How to Avoid Being a January Fool | December 28, 2025 AM

Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.

The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist

Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us

or contact us at my libertybaptist.org or just look

us up on Facebook. And now we hope that this

message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.

Please turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter #12 this morning,

Luke and chapter #12 and again, glad that we have the

opportunity to have the technology to be able to live

stream to you all today and to be able to be here despite the

conditions in the building. We sure are glad to be able to

be preaching the word of God. Nonetheless, the title, my

message this morning is this, How to avoid becoming a January

fool? How to avoid becoming a January

Fool. Of course, we're all familiar

with April Fools, aren't we? I mean, that comes around April

1st every year. However, a January fool is

probably not something that we would think will be a very

common thing or maybe something you've never even thought of at

all. Now, where did I come across

this title? Where did I come across this

line of thinking? Well, you know, about 42% of

Americans plan to make New Year's resolutions for 2026 and

they breakdown in these ways. 48% say they are going to make

improvements in fitness or exercise. 38% say that they want

to make improvements with their finances. 36% talk about mental

health, 34% weight loss, 32% improved diet.

I think already killed that one after the last few days and we

haven't started January yet, but some surveys find that only

about 6% of people follow through on their resolutions for

a full year. So to consider that 94% of those

who make resolutions here in the next few days will not actually

keep those resolutions. Now, I've mentioned this before

and I'll mention it again in regards to New Year's

resolutions. There's neither a precept for

New Year's resolutions in the Bible nor is there a principle

against making New Year's resolutions in the Bible.

Whether you do or not, it is not something that that means that

you are a good Christian if you do, or that you are a bad

Christian if you do not. However, whether you make them

or not, this is a very natural time of year to think about the

future. As we roll the page from the

2025 calendar to the calendar for 2026, there is something

very natural about taking stock about what our spiritual life

was in the year before and the other parts of our life as well

and how those parts of our life will be affected into 2026.

O, with all of your plans for the future and all of the things

you may be thinking about here for 2026 just a few days away,

my question you do this morning is this.

Where does God plan into your plans?

Where does the Lord fit into those things that are coming up

for 2026? And that is a subject that we

see here in Luke chapter #12 this morning.

Now, why would I say that you would be a January fool, that

you want to avoid being a January fool?

Well, I want to show here in the next few moments that if your

plans don't include Jesus, you can.

Plan on failing. That if your plans don't include

Jesus Christ for the upcoming year, then you are planning on

failing. And that would make you, yes,

not a fool in April, but rather a fool here in January.

By the way, the foolish part of that doesn't even come from my

words, but actually from Jesus Christ that we'll see here in

just a moment. So why don't you, well, stand,

sit, whatever you want to do, guys.

All right, Why don't we stand for the reading of God's Word?

All right, let's do that. Luke chapter #12 And let's begin

reading in verse #16 And it says this.

And he spake A parable unto them.

This is Jesus speaking a parable to the crowd, saying, the ground

of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully.

And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do?

Because I have no room where to bestow my fruits.

And he said, This will I do? I will pull down my barns and

build greater and there will I bestow all my.

Fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul,

Thou hast much goods laid up for many years.

Take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

But God said unto him, Thou fool that there's that word there,

thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.

Then who shall these things be which thou hast provided?

So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich

towards God. There's much for us to consider

here with the upcoming year, this sin that we find of the

foolish man who had not God in his plans, and we'll talk more

about that in a moment. So why don't you be seated and

let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we do thank you

again for this morning. I pray that you would be with

the word as it's given. Certainly the conditions are not

normal with the amount of people in the room, the amount of

people watching online, all of these different things.

But Lord, we know you're. Greater than any type of

difficulty, any type. Of issue that could be in the

way hindering your word being preached today.

So I pray that you would just take my mind, have it focused

completely on your word so that those who are watching, those

who are in this room will be helped by your word today.

We do ask this all humbly in Jesus name, Amen.

As you can see, the issue of a January fool isn't necessarily

one that I have made-up, but rather the man in the parable

that we just talked about was observed to be a fool by none

other than Jesus Christ, because he said of the Lord in verse #20

But God said unto him, Thou fool this night, the soul shall be

required of thee. Now of course I added the

January part. Jesus didn't talk about January

wasn't January. That wasn't a month or an ID or

a concept for them. But the predicament of this

foolish man is one that people come across every January as

well as other parts of the year as well.

