Do You Want To Know God's Plan?

Well, hey guys, we are going to jump back into a series that we've been, I say jump back into it, we haven't left it.

So here we go.

We're gonna just continue in a series that we've been in pretty much all year long called Getting to Know God.

Getting to Know God.

There is nothing more important you could do this year than get to know God better.

And He's God, He's infinite.

So the cool thing about an infinite God is you never know Him fully because He's infinite.

I really do think that's one of the reasons heaven lasts forever.

It will take forever to know God fully, because He is an infinite God and you could spend time with Him every single day.

Those of you who have been following God for decades know this: that you could have been a Christian your whole life, you could have been reading Scripture on a regular basis your whole life, and then yet you discover something new.

Something about God that blows your mind that you've never thought of before, because there will never be a day where you can actually say with a straight face, I know all I need to know about God.

I'm as close to him as I'd like to be.

No, you can always be closer.

And so we're spending our year getting to know him better, and we're doing it by studying the life of a man in the Bible named Abraham, and he is a man who gets to know God.

In fact, he's kind of a trailblazer in terms of living out a relationship with God in his day-to-day life.

We're looking at his story and we're learning who God really is through the eyes of Abraham and Sarah, his wife, and all of their experiences.

When God first calls Abraham, he believes in God clearly, but he doesn't know God.

He doesn't have a close relationship with God.

And as time goes on, we see Abraham question God, struggle in his faith at times, make some really great decisions, some really poor decisions.

And yet we see the faithfulness of God, the goodness of God, the character, the nature of God, and Abraham learns bit by bit what God is really like.

And we want to learn the same.

So we've been going through Abraham's story, and today we're gonna get to a really interesting moment where for the first time God really shares his plan with Abraham and his wife Sarah.

Not just his will, but his plan.

Let's kind of back up and start with a few questions.

I don't normally do this, but occasionally I'm gonna ask for some participation.

You don't have to, it's not force, but you know, help me out.

All right, how many of you would love to know God's will for your life?

It's a pretty basic question.

Like, I would love to know what God's ultimate purpose for my life is.

Okay, great.

Connected but not the same question.

How many of you would like to know his plan for your life?

Like the specifics.

I want to know what he's got in mind.

Like, how are you gonna accomplish that?

Anyone going like, nope, I'm good.

Don't want to know the plan?

Yeah?

I got you.

It's not wrong.

How many of you just let's keep this going for a second?

Not much longer, I promise.

But how many of you would describe yourselves as planners?

Like you are a planner.

You are someone that, yes, absolutely.

The Bible has a lot of really great things to say about you guys, by the way.

Planners.

It does.

I'm serious.

I'm serious.

It it really, really does.

Like Proverbs 21.5 says, good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty.

Thank God for planners.

You guys do a great job.

Uh Proverbs 15 22 says plans go wrong for lack of advice, but many advisors bring success.

Those of you who plan cooperatively, well done.

That's a good thing.

Um man, Jesus actually says in Luke chapter 14, he talks about the fact that uh what good would it be to start a project and not count the cost?

Luke 14 · chapter mention

Like if you start something big, but you don't have a plan, like what good is that?

And so scripture has a lot of good things to say about planners.

You guys are great.

I am not one of you, though.

I'm just gonna be honest.

Like, I'll never forget when Megan, uh, my wife, when she came to college with me, I was a year older, we were high school sweethearts, and we did the long distance thing, and her dad at first was like, I'm never gonna let her go to college with you because I was a thousand miles away.

And then uh she got a full scholarship, and he was like, Okay.

And so, you know, and she came, and my wife is a planner, she is organized.

I am not.

And I remember she she like made this color, and this was back in the day before things like this were easy.

There was no AI, there wasn't really a simple tool to make this.

Like, this took work.

She created a calendar where my schedule and her schedule overlapped, and it had like, you know, due dates on it for when things were due and crazy weeks and all that kind of stuff.

And she's like, so now we can be in sync, and and I was like, that's awesome.

