Louie Giglio - God's Plan Includes You
The series is called «Certainty,» meaning that we’re trying to take the «un» out of uncertainty. For a moment, we’ve all said «uncertainty» so many times in the last few months that it’s time to stop thinking about the things that we’re not sure of and to think about the things that we are confident in. We’ve talked about a few of those already. We are confident in the fact that God sees us. We talked last week about how we are confident that God is able, and today I want to talk about something else we can be certain of: God has a plan. God has a plan; you can be sure of it. Right now, today, God has a plan, and not only does He have a plan, but He has a plan for your life.
I remember when I was going through high school and college; there was a little booklet that helped you share your faith with a random stranger if you needed a little help. It was called «The Four Spiritual Laws.» Does anyone remember this? It came to my mind this week while I was thinking about this idea that God has a plan. This little booklet was written by Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade, which is now called Cru. The first of the four spiritual laws is this: «God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.» That’s the first thing you wanted to say to somebody when starting a conversation about faith, and it’s a good thing for us to say today. God has a plan, and God has a plan for your life; you can count on it.
The prophet Jeremiah said it this way in a verse that many of us have memorized over the years: in 29:11, he says, «For I know the plans I have for you,» declares the Lord, «plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.» So no matter what the circumstances tell you today, I’m telling you this: God has a plan. No matter what’s happening in the global climate right now, God has a plan, and whatever is going on in your life personally today, God has a plan.
A few big ideas: Number one, God always has a plan. Period. In Genesis 1:26, we’re going to look at a few of His early plans. He says, «Let us make man in our image.» So Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are talking together, and they have a plan. What is their plan? They’re going to make mankind in their image, in our likeness. Then in verse 27, if God has a plan, God fulfills His plan. So God created mankind in His own image; in the image of God, He created them, male and female He created them. God had a plan.
In Genesis 12:2, God has a plan; He says to Abraham, «I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you. I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.» God has a plan!
Then if you fast forward to Genesis 50:19, we see Joseph, who has been through a lot. He’s put in a pit and abandoned by his brothers, found a home in a palace serving a powerful leader, falsely accused, imprisoned again, and forgotten in prison the last time. But then he is raised up into the palace at just the right time, and he stands before his same brothers who put him in the pit at the beginning. He says, «Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.» In other words, God had a plan in accomplishing what is now being done—the saving of many lives.
In Exodus 3:7, at the burning bush, God has a plan. The Lord said, speaking to Moses, «I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.» Now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now go; I’m sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt. God had a plan. For 400 years, His people had been in bondage, but God had a plan.
Galatians 4:4 says, «But when the time had fully come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those under the law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.» When there were no people, God had a plan to make some people. When those people rebelled and a chasm formed between God and those He created, He said, «I need a family, and Abraham, you’re going to start it. You’re going to be the father of a mighty nation.» I have a plan, and that plan needed a Savior. The Savior needed to come through the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and so there were going to be many lives lost and a massive famine in the land. Thus, God needed someone on the other side of the famine to bless that line which was going to produce the promised Savior.
Joseph needed to go through a very difficult series of events to be in the right place at the right time, knowing through his dream that they had to store up during the years of plenty so that they would have provision during the years of famine. This would draw his family into Egypt, and then he would be a blessing to his family and to multitudes. God will bring about His plan and will bring about salvation. Now the people are in bondage for centuries, but God wants to deliver them and lead them into the promised land, so a bush is burning but not consumed, and Moses is brought into the purposes and plans of God which will not fail. Ultimately, Jesus arrives at the end of that full time. When the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, and under law to redeem those who were under the law so they might become sons. God always has a plan, and He has a plan today.
The second big idea is that God has a plan for your life. Now this is where we all want to get, right? The first part is great; thank you for that. You could have just skipped over that and said, «God has a plan,» but what I came to hear today is: what is God’s plan for my life? This is where it’s going to get very interesting today because there’s going to be a little tension here. We want to know, «Okay, God, I’m sure you’re doing big things on earth, but that’s all great; what is your plan for me?» What God is wanting to say today is that the big plan I’m doing on earth is the plan. Now the question for me to ask today is: how do I fit into Your plan?
