Summer Road Trip #1: Plan for the Journey

Summer Road 

Trip

(Plan for the Journey)

Prov 16:9 9 In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps. NIV

Introduction:  Today I am beginning a New Summer Series Entitled:  Summer Road Trip.  

The Premise is that there are many Roads mentioned in Scripture and so many lessons and memories were made on those roads that they speak to us 1000’s years later.  

Recently I was at my parent’s home and we were discussing all the trips we had been on when I was a kid…Carlsbad Caverns, the Great Redwoods of the North West, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park, Glacier National Park, all the KOA campgrounds.  

Growing up as a kid we took a family vacation during the summer.  Now we did it in a truck with a cab-over-camper.  Now most of you have not idea what that means but you can google it later.  

Growing up in my home…my dad rarely sat at the table…most of his meals he ate from his lounge chair in the living room…the table was reserved for special occasions and us kids to sit at.  

Until it was time to plan the family vacation…my dad would grab the Rand McNally book of maps that has set next to his chair all year and around March or April…he would come in, grab the book of maps, and spread them across the kitchen table….it is time to make a plan, to determine a destination…

Mind you…I have seen most of America west of the Smokie Mountains from the back of a cab-over-camper…

Transition:  Today’s title is:  Plan for the Journey

Prov 16:9 9 In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps. NIV

“Dreams are Free; the Journey is not”  John Maxwell

  1. Wisdom
    1. First of all for us to understand this Proverb we have to embrace the overview or understanding of all the Wisdom books in Scripture:
      1. Ecclesiastes
      2. Job
      3. Proverbs
    2. The Wisdom books are not the Promise books…
      1. Often times we read the wisdom books or the proverbs and think they are guarantees when in fact they are probabilities…but not guarantees…
      2. For example:  “Train up a child in the way they should go and when they are old they will not turn from it…” 
        1. That is a high probability but not a guarantee…
        2. Our kids have a will of their own and have been breaking parents hearts for 100’s of years…
        3. The writer of Proverbs are saying…Wisdom will increase your possibilities and probabilities…that if you train your children in the way they should go…your kids will more than likely not turn from it…or at least they will return to it…
    3. Two Sides to the Same Coin
      1. The Wisdom books along with the Promises of God are two sides of the same coin…
      2. When we read the wisdom of God…or the promises…
        1. We are reading from a point of view…namely ours…
        2. But there is another point of view…and it is God’s point of view…
      3. See a Point of view, is a view from a Point…
        1. Each new step in life gives us a new point of view
        2. Each point in our journey gives us brand new perspectives
      4. 2 Sides of a single coin…example
        1. Parents / kids
        2. Boss / Employees
        3. Pastor / Parishioner

Transition:  Charles Spurgeon was asked:  “How do you reconcile God’s will and Man’s Responsibility”.  Spurgeon went on to answer and said:  “I never try to reconcile friends…” 

What he is saying is…there is two sides to each coin…in our text…

  • It’s our hearts
  • Then God establishing our Steps
  1. Heart
    1. In Poetic Language the Heart is not that organ that pumps blood…
    2. Instead, the Heart is the Seat or Residence of:
      1. Our Emotions
      2. Our Desires
      3. Our Intentions
      4. Even our Thought-out Choices…
      5. Jer 17:9

9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? KJV

Ezek 11:19-21 19 And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, 20 that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. ESV

Ps 37:4 4 Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. ESV

        1. In these texts…God is saying…the issues in our lives and with our plans…begin in our hearts…
        2. And God is offering a Divine Exchange…
          1. Where He gives us a new heart and Gives us new Desires…
          2. See only Buddhism teaches us to suppress and rid ourselves of all desires…even the desire to love and be loved…
          3. But God wants to redeem all of that and make it center stage in our decision-making process.
    2. Thus the reason why Salvation is so critical…
      1. In a Man’s heart, He determines his course…
      2. You set the destination in your heart…
        1. Is my destination to Love the Lord
        2. Is my destination to love others
        3. Is my destination Heaven…and have I made reservations…?

