Rick Warren - Making a Plan to Improve Your Life

Two weeks ago, we began a new series of messages

through the book of Nehemiah called Building a Better Future.

And it's a series to help you prepare and reenter

life as this COVID pandemic is winding.

Down, and it is winding down finally, thank God.

And I told you that God isn't interested after COVID,

you simply resuming your old life, the way you used

to live before the pandemic. Instead, he's giving us all

the opportunity of a lifetime. to reset our lives, to

reboot our lives, to renew, refresh, re-energize our lives in

a whole new way. And that's what this series is

all about. Now, I also told you that there are

five books in the Bible that specifically give us instructions

for how to build a better future after a time

of captivity. And those books are Nehemiah, Ezra, Zechariah, Haggai,

and Malachi. They're all in the Old Testament. Now, two

weeks ago, Pastor Tom shared the first message in this

series and the first principle from the book of Nehemiah

on building a better future. And the first principle, it's

there on your outline. If you pull out your message notes,

the first principle is this. Principle number one, you got

to get dissatisfied with your current situation. If you're going

to build a better future, you've got to get dissatisfied

with your current situation.

That's what happened with Nehemiah.

Nehemiah held a very high position in the king's court

in Persia, and he was the king's actually steward of

the wine. But he got a burden for his hometown

in Jerusalem. And some of the captives had been allowed

to return to Jerusalem after 70 years, but when they

got home, they discovered that the temple and their homes

and the entire city had been destroyed. And there were

no walls or gates around the city anymore, so it

was defenseless. Now, this really concerned Nehemiah and it made

him very sad and he became burdened about it. Now,

Tom talked about this first principle. You have to become

dissatisfied with your current situation. Nothing is gonna change until

you want to change. And in that first message, Tom

taught us the four things that Nehemiah did with this

first principle. And that is first, you have to grieve.

You have to mourn what you've lost. You've lost a

lot during COVID. And until you learn to grieve what

you've lost, guess what? You're gonna stay stuck in the past. Second,

Tom taught, you fast. Fasting helps us focus our heart

on where we need to go. Third, you pray and

you ask God for help. And fourth, you confess and

you admit your mistakes that you made. If you missed

that message by Tom, go back and listen to part one.

Those are the first four steps in building a better future.

Then next, in our last message that Pastor Buddy taught us,

the second principle for building a better future. And principle

number two is start with what needs changing inside of me.

You don't start with all the externals around you. You

don't start with changing your circumstance. You start by changing

your attitude. You start with changing inside you. And if

you missed Buddy's message on rebuilding the city of your soul,

I wanna urge you to go back online and watch

that message. Now today, we're gonna look at the third

principle of building a better future. And this principle is

found in the second chapter of Nehemiah, the first nine verses.

And here's the third principle.

After you become dissatisfied with what you got and you

start looking inside at you, what needs changing inside of me,

point number three is this. You need to make a plan.

If you're gonna build a better future, you gotta have

a plan for your life. You have to have a

life plan. You need to write down a simple plan

and get started on building a better future. Now, it's

not gonna happen without a plan. If you don't have

a plan for a better future in your life, you're

just gonna coast. And you can't coast into a better you.

You can't drift into a better future. It takes intention

and it takes planning. Now, I'm sure you've heard the

old cliche, if you're failing to plan, you're planning to fail. Now,

that may be a cliche, but you know what? It's

still true. Nothing's gonna happen in your life till you

first get dissatisfied with what you're doing, take a good

look at what's going on inside your soul, and then

you come up with a simple plan.

But you know what?

As followers of Jesus, we don't base our lives on cliches.

We base our lives on the foundation of scripture. Everything

we do is based on God's word. And fortunately, the

book of Nehemiah in chapter two gives us a very

practical model for life planning. And that's why I'm calling

this message, Making a Plan to Improve Your Life. All right,

that's what we're gonna look at today. Making a Plan

to Improve Your Life. It's part three in our series

of Building a Better Future. Now, before I show you

Nehemiah's seven step planning model for making a better future

in your life, let me first answer the question, why?

