: It's the most important part of the board, those four squares.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: I knew that I wasn't gonna give you know the defensive player a couple of long diagonals, but beyond that, there are way too many variables to script.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: And when you go to Jerusalem, when you go to Jerusalem, there are appointments, there are reservations that flex that have to be made and confirmed within just days of the trip.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: When are you gonna go through those Western Wall tunnels?
27:24
SPEAKER_00: When can you get a reservation to go through Hezekiah's tunnel?
27:27
SPEAKER_00: How about how about the Davidson Center?
27:29
SPEAKER_00: That's important.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: The Garden Tomb takes reservations as well.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: Israel Museum, you know, sometimes it's ours shipped a little bit.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: And then there's the fact that some of the Muslims some of the time close their shops on Friday.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: All of the Jews all of the time close them whenever the Shabbat hits, whenever the sun goes down, and they open sometime on Saturday.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: So what I do is I come up with an itinerary for everybody, you know, so we can feel comfortable, you know, give them, but then I write Mickey.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: I say, Mickey, here's here's two dozen things I want to do, I'm going to do, you must arrange for me in Jerusalem.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: I want these things done, we can do them in whatever order.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: So Mickey worked hard to line up or reserve as many of those things as possible.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: And then when we get there, every morning for half an hour or an hour, I go, okay, which of these things can we do today?
28:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know there's going to be a parade going through, you know, that gate, so we can't go over there, and the traffic's gonna be terrible on that side of town today.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: And so, and and that you see how the difference is it's not an itinerary, it's an overall plan because Jerusalem's always like life.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: Chess game is always like life.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: Life is so variegated and complicated.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't give us an itinerary.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: And some people are frustrated with that.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: They say, you know, I I want God to, you know, I feel like God needs to give me the itinerary.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: That seems to be more spiritual.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: I say, is that really what you want?
28:55
SPEAKER_00: Well, no, they say, not on everything, but I would like to have the script for, you know, who I'm gonna marry, you know, what job I'm gonna work in and so forth.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: I said, let's just talk about the woman you're gonna marry.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: So that's scripted out, right?
29:08
SPEAKER_00: So God's got that one down.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: Now, what if she meets somebody else and gets married before she meets perfect you?
29:15
SPEAKER_00: Then what happens is she's messed up her itinerary, plus she's messed up your itinerary.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: And then if you, God forbid, should go and get married, you've not only messed up your itinerary, you've messed up somebody else's, and and and then as the the dominoes start to fall, you've messed up everybody's marriage all over the world.
29:33
SPEAKER_00: Which could be what's happened here, you know.
29:37
SPEAKER_00: And they say, well, no, that can't happen.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: God's sovereign.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: God's in control, he wouldn't let that happen.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: I say, so the girl you're gonna marry is a puppet?
29:43
SPEAKER_00: You want to marry a puppet?
29:45
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, so you know, God sovereignly won't let her look around, or you, and so we're just locked in here?
29:53
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, so I'm not sure you or I really want God to have a blueprint for our life or an itinerary, but then when we look at the Bible, we find God's not going to give us one anyway, He's gonna give us freedom because God doesn't care, Osborne again, where we work so much as how we work, where we live so much as how we live, and even whom we marry, as long as it's within the faith, so much as how we do marriage.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: Is that shocking to you?
30:29
SPEAKER_00: I thought I would end by by listing for you, you know, you do because there's then the question is how then do we make big decisions?
30:36
SPEAKER_00: How do we decide those big things?
30:38
SPEAKER_00: We don't really, you know, what we're gonna wear tomorrow morning is not a big decision.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: But but those big decisions, how do we make those?
30:46
SPEAKER_00: Well, I have uh I've got a list of seven, and I get this from the way Paul lived.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: Did Paul receive supernatural guidance or mystical guidance at times?
30:54
SPEAKER_00: Of course he did.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: Don't go down to Asia and Bithynia, go across into Greece.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: Abraham did at times too, but by the nature of those things, those were exceptional.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: How did Paul live according to Romans 1, 15 and 16?
31:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, he wanted to go to Spain and to Rome.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: And as he describes that in a dozen, two dozen verses, we find that we find that we have really seven ways of living our life.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: If you have a major decision, number one, obey.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: Do the things that you know God wants you to do.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: God's made his will clear morally.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: Let him lead you in paths of righteousness.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: Resist temptation.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: Do what you know is right.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: Don't be playing around with finding God's will when actually you're not living in freedom.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: Number two, dig or research.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: God's given you a mind.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: You're made in his image.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: Use your reason.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: Study.
31:49
SPEAKER_00: Right now I'm doing that, for instance, with a Grease trip, looking at the cruises, looking at this, so you come up with all the details.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are better at that than others.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: But you need to find out as much information as possible, right?
32:03
SPEAKER_00: And then you plan.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: You make a plan.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: You come up with a plan so you make a decision.
32:08
SPEAKER_00: Don't sit there frozen, the spiritually frozen, so anxious you can't plan because you're waiting for God.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: Make a plan.
32:16
SPEAKER_00: Fourth, pray.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: Now, actually, prayer keeps getting repeated by Paul at every stage of his journey.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: He prayed at the beginning, he prayed at the middle, he prayed at the end.
32:27
SPEAKER_00: But you're constantly laying your plans, half finished, fully formed, whatever.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: You're constantly praying to God.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: Then move.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: God can only steer a moving ship, and you have to sometime get off your duff and actually move, actually take the girl out on a date, something like that.
32:47
SPEAKER_00: So you have to move, you have to make a decision.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: Six, flex, because things never go exactly as you expect.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: So you have to adapt, you have to adjust.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: So you flex, you're persevering, you're continuing to go forward, but as the attacks come, you adjust, you take a sidestep, you flex, and finally trust, you trust, you commit your path to the sovereign will of God.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: He may stop you, he may frustrate you, but you trust him.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: You commit yourself to him.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, I pray for us that we would be wise, that we would be prudent, we face real difficulties in life.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: We desperately, it's a good sign of spiritual help, that we want guidance.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that you promise to guide us, that you promise that you are our shepherd, that you will take care of us, that you do take care of us, that you lead us in paths of righteousness for your glory, for your namesake, always for your namesake, always for your glory.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we want too, Lord.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: We want that.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: And so that's why we ask you to guide us as we go through life.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: We'll try to be brave, we'll try to trust you and walk in freedom.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: Walk by faith, not by sight.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.