She's like, so if you could just show me your calendar and I'll add all this stuff on it.

And I was like, Oh, I don't use one of those at all.

And she asked me, like, well, how do you remember all of the stuff?

And I was like, I mean, I usually don't remember all the stuff.

Like, that's my I have a lot of panic moments.

Then she asked me like about my organizational system, and I had a backpack and it was a mess, and she's like, How?

And I was like, it's simple.

The stuff in the back is old, the stuff in the front is new, and if I'm looking for something and it's old, it's like it's in the back.

I just thumb through it, I find it.

And I haven't really changed that much.

Great great example of that was if you were here a few weeks ago, you know, my amazing planning skills just had it so that the story we were at in Abraham's life right after Easter was about circumcision.

And, you know, that's when people come to church for the first time on an Easter Sunday, that's pretty normal.

They're like, I liked it, let's go back, and then that's what they get on their second try.

Um brilliant, brilliant.

I'm just not, I'm not a planner.

How many of you are not planners?

You're like, I'm just not.

Great thing.

The Bible has good stuff to say about us too.

Okay?

It's not just the organized calendar to-do list people.

No, listen to some things the Bible says about us.

Proverbs 16, 9.

We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.

You don't need a plan.

Okay?

Proverbs 19, 21, you can make many plans, but the Lord's purpose will prevail.

James 4, he's he's talking in James about people who are like, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that.

You know, they have a master plan.

And he's like, what you ought to say is if the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.

In other words, you know, plans have their place.

But they're not everything.

That's how I justify not being a planner.

Thankfully, if you're at this church, we have planners on staff.

I just want you to know that.

We have great planners on staff.

But you know who is a planner?

That is God.

God is the master planner.

Like he absolutely has a plan, makes plans.

We see this in scripture in so many amazing ways.

I mean, a classic example is Jeremiah 29.11.

This is a lot of people's favorite verse.

It says, uh, God speaking, I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord.

They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

He has plans.

Now, those plans, specifically in that situation, were for 70 years in the future, but he has plans.

Genesis 1.14, this is really cool.

You can talk about God's plans, how good of a planner God is.

As he's creating the world, he creates stars.

Okay, and it says, God said, Let lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them be signs to mark the seasons, days, and years.

Megan is actually teaching a class in a few weeks on the original purpose of the stars.

Like looking at the stars and thinking about the significance of the stars.

That's kind of become like a new age idea and the zodiac and all this kind of stuff.

But no, no, no.

Like in Genesis, before he created us, he created the stars and he used them to like mark important times.

And mark them for who?

Not for him.

For us, and we hadn't even been created yet.

It's like God knew they're gonna need visual aids, they're gonna need things to remind them of when it is and what's gonna happen, and then he creates us, and and it takes centuries for there to be festivals and important religious uh events and significant sacred days, but the stars were what God used to draw attention to those.

It's like he wrote his story in the sky before it ever even happened.

That's why the scriptures say the heavens declare the glory of God.

And when Jesus was born, there was a sign in the in the heavens, right in the stars.

God is such a planner that he literally created a universe just to sort of remind us of things.

And that's bigger purposes than that.

But that's that's a plan right there.

That's a plan.

Or think about this, Ephesians chapter 1.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.

God decided in advance, before he made anything, to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.

This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.

Jesus was not a fail-safe, he wasn't plan B.

It wasn't like, oh man, our plans have gone wrong.

Jesus, you're gonna have to go down there and fix it all.

From the very beginning, before he created anything, he knew all that would transpire, and Jesus was the plan the whole time.

God is a planner, he has plans, but oftentimes he doesn't clue us in on what they are.

Like it's one thing to know God's purpose, and by the way, you can know his purpose.

You can know his will.

In fact, we're promised that in Scripture.

I'm gonna go all the way back to Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2.

Romans 12:1

Uh says, Dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he's done for you.

Let them be a living and holy sacrifice, the kind he will find acceptable.

This is truly the way to worship him.

