Vision For Your Life And Ministry

There is a theme verse that has been a part of my church, a theme verse for many years and it is Jeremiah 29, verse 11. And it says:

"For I know the plans that I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. (Jeremiah 29:11 NASB).

God has plans. And this verse has been a theme verse for our church for some time. It may very likely be a theme verse over your church as well, because God has a plan for your church, just like He does for my church.

Let me give a tad of background, so you can understand where God has brought us from and why it was so important for our church to know that God had a plan for us. We had gone through a period of unsettledness and problems (this was before I arrived as pastor) that almost resulted in a Church split. That happened over 10 years ago, and it was a very difficult time for those who were part of the church at that time. There was hurt and confusion and dissatisfaction and all of this raised a question in many people's minds, "Is there any hope? Is there any way out? Is there any progress that can be made?"

And this is the verse I believe the LORD gave us as a church. And we have been hanging on to this for years now. It is very interesting how many people have simply gravitated to this verse and grasped this verse. In fact I spoke to someone just this week who was going through some very difficult times and some very strenuous times. They said, "You know what has really kept me there, what has kept me going there was this verse." Then they quoted Jeremiah 29:11 to me.

Sometimes God puts you into a position where you have to believe and and hang on to the knowledge that God does have a plan in the midst of the chaos ... because He DOES have a plan! This is the first thing we see Jeremiah 29:11. God does have a plan. He has a good plan for our lives.

This is one of the most important concepts that we need to believe and to receive in our spirits -- that God really does have a plan. Sometimes we don't really believe that He does. Sometimes we think, "Is God really in charge? Does God really know what He is doing? Does He have a plan?"

But through Jeremiah 29:11, we know that He does. God has a plan for you. He didn't have a plan for everybody else and leave you out. He did not say, "You know I have a plan for most of the people. Some I just kind of created so that they could help other people to do their plan." Nope, God has a plan for your life and your destiny.

Over the next several lessons we're going to be talking about that plan. We're going to talk about God's purpose and about getting a vision. We're going to talk about the Kingdom of God and how you fit into the whole picture. We're going to do what we can do to equip you and give you the tools to help you understand God's specific call upon your life. We are going to help you understand God's vision that He has for you and the power that that vision has in your life.

And so I started this new series on getting on board and basically saying, "Will the church get on board? Will the church get on God's plan? Will you hop on board and follow the train of God's will and God's purpose?" And so what we'll be doing is simply sharing with you and giving you some of the tools over the next several lessons to help you to understand the purposes and the call of God. We're going look at it in the broad sense. We're going to look at it in the very narrow sense and some of the things we will be doing will help you in that.

God has a plan. And God knows His plans for you. God said, "For I know the plans that I have for you". This is not implying that God is making the plan up as people come along with it. This is not saying that God is thinking the plans up along the way. God is not improvising it as He goes. No. God says, "'I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD."

I looked up a lot of the Hebrew words in that particular verse, simply to look at the root words and what they meant. And that word "know" and that word "plan" is talking about ingenious plan. It is a divine, thought out, invented, intentional plan. That's what this word means here. It means that when God thought of you and God designed you, He had all the purpose and intention of your call and destiny in mind when He did that.

God worked in that way. God didn't just go to the cupboard of Heaven and pull out all these ingredients that was the most convenient, shake them all together in a pot, throw them in an oven at 400 degrees and that's how you came out. God didn't just use what was handy or what was available. God did what He did because He planned you. He carefully designed you with purpose and intention.

That phrase there, He says, "For I know the plans that I have for you." That particular phrase, "the plans that I have for you" actually is derived from the root word for the word "plan". Take the word "plan" and you could break it into the root word. It's the verb right there. It says, "the things I have for you". And the root word "there" means to weave or to fabricate, to conceive, to invent, to purpose. In other words, here it is God's intentional design. And the first word in my dictionary is the word to weave and I think that is a wonderful word picture. Because what is the person that's weaving, what do they do? They just don't get a bunch of yarn and thread and just kind of throw them in the pot, shake them up and throw them out as "my creation." No, they get together and they string this thing up and they intently choose the colors and each string is put through each fiber. Each fabric thread is put through individually, one at a time. And that's the word that is used to describe how God has planned out every detail of your life. God has a plan, He has a plan for you. It's an awesome plan.

Now, you don't have to do God's plan. You know that God has a plan for you. But it is your choice as to whether or not you are going to follow His plan. This is because He gave you that thing we call "free will". He gave you the ability to choose to follow Him or not to follow Him. You have that right to choose. God gave it to you.

So in those choices you can say, "Yes I want that and I'm going to work and strive to know the will of God, the plan of God. And I'm going to follow it." It's your choice. God didn't make you some robot that He just pushes a button or moves a lever and then you move. And He didn't make you like a puppet and stick all these strings to you; and every once in a while He'll bounce you around and make you dance a little bit. God doesn't do it that way. He doesn't manipulate you.

Instead, God says, "Here's my will. If you want to know My will. You can know My will. You can find out My will and you can do it. Or you can say 'No'." If you haven't been pursuing the will of God, if you don't know the will of God, I hope you will begin to discover and discern God's plan. I hope you will come to know how God made you and how God shaped you specificly for His purpose.

We know from Jeremiah 29:1 that God's plan is not for calamity, but it is a plan for a future and a hope. We know this about God's plan: regardless of the things that you go through God's plans are not to destroy you or to take you out. Instead, they are for your best interests. In fact that word calamity, "it's not for calamity" means it's not for bad or evil. It's not for misery; not for trouble; not for distress; not for affliction. That means that God doesn't bring us through things in order to torture us or to destroy us.

Sometimes that's kind of hard to believe, isn't it? Sometimes when we encounter things and we face things in our lives-sometimes it's horrible things-tremendous hardships-and our world around us seems to be crumbling apart, it's hard for us to believe that. But that's the word of God and that's truth. I love the apostle, Paul. He said these words. He said in Romans 8:28:

"We know that God causes all things to work together for the good to those who love God; to those who are called according to His purpose."

Was Paul a stranger to hardship? Was Paul a stranger to pain? Has this guy ever experienced major hardship and major pain? Just read the Epistles and you will see all that he went through. And yet, Paul said that "All things to work together for the good". He didn't say "All things are good." He said "All things to work together for the good to those who love the Lord, who are called according to His purpose."

Regardless of what has happened to you, or what you have gone through or the things in your life that have been very painful -- God will use it. That is what Romans 8:28 says. And God does it to give you a future and a hope.

This word, "hope" comes from the word which means, "expectation or hope; something to live for; something to long for". There is some great expectation, a great expectancy there. God has something for you to look forward to. It is kind of like what many of you experienced last Christmas with children. It's Christmas Eve and what are they saying? "Can we open one?" "Can we open two?" You might give in and let them go one but then they go, "Can we have two?" "Can we have three?" And they can hardly wait until the next day. Last Christmas morning I was laying in bed and my youngest son did the thing that I frequently do to them on school days. You know, you go in the room and you turn the lights on. You set your child's alarm for 7:00 AM. You get them out of bed. My son did this to me. He came in and flipped the lights on and he jumped on me. He said, "Are you ready to get up now?"

The kids have this wonderful anxious anticipation of getting ready to open their Christmas presents. And that same feeling is what this word is talking about. It is the feeling of "This is it!" This is because God's plan is something to look forward to, it is not something to dread. It is not something to fear. It is something where you would say, "I don't want to have it. I am going to separate myself". No God's plan is something that you want. And it is something that you long for, that you expect and you are excited about. God has something for you to look forward to ... a hope and a future!