In fact, it's very easy for us to understand what the

definition of a fool is. The Bible tells us the fool has

said in his heart there is no God, and so someone who has no

belief in God is a fool. But I would also say that we can

live foolishly even as believers when God is not part of our

thought process in our daily life.

And so while we may not be the fool who is unsaved, the fool

that doesn't believe in God, we can still act the fool.

We can play the part of the fool when we do not incorporate the

thoughts of God into our daily, really our hourly and minute by

minute life, because He should be part of all of our thoughts

and everything that we do. Now to truly understand why

Jesus spoke this parable, we kind of have to go back to the

beginning of the chapter. So look at what it says in verse

#1 of chapter #12 and it says in the meantime, when there were

gathered together an innumerable multitude of people, there were

a lot of people that were gathered around and a lot of

people that want to hear Jesus Christ in so much that they

trode one upon another. These elite people are about to

have a Stampede and trample on each other, but Jesus is

speaking to them and they all want to hear Him speak.

Now what happens in the next verses is that Jesus is going to

continue a condemnation that took place from the previous

chapter of the Pharisees. What was the Pharisees problem?

Well, where do we begin? But the main problem was this,

that they wanted to do things for God on the outside, but yet

their hearts were far from God. That was the real problem of the

Pharisees. Everything else was an

extension. Everything else was a symptom of

the real heart problem, which was they didn't regard God at

all. And everything they did on the

outside was to make themselves look good or to raise their

regard in the minds of other people.

But they really had nothing to do with God.

And so here is Jesus talking of himself, talking of the

Pharisees, giving the condemnation, talking about the

real weighty spiritual issues of the heart.

So Jesus is giving this incredible speech.

He's giving this incredible sermon, if you will, and

condemnation of the Pharisees, but also preaching to this great

multitude of people about how the issues of the Lord have to

be the issues of the heart. And in the middle of this, with

all of these people and all of this serious talk, look at verse

#13. It says, and one of the company

said unto him, Master, speak to my brother that he divide the

inheritance with me. Now just stop here for a moment.

Could you imagine Jesus giving this sermon to perhaps 1000

people, perhaps more? We certainly know that Jesus

spoke to multitudes of thousands of people in his ministry at any

given time because we know he fed 5000 that that wasn't even

counting women and children. And so we see that an

innumerable amount of people are there, and Jesus is giving this

heartfelt, passionate sermon about the needs of the spiritual

life and the needs to not live like a Pharisee.

And in the midst of this, there's a man who works his way

through the crowd and he raises his hand and he says, Jesus,

stop, just a minute, I've got a really important question.

And Jesus allows the man to ask the question.

And he says, this, will you speak to my brother, that he

divides the inheritance with me. In fact, it's really not even in

the form of a question, isn't it?

It's actually more like Jesus, I need you to speak to my brother

that he divide the inheritance with me now.

The way that. Inheritance would have worked in

those types of times was that an older brother would have gotten

a larger inheritance and that the younger brother or brothers

would have gotten a single portion where the older brother

would have had a double portion. We don't know exactly what's

going on here. And interestingly enough, this

man is so self absorbed he doesn't even really explain to

Jesus what's going on. He doesn't lay out really what's

happening. He says this Jesus, speak with

my older brother for he is doing me wrong.

He has no clue what Jesus is talking about.

He has no recognition that there are other people there.

He has no recognition of weightier spiritual matters.

All he cares about is he needs his money.

He needs it now and he needs someone like Jesus, let's say,

to step in and, you know, act as the advocate for him.

Could I put it to you this way this morning?

This man really didn't understand who Jesus was.

He did not understand Jesus's ministry.

He did not understand Jesus message.

And I don't believe he understood that Jesus was the

Messiah because of the way that he treated him and the way he

treated the message. And so Jesus takes a very dim

view of what this man just did. And he says in verse #14 he says

and he said unto him, Man who made me a judge or divider over

you? And he said unto him, Take heed

and beware. Of covetousness for a man's

life. Consistent not.