Do not copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think, and then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

You can know God's will.

You can discern God's will.

In fact, scripture tells us a lot about God's will.

You can know the ultimate purpose for your life.

Now, as for the specifics, the how and when and all that, that's a different story.

And it's actually pretty rare in the Bible for God to sit down with someone and go, like, all right, here's exactly what I'm gonna do.

Are you ready?

But we get that today.

It's interesting.

Now, for Abraham and Sarah, God shared his will with them at the very early stage of his relationship with this family.

In Genesis chapter 12, it says, The Lord said to Abraham, This is before his name has been changed to Abraham, this is the moment he was called to follow God.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father's family, and go to the land that I will show you.

I'll make you into a great nation, I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others.

I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who treat you with contempt, and all the families on earth will be blessed through you.

He's like, Leave your home.

I'm gonna give you a new one.

And you're gonna have kids, you're gonna have a child, you're gonna have descendants.

Sarah and Abram had not been able to have children at this point in time.

And that promise was a big promise, and so they left.

They left.

That was the will, but as far as the plan, he didn't share that.

He didn't give them specifics.

And where we're at in the story today, it's it's 25 years later.

25 years after he's been called.

He was 75 when God called him, by the way.

It's a great reminder that no matter what stage of life we're in, it is never too late to have an adventure with God.

So now he's 100.

Sarah's 90.

In Genesis chapter 18.

Genesis 18 · chapter mention

Mike got us started with this story last week, and we're gonna we're gonna complete it.

The Lord appeared again to Abraham near the oak grove belonging to Mamre.

One day Abraham was sitting at the entrance to his tent during the hottest part of the day.

He looked up and noticed three men standing nearby.

When he saw them, he ran to meet them and welcomed them, bowing low to the ground.

Something about them he recognizes.

These are not ordinary men, this is his his God.

My Lord, he said, if it pleases you, stop here for a while, rest in the shade of this tree while water is brought to wash your feet.

And since you've honored your servant with this visit, let me prepare some food to refresh you before you continue on your journey.

All right, they said, Do as you said.

So Abraham ran back to the tent and said to Sarah, Hurry, get three large measures of your best flour, knead it into dough, bake some bread.

And then Abraham ran out to the herd and chose a tender calf and gave it to his servant, who quickly prepared it.

When the food was ready, Abraham took some yogurt and milk and the roasted meat, and he served it to the men, and as they ate, Abraham waited on them in the shade of the trees.

Where is Sarah, your wife?

The visitors asked.

She's inside the tent, Abraham replied.

Then one of them said, I will return to you about this time next year, and your wife Sarah will have a son.

Sarah was listening to this conversation from the tent.

Abraham and Sarah were both very old by this time, and Sarah was long past the age of having children.

So she laughed silently to herself and said, How could a worn-out woman like me enjoy such pleasure, especially when my master, my husband, is also so old.

Then the Lord said to Abraham, Why does Sarah laugh?

Why did she say, Can an old woman like me have a baby?

Is anything too hard for the Lord?

I will return about this time next year, and Sarah will have a son.

Now Sarah was afraid, so she denied it, saying, I didn't laugh, but the Lord said, No, you did laugh.

I love that.

I just imagine God in that moment being like, Come, Sarah.

You laughed.

She can't really blame her.

She's 90.

And this has apparently been God's plan all along, timing-wise.

And I wonder what it would have been like if he would have shared this plan at the outset.

Like, imagine, let's role-play for a second.

You're Abraham, and God tells you not only his will, his purpose, you're gonna go, new home, descendants, you'll you're gonna be a nation, it's gonna bless the whole earth.

But he actually says, and here's specifically how it's gonna play out and the timing.

And now you've got to go to Sarah and be like, hey, we're we're gonna move.

We're gonna go to a new land.

And here's the coolest part.

The coolest part of the whole thing is we're gonna have a son in 25 years.

Just a quarter of a century from now, when you're 90 years old, we're gonna be pregnant.

