Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.
The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us
or contact us at my libertybaptist.org or just look
us up on Facebook. And now we hope that this
message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.
Please turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter #12 this morning,
Luke and chapter #12 and again, glad that we have the
opportunity to have the technology to be able to live
stream to you all today and to be able to be here despite the
conditions in the building. We sure are glad to be able to
be preaching the word of God. Nonetheless, the title, my
message this morning is this, How to avoid becoming a January
fool? How to avoid becoming a January
Fool. Of course, we're all familiar
with April Fools, aren't we? I mean, that comes around April
1st every year. However, a January fool is
probably not something that we would think will be a very
common thing or maybe something you've never even thought of at
all. Now, where did I come across
this title? Where did I come across this
line of thinking? Well, you know, about 42% of
Americans plan to make New Year's resolutions for 2026 and
they breakdown in these ways. 48% say they are going to make
improvements in fitness or exercise. 38% say that they want
to make improvements with their finances. 36% talk about mental
health, 34% weight loss, 32% improved diet.
I think already killed that one after the last few days and we
haven't started January yet, but some surveys find that only
about 6% of people follow through on their resolutions for
a full year. So to consider that 94% of those
who make resolutions here in the next few days will not actually
keep those resolutions. Now, I've mentioned this before
and I'll mention it again in regards to New Year's
resolutions. There's neither a precept for
New Year's resolutions in the Bible nor is there a principle
against making New Year's resolutions in the Bible.
Whether you do or not, it is not something that that means that
you are a good Christian if you do, or that you are a bad
Christian if you do not. However, whether you make them
or not, this is a very natural time of year to think about the
future. As we roll the page from the
2025 calendar to the calendar for 2026, there is something
very natural about taking stock about what our spiritual life
was in the year before and the other parts of our life as well
and how those parts of our life will be affected into 2026.
O, with all of your plans for the future and all of the things
you may be thinking about here for 2026 just a few days away,
my question you do this morning is this.
Where does God plan into your plans?
Where does the Lord fit into those things that are coming up
for 2026? And that is a subject that we
see here in Luke chapter #12 this morning.
Now, why would I say that you would be a January fool, that
you want to avoid being a January fool?
Well, I want to show here in the next few moments that if your
plans don't include Jesus, you can.
Plan on failing. That if your plans don't include
Jesus Christ for the upcoming year, then you are planning on
failing. And that would make you, yes,
not a fool in April, but rather a fool here in January.
By the way, the foolish part of that doesn't even come from my
words, but actually from Jesus Christ that we'll see here in
just a moment. So why don't you, well, stand,
sit, whatever you want to do, guys.
All right, Why don't we stand for the reading of God's Word?
All right, let's do that. Luke chapter #12 And let's begin
reading in verse #16 And it says this.
And he spake A parable unto them.
This is Jesus speaking a parable to the crowd, saying, the ground
of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully.
And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do?
Because I have no room where to bestow my fruits.
And he said, This will I do? I will pull down my barns and
build greater and there will I bestow all my.
Fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul,
Thou hast much goods laid up for many years.
Take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
But God said unto him, Thou fool that there's that word there,
thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.
Then who shall these things be which thou hast provided?
So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich
towards God. There's much for us to consider
here with the upcoming year, this sin that we find of the
foolish man who had not God in his plans, and we'll talk more
about that in a moment. So why don't you be seated and
let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we do thank you
again for this morning. I pray that you would be with
the word as it's given. Certainly the conditions are not
normal with the amount of people in the room, the amount of
people watching online, all of these different things.
But Lord, we know you're. Greater than any type of
difficulty, any type. Of issue that could be in the
way hindering your word being preached today.
So I pray that you would just take my mind, have it focused
completely on your word so that those who are watching, those
who are in this room will be helped by your word today.
We do ask this all humbly in Jesus name, Amen.
As you can see, the issue of a January fool isn't necessarily
one that I have made-up, but rather the man in the parable
that we just talked about was observed to be a fool by none
other than Jesus Christ, because he said of the Lord in verse #20
But God said unto him, Thou fool this night, the soul shall be
required of thee. Now of course I added the
January part. Jesus didn't talk about January
wasn't January. That wasn't a month or an ID or
a concept for them. But the predicament of this
foolish man is one that people come across every January as
well as other parts of the year as well.