Why should I make plans? Well, there are a lot

of biblical reasons, but let me just mention three. They're

there on your outline. First, you need to plan your

life because God makes plans. because God makes plans. As

Buddy pointed out in his message last time, Jeremiah 29, 11,

maybe one of the most quoted Bible verses at Saddleback Church.

We even have a song about it. Jeremiah 29, 11 says,

I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord.

Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans

to give you a hope and a future. Now listen,

if God makes plans and he wants us to be

like him, then we should make plans too. Do you

have any plans for the rest of the year? Do

you have any plans for your next year? Do you

have any plans for the next 10 years? You're not living,

you're just drifting if you don't have any plans. You're

just existing. You're letting circumstances determine the direction of your life.

1 Corinthians 14, 33 says this, God is not a

God of disorder. So if your life has no plans,

if your life has no order to it, then guess what?

Your life's out of order. And that's not the kind

of life that God created you to live. So God

makes plans. Number two, you ought to plan because God

tells me to plan. All through scripture, particularly in the

book of Proverbs, the Bible talks about the value of

planning your life. Proverbs 4.26 says this, mark out a

straight path for your feet.

What's that mean? Plan it.

Mark out a straight path for your feet. That's another

way of saying make a plan. It says, mark out

a straight path for your feet and then stick to

that path and stay safe. In the New Testament, 1

Corinthians 14, 40 says, everything should be done in a

fitting and orderly way. What's he saying? God doesn't want

your life to be a life of chaos. God doesn't

want your life to be a life of confusion, just drifting,

muddling through life, all mixed up. He wants you to

have a plan. God plans, he tells you to plan.

And here's the third reason, so I don't waste my life.

So I don't waste my life. Planning is a matter

of stewardship. Your life is God's gift to you. What

you do with your life is your gift back to God.

And the Bible says this in Ephesians 5, verse 15

Ephesians 5:15–17

to 17. I love it in the Phillips translation. Live

life with a due sense of responsibility, not as those

who don't know the meaning of life, but as those

who do. Make the best use of your time. You

can't do that without a plan. Don't be vague, but

grasp firmly what you know to be the will of

the Lord. You say, okay, Rick, I got it. I

realize that if I'm gonna build a better future coming

out of COVID, I'm gonna have to make some God-inspired plans.

How do you do that? Well, that's what this message

is about today.

You just copy what Nehemiah did in chapter two, the

seven steps when Nehemiah got a burden, when he got

a vision, when he set up a plan, he did

seven things in his plan. It's found in Nehemiah chapter one,

verse 11 to chapter two, verse nine. Now, again, background,

Nehemiah desperately wanted to return to his home. the land

of Israel and rebuild the city of Jerusalem and the

walls of Jerusalem. But he has a very important and

actually a very comfortable, cushy job in Persia, serving in

the royal court of a king called Artaxerxes. And he

couldn't just offhandedly suggest to the king, just let him

go without a plan. So he comes up with a

plan and he gives us a model of seven steps

that you need for life planning in your life. I

want you to practice these seven steps this week as

you think about building a better future for your life

after COVID, after the COVID captivity this last year. Okay,

you ready for the steps? All right, this is gonna

be a very practical message. All right, here's step one

in developing a life plan. Step one, pray and ask

for God's favor. Pray and ask for God's favor on

your life. God's favor is God's grace. This is the

first thing that Nehemiah does in his life plan. Nehemiah

chapter one, verse 11, he says this. He prays, oh Lord,

please hear my prayer. and listen to the prayers of

all your servants who love to honor you. That's all

of us. Give your servant success today. Is it okay

to pray for success? Nehemiah did.

Give your servant.

Success today by granting him favor in the king's presence.

And he says, I prayed this prayer. He says, in

those days, I was the king's wine steward. Now that

probably wasn't a very stressful job. I mean, you're just

serving the king wine, okay? Now you may be thinking,

I have no idea what I should be doing with

my future. I have no idea what I should be

doing in the next six months. I don't know what

to do with my life. So I don't have any

idea what to pray about. Well, you know what? You

can pray about that. You can pray that you don't

know what you should be doing. James chapter one, verse

five says this. If you wanna know what God wants

you to do, just ask him and he'll gladly tell you.

