God’s Plan! Revealed and Finally Realized!
The Plan: To Satisfy Us and Bring Us Joy!
Psalm 90:12-17

† I.H.S. †

May the grace and peace of God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ satisfy your desires and bring you the greatest joy! AMEN!

Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Poor Performance

As we talk about God’s plan in this sermon series, there are a number of rules about what is called in business “strategic planning, that when taken together give us some basic understanding of the necessity and need for adapting our planning.  Both come from the military, and both have been accepted in corporate and educational leadership as laws.

The first they must have worked on forever, trying to come up with a memorable phrase. It states, Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents &#*$ Poor Performance.

An obvious illustration of this comes out of a story during the Cuban Missile Crisis, where people were building nuclear shelters in their back yards. One story comes out of that time where a man build the best shelter, the highest technology possible, and 20 years of canned food and water stored up. The story went along that one day, during a potential missile launch, he went down, locked himself in for 10 years, and then realized he forgot one thing….

A can opener.

Proper planning and preparation….could have prevented perishing

But as we move towards the end of time, and toward the judgment, what kind of planning and preparation can we devise that will see us through something more overwhelming than war?

We need proper planning and preparation…..

Or we will cry out with the Psalmist, ¹³  O LORD, come back to us! How long will you delay? Take pity on your servants!

For if we don’t know the plan, how can we prepare for it?

All Strategic Plans Dissolve in the first moment of battle

The second rule almost invalidates the first. It’s not fancy, with each first letter matching. It is from a German Field Marshall, but has been requoted by other military leaders, business leaders and politicians since. It says, No plan survives first contact with the enemy! (Or the customer, or the media!)

You can make all the greatest plans, but they fail if they are our plans. This is especially true spiritually!

How many of us plan to never sin again – especially that one sin—you know the one I am talking about… And then the temptation we pray against comes, and we find ourselves falling again, because our plan failed in the first contact with temptation, evil, and Satan and his demons.

While planning and preparation is needed our own desire will fail at times, we will still need something more—readily accessible to depend on In those situations.

Make no mistake my dear people, this Is spiritual warfare. And Satan will do anything to get our focus on us, letting us plan, letting us think we are in control, allowing us to mature, only to trap us in our pride.

But we aren’t the only ones, who plan can fail in the heat of the moment. For Satan’s plan ha already fallen short….

Even as the people of God recognize and call for God’s help…. God was already moving heaven and earth….for His plan and preparation was faultless, and His plan included not surviving.

God’s plan!

What I love about this Psalm is the confidence, the faith that the psalmist has is impressive! For he knows the plans God has for him – and for his people. Look at these requests he makes of God,

Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom!

Satisfy us each morning with your unfailing love, so we may sing for joy to the end of our lives.

¹⁵  Give us gladness in proportion to our former misery!

Replace the evil years with good.

Let us, your servants, see you work again; let our children see your glory!

And may the Lord our God show us his approval and make our efforts successful. Yes, make our efforts successful!

These are the cries of one who is facing defeat, they are the cries of one who knows the heart of God, yet has found their own plans, and their people’s plans trashed. But knowing the heart of God, knowing His plan for us makes the differences here.

For every one of those things are the things God has always done in the past for His people!

The things He did in David’s time, what Jesus did while here was here what the Spirit has done in the church throughout time, showing grace, mercy and love.

I really want to focus on our reaction to this work of God, the request of the psalmist that God “¹⁴ Satisfy us each morning with your unfailing love, so we may sing for joy to the end of our lives”

First that word “satisfy.”

When I first hear the word, I think of the minimum possible positive result – they satisfy the requirements for the position. The work meets the standard. But the Biblical concept is far deeper than that – think of how you are satisfied after a thanksgiving feast.

When God satisfies us, it is talking about the highest level, that kind of satisfaction that provides for total contentment. It’s the kind of satisfaction that leaves everything and everyone peaceful, ready to relax and celebrate.

It is being assured that the war is over, the battles are won, and everyone has returned home, those who were damaged and broken healing nicely, relationships restored.

Perhaps you would say that this is still in the future, isn’t it? Aren’t we still in a spiritual battle? That is why there is a reference to the unfailing love that will bring us the contentment and satisfaction that will lead us to the joy that we can sing about to the end of our lives.

His Is why Paul would pray,

¹⁸  And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. ¹⁹  May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.  Ephesians 3:18-19 (NLT2)

This is what we need to know each day, each morning, to keep our legs moving, to know that we are not alone, and that Goves us, and restores us.

For that is the wisdom we pray for – to know that God has a plan – and God will make it happen.
AMEN!