You're gonna be a pregnant 90-year-old.

That's what God told me, right?

Like I don't know if she would have laughed or cried, but I bet she would have said no.

You know?

No, it got there's a difference between knowing his will and knowing his plan.

And whether we're a planner or not, we we like to know what's going to happen most of the time.

Like, here's an interesting example of that.

How many how many sushi people do we have in the room?

Like sushi people?

Okay, great.

A really good friend of mine had an opportunity, and I've probably shared about this before.

I think about it pretty often.

Um, maybe probably every time I eat sushi.

And he he got to go to Japan and he had an opportunity.

One of the most renowned sushi chefs in Japan was gonna prepare a private meal.

He got invited to it.

The only catch is that there's no menu.

You don't get to choose what you want.

He's gonna prepare whatever he's gonna prepare and you're gonna eat it.

And that's one thing if it's like a pizza restaurant.

Like there might be some mushrooms on your pizza and gross, but but sushi's a whole different ball game, right?

How many of you who are sushi people would be like, I'm in?

Okay?

How many of you, and and let's non-sushi people, you don't matter right now.

So how many of you, how many of you also sushi people are like, no, I love some sushi, but no way.

No, I'm not, yeah.

And that's what my friend chose.

He's like, nope, not doing it.

Because he wanted the menu, he wanted the plan, and I don't I don't blame him.

My wife would do it in a heartbeat, I would not.

I'm not a planner, but I like to know what the plan is.

I need someone to have a plan.

It just doesn't have to be me.

Right?

Oh, it's interesting how how rarely in Scripture God shares his plan, at least in the specifics.

He gives hints, but it's almost like he knows that if we knew the plan, we would laugh.

Or maybe cry.

Or have all kinds of questions that he couldn't even really answer for us because it just takes faith and trust.

Take people like David, for example.

Okay, David, when he was fairly young, was anointed to be the second king of Israel after Saul.

He was chosen by Samuel the prophet.

Samuel showed up at this man's house, the man was named Jesse, and he said, Hey, one of your sons is about to be anointed king, bring him.

And Jesse brought his sons.

He didn't bring David, though.

David was out in the fields watching their their flock, and he didn't think about David.

David was the he's like, it couldn't be David, so he brought the sons that mattered, I guess.

And Samuel looks at all of these and he goes, No, no, do you have any other sons?

And that's where we get in verse 11.

Samuel asked, Are these all the sons you have?

Well, they're still the youngest, Jesse replied, but he's out in the fields watching the sheep and the goats.

Send for him at once, Samuel said.

We will not sit down to eat until he arrives.

So Jesse sent for him.

He was dark and handsome with beautiful eyes, and the Lord said, This is the one.

Anoint him.

And so as David stood there among his brothers, Samuel took the flask of olive oil he had brought and anointed David with the oil.

And the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David from that day on.

And then Samuel returned to Ramah.

Now, what Samuel didn't say, and actually God at least didn't say it to Samuel, I don't know who was out of the loop, but what he didn't say was, in about 15 to 20 years, you're gonna become the king.

And in that span of time, David, um, ooh, it's gonna get interesting.

You're gonna fight a lot of battles, you're gonna grow, you're gonna become very famous, very renowned.

Saul, the king, he's gonna love you, and then he's gonna hate you.

And he's gonna try to kill you, and you're gonna be an outlaw, and you're gonna have to live on the run.

You're gonna have to live in caves, but then you're gonna be the king.

He skipped that part.

He said, You're gonna be the king.

I'm anointing you.

And it's like, whoa, cool.

When?

Later.

Right?

That's that's the dynamic.

Take take Joseph in the Old Testament.

Joseph is the 11th of 12 brothers.

His father is Jacob, who is the grandson of Abraham, actually.

Um, and even though he's the 11th of 12, and in their culture, really, it's the oldest that's supposed to be the one that's that's kind of favored by the father and and given all the responsibility.

God makes it really clear that Joseph is the one.

Lucky number 11.