In the abundance of the things which he hath possesseth.

And really he's just trying to bring this conversation back to

what he was talking about before and he's trying to tell him,

listen, you think life's about this inheritance that you're

talking about. Don't you understand that there

are things that are much more important?

Don't you understand that your life needs to be about the Lord

and your life doesn't need to be about these things that you so

greatly desire to be able to have for yourself?

So here's this man, He interrupts a conversation about

the spiritual to have a conversation about the here and

now. And to top it all off, he

started with the faulty premise of Jesus.

I need you to do for me not realizing or recognizing who

Jesus was. Now let me be clear about

something, because Jesus spoke this parable in response to what

was. The question, or rather what was

the statement of this very foolish man?

But I will say to you, you might say, well, Pastor, is this a?

Prohibition against preparation. You know, we talked about the

the man brought in goods and then he tore down barns and want

to build bigger barns. Does this mean as a Christian

it's not good for us to prepare? This mean as a Christian it's

not good for us to make plans in our life?

No, that's not what I'm saying here this morning.

I don't believe that's what Jesus saying this morning.

The problem is, this man's covetousness caused him to plan

on everything except for God. Everything in his life was as he

wanted it, except he excluded God from all of his plans.

And we'll look more about why that is in just a moment.

But planning is good for the Christian.

In fact, save your spot here and go to Luke chapter #14 very

quickly. Luke chapter #14 I've never been

so glad to have a cup of coffee next to me during a sermon in my

life. Luke chapter #14 Look at verse

#28. Jesus says red letters here once

again, so you could see this is Jesus.

For which of you intending to build a tower sitteth not down

1st and count at the cost whether he has sufficient to

finish it. Lest happily after he had laid

the foundation and is not able to finish it all that behold it

begin to mock him, saying this man began to build and was not

able to finish it. He says which of you will get

into a building program and don't figure out if you can

build it all in the 1st place. He says, of course, that's

something that you would want to do.

Nobody would add an addition to their house or nobody would try

to build something from scratch, a shed in the backyard, whatever

it would be, and not really figure out if they had the money

to build all the materials. Because if you don't figure that

out and get halfway through and you have to stop, you look

foolish. And of course, you'll probably

waste the money of all the materials that will be exposed

to the elements unfinished. And so Jesus says there's not a

problem with that. In fact, it's expected that that

would be the case. Even continues on in verse #31

and he says or what king goeth to make war against another King

sitteth not down 1st and consulteth whether he be able

with 10,000 to meet him that cometh against him with 20,000

or else while the other is a great way off, he sendeth an

ambassador and desireth conditions of peace.

If kings have wars on their mind, they ought to have enough

common sense to figure out do we have a chance to win this

battle? And if they don't have a chance

to win the battle, if they planned properly, then instead

of maybe waging war, they ought to send a peace envoy to be able

to make peace with that other group instead of going to war

with them. You know, Jesus is not

condemning the fact that people are to plan here.

But there's some verses that we skipped here that kind of brings

us into better context, which also helps us in Luke chapter 12

Luke 12 · chapter mention

as well. Look at verse #27.

And whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me, cannot

be my disciple. And look at.

We bookend that text, we just read.

Look at verse #33 So likewise, whosoever he be of you, that

forsaketh not all that he hath, He cannot be my, just cannot be

my disciple. Jesus is saying, excuse me,

Jesus is saying this. You make all the plans that you

need to plan, but you better plan on being a disciple of

Jesus Christ first. Amen.

You better count the cost of what it means to be a disciple.

And when we look at this man in Luke chapter #12 you can turn

back to Luke chapter #12 as we look at this man in Luke chapter

#12 there are no thoughts of the Lord in his mind.

There are no thoughts of the Lord in anything that he's

doing. All he's thinking about is what

he has, what he'll gain, what he can hold on to, and what he can

absorb within his own life. These are the only thoughts that

he has. Nowhere within this is any

thoughts of the Lord. Listen, as you start the new

year, start from this place. Everything that you have,

everything that you are and everything that your life is and

can be is because of God Almighty.