For he's always ready to give a generous supply of

wisdom to all who ask. So you go, I don't

even know what my vision, what my dream, what my goal,

what my target, what my plan is. Start saying, God,

I don't have a plan. What's your plan for my life?

Once you start asking God for wisdom and direction, you

know what? He's gonna put eventually an idea in your

mind or a burden in your heart. You're gonna look

around and you're gonna see something that needs changing. When

Nehemiah started praying, God gave him a dream, gave him

a vision, gave him a burden of seeing his hometown

rebuilt and restored. So let me ask you, what needs

to be rebuilt in your life? What needs to be

restored in your life, in your family, in your job,

around you, in your nation, in your city, in your community?

What do you see out there in the world that

needs to be changed? Let God give you that burden

and keep praying and keep talking with other mature believers

about it. And you know what, eventually God is gonna

put something in your heart. That's the first step in

life planning. Get a burden for something God wants to

do in your life or through your life in the world.

Now, here's the next step. Ready? Step two.

Once you start praying and you ask God for his

favor in your life and show me what you want

to do. Step two is this. Prepare for an opportunity

and then wait. Okay, whatever you say, you know, I

think God wants me to do something about this problem

in society or God wants me to do about this

problem in my company or in my home or in

my community or in my church. You start preparing for

an opportunity to do something and then you wait. You

don't just sit around waiting for God to do something.

You start preparing for that opportunity. Now the Bible says

in Nehemiah chapter two, verse one, four months later, this

is after he'd prayed this prayer. Four months later, when

King Artaxerxes was dining, I took the wine to him.

Now notice, when you start praying for a vision, for

a dream, for a goal, for a plan, it doesn't

come instantly. God is not a vending machine. He's waiting

to see if you're serious. And he says, four months later,

all of a sudden I get the opportunity. What was

he doing during those four months? Preparing for the opportunity

to ask the king, could he go do what God

had called him to do? Now, Nehemiah had gotten this

burden four months earlier. And for four months, he's been

waiting for something to happen. And now something happens. What

had been happening between that time when Noah, I mean,

Nehemiah got his first idea about rebuilding the wall and

rebuilding Jerusalem. And when he actually gets the opportunity to

present his idea to the king.

What he'd been doing?

He'd been praying, but he also had been planning. And

he had also been preparing. Now we know that by

the way he responded to the king when the king said.

What do you want me to do?

Nehemiah knew exactly what to ask for because he had

been preparing for the opportunity.

He'd been thinking about it.

Howard Hendricks once said, nothing's more profitable than serious thinking

and nothing is more demanding. If you're gonna be a

leader in this world, you need time to think, you

need think time, you need time to get away. Leaders

make time for think time. That's a law of leadership.

Proverbs 13, 16 says this, a wise man thinks ahead.

Are you doing that? Are you thinking about the next

six months? Are you thinking about the next year of

your life? You thinking about the next five or 10

years of your life? A wise man thinks ahead, a

fool doesn't, it even brags about it. See, it's wise

to spend time thinking about your life. And what do

I think about? Well, ask yourself some questions. Like, where

am I now? Where do I wanna be? How will

I get there? That's what Nehemiah did. He's thinking it through.

He's praying for four months, but he's also planning and

preparing for an opportunity to present his plan to the king.

What happens when you pray and plan? God gives you

a vision. But during this time, you're also preparing. And

when opportunity knocks.

you'll be ready to open the door.

You see, all of life's full of opportunities. There are

opportunities all around you. You're just overlooking them. You are

not seeing the opportunities that are all around you.

Why? You're not praying. You're not preparing. You're not planning.

A lot of times we're just not ready for the

opportunities and they pass us by and then they're gone.

So pray, all right?

Start preparing for the opportunity and then wait for the

opportunity to come. God will provide it at the right time.

Step three. expect fear, but don't let it stop me.

This is the third thing we see in Nehemiah's plan.

Expect fear, but don't let it stop me. Nehemiah says,

you know, after four months, I get the opportunity to

serve some wine to King Artaxerxes. And in verse one

and two of Nehemiah two, it says, when King Artaxerxes

was dining, I took the.

Wine to him.

