SUNDAY MORNING
Living Out God's Plan for Your Life

Sunday, October 2, 2008

Text:  Jeremiah 29:11
Introduction:  Do you have a life plan? Do you have a life plan that takes you from where you are right now to your retirement years?
Illustration:  Lucy in a Charlie Brown Peanuts cartoon comic strip said that life is like a deck chair. Some place it so they can see where they are going; some place it so they can see where they have been; and some place it so they can see where they are at present. Charlie Brown replies: “I can’t even get mine unfolded.”
Maybe like Charlie Brown you are waiting to get your Life Plan unfolded.
Another great philosopher on life is Garfield. In one of the Garfield Comic strips the owner of Garfield says: “I gotta do something with my life.” Garfield “Why start now?”
Owner: “I don’t know what to do.” Garfield “Do what I do.”
Owner: “I guess I’ll raise my standards” Garfield “I’ve lowered my standards.”
Owner: “I’ll be tougher on myself!” Garfield “Now I’m easier on myself.”
Owner: “I’ll take on the world.” Garfield “I got out of bed this morning.”
Owner: “Who am I kidding? Garfield “How do I do it?”
A common questions asked by most people. Why on earth was I born? What am I here for?  I remember thinking those questions when growing up. 
In discovering your Life Plan there are several questions about life you need to answer.
1. Does My “Life” Matter?
Do I matter to God? God answers from His Word with a resounding “Yes.” Yes, you matter to me. God made you in the image of His Son, Jesus. God’s plan is that you grow into the likeness of Jesus. God has a plan and purpose for your life on earth.
As a created person you are unique. There has never been another you. There will never be another you. You are one of a kind.
The Psalmist sang out in Psalm 139:14 “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.”
God created you for a purpose. God wants your life to have meaning.
A life without purpose is a meaningless life.
Solomon with all his wealth, a multi billionaire wrote: “I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure, my heart took delight in all my work and this was the reward for all my labor. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 2:10-11
Only in God’s Word and in Jesus do we find meaning to life.
Proverbs 16:4 “The Lord has made everything for His own Purpose.
The prophet Isaiah made this statement: Isaiah 49:4a “My work all seems so useless. I’ve spent my strength for nothing and for no purpose at all.” (New Living Translation)
To not know why God created you doesn’t make sense at all.
God wants you to live the life He created you to live.
Illustration:  During World War II, there were prisoners in a Nazi concentration camp in Hungary. They were processing human sewage in a factory. The allies came along, bombed that factory and blew it apart. So the prisoners had nothing to do. The Nazi soldiers had the prisoners take all the rubble of that factory and move it to another field. The next day, they had them take that same rubble and move it back in reverse. The next day, they had to take that stuff and move it back and day after day they had no meaning, no purpose. It was just work doing the same thing over and over with no meaning and no purpose. Then something strange began to happen. The prisoners began to go crazy. They began to lose their will to live because there was no meaning, no purpose in their work. They were just moving bricks back and forth, back and forth. Many of them began to throw themselves in front of the guards trying to get shot. In essence they were trying to commit suicide.
When people have no purpose or meaning they have no reason to live. God so created us that we don’t have to remain stuck in meaningless living. God gave each of us gift of free will.
We have the freedom to choose our destiny.
Illustration:  Dr. Viktor Frankl grew up in Vienna, Austria. He earned a doctor of medicine degree. He survived four Nazi death camps including Auschwitz from 1942-1945, but his parents and other members of his family died in the concentrations camps. The Nazis took every earthly possession away from him, his clothes, his watch, even his wedding ring.
He was destitute but he came to the conclusion that he had something that no one could take away from him. He realized that he still had the power to choose his own attitude.
You and you alone make the choice whether you will have a:
Positive or negative attitude, healthy or unhealthy attitude,
cooperative or uncooperative attitude, grateful or ungrateful attitude,
sweet or bitter attitude.
Dr. Tom Patterson suggests that there are four levels in life.
2. Four “Levels” of Life
A. The lowest level is “survival.”
A person on this level would say, “I’m living day to day without purpose. This level is living hand to mouth. You go to work, get paid, spend your money, go to work, get paid, and spend your money, day after day. Simmering underneath this person’s life is anger, fear, worry, chaos, depression, despair, and unhappiness.
B. The second level is “success.”  By the standards of this world this person has made it. You have a job, you have a place to live, and you have food to eat. You are successful. But this person can suffer from boredom, emptiness, unfulfilled frustrations and meaninglessness.
C. The third level is “surrender.”
Surrender happen when a person turns his life over to Christ. The Apostle Paul outlines the call to surrender in Romans 12:2, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is, - His good, pleasing and perfect will.”
The surrendered life is a life transformed from self-centeredness to Christ centeredness. It is a life filled with joy, hope, meaning and peace of soul.
Have you surrendered your life to the Lord Jesus Christ? Can you agree with the hymn writer who wrote: “All to Jesus I surrender, All to Him I freely give; I will ever love and trust Him, In His presence daily live. I surrender all, I surrender all. All to Thee my blessed Savior, I surrender all.
D. The fourth level is “significance.”
On this level the person is making a positive difference in the world.
On this level you know the meaning of life and that gives you significance.
You know how much you matter to God and that gives you significance.
You know God’s purposes for your life and you are living them out and that gives you significance.
When you are living on the level of significance you have passion, vision, balance in your life, strategy, dreams, mission, direction, purpose, focus and are making a contribution.
Developing your Life Plan helps you move to the level of significance.
3. Five Life “Domains”
Again, Dr. Tom Patterson suggests that there are Five Life Domains which include:
A. Personal– domain of the self.

