Past / Present / Future, Part 6: Future Plans

Grant Fishbook, Lead Teaching Pastor

The Bible gives us wisdom about the future:

Proverbs 16:3       Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.

Proverbs 16:9       The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.

Proverbs 15:22    Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers, they succeed.

Biblical conclusion: planning is godly!

The Question

Are you planning your future with or without considering ?

Luke 12:15–21
¹⁵ Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”
         ¹⁶ And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. ¹⁷ He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
         ¹⁸ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. ¹⁹ And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’
         ²⁰ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
         ²¹ “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

has

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

What do we do with James 4:13-17?
Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.

As you plan your future…

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:19–21

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart;
yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. Ecclesiastes 3:11

God wants you to plan your today and your tomorrow with .

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.
We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

2 Corinthians 3:17–18
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Small Group Questions

1. What’s one of your hopes and dreams for the future?
2. Read the scriptures listed in the outline about planning. What does each one of them say to you?
3. Read James 4:13-17. What conclusions do you come to about how God wants us to approach our tomorrows? What wisdom can you apply to your life right now?
4. How can you plan today with eternity in your heart/mind?
5. Have you surrendered your future to Jesus? What would stop you from praying, “Not my will but yours be done?”
6. How can we pray for you right now and throughout the week?