And so Joseph has a dream when he's fairly young.

Genesis 37.

One night Joseph had a dream, and when he told his brothers about it, they hated him more than ever.

They didn't like him because their father really showed favoritism to him that wasn't healthy.

Listen to this dream, he said.

We were out in the field tying up bundles of grain.

Suddenly my bundle stood up, and your bundles all gathered around and bowed low before mine.

His brothers responded, So you think you'll be our king, do you?

Do you actually think you'll reign over us?

And they hated him all the more because of his dreams and the way he talked about them.

How many of you have brothers?

Just out of curiosity.

Yeah, brothers have a way of like loving each other, but also not.

Like we like if you have a brother, typically you really give that person a hard time, but you love them more than anything.

Like you give them a hard time, but if someone else gave them a hard time, you'd fight that person.

That's the way it usually goes.

My older brother just turned 51, and he texts me and my little brother, there's three of us, uh a video of him doing push-ups.

51 push-ups on his 51st birthday.

Um, but he didn't really I think he thought we'd be impressed, but from both of our perspectives, none of those push-ups counted.

They were at best half push-ups.

And so we've been messing with them ever since.

This was like two weeks ago, and just yesterday I sent a text to my older brother and my younger brother, and I said, Hey, you guys remember that time that Brandt, what's my older brother's name?

You remember that time Brandt sent us a video of him doing zero push-ups on his birthday?

That was great, right?

That's what brothers do.

Brothers tease each other and mess with each other.

Well, and he he teased me back.

We're good.

Well, Joseph's brothers is a whole different world.

This is not playful teasing.

They they hate Joseph.

And when he has this dream, God is giving him a sign of what his will for Joseph's life is.

Joseph is meant to reign over his family.

He is meant to reign over his brothers.

That is God's purpose, that is God's will.

But then his brothers hear that and they decide, you know what, we're gonna kill him.

And one of the older brothers, the oldest, actually talks them out of killing him.

He's like, Don't, we're not killing him.

Let's sell him.

And so they they fake his death, convince his father that he's dead, sell him as a slave, and he ends up in Egypt as a slave, and and he ends up in this household of an important person, but then he rises through the ranks in the household and he's favored, but then the the woman that's married to that man, uh, she's attracted to him, and she makes a pass at him and he rejects it, and she gets mad and she accuses him of attacking her, and so he's thrown in prison, but he rises through the ranks of that prison, and the warden's like, This guy's great.

And then some some very important people come to the prison and they have a dream, and he interprets the dream, and one of the guys he interprets the dream for, it's favorable, and the guy gets out, and he's like, I'm gonna tell Pharaoh all about you, then that guy forgets.

And years later, Pharaoh has a dream, and that guy's like, Oh, I know a guy.

And maybe part of the reason that God kept him in prison was because that guy would know right where to find him.

And so they went and they got Joseph, and then he gets, you know, it's and and here's this is where it gets nuanced.

I want you guys to hear this because I don't want to oversimplify.

I'm not saying that God planned all of those evil things to happen.

Like it's it's interesting when Joseph later in life, when he is like fully restored, he ends up going to Pharaoh, he interprets the dream.

Pharaoh puts him in charge of Egypt.

He becomes the second highest ranking official in Egypt, and then his brothers actually show up to Egypt because there's a huge famine and they need food, and Egypt's the only place.

Place that has food because of Joseph's leadership, and they bow before him, not knowing who it is, and his dream comes true.

And when they realize it's Joseph, they freak out, as you can imagine.

And then actually years later, when their father dies, they freak out, and they're like, Well, now that dad's gone, he's gonna take out his vengeance on us.

But listen to what Joseph says to them.

Chapter 50.

He says, Don't be afraid of me.

Am I God that I can punish you?

You intended, or we might say, you planned to harm me, but God intended it all for good.

He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.

Now, you can read this a couple different ways.

On one hand, it's like this was God's plan.

Like you guys had a plan for evil, but God used it for good, and his plan was always to put me in a position of influence, and here I am, and this is for the good of this is for good.