Now he had never seen me look so sad before.

So he asked, Why are you so sad? Your heart

must be troubled. And Nehemiah says, that made me very afraid.

Now, this is.

The moment Nehemiah is waiting for. He's been praying for

an opportunity to present his idea of the king. He's

got an opportunity now to state his case because he's

been planning, he's been preparing, he's ready for the answer.

But notice he has a sad face. He has a

burden he can't hide. He goes, I want to do this,

but it's not opening up. I'm not getting the opportunity.

He had a burden he couldn't hide. He's getting a

little discouraged by now.

It's been four months. God, aren't you gonna do anything

about this wall?

I've been praying for the opportunity to go home and

help restore and rebuild my city. Finally, the king says,

what's wrong, Nehemiah? And notice it says, Nehemiah says, I

was afraid. He's literally scared to death.

Why?

Because in those days, listen, it was a capital crime

to be sad before the king. Kings were very fickle

in those days. They didn't want any downers around them.

They didn't want anybody raining on their parade. If you

frowned in the presence of the king, you could get

your head cut off. If you were depressed in the

presence of the king, that was it. Notice it says,

this is the first time I had ever appeared sad.

He'd always been upbeat around his boss. It's a real

gamble to show his true emotions. Not only that, Nehemiah

is going to ask permission for a leave of absence.

Now in those days, if a king doesn't like your request,

it means he doesn't like you. So no wonder Nehemiah

is frightened. And on top of that, he's going to

ask permission to go rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. And

the king himself had said the walls could not be rebuilt.

He'd said that earlier. So he's standing before a king

who has the power of life and death. He's got

a reason to be afraid. Here's the principle. If you're

going to be used by God, you're going to have

to move ahead in spite of your fear. All right.

Leaders move ahead in spite of it. There's a myth

that people who are walking with the Lord are never afraid.

That's nonsense. I've said many.

Times that every major decision in Saddleback's 42-year history that

I had to make, I was scared to death to

do it. I just did it anyway because I was

not going to let fear dominate me. We're going to

do the right thing. Never let fear stop you. Courage

is not the absence of fear. Courage is moving ahead

in spite of your fear. If you're not afraid, you

don't need courage. You only have courage when you're scared

to death and you do it anyway. Now notice what

Nehemiah did with his fears. He did two things. And

when you start going after your plan that God gives you,

it's gonna be so big, it'll scare you to death.

And so what do you do with your fear? Number one, first,

he admitted his feelings, verse three. He says, I was scared.

He's admitting, I was scared. I was scared to death.

Because I could lose my head making this request to

the king. I could lose my head just being sad

around the king. But he says, I replied. And here's

what he replied. Long live the king. Good idea, Nehemiah.

Start with a compliment. Long live the king. Then he says,

why shouldn't I be sad? For the city where my

ancestors are buried lies in ruins and all its gates

have been burned down.

Why should my face not look sad?

The cities where my fathers are buried lies in ruins.

The gates have been destroyed by fire. He chooses his

words very carefully. First, he assures the king of his loyalty.

May the king live forever. Remember, this guy is also

a bodyguard because he's like testing the wine so he

can't get poisoned. If he's sad, maybe he also knows

some assassination plot. The king's asking, why is my number

one guy upset? So he admits his feelings. You're never

going to get anywhere if you stuff your feelings. You

got to admit what you're feeling. If you're discouraged, admit it.

If you're sad, admit it. If you're grieving, admit it.

That's how you grow. But the second thing he did

is he prayed quickly before speaking. Now, this is the

second time he prays. There are actually 11 prayers in

the book of Nehemiah. And here's the second one. He

prays before he meets the king, said, God, give me

this opportunity to present my plan. And then when the

king says, hey, what's the problem with you? He stops

and he prays what I call a lightning prayer, where

it's really one word, help.

Help. Help me, Lord.

Nehemiah 4.2, he says, the king replied to me, well,

what is it you want? And it says, then I

prayed again to the God of heaven. Sometimes a prayer

can just be one word, help. And the king says,

what do you want? You're obviously upset. And Nehemiah again,

prays the second time. Now, this isn't the four months

of prayer he's already done. This is the quick prayer.