In fact, it's very easy for us to understand what the
definition of a fool is. The Bible tells us the fool has
said in his heart there is no God, and so someone who has no
belief in God is a fool. But I would also say that we can
live foolishly even as believers when God is not part of our
thought process in our daily life.
And so while we may not be the fool who is unsaved, the fool
that doesn't believe in God, we can still act the fool.
We can play the part of the fool when we do not incorporate the
thoughts of God into our daily, really our hourly and minute by
minute life, because He should be part of all of our thoughts
and everything that we do. Now to truly understand why
Jesus spoke this parable, we kind of have to go back to the
beginning of the chapter. So look at what it says in verse
#1 of chapter #12 and it says in the meantime, when there were
gathered together an innumerable multitude of people, there were
a lot of people that were gathered around and a lot of
people that want to hear Jesus Christ in so much that they
trode one upon another. These elite people are about to
have a Stampede and trample on each other, but Jesus is
speaking to them and they all want to hear Him speak.
Now what happens in the next verses is that Jesus is going to
continue a condemnation that took place from the previous
chapter of the Pharisees. What was the Pharisees problem?
Well, where do we begin? But the main problem was this,
that they wanted to do things for God on the outside, but yet
their hearts were far from God. That was the real problem of the
Pharisees. Everything else was an
extension. Everything else was a symptom of
the real heart problem, which was they didn't regard God at
all. And everything they did on the
outside was to make themselves look good or to raise their
regard in the minds of other people.
But they really had nothing to do with God.
And so here is Jesus talking of himself, talking of the
Pharisees, giving the condemnation, talking about the
real weighty spiritual issues of the heart.
So Jesus is giving this incredible speech.
He's giving this incredible sermon, if you will, and
condemnation of the Pharisees, but also preaching to this great
multitude of people about how the issues of the Lord have to
be the issues of the heart. And in the middle of this, with
all of these people and all of this serious talk, look at verse
#13. It says, and one of the company
said unto him, Master, speak to my brother that he divide the
inheritance with me. Now just stop here for a moment.
Could you imagine Jesus giving this sermon to perhaps 1000
people, perhaps more? We certainly know that Jesus
spoke to multitudes of thousands of people in his ministry at any
given time because we know he fed 5000 that that wasn't even
counting women and children. And so we see that an
innumerable amount of people are there, and Jesus is giving this
heartfelt, passionate sermon about the needs of the spiritual
life and the needs to not live like a Pharisee.
And in the midst of this, there's a man who works his way
through the crowd and he raises his hand and he says, Jesus,
stop, just a minute, I've got a really important question.
And Jesus allows the man to ask the question.
And he says, this, will you speak to my brother, that he
divides the inheritance with me. In fact, it's really not even in
the form of a question, isn't it?
It's actually more like Jesus, I need you to speak to my brother
that he divide the inheritance with me now.
The way that. Inheritance would have worked in
those types of times was that an older brother would have gotten
a larger inheritance and that the younger brother or brothers
would have gotten a single portion where the older brother
would have had a double portion. We don't know exactly what's
going on here. And interestingly enough, this
man is so self absorbed he doesn't even really explain to
Jesus what's going on. He doesn't lay out really what's
happening. He says this Jesus, speak with
my older brother for he is doing me wrong.
He has no clue what Jesus is talking about.
He has no recognition that there are other people there.
He has no recognition of weightier spiritual matters.
All he cares about is he needs his money.
He needs it now and he needs someone like Jesus, let's say,
to step in and, you know, act as the advocate for him.
Could I put it to you this way this morning?
This man really didn't understand who Jesus was.
He did not understand Jesus's ministry.
He did not understand Jesus message.
And I don't believe he understood that Jesus was the
Messiah because of the way that he treated him and the way he
treated the message. And so Jesus takes a very dim
view of what this man just did. And he says in verse #14 he says
and he said unto him, Man who made me a judge or divider over
you? And he said unto him, Take heed
and beware. Of covetousness for a man's
life. Consistent not.