Listen, everything that you have, everything that you are

and everything that your life is and that it can be is because of

God Almighty. Not because of ourselves, not

because of what we have done, not because we are self

providers, self feeders. And listen, God wants us to be

workers, and God wants us to be people of industry.

But listen, your work is nothing without God.

Your industry is nothing without God.

Your achievements are nothing without God.

And here's a man who thought he was self-made and he thought he

could keep it all and live on it all and do it all.

But then there was a time when his soul was required of God and

he was found wanting. Why?

Because it was the first time he thought about God and it was

everlastingly too late. There was 3 very foolish

mistakes this man made. First of all, this man thought

his possessions were his own. This man thought his possessions

were his own. This man had a my problem in the

parable that we read, I have in my Bible circled every time he

used the word my in verse #17 He said my fruits.

Verse #18 He said my barns, my fruits, my goods.

Over and over he talked about the things that were his, and

over he talked about what he had.

And then he follows that up in verse #19 He says, And I will

say to my soul, soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many

years. Take thine ease, drink, eat,

drink and be merry. He says, I have taken all these

things in and I am going to take down my barns.

I'm going to build up even bigger barns.

And I'm just going to allow the things that I have provided for

myself to keep me satisfied as long as I possibly can.

And he was foolish to think that the possessions that he had were

his own. Now, listen, I've said this

before and I'll say this again this morning.

This is not my church. Just because I am the pastor of

Liberty Baptist Church, it doesn't make it my church.

Listen, the Lord bought this church.

Christ precious blood purchased not just our salvation, but yes,

even the church as an institution itself.

These aren't my words. These aren't the Lord's words to

us this morning. But listen, just as the church

is not my own, the car that I'm going to get into and go home in

a little while, that's not my own too.

The apartment that I'm going to go home to when I am done, when

I'm in the car and go home, that's not my apartment.

The clothes of which I wear now are not my own.

The money that I have within my wallet is not my own.

You say, well, what is your own, really?

None of it is there's nothing that I own, there's nothing that

I possess, there's nothing that I have made in and of myself.

There's nothing that literally I can look at and say this is

mine. Truly everything that I have is

because of what God Almighty has done in my life.

That's why it says in first Corinthians chapter 4 verse 2.

1 Corinthians 4:2

This is our theme about 10 years ago here at the church.

Moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found

faithful. Listen, we are just stewards.

We are just the the keepers of the things that God has given

us. If you believe that you have

made what you have on your own, then you are misguided.

And so, yes, even as we look at 2026 and we consider maybe some

decisions that we're going to make or some things that we need

to get done properly, have you considered that your possessions

really don't belong to you, They belong to the Lord?

John Wesley taught and lived wisely regarding riches.

He said that you should earn as much as you can, save as much as

you can. And give as much as you can.

I like that, that you earn as much as you can, save as much as

you can, and give as much as you can.

That's someone who understands that their possessions are not

their own. But this man also had poor

thinking, not just toward his possessions, but also towards

his pleasure as well. What did he say in verse #19 I'm

just going to live off the fat of that which I have acquired

before. Soul, thou hast much goods laid

up for many years. Take thine ease, eat, drink and

be merry. I listen.

Our own pleasure is not our own. We serve at the pleasure of the

Lord. And I remember several years ago

we had someone who was here, a dear lady who's now gone on to

be with the Lord, and she looked at me and that we.

Were talking about pastors. I said something about

retirement. I don't know what it was, but

she says pastors never retire. And I said, well, this pastor is

going to retire someday. I said, because there's going to

come a point in my life where, you know, I probably won't be

able to fulfill the qualifications of being a pastor

because I won't be able to kind of keep up with what I'm

supposed to be doing. And she couldn't quite

understand that. But then I kind of got into the

conversation with her and I said, listen, you understand

that I may retire someday as a pastor.

By the way, we're talking a long time from now.

But I'm just saying I may retire from someday from being a

pastor, but that doesn't mean I get to retire from being a

servant of the Lord. And I think that clicked with

her a little bit more. The idea was, oh, I may not be a

pastor, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to be a servant.

