A New Year's Plea: Plan!
Message by
John Piper
Topic: Sanctification & Growth
Planning for Physical Necessities
Suppose the thought enters your mind that you want to build a house. You sit down and make a
list of all the materials you think you will need. Then you order them to be delivered to the lot
where you will build. Everything is piled in the center of the lot, and the next day the bulldozer
comes to excavate the basement and everything is in the way. It's all just where he has to dig.
Why?
A failure to plan.
Without some rudimentary planning you probably won't have anything to eat when you get up in
the morning. And without some detailed planning no one can build a house, let alone a
skyscraper or shopping mall or city. If producing shelter and food and clothing and transportation
is valuable, then planning is valuable. Nothing but the simplest impulses gets accomplished
without some forethought which we call a plan.
Planning for Spiritual Necessities
All of us know this and practice it in relation to the basic physical necessities of life. We take
steps to see that we have enough to eat and clothes to keep us warm. But do we take our spiritual
needs that seriously? Do we apply the same earnestness in planning to maximize our ministry as
we do in planning to make a living?
What I would like to do here is to try to persuade you to set aside time each week in the coming
year to planand specifically to plan your life of prayer and devotion and ministry. The
bulldozer of God's Spirit often arrives at the scene of our heart ready to begin some great work of
building, and he finds that due to poor planning there are piles of disordered things in his way.
We're not ready for him.
The way I hope to motivate you to do this is to give four examples of planning in the Bible. First,
some illustrations from the Proverbs; second, the planning of the apostle Paul; third, the planning
of God; and fourth, the planning of Jesus.
Illustrations from Proverbs
Proverbs 6:67, "Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways and be wise. Without having any
chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her food in summer, and gathers her sustenance in harvest."
The ant is an example not only because it works so hard, but also because it plans ahead. It takes
thought in summer that there will be need in winter, and this forethought provides its needs in
winter.
Proverbs 14:15, "The simple believes everything, but the prudent looks where he is going."
The difference between planning and not planning is whether you look where you are going in
the future or whether you focus all your attention on the immediate right in front of you. If you
are not a planner, then you will be at the mercy of others who try to give you counsel about how
to act now so as to be happy in the future.
So "the simple believes everything, but the prudent looks where he is going." He considers the
days to come and what they are bringing and thinks about how best to prepare for them and use
them to accomplish his purposes.
Proverbs 15:22, "Without counsel plans go wrong, but with many advisers they succeed."
Here the wisdom of planning is taken for granted, and the writer simply gives us advice for how
to make plans that succeed. He says, Don't be so independent that you think yourself above
counsel. Read the wisdom of others who have gone before you. Talk to experienced and wise
people. Watch the way others do things and learn from their mistakes and successes.
Proverbs 16:3, "Commit your work to the Lord and your plans will be established."
Again planning is taken for granted and the issue is: How can you plan in such a way that what
you produce will have abiding value and not just pass away overnight? Answer: Commit it to the
Lord. That is, always seek the Lord's guidance and strength in your planning. Trust his wisdom
and not your own. Then your plans will bear fruit that stays.
Proverbs 24:27, "Prepare your work outside, get everything ready for you in the field; and after
that build your house."
This probably means that it is important to be able to support yourself by the productivity of the
field before you establish your own household. Perhaps we would say to a young person today:
get a job before you get married. Or at least plan how you are going to support the new
household you are establishing.
Proverbs 31:1516, "She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household and tasks
for her maidens. She considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a
vineyard."
Here the model homemaker is a model planner in two ways. She gets up early and assigns tasks
to her maids. You cannot assign tasks to your maids if you have no plan about what you would
like to be accomplished that day. And she considers a field and buys it. What does she consider?
She considers how it will fit into the plan of the household.
Conclusion from the Proverbs: Careful planning is part of what makes a person wise and
productive. Not to plan is considered foolish and dangerous. This is true even though the
Proverbs teach that we do not know what the future may bring. "A man's mind plans his way, but
the Lord directs his steps" (Proverbs 16:9). The fact that the Lord is ultimately in control of the
future does not mean we shouldn't plan. It means we should commit our work to the Lord and
trust him to establish our plans according to his loving purposes.
The Planning of the Apostle Paul
We will take just one example of Paul's planning from the many that we could take from Acts
and from his letters. Romans 15:2028,
I make it my ambition (i.e., my plan) to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been
named, lest I build on another man's foundation . . . But now, since I no longer have any room for
work in these regions, and since I have longed for many years to come to you, I hope to see you
in passing as I go to Spain, and to be sped on my journey there by you, once I have enjoyed your
company for a little. At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem with aid for the saints . . .
When therefore I have completed this, and have delivered to them what has been raised, I shall
go on by way of you to Spain.
Here is a typical example of how the apostle Paul carried out his mission. And I think we should
learn from him that planning is essential to a productive ministry. And I mean your personal
ministry as well as the more complex organism of church ministries. Paul was the greatest
church planter who ever lived. He accomplished more in his life for the spread of the reign of
Christ than any other person. So I think we would do well to take seriously his method. Part of
his method was his planning.
He had a general guideline: he wanted to preach where no one had preached before. Then he
developed a specific plan from this guideline: he would take the gift to Jerusalem; then he would
go to Rome to establish a western base, from which he would then go to Spain.
What makes this especially significant is that as far as we know the plan fell through. He was
arrested in Jerusalem. He went to Rome as a prisoner and probably never got to Spain. It's just
like we saw in the Proverbs. God is the one who finally makes the future. But we plan
nevertheless. God uses our planning even if he aborts it.