In the abundance of the things which he hath possesseth.
And really he's just trying to bring this conversation back to
what he was talking about before and he's trying to tell him,
listen, you think life's about this inheritance that you're
talking about. Don't you understand that there
are things that are much more important?
Don't you understand that your life needs to be about the Lord
and your life doesn't need to be about these things that you so
greatly desire to be able to have for yourself?
So here's this man, He interrupts a conversation about
the spiritual to have a conversation about the here and
now. And to top it all off, he
started with the faulty premise of Jesus.
I need you to do for me not realizing or recognizing who
Jesus was. Now let me be clear about
something, because Jesus spoke this parable in response to what
was. The question, or rather what was
the statement of this very foolish man?
But I will say to you, you might say, well, Pastor, is this a?
Prohibition against preparation. You know, we talked about the
the man brought in goods and then he tore down barns and want
to build bigger barns. Does this mean as a Christian
it's not good for us to prepare? This mean as a Christian it's
not good for us to make plans in our life?
No, that's not what I'm saying here this morning.
I don't believe that's what Jesus saying this morning.
The problem is, this man's covetousness caused him to plan
on everything except for God. Everything in his life was as he
wanted it, except he excluded God from all of his plans.
And we'll look more about why that is in just a moment.
But planning is good for the Christian.
In fact, save your spot here and go to Luke chapter #14 very
quickly. Luke chapter #14 I've never been
so glad to have a cup of coffee next to me during a sermon in my
life. Luke chapter #14 Look at verse
#28. Jesus says red letters here once
again, so you could see this is Jesus.
For which of you intending to build a tower sitteth not down
1st and count at the cost whether he has sufficient to
finish it. Lest happily after he had laid
the foundation and is not able to finish it all that behold it
begin to mock him, saying this man began to build and was not
able to finish it. He says which of you will get
into a building program and don't figure out if you can
build it all in the 1st place. He says, of course, that's
something that you would want to do.
Nobody would add an addition to their house or nobody would try
to build something from scratch, a shed in the backyard, whatever
it would be, and not really figure out if they had the money
to build all the materials. Because if you don't figure that
out and get halfway through and you have to stop, you look
foolish. And of course, you'll probably
waste the money of all the materials that will be exposed
to the elements unfinished. And so Jesus says there's not a
problem with that. In fact, it's expected that that
would be the case. Even continues on in verse #31
and he says or what king goeth to make war against another King
sitteth not down 1st and consulteth whether he be able
with 10,000 to meet him that cometh against him with 20,000
or else while the other is a great way off, he sendeth an
ambassador and desireth conditions of peace.
If kings have wars on their mind, they ought to have enough
common sense to figure out do we have a chance to win this
battle? And if they don't have a chance
to win the battle, if they planned properly, then instead
of maybe waging war, they ought to send a peace envoy to be able
to make peace with that other group instead of going to war
with them. You know, Jesus is not
condemning the fact that people are to plan here.
But there's some verses that we skipped here that kind of brings
us into better context, which also helps us in Luke chapter 12
as well. Look at verse #27.
And whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me, cannot
be my disciple. And look at.
We bookend that text, we just read.
Look at verse #33 So likewise, whosoever he be of you, that
forsaketh not all that he hath, He cannot be my, just cannot be
my disciple. Jesus is saying, excuse me,
Jesus is saying this. You make all the plans that you
need to plan, but you better plan on being a disciple of
Jesus Christ first. Amen.
You better count the cost of what it means to be a disciple.
And when we look at this man in Luke chapter #12 you can turn
back to Luke chapter #12 as we look at this man in Luke chapter
#12 there are no thoughts of the Lord in his mind.
There are no thoughts of the Lord in anything that he's
doing. All he's thinking about is what
he has, what he'll gain, what he can hold on to, and what he can
absorb within his own life. These are the only thoughts that
he has. Nowhere within this is any
thoughts of the Lord. Listen, as you start the new
year, start from this place. Everything that you have,
everything that you are and everything that your life is and
can be is because of God Almighty.