It's the silent, quick, on the spot prayer. I got

the opportunity. God, give me the wisdom. Help me to

know what to do. Help me know what to say

right now. It's interesting that Nehemiah appeals to the Eastern

respect for ancestors. He says, my father's graves are in

ruin because Eastern guys were in to take care of

their ancestors' graves. And the king's response was, what do

you want? And that leads us to step four in

establishing a life plan.

Step four is this, establish a clear target. That's the

next verse, verse five.

Nehemiah 2.5, you establish a clear target. Nehemiah 2.5 says,

after praying, I answered, if it pleases your majesty, and

if your servant has found favor in your sight, then

send me to the city in Judah, that's Jerusalem, where

my ancestors are buried, so that I can rebuild it.

Now notice, Nehemiah gets very specific here. He wants to

establish a goal. He wants to rebuild the wall. He says,

I want you to send me to my hometown. And

he's very specific. I wanna rebuild the wall. I wanna

rebuild the city. This is the next step in life planning.

You set a goal. You gotta have a target. You've

all heard, if you aim at nothing, you're gonna hit it.

So you ask yourself some simple questions. In the next year,

what do I want to be? In the next year,

what do I want to do? In the next year,

what do I want to have? In the rest of

my life, what do I want to be? What do

I want to do? What do I want to have?

These are questions you have to ask in establishing a goal. Now,

let me tell you something. I've done a lot of

goal setting in my life and there are two common

errors that people make in goal setting. We set them

too low and we try to accomplish them too quickly.

Most people set little teeny tiny goals and then try

to do them immediately. I wanna challenge you to set

a big goal, so big you're bound to fail unless

God bails you out, but spend the rest of your

life going after it. That's what I did with Saddleback.

You know, inch by inch, anything's a cinch. How do

you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. You

set big goals. You make big plans so big that

God has to bail you out. You let the size

of your God determine the size of your goal. You see,

God loves big planning. Why? It honors him. It honors

God to be a big planner. It's what you're expecting

God to do. And it's saying, God, I'm trusting you

to help me to do this. This is what I

want God to do in my life. So Nehemiah says, okay,

I'll tell you what I want. I want to go

rebuild a wall around the whole city of my hometown.

Had he ever built a wall?

No. Was he a builder? No.

He's a wine steward and he's going to go home

and do a rebuilding project for an entire city. He

never built anything. He's a cup bearer, but he has

a big goal. As I said, we set our goals

too low and we try to accomplish them too quickly.

So your first is to get the prayer behind you.

then you think it through and you prepare for the

opportunity so that when God opens up the opportunity, you're

ready for it. And then when it's there, you're ready

to say what you need. You know, people say, well,

you know, that guy has all the luck. He gets

all the breaks. You know what I've found? The more

I plan and the more I prepare, the luckier I get. Okay,

it's not about luck. It's about preparation. The opportunities are

always there all around you. You just have to be

ready for them. You got to see them. How will

you see them? by praying, by preparing, by waiting. And

then you establish a goal. And then you come to

the next step. Step five in life planning is this,

set a deadline. Set a deadline. Nehemiah 2.6, then the

king with the queen sitting beside him, why Nehemiah mentions that,

I don't know, but maybe it's because she had a

little impact or a little input on her husband. The

king with the queen sitting beside him asked, How long

will your work take? And when will you get back?

This is a legitimate question. Yeah, I'm gonna loan my

top guy to go to a project. Now, the king

was willing to send me, Nehemiah says, so, underline this,

circle it, I set a time. That's the next step.

Step five is set a deadline. A goal has to

have a deadline. If your goal doesn't have a deadline,

it's not a goal. This is the scheduling part of

life planning. You know what you wanna do, and then

you know when you wanna do it. You schedule it,

you put it in your calendar, and you ask the question,

how long is it gonna take?

Probably longer than you think.

You know, Nehemiah 5.14, Nehemiah actually, it tells us, he

actually came back to the Persian empire 12 years later

because he was popular.

With this king.

King didn't want him to leave. And so the king says,

how long are you gonna be gone? You know, it

showed that the king really did like Nehemiah. But why

did Nehemiah throw in the queen is sitting beside him?