Let’s make man in our image. Therefore, Adam and Eve just got their plan. What was their plan? They were made in the image and likeness of God to be in a relationship with God and to manage and steward God’s creation. They got their plan in God’s plan. Abraham, though he was old and Sarah was too, had a plan. What would they do? They were to leave the land they knew and go to a land they didn’t know. That was the plan. If someone heard that today, «Hey, I’ve got God’s plan for your life: leave where you are and follow God to somewhere you don’t know,» they might say, «No, that’s not a good enough plan; I need a better plan than that.» But God had a plan to build a mighty nation and to raise up a people, and so now Abraham had a plan: «I’m going to be used by God to be part of a mighty nation.»
The exact plan was to leave everything behind and go somewhere where he didn’t know where he was going—just trust God. There was a plan for provision, but for Joseph, that plan meant getting thrown in a pit, sold into Potiphar’s house, being falsely accused by his wife, narrowly escaping death, and getting thrown back in prison, having a dream there and being favored and anointed, but forgotten by a fellow prisoner who was supposed to remember him.
But eventually, they realize he has a dream, and there was a guy in prison who could help. Now he becomes the second most powerful person on the planet and is in a position to save his entire family. The plan of God gave Joseph his purpose, and Moses got his plan and purpose in God’s purpose, just as Jesus found His purpose in God’s plan. I am now born in a manger, going to live 33 years on planet Earth, with my eyes set on Calvary because there’s a plan. I have a plan inside God’s plan.
So here’s the key today: knowing that God’s plan includes you is different than you having a plan that hopefully includes God. This is a revelation, a game-changing insight. Knowing that God has a plan and that plan will inform my plan and purpose is very different from having my own plan that I hope can somehow include God in it.
The third big idea today is that God rarely tells us the whole plan. You might say, «Man, if you just put some of this in your Instagram posts, we could have slept in, gone to brunch, and had a phenomenal morning.» But here’s the thing: for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Don’t you wish Jeremiah had written, «I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord»? No, God knows the plan. There is a plan for your life, and there’s a plan in general, but it’s not likely that God is going to tell you the whole plan.
You might ask, «Well, I don’t understand. He’s a loving father, right? Why wouldn’t He tell me the whole plan?» In the same way that loving fathers in this room do not tell their kids the whole plan, I was talking to someone at the airport this week who explained in great detail their family vacation. They had decided to take their kids to Disney World but hadn’t told them they were flying there. There was some reason for that—maybe one of the kids would have freaked out.
The kids were fired up about going to Disney World, but they hadn’t informed them about the flight yet. They were going to save that for the night before. In a rush, I missed all the intricate details. When I walked away, I didn’t think, «What a terrible dad!» No one thinks that because you do not tell your kids all the information they can’t handle. They don’t know how to process it and ask too many questions.
When you tell them the information, they want to redo all of it. You just say, «I know the plans I have for you; they are good. They’re not to harm you; they’re to bless you and prosper you, but I’m not telling you the plans.» So if you’re thinking today, «If I can just do A, B, or C, I can get God to tell me all the plans,» it’s not likely. Because as soon as He did, we would start trying to alter them or avoid them or argue with Him about them, or miss what we’re doing right now because we’re concerned about something He said about six months from now.
So He says, «Just trust me and stay with me today,» because I’m not going to tell you the whole plan; I’m going to give you what you need to know. You might say, «No, I don’t like where this is going.»
The fourth big idea is that God’s plans will not fail. You have to remember that He has a plan and that He has plans. Now you may think, «Oh, He’s not doing a very good job with His plans right now!» Don’t count God out. Have you been reading the news? We’ve got a global crisis going on at a hundred levels! No, don’t count God out. God has a plan right now. This plan that He had for us in salvation shows us how great His plans are in general.
In Ephesians 1, it says, «In Him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will.» That’s how you got saved! You may say, «I was at a youth camp, and there was a guy speaking. It was an amazing night, and I gave my life to Jesus.» Yes, that was the unfailing plan of God to save you. He works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will. All of history is bending into the plans of God and the purpose of God.
The last big idea is that God’s plans—something we say at Passion all the time—are for His glory and for our good. We even see this in this particular text. Verse 12: «In order that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be for the praise of His glory.» That’s why we got saved. And you, speaking of this church of new believers in Ephesus, were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—for the praise of His glory.
Even in salvation, you receive all these benefits; He receives all the glory. Salvation is for your good but, in the same way, for His glory. You don’t just get saved so you can go to heaven; you get saved so that God can receive praise. You don’t get saved just to be a child of God; you get saved so that God can receive praise from the work He does in and through your life.