Listen, everything that you have, everything that you are
and everything that your life is and that it can be is because of
God Almighty. Not because of ourselves, not
because of what we have done, not because we are self
providers, self feeders. And listen, God wants us to be
workers, and God wants us to be people of industry.
But listen, your work is nothing without God.
Your industry is nothing without God.
Your achievements are nothing without God.
And here's a man who thought he was self-made and he thought he
could keep it all and live on it all and do it all.
But then there was a time when his soul was required of God and
he was found wanting. Why?
Because it was the first time he thought about God and it was
everlastingly too late. There was 3 very foolish
mistakes this man made. First of all, this man thought
his possessions were his own. This man thought his possessions
were his own. This man had a my problem in the
parable that we read, I have in my Bible circled every time he
used the word my in verse #17 He said my fruits.
Verse #18 He said my barns, my fruits, my goods.
Over and over he talked about the things that were his, and
over he talked about what he had.
And then he follows that up in verse #19 He says, And I will
say to my soul, soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many
years. Take thine ease, drink, eat,
drink and be merry. He says, I have taken all these
things in and I am going to take down my barns.
I'm going to build up even bigger barns.
And I'm just going to allow the things that I have provided for
myself to keep me satisfied as long as I possibly can.
And he was foolish to think that the possessions that he had were
his own. Now, listen, I've said this
before and I'll say this again this morning.
This is not my church. Just because I am the pastor of
Liberty Baptist Church, it doesn't make it my church.
Listen, the Lord bought this church.
Christ precious blood purchased not just our salvation, but yes,
even the church as an institution itself.
These aren't my words. These aren't the Lord's words to
us this morning. But listen, just as the church
is not my own, the car that I'm going to get into and go home in
a little while, that's not my own too.
The apartment that I'm going to go home to when I am done, when
I'm in the car and go home, that's not my apartment.
The clothes of which I wear now are not my own.
The money that I have within my wallet is not my own.
You say, well, what is your own, really?
None of it is there's nothing that I own, there's nothing that
I possess, there's nothing that I have made in and of myself.
There's nothing that literally I can look at and say this is
mine. Truly everything that I have is
because of what God Almighty has done in my life.
That's why it says in first Corinthians chapter 4 verse 2.
This is our theme about 10 years ago here at the church.
Moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found
faithful. Listen, we are just stewards.
We are just the the keepers of the things that God has given
us. If you believe that you have
made what you have on your own, then you are misguided.
And so, yes, even as we look at 2026 and we consider maybe some
decisions that we're going to make or some things that we need
to get done properly, have you considered that your possessions
really don't belong to you, They belong to the Lord?
John Wesley taught and lived wisely regarding riches.
He said that you should earn as much as you can, save as much as
you can. And give as much as you can.
I like that, that you earn as much as you can, save as much as
you can, and give as much as you can.
That's someone who understands that their possessions are not
their own. But this man also had poor
thinking, not just toward his possessions, but also towards
his pleasure as well. What did he say in verse #19 I'm
just going to live off the fat of that which I have acquired
before. Soul, thou hast much goods laid
up for many years. Take thine ease, eat, drink and
be merry. I listen.
Our own pleasure is not our own. We serve at the pleasure of the
Lord. And I remember several years ago
we had someone who was here, a dear lady who's now gone on to
be with the Lord, and she looked at me and that we.
Were talking about pastors. I said something about
retirement. I don't know what it was, but
she says pastors never retire. And I said, well, this pastor is
going to retire someday. I said, because there's going to
come a point in my life where, you know, I probably won't be
able to fulfill the qualifications of being a pastor
because I won't be able to kind of keep up with what I'm
supposed to be doing. And she couldn't quite
understand that. But then I kind of got into the
conversation with her and I said, listen, you understand
that I may retire someday as a pastor.
By the way, we're talking a long time from now.
But I'm just saying I may retire from someday from being a
pastor, but that doesn't mean I get to retire from being a
servant of the Lord. And I think that clicked with
her a little bit more. The idea was, oh, I may not be a
pastor, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to be a servant.