And boy, that's true for all of us is that we are here in this

life to be servants of the Lord, that we don't serve for our own

pleasure. We don't serve for our own

desires. We don't serve for our own

wants. And listen, so much of our New

Year's resolution, so many of our thoughts are so self centric

about what can I do for myself? What can I have, what can I get,

what can I achieve? And listen, I'm not saying there

isn't a place for some of of those things, but listen, the

Lord better be first and foremost even in those plans

about yourself. Why?

Because I want to get to this place so I can serve the Lord

better. I want to be able to do this so

I can give more time to Jesus. I want to be able to learn, earn

more so I can give more to Jesus.

No, no, this is part of our plans, not for our own pleasure,

but for His. And the amazing thing is, the

more that you try to please the Lord in your life, the more

pleasure you actually have in your life.

The more you desire to serve Him, the more joy you actually

receive in return. Philippians 213 For it is God

which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good

pleasure. He gives us the ability to do

what To please Him. First Corinthians 10/31 Whether

therefore you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all to the

glory of God everything that we do.

Everything that we are, everything of which we possess,

should be to the glorification of God.

First Corinthians 619 and 20. We'll be looking at this on a

Wednesday night here very soon. What know ye not that your body

is the temple, the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which you have

of God? Listen, and ye are not your own,

for you bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your

body and in your spirit, which are God's.

You know, when we use that term pleasure, so often we think of

fun, don't we? We think of joy.

That's what we think of pleasure.

Well, if I serve at God's pleasure, that means I'm making

him happy. But I don't mean necessarily I'm

going to make myself happy. Well, that's not really what's

even being said. When you serve at the pleasure

of somebody, you serve at their desire.

You serve at their whim. You serve at their need.

Several years ago I've tried for several.

Times to be able to be a chaplain here with the Easton

Police Department. We've had three different chiefs

since I've been here. Actually, I think we're on chief

#4 right now. I can't keep track somewhere 3

or 4. And I've gone.

Through chaplain training, I've availed myself to the Easton

Police Department that if they need my help, I'm certainly glad

to do so. I'm not talking about getting

paid to do that, but just as a volunteer if they need someone

to go. To a crime.

Scene or they need someone to make a death notification that

I'm glad to do so. And so I've had this

conversation with them, and there was one time with, I

believe, chief #2 where it seemed like that was going to be

something that was going to be really a need that they wanted

me to fulfill. And so I have my phone, my

phones on during the middle of the night anyway.

By the way, if you ever need me, if there's an emergency in the

middle of night, you call me. But I would just encourage you

call more than once because take a little bit to wake me up all

right in the middle of the night.

But I get a call, it's about 2-3 in the morning.

I look at my phone, it says Easton Police Department.

And immediately it's go time. You know what I'm saying?

Like, mentally, I'm like, it's time we're getting ready to go.

I jump out of bed, grab my phone, go into the next room to

try not to wake Diane up. And I say hello, you know?

And it's kind of like that, you know, you're still trying to

pretend like you weren't sleeping.

And it's like, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello.

And so I, I, I say hello and I'm fully expecting they're going to

tell me what's going on. And I found out that it wasn't

that they wanted me as the chaplain, they wanted me as the

victim of a crime. That the church van was still

out here on the property. It wasn't even titled yet.

We had just bought it and there was a man who tried to hot wire

the church van and tried to steal it.

And they were calling to notify me that this happened about 3:00

in the morning because they had some difficulties in trying to

line up exactly who owned the vehicle because we hadn't titled

it yet. We just bought it a few weeks

ago. Now, what this guy didn't

understand, I'm talking about the guy who was trying to hot

wire the van. We didn't know was that once we

got it here, the battery went out and so he could have been

there all night. In fact, I would have just been

encouraging, man, if and if you could if I could have been there

with him, like man, if you could start it up, you can keep it.

All right, So go for it. Just do the best you can, man.

Let's see what you got. But anyway, I, I was the victim

of the crime, so I had to give them some information about the

van, why it wasn't titled yet, all of these different things.

And I was still very tired. I was pumped up.

I was amped, but I was also tired at the same time.

And so, and I don't know why I said this.

It may have been because of something I heard on television

or on a movie or something like that.