But that that doesn't mean that God wanted Joseph to be harmed in the ways that he was.

You know what I'm saying?

It's an interesting thing, it's a nuanced thing.

What I'm saying is this sometimes really terrible things happen to us.

And I believe God is sovereign.

In other words, God is in control and God can can do anything.

And sometimes we can have a crisis of faith a little bit because we're like, why did God do this to me?

As if this was God's desire for us.

God loves us.

He is a good father.

He does not desire for us to suffer.

When something terrible happens to you or someone that you love, that doesn't mean that God planned it to teach you a valuable lesson.

I mean, I love my kids.

I don't hurt them to teach them lessons.

I also don't always rescue them from discomfort.

I don't put them in a protective bubble and make sure that they never experience pain.

But when they do experience pain, I can hopefully use that and help them grow.

My my point is this it's nuanced, and there's there's we could have a long conversation about this.

This is kind of an aside.

Either this was God's plan for Joseph, and he was like, look, this is how it's gonna happen.

You've got to be in this position of influence and power, and the only way that I can think of doing it is really, really tough and hard.

Either that was the plan all along, or or his brothers did something terrible to him that was never what God intended to happen in his life, and God had to take that situation and use it for good.

And we have scripture about that.

Romans 8.28 says we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purposes for them.

So if something terrible has happened to you, whether it was God's plan or not, theologically we could talk about this for hours.

God can use it for your good.

You can trust him, you can give it to him, and he can use it for good.

And I do believe things happen to us that God never wants to happen to us.

God loves us, he does not desire terrible things to happen to us.

Even death, death isn't God's creation.

Life is God's creation.

But God is so good and he is so big that even when evil people or just the fallenness of this world, the brokenness of this world harms us and damages us and hurts us, those things do not ruin God's plan.

Because he can work around them.

All that said, Joseph had no idea how that that will, that purpose was going to happen.

God's gonna raise me up.

That sounds fun.

How's he gonna prepare me for such responsibility?

Oh, I don't know about that.

You know, I think about Sarah and what it must have been like for her to have been told by Abram that God has promised us a child.

And for every month, for 25 years, or 20 years, however long, until she she truly gave up, is this the month?

Like, is this is this the month?

I mean it would have been really nice for God to say, oh, this is 25 years from now.

So like just chill.

But he didn't do that.

And for all those years, just monthly, is this it?

Is it gonna be now?

Is it gonna be now?

Is it gonna be now?

And you know, why why didn't God spare her that?

He wasn't being cruel.

He is not cruel, he is good.

He's good.

Well, I don't maybe maybe that monthly hope and struggle, maybe for Abraham and for Sarah, maybe the trust and the dependence, maybe the endurance that they develop through that, just like our scriptures tell us that we shouldn't, we should actually count it as joy when we suffer, when we we endure hardships because it grows us, it challenges us, it deepens our faith, it it produces endurance in our hearts.

Maybe if we knew God's plan, we'd we'd be like, I'm out.

Because it would be hard for us to understand just how perfectly he knows us, and how perfectly he understands what we need to experience and what we maybe need to go through to become the people that we're meant to be.

Again, there's a lot of nuance here, and I'm I'm not saying that every bad thing that happens to you, well, this is just part of God's plan.

No, sometimes the world we live in and the people in it can do things that can really attempt, at least, to throw a wrench in the good plans that God has.

But God's plans are good, but not easy.

That is something I I just have to remember all the time.

God's plans are good, but they're they're not easy.

And easy and good are not the same thing.

They're not.

I I was actually having a conversation with a parent uh a while back, and if you don't, if you guys don't didn't know this about me, I really like I really like basketball.

Um I don't know why either.

Sometimes I have these moments where I'm like, why do I care about a little orange ball that goes through a net?

Why do I care so much about it?

But I do.

I don't know.

And uh, and and this this mom was, we were just having a conversation about her son, and and he's got a lot of potential, but there's just there's challenges, and and the mom is doing what we as parents want to do.