My guess is she had an influence over the king's receptivity.

Probably Nehemiah and the queen were pretty good friends and

he's the king right-hand man and she's sitting there and

he's pouring the wine and everybody's happy. And Nehemiah says,

you know, I'd really like to go back home and

rebuild the wall around my hometown where my father's graves are.

And probably the queen said to her husband, honey, let

him go, let him go. And maybe Nehemiah timed it

this way, but God had a time in it and

you have to have timing. Nehemiah establishes a deadline. He

puts it on his calendar. Remember this, a dream without

a deadline is just an empty wish. A dream without

a deadline is just an empty wish.

It won't go anywhere.

Now here's the sixth step in life planning. anticipate the

barriers that I'll face. Anticipate the barriers that I'll face.

Nehemiah 2, 7 and 8, he says, then I asked

the king to give me, listen to this, because he's

already thought through what the barriers are gonna be. Nehemiah says,

then I asked the king to give me letters for

the governors of all the territories west of the Euphrates River.

That's stuff he's gonna have to travel through to get

back to Israel. Give me letters of passage for the

governors of the territories west of the Euphrates River, giving

me safe travel to Judah. He says, I also asked

for a letter to the keeper of the king's royal forest.

Get this, instructing him to supply me with the timber

that I would need to rebuild the gates of the

city and the city walls. And by the way, for

a house for me to live in. Now, he's already

asked permission to go. Now he's asking for protection, and

then he's asking for provision. He says, you know, if

it pleases the king, give me these letters to these

governors so I can have safe travel. It's about 800

to 1,000 miles journey between Iraq and Israel, and he's

gotta go through a lot of provinces. You didn't travel

freely in those days. You had to go through proper procedures.

You had to show your papers. And he goes, please

give me the letters of authority so I'll have clear

sailing so that when I get over there, there's no problem.

I just need the traveling permits. So he's already thought

through what he's gonna need. He's asked for permission. Now

he's asking for protection. This implied that he thought it out.

Remember, he's asked, he's just been put on the spot.

What do you want? Well, he had already thought it through.

If somebody asked you right now, what do you want

in the next year of your life? Have you already

thought it through? Or would you go, I don't know,

but I don't know what I want. It's a clear

example of planning. He's not just praying. He's not just

preparing during those four months. He's planning for the opportunity

so he knows to say what he needs. So the

questions you want to ask yourself in your own planning

is when you're anticipating problems, ask some stuff like this.

What could hold me back? What could hold me back?

You're planning some goal, some project, some dream.

Ask yourself, why don't I have it already? What could

hold me back? What are the problems, the potential problems?

What are the barriers?

What could go wrong? If anything could go wrong, it

probably will. Nehemiah again is thinking ahead in his life plan.

He's already thought through what he wants. He's already thought

ahead about where he wants to go. Now he's anticipating

the problems. Part of the planning process of your life

is to anticipate problems in advance. I have to do

this all the time as a leader saddleback to see

the problems before they actually get there and plan for

them in advance. Proverbs 27 verse two says this, a

sensible man looks for the problems ahead and prepares to

meet them. These are all important steps. You might want

to listen to this message again a second time. You see,

another part of anticipating the barriers is to calculate the

cost in advance because there's always a price tag for

every dream and for every goal. Nehemiah actually gives the king,

he's asked for permission to go. Then he's asked for protection.

Now he gives the king a shopping list. He says,

I want you to let me go and I want

you to give me protection. And by the way, I

want you to pay for it too. And notice what

he asked for. He asked for the lumber. He says,

I need you to give me a letter to the

head of all your royal lumber to give me what

I need to build the beams for the city gates Okay,

I thought that out. Then he says, and I'm gonna

need lumber for the city walls. That's second thing. He said, oh,

by the way, I'm gonna need lumber for my own house. Now,

is Nehemiah a contractor? No, he's never built anything. He's

never built anything in his life.

He's a cupbearer.

Yet when he has the opportunity, he rattles off exactly

what's needed.

Why?