And the Sergeant said, all right, well, Pastor Rivero, you

have a good night. And my response to that is I

serve at the pleasure. Of the Easton Police Department

and I hung up the phone and I thought that is one of the

stupidest things that. You could ever possibly say like

how formal and how I serve at the pleasure of the Easton

Police Department. It's like what a what a dumb

thing to say and I almost. Want to call them back?

And say, you know, I don't serve at your pleasure.

No, no, no, I don't mean that either.

They got, you know, just like just leave it alone.

Just maybe he maybe he won't remember.

You know, I I I don't know exactly what it was, but you

know, the whole idea of serving at the pleasure of somebody is

not even about joy or happiness. The idea is I was trying to say,

listen, if Easton Police Department needs something, I'm

here to help. That's what an ambassador does.

They serve at the pleasure of the president.

That's why the new president always picks new ambassadors.

Why? Because they are the

representative of that president in whatever far-flung locale

they are in. They don't serve at their own

pleasure. They don't get to decide what

they want to do. They are doing what the

president wants him to do. So for us, if we are to serve at

the pleasure of God, it's really not about our joy or about our

happiness. It's this, Lord, whatever you

want with my life, I'm willing to do it.

Whatever the plans are that I have for my life, they are

secondary to what your plans are for me in my life.

I serve at your pleasure. And ironically, you'll have more

pleasure, joy, and happiness by serving at His pleasure than you

ever will by serving yourself. And here's this man who says I

want more. My barns, my fruits, my goods.

I'm going to build more and I'm going to eat and I'm going to

drink and I'll be merry. And the Lord says you're a fool

because you don't understand. This man thought his possessions

were his own, his plans were his own, or rather his possessions

and his and his pleasure were his own.

But in the end, he thought his plans were his own.

This is where he was truly a fool because he didn't know what

time his number was up. He didn't know what time his

soul would be required of him. Verse #20 says God said, To whom

thou fool this night thy soul shall be required of thee.

And whose things then whose shall those things be which thou

has provided? I almost feel like there's that

little bit of, I wouldn't say sarcasm next necessarily, but

the Lord using the man's own words against him.

Remember those things that you provided for yourself when I

call you. Whose those belong to?

Now sure say this, I bet that man had wished he had thought a

whole lot more about God before then those possessions and his

pleasure, because that moment that his soul was called, it was

too late. He was dumb.

Our plans belong to the Lord. Our possession, our pleasure

belongs to the Lord, but inevitably that means our plans,

everything that we want and desire, and who we are, belong

to the Lord. James 4 verses 13 through 15.

James 4:13–15

Say, Go to now, ye that say today or tomorrow we will go

into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell

and get gain, whereas you know not what shall be on the Morrow.

For what is your life? It is even a vapor that

appeareth for a little time, and then vanished of the way.

For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live and do

this or that. Oftentimes you'll hear people

say something like this, well, I'll see you next time and

they'll say Lord willing. And that's not somebody trying

to be super spiritual or maybe it is.

It's a hard issue, but it. Shouldn't be not not be an issue

with somebody trying to be super spiritual.

It's just the idea of, you know, I'll see you next week.

But then again, the Lord may have different plans.

It could be the Lord calls me home, could be that I'm ill,

could be the car gets broken down.

Could be the heat goes out in the church, who knows the Lord

willing, we'll see you and ideas.

It's supposed to be a reminder to us that we don't know what we

have. Listen, you want to make

yourself look like a fool, make plans because God makes us look

fools in our plans often times, doesn't he?

And just take your plans and give them to the Lord and say,

Lord, what would you have me to do?

This is what we're to do. Now, let's be clear.

And having God as part of your plans doesn't mean just that you

need to do more godly things in your life.

Well, you know what? I should go to church more, or I

should pray more, or I should read my Bible more and listen,

there's nothing wrong with that. Those are wonderful things that

you should do. But that's not what I'm talking

about. It doesn't mean making plans and

then just praying for God to approve those plans.

That's not what I'm talking about either.

It's not just adding God to your plans or asking God to approve

your plans. It's not about adding or

approving. No, no.

This means if we're gods to be part of our plans.

It means that in every area of your life you are yielding your

life to His will and His way. In every area you are going to

yield yourself to His will and His way.