It's like, how can I pave the road to ensure my child's success?

You know, he wants to play college basketball.

And she's like, I just want to make sure that if I do this and I do that, I she's trying to guarantee it.

And I just had a really frank conversation with her, and I said, if that's really what his dream is, you can't make this easy on him.

Like, you can't.

Because he's saying he wants to do something unbelievably hard.

It's so hard.

And if you make it easy on him, it'll completely and totally shortcut, it'll it'll short circuit his ability to do it.

And even if you could somehow pave the road and make it easy, when he got there, he wouldn't be ready for it.

Because it's super hard.

And I asked Lord, you you have to let this be hard for him.

You it's hard as a parent to do, but you have to let this be hard.

You've got to stop rescuing him from every single moment that has any adversity in it and let him fight through some of it.

So he's ready for the hard thing that he says he wants to do.

And then they quit our team.

But it's we as parents, I I understand, I understand very, very much.

I feel the same way.

As a father, if I could hit a button and just make my kids' life easy, would I?

It's tempting.

But how many of you, honestly, right now, show of hands, this is the last time I'll do it, I promise.

How many of you look back at your life and you can say, I'm glad it wasn't easy?

At this stage of life, I'm glad it wasn't easy.

Now, how many of you say, I wish it would have been a little bit easier?

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Those things can be true at the same time, right?

God right now is working in us.

His spirit is it is at work.

If you've given your life to Jesus, you have the Holy Spirit, and his spirit is at work within you right now, sanctifying you, changing you, producing fruit in your life, growing you into the person that you are meant to be.

We are new creations when we give our lives to Jesus, and it is not instantaneous.

It is not like you get saved, you give your life to Jesus.

We're if someone that's gonna get baptized here in a few minutes, and it's not like when they come out of the water, they're just like, download all wisdom, you know, all I have perfect discernment, I will never make another bad choice in my life.

It's not how it works.

God loves us so much, and his purpose is so good for each of us and all of us, and at the same time, he has a comfort level with us going through difficult times.

But he never leaves us in it.

He never abandons us.

He comes close, he draws near.

As I said earlier, scripture says he is close to the brokenhearted.

He is so close to you, his presence is so felt when you're going through it.

And the takeaway should simply be this: in fact, worship team, you can come out.

You may not know God's plan, and you may not actually want to.

In all fairness.

I mean, that's it.

You could ask him, show me your plan, and he might be like, Nope.

Or he might be go, Are you sure?

Like, do you know what you're asking for?

Jesus' disciples, they had those moments where they're like, hey, Jesus, we want to be seated at your right and your left side.

We want to have positions of honor and authority.

He's like, you do not even understand what you are asking for.

Well, okay, if that's what you want.

He is good, and his purpose is good and pleasing and perfect.

That's what we said.

His will, Romans 12, verse 2, his will is good and pleasing and perfect, and you can know it.

Romans 12:2

But can we be people who make it our purpose to know his purpose?

My purpose, what is my purpose?

To know his purpose for my life.

And I already know a lot of it, by the way.

A huge purpose for my life and your life is to know him.

He desires for all of us, 2 Peter 3, 9.

The Lord isn't being slow about his promises.

Some think he's being patient for your sake.

He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.

He wants everyone to know him.

That is his will.

So if you're like, what is God's will for my life?

First and foremost, that you know him, that you live connected to him, that you give your life to him, and you live in relationship with your God.

We know his purpose is for us to live with faith, to have trust in him.

We know his purpose is for us to live with joy.

In fact, the scriptures say that the joy of the Lord is our strength.

His purpose is for you to love him, to be loved by him.

And loved by him, by the way, that comes first.

To love him in response to his love for you and to love every single person as much as you love yourself or more so.

That's his purpose.

That you love people, that you love him, that you're generous, that you're kind, that your life is defined by the fruit of the Spirit, that it's love, patience, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control, that you have these in your life.

Like that's his purpose.

