Commit Your Plans

Title: Commit Your Plans
(Proverbs & the art of planning and guidance)
DATE: 1 May 2022,
Preacher: Dn Keng Wan Ling

Introduction
Which of the pictures here represent your life at the moment. What does it feel like? In life’s journey, we might all be on different paths- it might be a dappled forest or a desert, maybe in a very rocky, treacherous climate- or maybe, you feel like you’re walking in darkness, just one step at a time. You might be quite clear on where you’re going, or you might feel you don’t have a clue.
Today we start on the book of Proverbs.
In line with our theme on Flourishing Life, or Good Life, Proverbs paints a picture of good life (of a person, or a community) in daily patterns and activities. We take them as a collection, a written record of an oral tradition of wise sayings. It’s speculated that its intended audience were the young people- but young adults, transitioning into adulthood and leadership (aka “adulting).【1】[Also called- Solomon’s Twitter Account]
In this series, there will be sermons on specific chapters, as well as topical ones, such as today’s. Today we are looking Planning and Guidance and what Proverbs has to say about this.
Overview of today’s sermon:
(A) Guidance and Planning (God’s way)
(B) The here and now
(A) Guidance and Planning (God’s way)
God isn’t a micro-manager. He allows for our preferences and he does give us choices. When it comes to daily life and decisions, ranging from – what should I eat for next meal, to- should I do a career switch; if we are expecting explicit instructions from God, we may be disappointed.
There are varied ways that God provides guidance to us, including 【2】:
a) Through His Written Word in the Bible
b) Through wise counsel from friends, mentors, advisors, the Christian community etc, (Proverbs 11:14, Galatians 1:16) and
c) God will directly instruct and teach us! (Ps 32:8)[ I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you] (Heb 12:2- fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and the perfecter of our faith)
d) Through His gift of the Holy Spirit, that dwells in us, a deposit, a seal given to us- who now only is our helper, teacher, intercessor,- but is also a source of revelation, wisdom and power (1 Cor2:10-11)
e) Through providences – for example, signs and open doors. Perhaps a job offer comes, or in prayer- your own or others, words and themes come through. Like Gideon’s fleece or the Israelite’s fire by night and cloud by day (Exodus 13:21; Nehemiah 9:12)
The book of Proverbs has a particular role in this range of ways that God guides us. They are NOT instructions, they’re showing us the patterns, themes to living well in God’s creation. They can be seen as general principles, but not guides, or guarantees, or prophecies. Because they are general principles, there are always exceptions. It’s not always true that:
- That the righteous will prosper and the wicked will suffer
- That if you train a child up the way he should go, even when he is old, he will not depart from it. (Prov 22:6)-
In the Bible, the wisdom books include: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job. Taken together (the Wisdom Literature), they tackle what a good life means from different perspective. If:
a) The personification of Proverbs is a smart alec (knows something about everything)- talks about God being wise and just, and life is fair
b) Ecclesiastes like a cynical, critical person (the “Teacher”) is about how life can seem to be very meaningless )”Hevel, hevel”- in Hebrew, “vapour”- a metaphor of life’s transience and its enigma or paradox-its instability.
c) Job like an old jaded person- and this book explores the question: is God always wise and fair?? . 【3】4】[God never answers this directly, but shows Job His infinite wisdom and power]
Back to Proverbs- the main character threading through it is Lady Wisdom. In Hebrew, it’s “Hook-mah”- an attribute of God, but that He graciously shares and gifts to us.
Solomon, whose name is on the book of Proverbs (although he might not have written it, he is definitely the Father of Israel’s wisdom tradition-I Kings 4:32 Solomon wrote 3,000 proverbs and 1,005 songs!), asked God for wisdom to lead Israel well.
I Kings 3 that Solomon had prayed to God for wisdom. He prayed for an understanding heart to judge the people. He wanted to be able to discern between good and bad. God was so pleased by the prayer that He gave Solomon what He asked for and more. He also promised Solomon even more if He lived up to the standards that He set.
And God granted Him- He was known as the “wisest man in the ancient world”, and it wasn’t just book smarts, but skill. He was wise enough to run the kingdom. Elsewhere in the bible, Hook-mah was also used on Israeli’s skilled craftsman- therefore, wisdom is practical knowledge.
Other OT examples of God’s people who needed a lot of wisdom: Daniel ((Belteshazzar)
and Esther were both taken away to the courts of foreign kings; strangers of low ranking in highly political and dangerous environments. Yet, they both sought and received God’s guidance – hookmah examples!
(B) The Here and Now
Fast forward from OT times to our modern day. How can the sayings of Proverbs help us to navigate this modern, confusing world?
I think the first thing to remember is that we are not so special- every generation has its challenges and difficulties. These words were written by CS Lewis in 1948, when the world was wrestling with the atomic reality, and people were asking- how now shall we live, where the threat of war and atomic bombs were very real?
“If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.”
— “On Living in an Atomic Age” (1948) in Present Concerns: Journalistic Essays
The same could be said of us today, but substitute “COVID age” for “atomic age”. Don’t give up living God’s Good Life, because of the challenges and crisis. There is no “ideal” or “perfect” time to do so; if you wait for it, you’ll never do it.
We continue to live, day by day, doing sensible and human things, living our daily life- exactly the type of things Proverb is all about.
We will be going into more depth into specific chapters in the rest of the sermon series, but for today, I’ve picked up some ideas about guidance and planning to start with:
(1) Don’t be a fool
Don’t ignore God. It’s not about being educated, or having book smarts.
Don’t despise instructions. Proverbs is not just the saying of wise people, it is God speaking to us through those who have come before us.