Transition:  On our Summer Road Trips…we never set out aimlessly…My dad always had a destination in mind and a charted course…

  1. Right In Pencil
    1. As Christ Followers, we make our plans in Pencil…
      1. Once our heart is leaning toward God…
      2. Once we have asked God to take our lives and lead us on this journey…
      3. We then make our plans in pencil…
    2. Giving God the Opportunity, day by day, to altar our plans…
    3. Oftentimes in my life…because I am a Plan, strategy, vision, goal, routine guy….
      1. Listen if you don’t change your daily routines the odds of you hitting your goals diminish greatly…
      2. But my challenge is…I want to write my plans in INK and then ask God
        1. Bless my emotions…don’t change them
        2. Bless my plans…don’t reroute them
        3. Give me My Desires…instead of God give me knew desires….
      3. When our Plans are in INK
        1. We can become frustrated with God…
        2. Disillusioned
        3. Angry
        4. And it is usually because we have the relationship backward…
          1. He’s God…we’re not…
    4. Illustration:  I recall one summer trip when we were headed somewhere…to be honest I don’t recall the destination…I just remember the detour…I also recall becoming frustrated….
      1. We were driving through Colorado and my parents saw this sign that said, Cripple Creek Mining Community…now this was 45 years ago…today Cripple Creek is a casino I believe…but back then it was a little mining town with a KOA Campground and a stocked trout pond…
      2. I was so frustrated that we were going that way…and we were going to stay the night there…but because of that fishing opportunity and the crystal clear streams…I never have forgotten it…
      3. I’m forever grateful my dad made our plans in pencil….
    5. To be able to write in Pencil…You have to have two things”
      1. Confidence and Agility
        1. Confidence that God knows what He is doing…
        2. And the Agility to adjust along the way…
  2. Established Steps
    1. “But God directs or establishes his steps…”
      1. This is the other side of that coin…
      2. The side we don’t see
      3. The differing point of view…that often times we do not see until we have walked it out…and other times we will never see it…from the viewpoint of us being on this earth…
      4. This is the Trust Factor…
    2. Proverbs 16:9
      1. But as a depending creature, that is subject to the direction and dominion of his Maker. 
      2. If men devise their way, so as to make God’s glory their end and his will their rule, they may expect that he will direct their steps by his Spirit and grace, so that they shall not miss their way nor come short of their end. 
      3. But let men devise their worldly affairs ever so politely, and with ever so great a probability of success, yet God has the ordering of the event, and sometimes directs their steps to that which they least intended. 
      4. The design of this is to teach us to say, If the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that (James 4:14,15) 
      5. and to have our eye to God, not only in the great turns of our lives, but in every step we take. Lord, direct my way, 1 Thess 3:11. Matthew Henry Commentary…

Transition:  This is the journey of faith…we have to believe the one who orchestrated the course, will get us home…and we are trusting him for that…

I’m trusting him to establish my steps on this journey…

  1. Lessons From Trey’s Summer Road Trips
    1. Now here is another challenge for some of us…
    2. We are Destination Driven instead of Journey Enjoying
      1. This is me…so bad…
      2. Trey and Jonna do a trip together each year for Trey’s birthday…I’ve only gone a couple of times…
      3. The reason is…Trey and Myself Travel completely different…
        1. I’m destination driven
        2. He is ALL ABOUT THE JOURNEY…the Experience…the Memories…
      4. His approach and conversations over the years has taught me so much about my walk with Christ…and how I need to stop being so destination driven…and enjoy the journey…make memories along the way…and experience People and Life…

Transition:  So many times after Trey has come back from his Journey and Adverture and tells me all about it…I’ll tell Jonna…let’s plan to go to Scotland, Ireland, England, Paris, Italy, Spain, etc…

Trey though his telling of the story…captures my heart to experience the same thing…isn’t that what summer road trips are supposed to do…

We have all had the disappointing road trips, epic-fail vacations…

But honestly…the one’s we talk about are the one’s filled with memories, and people we love…

  1. Conclusions

Prov 16:1 16 Mortals make elaborate plans, but God has the last word. (MSG

Prov 16:9 9 We plan the way we want to live, but only God makes us able to live it.  (MSG)

    1. These two verses can’t be separated within the Wisdom of the Writer…
      1. The writer is really asking what are we talking about…
      2. Are we talking about the Journey or only missed opportunities….
      3. Jonna will tell you of her family Summer Road Trips…
        1. And as a family they would see places on the map…and say, Daddy let’s stop there…and his reply was always…on the way back we will stop…yet rarely ever stopping even on the way back…
        2. Though so frustrating when you are child…now when she tells the story…she laughs…and we all complete her sentences laughing about it…
        3. But those disappointments aren’t what has marked her…it is the places they did stop…the places her dad had mapped out for her and the family…
    2. Are you living from the Place of what you think you have missed or what God has mapped out for you….
    3. Are you and I talking about the Good things in our Journey of Faith…Including our Destination…Heaven…or are our conversions only about unmet expectation from God…because we weren’t willing to change our Hearts.  

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