Now, there might be specific purposes, that we might call that a calling.

God might have a very specific purpose on your life.

And you have to sort of discern that as you walk it out with God, and you don't know what it might be.

It might surprise you.

My whole life, I was told by pretty much every adult in my life to stop talking.

Like, stop.

Every teacher, stop, stop.

And then one day someone handed me a microphone.

And I was like, let's go.

You know, there you go.

And now some of you are looking at the time going, stop, please, stop.

And I'm about to, I promise.

I promise, I'm about to.

You can know his purpose.

Make it your purpose to know his purpose.

But maybe be at peace with not knowing the plan.

Or at the very least, trusting that if he thinks you need to know, he'll tell you.

He'll tell you as much as you need to know when you need to know it.

And if you don't know the whys and the ins and the outs of it, if you don't know all the details, you're fine.

If he told you the details, you'd probably laugh, like Sarah.

I promise you, if God had told Steve and Susan early in their marriage, you're gonna sell a huge company and buy a Kmart and turn it into a church, they would have laughed at him.

They probably would have cried.

I know if God would have told my wife when she was a freshman in high school and I first flirted with her and was summarily rejected, that that's your husband, she would have laughed.

Because she already did laugh at me when I tried to make a move, you know.

I mean, I I've had so many times in my life where I'm like, God, I want to know what you what's next, what's next, what's the plan?

And he hasn't told me.

There have been moments where he gives me a glimpse, but he hasn't told me, and I've learned to just go, I don't need the plan.

I don't, God, I don't need your plan.

I need your will, I need your purpose, I need your love, I need your presence, I need you.

I don't need to know the details.

That's living an adventure with God, and we're all called to do it.

So we're gonna wrap up by taking Lord's Supper.

You know, the interesting thing about Jesus is we take this, and if you're new to church, by the way, these are at tables that are outside the big room, but at the four columns in the back, if you missed one, we have some extras you can grab.

Something very unique about Jesus is that he actually did know the plan.

He did.

I mean, you can know God's plan if he tells you.

Jesus knew the plan.

He didn't just know his purpose, he knew how it was gonna happen.

I mean, he told his disciples, I'm gonna be handed over to the officials, they're gonna crucify me, they're gonna kill me, I'll raise again on the third day.

He knew exactly what was gonna happen to him.

So he's he's different than us in the fact that he not only knew God's will for his life, but he knew the specifics.

If you were Jesus and you knew the plan, would you see it through?

If you knew the plan was the cross, the pain and the humiliation and the torture, to pay the price for our sins, to rescue us from our own iniquity, if you knew the plan, would you be like, I'm I'm in?

In the last year of his life, when he took every single step he took was closer and closer to Jerusalem and closer and closer to the cross, would you, would you have taken those steps?

How amazing is it that our God, that our Savior, that Jesus knew the plan and he still followed through.

That he loved us so much that knowing full well what it would mean to save us, he did it.

That's incredible to me.

With that in mind, let's pray for this bread and this juice.

Father God, we thank you for this.

This bread, this is your body.

Offered up as a living sacrifice.

You gave yourself for us.

You love us that much.

And without this Lord, we'd be hopeless.

Without this Lord, we we'd be trying to pay the price for our own sin, and frankly, none of us can afford that.

But once and for all, you canceled our debt.

And you knew how much challenge and pain and difficulty it would be, but you did it anyway, and we love you for that, Jesus.

Thank you.

Let's take the bread.

And now the juice.

Thank you, Lord, for this cup.

This is your blood.

Poured out as a cleansing offering that covers our sin, purifies us, makes us holy, sets us apart.

We're not set apart because we're better than other people.

We're not set apart because we're just we're more moral than other people.

We're set apart because we have been made righteous and made holy by the precious blood of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Thank you, Lord, for saving us.

Help us be people, Lord, that can trust and discern your will for our lives with enough faith to trust your plans even when we don't understand them.

Even when we don't know what's next.

Help us with that, Lord.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.

Strength and choose.