Hudson Taylor had definite convictions about how God's work

should be done. Hudson Taylor, the great

Christian missionary who opened up China to missionaries in the

1800s. And it said.

He said yet another way of working is to begin with God to

ask his plans and to offer him ourselves to Him to carry out

His purposes. And if you read about the life

of Hudson Taylor, this is the way he lived his life and the

way that he was able to open up inland China to the gospel.

It was not because of anything. He did, but is because he opened

up his plans to the Lord and allowed the Lord to be able to

work through him. Listen, you are not

self-sufficient. I don't know another way to say

it other than to say it directly.

You are not self-sufficient, but listen, you are sufficient in

Christ. Second Corinthians 35 Not that

we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything of ourselves,

but our sufficiency is of God. Only a fool.

Would not want to know what God's plans would be for their

life. So that they could make plans

accordingly. You say, well, how am I supposed

to make will plans for, for my life?

How am I supposed to to bring these things before the Lord?

Well, listen, it just means to have a daily walk with the Lord

to be able to be in the word of God every day.

Thy word is a lamp and to my feet and a light in my path.

You know, I found a lot of issues in my life are cleared up

just by being in the Word of God daily.

A lamp doesn't light an incredibly long way, but does

get you the next few steps away as you continue to move forward.

What happens? The next few steps are

illuminated in the next few steps are illuminated, and so on

and so forth. We pray and ask the Lord to give

us direction in our lives and He works things out according to

His will and then also gives us direction through His Spirit to

our spirit. Remember, the Bible says that He

tells us in our spirit that we're the children of God, and

so just the Spirit confirms to. Us that we are saved.

His Spirit can also give us direction within our lives as

well. But he doesn't when you don't

listen to him. He doesn't when your life is so

full of sin that we have quenched the Holy Ghost within

our life. Listen, you are not

self-sufficient. That's illogical.

You're not self-sustaining, that's irrational.

You are not self gratifying. That's I'll intentioned, but

when was the last time you gave more than a token thought to

this question? Lord, what would you have me to

do today? Lord, I see someone over there

that may need the gospel. Should I share the gospel with

them? Lord, what would you do with

help me with this bank account? There's, there's more in the

bank account than I realized. I don't know that we get to say

that very often it's due to the opposite way, but there are

times when you see that, hey, there's more here than I

thought. Lord, what would you have me to

do with? That well, look at my closet and

boy, there's a. Lot of stuff here and I look at

my pantry. There's a lot of things here.

What would you have me to do with this?

And as we come into New Year's resolutions and those type of

thoughts, and again, I'm not telling you, you have to do it,

quite the opposite. But I do think it's important

for us to just take A reckoning of our lives here and there and

to consider what we've done in the past and how we want to move

forward in the future. So whenever that could be,

listen, whatever plans you make, if the Lord's not in it, then

you're acting like the fool here.

And there'll be a time when God will.

Require of you, your soul. And it'll be too late to do

anything else. Your time will be up if you've

made resolutions. I I really want to encourage you

have resolutions about what you're going to do with your

spiritual walk. Have resolutions about the fact

that you'll be in God's house. Have resolutions about reading

the word of God, about praying, about meditating on the word of

God on fasting. Make make resolutions about

taking electronics out of your life.

And I'm not taking talking about taking them completely out of

your life. But even, as I mentioned last

Sunday night, that we can be so filled with electronic data and

so filled with electronic junk, most of which is not even

important or necessary or healthy, that it crowds out the

thoughts that we have of the Lord and it doesn't allow us to

meditate on Him as we ought to. If you haven't thought of the

Lord, if you haven't thought about what you're going to do

with your money this year, if you haven't thought about who

you're to reach this year, if you haven't thought about how

you're just served this year, then listen.

Whether you realize or not, you have a lot in common with the

characteristics of this man in the parable Luke chapter 12, who

Luke 12 · chapter mention

thought about my goods and my barns and my fruits, but never

thought about his God until it was too late.

We love, we love our family vacations.

I, I, I love them. I mean, we, we have made a point

ever since we've been in the ministries as particularly as a

pastor that we're going to take a family vacation every year.