And boy, that's true for all of us is that we are here in this
life to be servants of the Lord, that we don't serve for our own
pleasure. We don't serve for our own
desires. We don't serve for our own
wants. And listen, so much of our New
Year's resolution, so many of our thoughts are so self centric
about what can I do for myself? What can I have, what can I get,
what can I achieve? And listen, I'm not saying there
isn't a place for some of of those things, but listen, the
Lord better be first and foremost even in those plans
about yourself. Why?
Because I want to get to this place so I can serve the Lord
better. I want to be able to do this so
I can give more time to Jesus. I want to be able to learn, earn
more so I can give more to Jesus.
No, no, this is part of our plans, not for our own pleasure,
but for His. And the amazing thing is, the
more that you try to please the Lord in your life, the more
pleasure you actually have in your life.
The more you desire to serve Him, the more joy you actually
receive in return. Philippians 213 For it is God
which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good
pleasure. He gives us the ability to do
what To please Him. First Corinthians 10/31 Whether
therefore you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all to the
glory of God everything that we do.
Everything that we are, everything of which we possess,
should be to the glorification of God.
First Corinthians 619 and 20. We'll be looking at this on a
Wednesday night here very soon. What know ye not that your body
is the temple, the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which you have
of God? Listen, and ye are not your own,
for you bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your
body and in your spirit, which are God's.
You know, when we use that term pleasure, so often we think of
fun, don't we? We think of joy.
That's what we think of pleasure.
Well, if I serve at God's pleasure, that means I'm making
him happy. But I don't mean necessarily I'm
going to make myself happy. Well, that's not really what's
even being said. When you serve at the pleasure
of somebody, you serve at their desire.
You serve at their whim. You serve at their need.
Several years ago I've tried for several.
Times to be able to be a chaplain here with the Easton
Police Department. We've had three different chiefs
since I've been here. Actually, I think we're on chief
#4 right now. I can't keep track somewhere 3
or 4. And I've gone.
Through chaplain training, I've availed myself to the Easton
Police Department that if they need my help, I'm certainly glad
to do so. I'm not talking about getting
paid to do that, but just as a volunteer if they need someone
to go. To a crime.
Scene or they need someone to make a death notification that
I'm glad to do so. And so I've had this
conversation with them, and there was one time with, I
believe, chief #2 where it seemed like that was going to be
something that was going to be really a need that they wanted
me to fulfill. And so I have my phone, my
phones on during the middle of the night anyway.
By the way, if you ever need me, if there's an emergency in the
middle of night, you call me. But I would just encourage you
call more than once because take a little bit to wake me up all
right in the middle of the night.
But I get a call, it's about 2-3 in the morning.
I look at my phone, it says Easton Police Department.
And immediately it's go time. You know what I'm saying?
Like, mentally, I'm like, it's time we're getting ready to go.
I jump out of bed, grab my phone, go into the next room to
try not to wake Diane up. And I say hello, you know?
And it's kind of like that, you know, you're still trying to
pretend like you weren't sleeping.
And it's like, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello.
And so I, I, I say hello and I'm fully expecting they're going to
tell me what's going on. And I found out that it wasn't
that they wanted me as the chaplain, they wanted me as the
victim of a crime. That the church van was still
out here on the property. It wasn't even titled yet.
We had just bought it and there was a man who tried to hot wire
the church van and tried to steal it.
And they were calling to notify me that this happened about 3:00
in the morning because they had some difficulties in trying to
line up exactly who owned the vehicle because we hadn't titled
it yet. We just bought it a few weeks
ago. Now, what this guy didn't
understand, I'm talking about the guy who was trying to hot
wire the van. We didn't know was that once we
got it here, the battery went out and so he could have been
there all night. In fact, I would have just been
encouraging, man, if and if you could if I could have been there
with him, like man, if you could start it up, you can keep it.
All right, So go for it. Just do the best you can, man.
Let's see what you got. But anyway, I, I was the victim
of the crime, so I had to give them some information about the
van, why it wasn't titled yet, all of these different things.
And I was still very tired. I was pumped up.
I was amped, but I was also tired at the same time.
And so, and I don't know why I said this.
It may have been because of something I heard on television
or on a movie or something like that.
