sermonette: Planning and Preparation

Mike Ford
Given 11-Jan-14; Sermon #1193s; 18 minutes

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There is a Yiddish proverb that goes, man plans. God laughs. With that in mind, The following story that I'm going to read to you appeared in a trade magazine that we get at my office. It supposedly comes from an accident report that was filed on a workers' compensation claim. I once I put it in the sermonet, did some research and found out that the story has actually been around for decades in many different variations, but nonetheless, give a listen anyway. Dear Sir, I am writing in response to your request for additional information in Block 3 of the accident report form. I put poor planning as the cause of my accident. You asked for a fuller explanation, and I trust the following details will be sufficient. I am a bricklayer by trade. On the day of the accident, I was working alone on the roof of a new six-story building. When I completed my work, I found that I had some bricks left over which, when weighed later, were found to be slightly in excess of 500 pounds. Rather than carry the bricks down by hand, I decided to lower them in a barrel by using a pulley which was attached to the side of the building on the 6th floor. Securing the rope at ground level, I went up to the roof, swung the barrel out, and loaded the bricks into it. Then I went down and untied the rope, holding it tightly to ensure a slow descent of the bricks. You will note in Block 11 of the accident report form that I weigh 135 pounds. Due to my surprise at being jerked off the ground so suddenly, I lost my presence of mind and forgot to let go of the rope. Needless to say, I proceeded at a rapid rate up the side of the building. In the vicinity of the 3rd floor, I met the barrel which was now proceeding downward at an equal impressive speed. This explains the fractured skull, minor abrasions, and broken collarbone as listed in Section 3 of the accident report form. Slowed only slightly, I continued my rapid ascent, not stopping until the fingers of my right hand were two knuckles deep into the pulley. Fortunately, by this time I'd regained my presence of mind and was able to hold tightly to the rope in spite of beginning to experience a great deal of pain. At approximately the same time, however, the barrel of bricks hit the ground and the bottom fell out of the barrel. Now devoid of the bricks, that barrel weighed approximately 50 pounds. I refer you again to my weight. As you can imagine, I began a rapid descent down the side of the building in the vicinity of the 3rd floor. I met the barrel coming up. This accounts for the two fractured ankles, broken teeth, and lacerations. Here my luck began to change slightly. The encounter with the barrel seemed to slow me enough to lessen my injuries when I fell into the pile of bricks, and fortunately only 3 vertebrae were cracked. I'm sorry to report, however, as I lay there on the pile of bricks in pain, unable to move, I again lost my composure and presence of mind and let go of the rope. And I lay there watching the empty barrel begin its journey back down onto me. This explains the two broken legs. I hope this answers your inquiry. Well, I found this anecdote very humorous, but I, I read it and it made me begin to think about the subject of planning and what part that takes in our lives. Our bricklayer in the story said poor planning was the cause of his accident. Now we speak in the church a great deal about preparation and rightly so, and many times you may have heard the phrase put together planning and preparation used together. Well, they do go together, but they are separate. They are different, but they go together. Prepare means to make ready beforehand for some purpose, to assemble, to put together, to train or to perfect, and we can easily see how this translates into our spiritual lives, especially the parts about making ready and training and perfecting. We must be ready for the return of Christ. We must be prepared. Now to plan, however, means to have a blueprint or a design or an idea. Planning is deciding what you will do. It is the course of action that you want to take. Preparing is making ready for what you might be called to do. So in our story, the bricklayer planned, but he was not prepared when that plan went awry. The great American general and President Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless. But planning is indispensable. I really found, I found that very profound, a very powerful statement, very thought provoking. A much simpler version of that comes to me via the boxer Mike Tyson, who said everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. That also I thought was very profound. So in our story, planning is our bricklayer figuring out a way to get those bricks off the roof. Preparation would have been letting go of the rope at the first moment that things went off the track. To plan is to prepare in advance. You do not need to turn there, but I'll read to you Proverbs 27 1. Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth. Proverbs 19:21 from the contemporary English version. We may make a lot of plans, but the Lord will do what He has decided. Should we even bother with plans? After all, God's in charge. God is sovereign. Proverbs 669, Proverbs 16:9 says, the mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. In researching this, I found that John Reitenbaugh had said in a sermon back in '94 called Fall Feast Lessons, God does not want us to stop making plans. But he always wants us to understand that those plans are subject to his will and his purpose. In the parable of the 10 virgins in Matthew 25, and I do not, you can turn there if you want, but we all know the story. All 10 virgins went out to meet the bridegroom. They all planned to meet him. They all knew he was coming at night. They all had their lamps. But the bridegroom took longer to arrive than expected, and all 10 slept. They still planned to meet him. They just did not know when. You know how the story goes. The cry goes out, the bridegroom is coming. Half the virgins had oil in their lamps, and half did not. Only the five wise virgins were prepared. They had planned ahead. Now remember the definitions I gave you earlier. Planning is arranging beforehand for something, while preparation means to be in readiness. So in this parable, planning meant taking your lamps and going out to meet Christ. It could even mean the intention. of buying oil. But preparation meant you had the oil on hand when it was needed. So, you see, again, the two go together, planning and preparation. They're not at odds with one another, go together. As I read earlier to you from Proverbs 19 to 21, we make a lot of plans, but the Lord will do what he has decided. Alan Saunders is quoted as saying, Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. And that's very, very true. So, again, why bother with planning? Does God make plans? Does he have a plan? Those are foolish questions. Of course he does. A plan is nothing more than a blueprint or a design or an idea. Now you look at this wonderful universe around us, and how could you deny that there is a master plan at work? It's obvious. Preparation involves assembling, constructing and developing. Isn't that what God is doing with us? He's assembling. He's building a family. And he plans for us to be in it, and towards that end, he's preparing us. Noah did not start building an ark when the rain began to fall. He had a set of plans that God had given him previously, and he could not have built the ark without those plans. Now those plans came directly from God. There is no doubt. There is no dispute. They were right. They were proper, they were good. What about the plans that come from our own minds? Because we are big on that. I plan to do this and I plan to do that. We are big on plans as a people. Corporations have annual budgets, and what are they except plans for the coming year. The government talks a lot about budgets which to them are basically just a work of fiction. I remember and I think a few of you do too, or looking at the age of the audience, a lot of you remember. When Joe Tkachi and his gang took over the Worldwide Church of God. We were told repeatedly that he was a great businessman. I never saw any evidence of that, but that's the line they were selling. Now early on, if you remember in his reign, we heard that we needed as a church, a 5 year plan. You remember that? We need a 5 year plan. We never had one. And apparently it was impossible to go forward without one. Much was made of this, and to me, I took it to mean that poor Mr. Armstrong was something of a simpleton and did not understand the complexities of running a large organization. Well, you might remember how all that worked out. This episode, I think, tended to give brethren of that time a bit of a bad taste for plans. Now, the Tkach Cabal had already shown a lot of bad fruit by the time this, this 5 year plan thing came around. It was not the planning per se that was wrong. It was the intent of those that put together that that formulated this plan because God was not in the picture. We were told repeatedly by, by his team of marketers, you remember this, do not just work harder, work smarter. But I do not remember being admonished to seek God's will. We have to remember again Proverbs 19:21, we make a lot of plans, but the Lord will do what He has decided. Now just for grins, I went back to Mr. Armstrong's booklet, The Seven Laws of Success. Hopefully, a lot of you remember that booklet. He listed having a goal as the first of the seven laws. Now what is a goal? It's nothing more than a plan. It's your design. It's a purpose. The second law he listed was preparation. You see, he completely understood the concept. You have a plan or a goal, and you prepare. Now, if you take things back in the 80s at face value, where this grand scheme, this five year plan went off the rails is they forgot the most important law of success, which is the 7th. And it goes like this. Having contact with and the guidance and continuous help of God. Now personally, I did not think a 5 year plan was needed. On the other hand, a plan to accommodate growth. And numbers not a bad thing. Buildings needed today, for instance, would have to be planned years earlier. You have to pull permits. You have to let contracts. You have to assemble materials. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of planning. Those are good things, but you wouldn't set out to build something without first seeking God's will on the subject. The corporate world talks a lot about the five P's or the six P's or the 7 P's. If you use the five P's, all that is is proper. Uh, planning and preparation. How does that go? Poor planning and preparation lead to poor performance. So that 5 P's. Poor planning and preparation lead to poor performance. That's it. OK, an example of that. Is a few years ago, Phyllis and I went through Big Sandy, the Ambassador College campus. It's been three or four years ago and I had not seen the campus since I left there left Texas in the middle 80s. I had never seen the buildings that were erected under the Tako tenure. And I was almost, I was really almost nauseated by the poor placement, the ugliness, the shoddy construction. And the, the, the adage of poor planning and preparation lead to poor performance that really struck home for me when I saw those buildings. And I did not mean this sermon at all to be a slam on the Teko thing. It's just the examples worked out with what I needed. If you would, let's turn to Romans 8 and verse 28. Everybody has a favorite verse. I have two. This is one of mine, Romans 8 and verse 28. Paul says here, We know that all things work together for good. To those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. Now from the Phillips translation, It goes like this. Moreover, we know that to those who love God, who are called according to His plan. Everything that happens fits into a pattern for good. Now what's a pattern? It's a form. It's a guide. It's a design. It's a model. It's a standard to go by. This plan God is following. His blueprint is for us and it's for those who love God. Christ said in John 14:15, If you love me, keep my commandments. This plan is for those striving to live a life pleasing to God. Now, along the way, there are going to be trials and they may cause us to deviate a little bit from the plan. I would call that preparation. If we lose our way for a time, but we still have our plan, we know how to get back to it. This is preparation. Because all that has taken place in our life. was designed to bring us to the point where we now stand right here and now. So, um, Where we are now today and what we've gone through is part of the plan. And it's part of our preparation because the two do go together. Now the word translated purpose in the New King James and plan in the Phillips translation is the Greek word prothesis. And it means a setting forth. Figuratively, it's a proposal or an intention or as we saw Phillips say, a plan. That's figuratively. Now, literally, this is interesting to me. It means a setting forth in advance for a specific purpose, placing it in view. It literally means the show bread. That was placed in the temple. You could literally read verse 28 to say the called according to his show bread. Now, obviously this wouldn't be correct, and the translators knew that in this context God meant the figurative meaning of purpose or plan. But still, to me, the literal meaning of show bread, which is a setting forth, putting it in view in advance for a specific purpose. That could also be correct in that, um, the way the show bread was placed in the temple each Sabbath, placing it in view, so God's plan is there for those to see who have the eyes to see it. Let's turn to James 4. And I'll read verses 13 to 15, James 4. Verse 13, come now, you who say today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell and make a profit, whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that. Is James saying do not plan? No, not at all. He is saying, do not be so puffed up or vain about your plans that, that you, that you boast of them. Rather, as in verse 15, say, if the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that. So in humility, you state your intentions, God-willing. Don't ever think too that your plan is the only way to go because we've been called to do God's will. That's our plan. That's our overall plan in our life. What is God's will is. But since God doesn't post His will on Facebook, Or any other place. We have to figure out in our own lives what His will is in our lives. We form our plan and we seek His guidance through daily prayer and Bible studies. So if our plans are off track, God-willing, he shows us and we make changes. Now this would apply to both the spiritual and the physical plans in your life from something to say as simple as your, as your household budget because what is that but a plan. So let's say from something as simple as your household budget to having oil for your lamps, spiritually speaking. Remember Proverbs 16:9. The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. So if your plan at any time in your life involves holding a rope attached to a barrel of bricks, And the barrel is headed your way, let go of the rope.