God Has A Plan For Your Life
Abridge Worship Provided By: Rev. Jacob Shaw (Please note that this is not a verbatim account of our Sunday morning worship, but rather a condensed version for those at home to study and enjoy, Blessing)
Opening Prayer:
Open our minds that we may ponder You.
Open our hearts that we may feel You.
Open our eyes that we may see You.
Open our ears that we may hear You.
Open up our lives, so we can live a life surrounded by Your grace and love. Amen.
Scripture Readings: 2 Corinthians 4:5-12; Mark 2:23-3:6
2 Corinthians 4:5-12
For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
Mark 2:23—3:6
Jesus Is Lord of the Sabbath
One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”
He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.”
Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
Jesus Heals on the Sabbath
Another time Jesus went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand up in front of everyone.”
Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent.
He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.
Reflection:
I have a vague memory as a child, flipping through the television channels and trying to find something on television to watch. And this televangelist came on. I don’t remember who it was, but it was the late 1990s so it could have been several individuals. But I remember words coming from him that sounded something like this.
“I believe God has a plan for your life, and if you put your faith into him, he will unveil that plan to you more and more each day.”
At the time, I didn’t think too much about what that man said, I likely just kept flipping channels until I found Power Rangers or Batman or something I liked. But for some reason, the memory stayed in my head like a vague recollection of a dream.
As I grew up and began to grasp some more theological concepts, I remember being in a stage of life where I would have scoffed at much of the theology of the more evangelical variety of Christians, like the one I had seen on T.V. as a child. Until I was in university, unbeknownst to myself, I held a more Deistic view of God. I believed in a God who created, and I even believed Jesus was God’s son. But I didn’t truly believe God was necessarily interested in His creation.
Those of you who have been here most Sundays since my arrival will know that my perception changed as I grew up. The more I studied, the more I learned, the more I prayed, I began living as if Jesus was always sitting on my shoulder, the more I was ready to hear how God was continually revealing himself to me, how he was interested in not only me, but everyone.
As I grew in faith, I had to return to those words I heard many years ago on the T.V. – God has a plan for your life.
Okay… a plan. With that concept in mind, I started thinking about what the Bible teaches. What does Jesus try to get us to do in the Bible? Maybe this “plan” can be understood by what he teaches.
So, I looked at what Jesus instructs his disciples or the people he is preaching to, how to live, and what to say. Here is the interesting thing: Jesus gives his students about 60-70 plus commands, all interwoven throughout the Gospels. We don’t tend to think of Jesus’ teachings as commands because they are not in order like the 10 commandments, but any time Jesus says, do this or don’t do that, it’s an instruction piece to his servants and students.
I won’t go through all the commands today, as it would take too much time, but maybe we can do a sermon series on that sometime soon. But what I discovered was that Jesus was instructing us on how to be moral, ethical, faithful, merciful, fortified, tempering, prudent, charitable, and righteous servants of God.
I realized God is trying to cultivate in us a particular type of personhood, he wants in us a personhood like Jesus’.
Okay, personhood like Jesus, got it. But why? Well, let’s think back to last week where we talked about the “Christian Titles.” Born Again, Child of God, Citizen to the Kingdom.
We discovered that God is trying to bring us into His presence: Take the Christ Life, Welcome God’s Spirit, Become His Adopted Child, Become a Citizen of the Kingdom. He wants us to have a personhood like Jesus, because God is trying to create a familial kingdom of the righteous and faithful.
So the plan then is to become more like Jesus, so that we can join the family of God? Is that God’s plan for me, for you?
Well, yes, but there is more.
When we look at our scripture reading for today, we see two conversations. One is about the Sabbath, and the other is about the death and resurrection of Jesus.
In our Sabbath passage, we see Jesus teaching that the Sabbath was not created to be worship by humanity, but rather God told people to keep the Sabbath because it was a good healthy practice for people to rest and be with God. The Sabbath is to serve the wellbeing of the faithful.
This is a pivotal teaching because it tells us that God’s law for the Israelite people was intended to fortify their well-being of life and faith. Jesus released us from the requirement of observing the Sabbath because the Sabbath had become used as a social credit scoring system, not because Sabbath rest is bad. The Sabbath was to help people generate a good life of faith, work, and rest.
Right in the law, God had a plan for people’s lives right from the beginning, and it was a plan which God intents to uplift the faithful with good things, good laws, good commands, and good teachings.
It makes me wonder what other commands, teachings, and laws from God are meant for the better man of the human life, and the plans for our living.
All of it! That means all those 70-plus commands from Jesus, not arbitrary commands but divine instructions for the plan for our lives.
Okay, so far we have God has given us law and instruction, which are intended for our well-being, to help us cultivate a more Christ-like self, so we can more thoroughly welcome the Christ life, the adoption of ourselves into God’s family, to become Citizen in his kingdom.
And then there is the scripture about the Crucifixion, (oh yeah, that Easter event), where Jesus suffered, was humbled, and surrendered into death for us.
The cross paid for the wages of our sins. It wipes away the debts from every time we ignore God’s instruction, when we reject God’s commands, when we dishonor the life, family, and kingdom of God. It takes that wrath owed and puts it on Jesus.
God is so committed to you, to your life plan, a life plan that he put into motion before your creation, before all of creation, he is so committed that he welcomes your death, your sin, your rejection, so you can have his life, his eternity, his plan for your life.
From the beginning to the end, God is trying to get you to come on board with his plan for your life. A plan where you and God walk through life together.
One last thing to this, I think there is a part of us that feels like if we jump on to God’s plan for our lives, we have to give up our plans for our lives. And to a degree this is true.
All the ways you are not like Jesus, God’s going to try to make you more like Jesus. If you are lacking charity in your life plan, you’re going to have to give up that selfishness and pride to serve the charity God is trying to cultivate in you. If you lack mercy, your are going to have to give up bitterness and resentment in your life plan in favor of God’s plan.
And as hard as those shifts may be, remember “faith”. Trust in God’s plan over your own, remember God knew you before you were in your mother’s womb, he knitted you all together, when you decide to welcome God’s plan for your life, you discover what your life has always meant to be.
Let us pray…
God, may your extraordinary power lead us on the journey of faith. Following your wisdom and calling. Help us to trust in You, Your Way, and Your plan for our lives. Amen.
Homework:
Take a few minutes and write down your goals for your life, what do you hope to do, accomplish, fulfill and give your time to. Then ask yourself how does your plan harmonize with what God is trying to get your plan to look like. Where is charity in your life plan, where is faithfulness and mercy in your plan?
If you need help on this reflective journey email: minister@mountainviewunited.ca
Closing Prayer:
God is Good, life can be good with God, we can be good with God too! Amen.
Meme of the Week:
Thank you for joining us this week. If you have any thoughts, feelings, or prayers, feel free to leave them in the comment section below. Please be respectful of others’ posts and make room for all those joining us.
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