And the Sergeant said, all right, well, Pastor Rivero, you
have a good night. And my response to that is I
serve at the pleasure. Of the Easton Police Department
and I hung up the phone and I thought that is one of the
stupidest things that. You could ever possibly say like
how formal and how I serve at the pleasure of the Easton
Police Department. It's like what a what a dumb
thing to say and I almost. Want to call them back?
And say, you know, I don't serve at your pleasure.
No, no, no, I don't mean that either.
They got, you know, just like just leave it alone.
Just maybe he maybe he won't remember.
You know, I I I don't know exactly what it was, but you
know, the whole idea of serving at the pleasure of somebody is
not even about joy or happiness. The idea is I was trying to say,
listen, if Easton Police Department needs something, I'm
here to help. That's what an ambassador does.
They serve at the pleasure of the president.
That's why the new president always picks new ambassadors.
Why? Because they are the
representative of that president in whatever far-flung locale
they are in. They don't serve at their own
pleasure. They don't get to decide what
they want to do. They are doing what the
president wants him to do. So for us, if we are to serve at
the pleasure of God, it's really not about our joy or about our
happiness. It's this, Lord, whatever you
want with my life, I'm willing to do it.
Whatever the plans are that I have for my life, they are
secondary to what your plans are for me in my life.
I serve at your pleasure. And ironically, you'll have more
pleasure, joy, and happiness by serving at His pleasure than you
ever will by serving yourself. And here's this man who says I
want more. My barns, my fruits, my goods.
I'm going to build more and I'm going to eat and I'm going to
drink and I'll be merry. And the Lord says you're a fool
because you don't understand. This man thought his possessions
were his own, his plans were his own, or rather his possessions
and his and his pleasure were his own.
But in the end, he thought his plans were his own.
This is where he was truly a fool because he didn't know what
time his number was up. He didn't know what time his
soul would be required of him. Verse #20 says God said, To whom
thou fool this night thy soul shall be required of thee.
And whose things then whose shall those things be which thou
has provided? I almost feel like there's that
little bit of, I wouldn't say sarcasm next necessarily, but
the Lord using the man's own words against him.
Remember those things that you provided for yourself when I
call you. Whose those belong to?
Now sure say this, I bet that man had wished he had thought a
whole lot more about God before then those possessions and his
pleasure, because that moment that his soul was called, it was
too late. He was dumb.
Our plans belong to the Lord. Our possession, our pleasure
belongs to the Lord, but inevitably that means our plans,
everything that we want and desire, and who we are, belong
to the Lord. James 4 verses 13 through 15.
Say, Go to now, ye that say today or tomorrow we will go
into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell
and get gain, whereas you know not what shall be on the Morrow.
For what is your life? It is even a vapor that
appeareth for a little time, and then vanished of the way.
For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live and do
this or that. Oftentimes you'll hear people
say something like this, well, I'll see you next time and
they'll say Lord willing. And that's not somebody trying
to be super spiritual or maybe it is.
It's a hard issue, but it. Shouldn't be not not be an issue
with somebody trying to be super spiritual.
It's just the idea of, you know, I'll see you next week.
But then again, the Lord may have different plans.
It could be the Lord calls me home, could be that I'm ill,
could be the car gets broken down.
Could be the heat goes out in the church, who knows the Lord
willing, we'll see you and ideas.
It's supposed to be a reminder to us that we don't know what we
have. Listen, you want to make
yourself look like a fool, make plans because God makes us look
fools in our plans often times, doesn't he?
And just take your plans and give them to the Lord and say,
Lord, what would you have me to do?
This is what we're to do. Now, let's be clear.
And having God as part of your plans doesn't mean just that you
need to do more godly things in your life.
Well, you know what? I should go to church more, or I
should pray more, or I should read my Bible more and listen,
there's nothing wrong with that. Those are wonderful things that
you should do. But that's not what I'm talking
about. It doesn't mean making plans and
then just praying for God to approve those plans.
That's not what I'm talking about either.
It's not just adding God to your plans or asking God to approve
your plans. It's not about adding or
approving. No, no.
This means if we're gods to be part of our plans.
It means that in every area of your life you are yielding your
life to His will and His way. In every area you are going to
yield yourself to His will and His way.