B.  Family - this domain includes parents, spouse, children and influential family members.
C.  Vocation – domain of work or career, including areas of volunteer service for which one has responsibility.
D.  Church – local church and church at large.
E.  Community – involvement in the community, neighborhood, town or city.
Each domain impacts all the others. The goal is to have a balance in the five domains of your life.
We all go through four seasons of life:
* Winter – early youth.
* Spring – education and preparation years.
* Summer - work years
* Harvest –later years
In the development of your Life Plan there are several questions to ask yourself.
How has God gifted me? How am I wired?
The Psalm writer in Psalm 139:15-16 says: “My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.”
To try to function in a role for which you aren’t wired leads to distress and frustration.

You are one of the five types of persons:
*Grinders – get the job done – detailed minded doer – deliver working drawings.
• Administrative assistant • Software programmer • Book keeper
*Minders – manage a unit team - manage people in their area of expertise.
• Teachers • Supervisors • Section Leaders
*Keepers – manage the whole store - ability to do both concrete and abstract thinking - handle details and see the broad vision - are organized - are good with people.
• Personnel managers • Executive assistants • Executive pastor
• Staff Associate
*Finders – ability to open up new territory - entrepreneurs
- innovators – creators - love new challenges - follow through is not their strength.
• Church Planters • Advanced development engineer
*Theorists - are bright, articulate and persuasive - welcome change
- embrace risk - are strategic - have a high tolerance for ambiguity
• University professors • Work in pure research laboratories
• Seminary professors • Cult Leaders
Question to ask: “Where does my current job description fall?”
4.  Have You Really “Trusted” Jesus With Your Life?
To live the life God meant you to live you first of all need to trust Jesus with the rest of your life.

Illustration:  F.B. Myer has written: “Do not be afraid to trust God utterly. As you go down the long corridor you may find that He has preceded you, and locked many doors which you would fain have entered; but be sure that beyond these there is one which He has left unlocked.
Open it and enter, and you will find yourself face to face with a bend of the river of opportunities, broader and deeper than anything you had dared to imagine in your sunniest dreams.
Launch forth on it; it conducts to the open sea.”
Don’t be afraid to trust Christ. He will open to you the fullness of your life, now and into eternity. The Christ-centered life is in direct opposition to the enemy of your soul. Satan’s devices are aimed at you on a daily basis to tempt you to pursue your life plan rather than God’s Life Plan.
The most important decision you make in life is to trust Jesus as the Lord of your life.