It's important. Sometimes we take a little 2 day

vacation or three day vacation. We got so many places just in

our area where you can go and see so many wonderful things.

We love to be able to do that. But could you imagine, let's say

we're taking a family vacation and we're going somewhere that

we love, kind of like Tennessee. We've gone there for several

years in a row. It's been a few years, but we

love going to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, TN and all the

things that they have going on there in the mountains and all

of that. But could you imagine just

telling Diane, me telling Diane, you know, hey, we're going to

make some plans for vacation. She says, well, what kind of

plans? I said, well, listen, don't

worry about it. I'm going to decide where we're

going. I'll save all the money.

I'm going to decide. We're going out to eat.

I'm going to decide what attractions we go to.

I'm going to decide how long it's going to take.

I'm going to decide. And some of you are shaking your

head and laughing already. And thankfully she's not in the

room right now. She's watching in the car where

it's warm. But I will say this that.

Wouldn't go over very well. Not only would it not go over

very well, listen, it's not just necessarily about being selfish,

it's also about being really dumb.

I mean, wouldn't it be better to be able to have a good vacation

to collaborate with her and get her ideas and get her thoughts?

Where would you like to go? She could tell me about places

maybe I didn't know about or wasn't a whereabout or, or

streams of revenue that would help us on our vacation or any

of those things. And by the way, our vacations

are a collaborative effort for that very reason that she'll

send me texts about, hey, we should go visit this or we

should go there. We could save money doing this,

which hey, pastor likes saving money, you know what I'm saying?

And so we do those things together.

Why? Because it's not wise to exclude

her. One, because I don't want her to

feel excluded, but two, because it's wise to include her because

the end result will be much better having her included,

including her wisdom. Now listen, if that's true about

a person who is finite, if that's true about a person.

Who is limited, if that's true, but a person who is sinful?

You say you call your wife sinful only because she's a

person and we're all sinful. Nothing personal.

I said nothing personal. All right, start talking the

horn in a minute. You'll know why.

But if that would be wise for me to do with my wife, how much

more so with a perfect, limitless, all wise, all knowing

God. Why would we?

Why would you want to exclude him?

Why would you not? Want him to have a part?

Listen. Why would you not avail yourself

to wisdom that you would tell the God of heaven?

I got it. So I would never say that,

pastor. I would never say that to him.

When you ignore him, you are saying it.

And why would you not avail himself yourself to His wisdom?

You think your wisdom will make your life better by excluding

His wisdom from His word and from prayer and from study and

from all of those things. No, no, we need Him.

And you know, really this whole idea of your plans don't include

Jesus? You can plan on failing.

Really, this whole issue comes down to this trust.

Listen to me carefully. I'm almost done.

The real issue is that often times we trust ourselves more

than we trust God. Because if we trust the Lord as

we should, we would want Him to be part of our plans.

In fact, we would start with Him at the beginning, not at the

end. We really trust ourselves more

than God. And I want to ask you this

morning, do you really think you're more trustworthy than

God? Do I think in my own self

conceit? And by the way, I have plenty of

it. Do I really think I am wiser

than God? Would I ever say that?

No. Or would I practically live that

way Now? When you do that, you're

incorporating the life of the fool.

So trust me when I say this, if your plans don't include Jesus,

you plan on failing. So what do you need to do this

year? Well, I make sure that Jesus

isn't just the one who check marks.

Your plans when you're done or you go to Him.

Once you've done everything else yourself or just throw in a few

godly things, then do all the other things you want to do.

Lord, what do you want me to watch this year on television?

What do you want me to listen to on the radio?

How do you want me to talk? Who do you want me to associate

with? How do you want me to spend my

leisure time? How do you want me to spend my

money? How do you want me to be in

church? How do you want me to serve?

How do you, in every area of your life, make him part of your

plans? Because if you don't, you plan

to fail. Thank you for listening to the

sermon from the pulpit of Liberty Baptist Church.

If this message was a blessing to you, or if there's any way we

can serve you, please let us know by contacting us at

[email protected]. Or you can visit us this Sunday

at 800 Washington St. in Easton, MA.

May the Lord bless you as you grow in His Word.