Hudson Taylor had definite convictions about how God's work
should be done. Hudson Taylor, the great
Christian missionary who opened up China to missionaries in the
1800s. And it said.
He said yet another way of working is to begin with God to
ask his plans and to offer him ourselves to Him to carry out
His purposes. And if you read about the life
of Hudson Taylor, this is the way he lived his life and the
way that he was able to open up inland China to the gospel.
It was not because of anything. He did, but is because he opened
up his plans to the Lord and allowed the Lord to be able to
work through him. Listen, you are not
self-sufficient. I don't know another way to say
it other than to say it directly.
You are not self-sufficient, but listen, you are sufficient in
Christ. Second Corinthians 35 Not that
we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything of ourselves,
but our sufficiency is of God. Only a fool.
Would not want to know what God's plans would be for their
life. So that they could make plans
accordingly. You say, well, how am I supposed
to make will plans for, for my life?
How am I supposed to to bring these things before the Lord?
Well, listen, it just means to have a daily walk with the Lord
to be able to be in the word of God every day.
Thy word is a lamp and to my feet and a light in my path.
You know, I found a lot of issues in my life are cleared up
just by being in the Word of God daily.
A lamp doesn't light an incredibly long way, but does
get you the next few steps away as you continue to move forward.
What happens? The next few steps are
illuminated in the next few steps are illuminated, and so on
and so forth. We pray and ask the Lord to give
us direction in our lives and He works things out according to
His will and then also gives us direction through His Spirit to
our spirit. Remember, the Bible says that He
tells us in our spirit that we're the children of God, and
so just the Spirit confirms to. Us that we are saved.
His Spirit can also give us direction within our lives as
well. But he doesn't when you don't
listen to him. He doesn't when your life is so
full of sin that we have quenched the Holy Ghost within
our life. Listen, you are not
self-sufficient. That's illogical.
You're not self-sustaining, that's irrational.
You are not self gratifying. That's I'll intentioned, but
when was the last time you gave more than a token thought to
this question? Lord, what would you have me to
do today? Lord, I see someone over there
that may need the gospel. Should I share the gospel with
them? Lord, what would you do with
help me with this bank account? There's, there's more in the
bank account than I realized. I don't know that we get to say
that very often it's due to the opposite way, but there are
times when you see that, hey, there's more here than I
thought. Lord, what would you have me to
do with? That well, look at my closet and
boy, there's a. Lot of stuff here and I look at
my pantry. There's a lot of things here.
What would you have me to do with this?
And as we come into New Year's resolutions and those type of
thoughts, and again, I'm not telling you, you have to do it,
quite the opposite. But I do think it's important
for us to just take A reckoning of our lives here and there and
to consider what we've done in the past and how we want to move
forward in the future. So whenever that could be,
listen, whatever plans you make, if the Lord's not in it, then
you're acting like the fool here.
And there'll be a time when God will.
Require of you, your soul. And it'll be too late to do
anything else. Your time will be up if you've
made resolutions. I I really want to encourage you
have resolutions about what you're going to do with your
spiritual walk. Have resolutions about the fact
that you'll be in God's house. Have resolutions about reading
the word of God, about praying, about meditating on the word of
God on fasting. Make make resolutions about
taking electronics out of your life.
And I'm not taking talking about taking them completely out of
your life. But even, as I mentioned last
Sunday night, that we can be so filled with electronic data and
so filled with electronic junk, most of which is not even
important or necessary or healthy, that it crowds out the
thoughts that we have of the Lord and it doesn't allow us to
meditate on Him as we ought to. If you haven't thought of the
Lord, if you haven't thought about what you're going to do
with your money this year, if you haven't thought about who
you're to reach this year, if you haven't thought about how
you're just served this year, then listen.
Whether you realize or not, you have a lot in common with the
characteristics of this man in the parable Luke chapter 12, who
thought about my goods and my barns and my fruits, but never
thought about his God until it was too late.
We love, we love our family vacations.
I, I, I love them. I mean, we, we have made a point
ever since we've been in the ministries as particularly as a
pastor that we're going to take a family vacation every year.
