What is God’s Plan for Me?

1. Read: Acts 17:24-28

2. Our topic of discussion today.

1) “What is God’s plan for me?” is a popular question today.

2) In the 2011 movie, “The Adjustment Bureau,” Matt Damon and Emily Blunt played two characters that were fighting against their destiny.

3) The movie pitted the concept of freedom against the concept of God’s having a very specific plan for their life and happiness.

4) At the end of the movie, they were allowed to be free and choose their own path.

5) Many people struggle with this very same problem.

6) The Bible teaches that we are free.

7) The Bible also teaches that God has a plan for us.

8) How do we reconcile our freedom with God’s plan for our lives?

9) Does God map out every little detail?

10) Do we have absolute liberty to act any way we desire?

3. About the Text:

1) In Acts 17, Paul is addressing a group of prominent men of Athens—philosophers.

2) He speaks about God’s existence and prominence.

3) He also speaks about why God created men.

4) Paul sums the answer up in Acts 17:27, “That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:”

5) God wants us to seek and find Him.

6) God is not far from us; He is nearer than we think.

7) What is God’s plan for me?

4. Ref. to S, T, P, O, and A.

1. God gives life to all – God wants us to have life!

1) In Acts 17:24-26, Paul said, “God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;”

2) God is the giver of life.

3) He also gives us everything that we need to maintain life.

4) Truly God wants us to live.

2. He wants us to have the abundant life.

1) Jesus describes the life that God wants for us in John 10:10.

2) “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”

3) There are forces in this world that would take away our life.

4) We are often our own worst enemies in this regard.

5) Consider Jesus words in Matthew 16:25-26, “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”

6) When we pursue things our own way, and do not do things God’s way, we will lose our life instead of find it.

3. He wants us to have eternal life.

1) God’s desire for us to have life extends beyond this life into the next.

2) John 3:16 – eternal life.

4. God’s plan for me is to have physical life, spiritual life, and eternal life.

1. Love for God supremely.

1) God must come first in our life (Matthew 6:33, Deuteronomy 6:5, Matthew 22:37).

2) To put anything else first is to be an idolater of some kind.

3) To identify with anything else is to become less than what we are, persons created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27).

2. Love for your neighbor.

1) Leviticus 19:18, James 2:8 “If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well.”

2) We must show love toward strangers, yes, but more so, toward those we know.

3) My friends are my neighbors.

4) My family are my neighbors.

3. Love for yourself.

1) This is not a self-centered infatuation with self.

2) It is the proper identification of self in relationship with God.

3) Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

4) We respect ourselves enough to take up God’s work and be involved in the lives of others regardless what they do or think about us.

5) Proper love of self is not pleasing self or ingratiating ourselves to others.

6) Proper love of self is knowing who we are as Christians, and whose we are.

7) Colossians 3:3 “For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”

8) 1 Corinthians 6:20 “for ye were bought with a price: glorify God therefore in your body.”

1. God has given us liberty.

1) Jesus brings it: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor: He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovering of sight to the blind, To set at liberty them that are bruised” (Luke 4:18).

2) It is wherever the Spirit of the Lord is: “Now the Lord is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Corinthians 3:17).

3) Knowing God’s truth brings it – John 8:31-32.

4) God wants us to stand fast in it – Galatians 5:1.

2. We are free to make many choices in life for ourselves.

1) Paul wrote, “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13).

2) What may we do with this liberty?

3) Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”

3. But we are not free to let sin take control of our lives.

1) Romans 6:12 “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey the lusts thereof.”

2) 2 Peter 2:19 “promising them liberty, while they themselves are bondservants of corruption; for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he also brought into bondage.”

4. God uses our freedom to accomplish His will.

1) Colossians 1:27 “to whom God was pleased to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:”

2) Phil.2:13 “for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure.”

1. What is God’s plan for me? God’s plan for me is to have . . .

1) Life

a. Physical life.

b. Spiritual life.

c. Eternal life.

2) Love

a. Love for God

b. Love for neighbor.

c. Love for self.

3) Liberty

a. Free to make righteous choices.

b. Not free to sin.

c. Free to do God’s will.

2. Invitation