(2) Know your advisors
When there are big jobs at hand, we need to get guidance from those who are wise around us. You might say- wait, we’re not at war. That’s what YOU think! The enemy would disagree. Re-read the Screwtape Letters from CS Lewis.

(3) Be careful in picking your plans
Our time and energy is limited; be selective in what you want to focus on.
Look not just at the outcome, but also the process- HOW will you get there? Are both the end results, and the way things are done pleasing to God- do they reflect Him, in that they’re JUST, PEACEFUL, GOOD? Those are the attributes of our God.

(4) Seek wisdom actively
Like any other applied skill, it needs to be practiced and honed.
We practice Hook-Mah; we practice the skill of making a good life.
How do we practice wisdom?
- Because wisdom is an attribute of God, to seek wisdom is to seek God. To despise wisdom is to despise God.
- Richard Foster in his old classic, the Celebration of Discipline, lists some disciplines we should focus on as disciples. Disciples = should acquire disciplines!! Right???
He says- Guidance is the most radical of the Disciplines because it goes to the heart of this matter of walking with God. Guidance means the glorious life of hearing God’s voice and obeying His word.

(5) Know The Goal
The goal is not a successful delivery or execution of your plan.
BUT- actually the goal is your character and your walk with God.
The goal is for us to become more Christ-like, transformed into His image more and more each day. Specific guidance in particular matters is a happy by-product of this goal having worked its way into our lives.
[Paul said, “Those whom he foreknew he predestined to be conformed to the image of his son” (Romans 8:28b).]

Should we expect fruits all the time? No I don’t think so. Many of us have plans gone awry, perhaps broken dreams and hopes, expectations swept away in a wave of sadness. So we might plan many things, but in the end, it is God’s purpose and not ours that prevails.
All living things have season, a fruit tree can’t bear fruit all the time!! But, even when a fruit tree is dormant, it’s out of season, it doesn’t change its identify, its characteristic. You can tell, by its leaves, its barks, that yes, this is rambutan tree. Because we were made in the image of God, out of season, those marks of godliness, Christ-likeness are still there.

And therein lies the paradox of planning. We can plan, but we have no idea if it will come to pass. While God allows us choices, ultimately He is in control.
- Therefore, we seek not the Guidance, but the Guide.
- Seek not the plans, but the one who laid them.
- Seek not the wisdom, but the Wise One- God.
The Flourishing life is one of walking with God.
We commit our plans to God- we ROLL them onto Him.

[1]https://www.knowableword.com/2012/06/21/proverbs-audience/
[2] https://www.wordsoflife.co.uk/bible-studies/study-6-the-wonder-of-gods-guidance/
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GswSg2ohqmA
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gab04dPs_uA

Bilingual Service Video Link: https://youtu.be/EOB0z7ntyss