It's important. Sometimes we take a little 2 day
vacation or three day vacation. We got so many places just in
our area where you can go and see so many wonderful things.
We love to be able to do that. But could you imagine, let's say
we're taking a family vacation and we're going somewhere that
we love, kind of like Tennessee. We've gone there for several
years in a row. It's been a few years, but we
love going to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, TN and all the
things that they have going on there in the mountains and all
of that. But could you imagine just
telling Diane, me telling Diane, you know, hey, we're going to
make some plans for vacation. She says, well, what kind of
plans? I said, well, listen, don't
worry about it. I'm going to decide where we're
going. I'll save all the money.
I'm going to decide. We're going out to eat.
I'm going to decide what attractions we go to.
I'm going to decide how long it's going to take.
I'm going to decide. And some of you are shaking your
head and laughing already. And thankfully she's not in the
room right now. She's watching in the car where
it's warm. But I will say this that.
Wouldn't go over very well. Not only would it not go over
very well, listen, it's not just necessarily about being selfish,
it's also about being really dumb.
I mean, wouldn't it be better to be able to have a good vacation
to collaborate with her and get her ideas and get her thoughts?
Where would you like to go? She could tell me about places
maybe I didn't know about or wasn't a whereabout or, or
streams of revenue that would help us on our vacation or any
of those things. And by the way, our vacations
are a collaborative effort for that very reason that she'll
send me texts about, hey, we should go visit this or we
should go there. We could save money doing this,
which hey, pastor likes saving money, you know what I'm saying?
And so we do those things together.
Why? Because it's not wise to exclude
her. One, because I don't want her to
feel excluded, but two, because it's wise to include her because
the end result will be much better having her included,
including her wisdom. Now listen, if that's true about
a person who is finite, if that's true about a person.
Who is limited, if that's true, but a person who is sinful?
You say you call your wife sinful only because she's a
person and we're all sinful. Nothing personal.
I said nothing personal. All right, start talking the
horn in a minute. You'll know why.
But if that would be wise for me to do with my wife, how much
more so with a perfect, limitless, all wise, all knowing
God. Why would we?
Why would you want to exclude him?
Why would you not? Want him to have a part?
Listen. Why would you not avail yourself
to wisdom that you would tell the God of heaven?
I got it. So I would never say that,
pastor. I would never say that to him.
When you ignore him, you are saying it.
And why would you not avail himself yourself to His wisdom?
You think your wisdom will make your life better by excluding
His wisdom from His word and from prayer and from study and
from all of those things. No, no, we need Him.
And you know, really this whole idea of your plans don't include
Jesus? You can plan on failing.
Really, this whole issue comes down to this trust.
Listen to me carefully. I'm almost done.
The real issue is that often times we trust ourselves more
than we trust God. Because if we trust the Lord as
we should, we would want Him to be part of our plans.
In fact, we would start with Him at the beginning, not at the
end. We really trust ourselves more
than God. And I want to ask you this
morning, do you really think you're more trustworthy than
God? Do I think in my own self
conceit? And by the way, I have plenty of
it. Do I really think I am wiser
than God? Would I ever say that?
No. Or would I practically live that
way Now? When you do that, you're
incorporating the life of the fool.
So trust me when I say this, if your plans don't include Jesus,
you plan on failing. So what do you need to do this
year? Well, I make sure that Jesus
isn't just the one who check marks.
Your plans when you're done or you go to Him.
Once you've done everything else yourself or just throw in a few
godly things, then do all the other things you want to do.
Lord, what do you want me to watch this year on television?
What do you want me to listen to on the radio?
How do you want me to talk? Who do you want me to associate
with? How do you want me to spend my
leisure time? How do you want me to spend my
money? How do you want me to be in
church? How do you want me to serve?
How do you, in every area of your life, make him part of your
plans? Because if you don't, you plan
to fail. Thank you for listening to the
sermon from the pulpit of Liberty Baptist Church.
If this message was a blessing to you, or if there's any way we
can serve you, please let us know by contacting us at
info@mylibertybaptist.org. Or you can visit us this Sunday
at 800 Washington St. in Easton, MA.
May the Lord bless you as you grow in His Word.