He has a plan. Now, how did Nehemiah know what

to ask for? Well, evidently calculated the cost. How in

the world did he know there was a royal forest

near Jerusalem? Evidently he had to do advanced planning. So

this whole chapter indicates he knows what he's doing when

he gets into the situation. He even knows the name

of the foreman. He's already figured it out way in

advance so that when the opportunity arouse, he's prepared for

the opportunity. Now, what am I saying about all this,

this step? It took a lot of faith because Nehemiah

has taken an enormous risk.

Just look what he's asking for.

He's asking a pagan king to let him do something

the king had already said will never be done, build

walls around Jerusalem. He asked for permission to go build

a wall.

If he doesn't like your request, it's off with your head.

He's scared to death.

And you know, if most of us had gotten the

okay right there, we probably would have breathed a sigh

of relief and beat a hasty retreat. We wouldn't have

even dared to ask for anything else. But Nehemiah just

keeps asking the king. And he even says, I want

you to pay for it all. So as I said,

he asked for permission, then protection, then provision. I want

you to pay for it all. You know, some people

schedule their plan and they think of their plan, but

forget to budget for it. Jesus pointed this out. Look

at this verse on your outline.

Luke 14, 27, 28.

Jesus said, you will never be my disciple. If you're

not willing to carry your cross and follow me. So

don't look at this. Don't begin until you count the cost.

Who would begin building without first figuring the cost and

seeing if they had enough money to complete it all.

All right.

So there's a budgeting part to your life plan. Not

thinking through what energy it's going to take, what connections

it's going to take, what money is it going to take. Now,

there's a sub point here that I want you to understand.

Leaders and people that are used by God are willing

to ask others for assistance.

You're never going to.

Be fully used by God until you learn how to

ask other people for help. Because nobody can do what

God calls them to do on their own. James 4,

2 says, you don't have, because you don't ask. How

many people have you said no to for many times?

And well, she really wouldn't want to do this. You

said no on their behalf. Well, nobody would want to

help me with this. You don't know that. You don't

know what people will say. Don't ever say no for

other people. Let people say no for themselves. Now, again,

that takes faith. It takes incredible boldness to do what

Nehemiah does. He asks a pagan king who has death

and life in the power of his hand, it's risky business,

but because he's prayed and he's planned, he's prepared, he's ready,

then he's strong enough that even though he's standing there

with his knees shaken to death, he keeps pushing it. Now,

the wisest risks, listen to me, are those that are

taken after prayer and planning. To take a risk before prayer,

before planning is presumptuous. Proverbs 21 verse one, it's not

on your outline, says this, the king's heart is in

the hand of the Lord and he directs it like

water course wherever he pleases. If God wants to move

somebody in any direction, he can. And here's a clear

example of that proverb where God took a pagan king

and moved his heart all around. The point is God's

a specialist in changing hearts.

Now listen.

Some of you have dreams in your life that you

want to get done. You've dreamed about it in your business,

but you're not the CEO of your company.

Maybe you're in middle management.

And I want to say to you, the heart of

the executive is in the hand of the Lord and

he can turn it whichever way he wishes. The company's

president is in the hand of the Lord.

You need to remember that. God is in the business

of changing hearts. It's up to him. He's sovereign.

Okay, so don't tell me that other people won't let

you do what God has called you to do. Just

start believing and trusting and watch what happens. Now, let

me ask you, do you really wanna grow spiritually? You know,

the very fact that you're here listening to this message

means you wanna grow. What plans have you made for

that in the next year? You know, we plan everything

else in our life. Why don't we plan our spiritual growth?

Do you have a plan to read through the Bible?

Do you have a plan to set aside a certain

time every day for prayer? Do you have a plan

to talk to that person at work about the Lord?

Do you have a plan to invite him over for

dinner to your house to get to know him and

then invite him to church? Have you planned it or

are you just letting it, hoping it'll happen someday? Very

few things happen spontaneously, you.

Need a plan.

A plan for Bible reading, a plan for witnessing, a

plan for prayer, a plan for all the things that

are important in your life. And the plans you have

that you just think up and then ask God to bless,

that's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about

is saying, God, not help me to not do what

I'm blessing, bless what I'm doing. Instead you pray, God,

help me to do what's your blessing. What's your plan?

If you're getting your plans from the Lord, they'll be

big enough for him to fit in. That's how you

know they're from God. Now, let me point out here.

Nehemiah didn't try to manipulate the king. when the king asked,

what's wrong? He was totally honest. My home's in shambles,

my hometown. He didn't make up some phony story. He

didn't make up a story about going back to Jerusalem

under false pretenses. He didn't manipulate the king. He didn't

trick him. He didn't play games with him. He didn't

use any deceit. He just, he had already talked to

God about it. When you have a boss who's unsympathetic

to a project or a goal that you wanna do,

don't manipulate them. Don't play games with them. Just talk

to God about them. You don't have to know the

key men in life if you know the man who

holds the keys. Because the heart of the king is

in the hand of the Lord and he can turn

it any way. Now, when you try to change somebody,

that's manipulation. Let God change the heart. And that leaves

us to the last step. And the last step, number seven,

is this. Trust God to meet all my needs. When

you're writing out this life plan, trust God to meet

all the needs. You think, I don't have that. How

could I ever do this plan? I don't have what

I need. Nehemiah 2, 7 and 8 says this. Nehemiah says,

because God's gracious favor was on me, the king gave

me everything I asked for. Notice he gives God the credit.

And Nehemiah gives God all the credit. And remember, this

is autobiographical. This part we're looking at in the series

on Nehemiah is not in the first person, but it

does talk about Nehemiah. And it does say, Nehemiah doesn't say,

look at what my planning did. What he says is,

look at what God did. God was behind it all.

He knew that it wasn't his cleverness. A mark of

spiritual maturity is when you recognize that God's hand is

behind the people who are helping you or may be

delaying the project.

God was with me, he says.

If Nehemiah hadn't prayed and hadn't planned setting this thing up,

nothing would have happened. Now, let me close with a

couple of reminders as we've been talking about planning your

life for building a better future.

Two things you need to keep in mind.

Proverbs 16 verse one says this, we may make our plans,

but God has the last word.

Have I ever had.

Plans that didn't turn out the way I planned?

Yeah, over and over and over. Why? Because I missed it.

We're human beings. We don't always get the right plan.

Your plan isn't infallible. My plan isn't infallible. We can

make our plans and God tells us to make our plans,

but God has the last word. And so if my

plan doesn't happen in my time or in my way,

I just go, God, I trust your plan better than mine.

And James chapter four, verse 15 says this, that when

you plan, you ought to always say, if it's the

Lord's will. James 4, 15, what you ought to say is,

if it is the Lord's will, we will live long

enough to do this or that. That's godly goal setting.

Now let me just close by applying this to your

personal life. What would you like God to do in

your life? In the next six months, in the next year,

in the next five years, what would you like to change?

What do you want to be better? in your future.

We're talking about building a better future. It all starts

with these seven principles. When God finds a person willing

to do it his way, in his timing, based on

his power, he will always provide the resources. I have

found that to be true in my life for 50 years.

Now the summary of this chapter is a beautiful example

of the harmony that takes place between God's part and

my part in accomplishing what God wants done on earth.

God's part is the sovereignty part. And I'm trusting him

in the timing and the location and the resources and

all those things that are out of my control. My

part is in the praying and in the planning and

doing what I can control. You see, we pray for

God to set up circumstances that are out of our control.

But then we plan for all the things that are

under our control. God has a part and you have

a part in building a better future in your life.

God won't do what he's given you the brains to do.

And you can't do what only God will do. Now,

if you've never opened your life to Jesus Christ, you

need his power and presence in your life first.

So let's just close with the prayer.

And if you've never opened your life to Jesus Christ

and had the power and the presence of God come

into your life, follow me in this prayer. Let's bow

our heads, say, dear Jesus Christ, I know you put

me on this planet for a purpose and I wanna

fulfill your purpose for my life. I want the life

plan that you have planned for me. So I'm first

of all asking you to come into my life. I

wanna have a relationship with you. Just say that, I

wanna have a relationship with you. I wanna get to

know you and learn to trust you. And I ask

you to guide me and I ask you to give

me wisdom in building a better future. I surrender myself

to your purpose for my life. In your name I pray, amen.