So the big ideas are: God has a plan, His plan includes you, but the plan that He has for you is a part of His plan. He’s not going to tell you the whole plan, but you can trust that His purposes and plans are never going to fail. They are for your good and His glory.
Now let’s get a little more practical because someone might be saying, «Okay, that’s all great. I agree with everything you’ve said, but what do I do now?» A few things: First, if you believe this idea, and that it’s certain and true, you start your day with a brand-new grid. You begin your day like this: «God has a plan today,» and that’s a new grid. You don’t start with the news («everything’s gone crazy»); you don’t start with your own thoughts («I don’t know how I feel about life»). You start with a new grid, remembering: «It’s Monday; and on Monday, God has a plan. I don’t have a job, but God has a plan. We didn’t get the news from the doctor that we were praying for, but God has a plan. We don’t have the finances present tense to do what has to be done, but God has a plan. I don’t feel good, but God has a plan.»
That’s the new grid for me. So I’m not starting with «we don’t have the finances.» I’m not starting with «we didn’t get the news.» I’m not starting with «I don’t have a job.» I’m not starting with «how I feel.» I’m starting with a brand new grid: «Today, God has a plan.» Then I’m going to ask this question about Monday: «God, what is Your plan for me in Your plan today?» Because that’s what I want to do on Monday—I want to be in Your plan today.
So I am in this situation, but maybe I do have a job. Maybe we did get the news we wanted. Maybe we did just get the bonus we weren’t expecting. Maybe I feel great. I want to know: how can I fit in to what You’re doing today? I think You have a plan for my place to work today. I believe You have a plan for this meeting I’m going to in Boise. I think You have a plan for this conversation I’m having with my friend over coffee. I think You have a plan for this meeting we have with the doctor. I think You have plans. So what is Your plan for me today?
The second way this changes things for us is that it allows us to walk by faith and not by sight. We are trained to process God based on what we see around us. «Oh, God’s not working. Oh, God didn’t come through. Oh, God didn’t answer our prayer.» We say this often, «God didn’t answer our prayer.» How do you know God didn’t answer your prayer? Well, because we prayed for A, and we got B.
How do you know that B isn’t better than A? «Well, obviously, anyone who looks at A and looks at B would know that A is better than B—unless you were God, and you knew that B was going to domino into L, which was going to ping into P, and then come back around to C.» You might ask, «Who’s C?»
Exactly. My new grid says, «God, I know You have a plan. I see A. I see B. We prayed for A; You gave us B. There must be something about this that we don’t see.» Therefore, we’re going to walk by faith and not by sight and say, «God didn’t answer the plan in the way we thought was the best answer.» But I promise you, He answered our prayer.
He didn’t answer our prayer and give us the answer that we thought was the best solution, but I promise you, He answered our prayer. You know why? Because He has a plan. He always has a plan, and His plans never fail. His plans are always for our good and His glory.
We believe right now that He’s working for our good and His glory. In 2 Corinthians 5, it says, «We live by faith, not by sight.» You might say, «That doesn’t sound very practical.» It’s extremely practical; it’s moving into situations with a new mindset and saying, «God is working; God is providing.»
Now, He’s not! Yes, He is! «Well, then show me where it is!» I don’t see everything God sees, and I don’t know everything God knows. How would I know how God is working right now in His global plan? I just know that I can trust Him.
The third practical step I would lead you to is to dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. That’s our job! God’s job is to fulfill the plan. Our job is to dwell right where we are and to cultivate faithfulness. That’s in Psalm 37:3 (New American Standard Bible from 1977).
You know how sometimes you look up a verse; you think you know it says something, and it shows you the verse in like twenty different translations? You go, «Oh! There’s the one that says it the way I heard it somewhere in a message in the past.» «Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.» The whole text says, «Trust in the Lord.»
So here’s the walk by faith: «Then do good. Do good at your job. Do good at whatever is in your hand right now. Do good in the thing that God has given you to hold right now. Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.»
If you will cultivate that sense of faithfulness, you will discover that God is faithful. As you discover that God is faithful, it leads you to say, «In this moment right now, even though I cannot see everything, I am certain God has a plan, and I’m certain He has a plan for me.»
So I am going to be faithful with the thing He has put in my hand today, and I’m going to trust Him with the rest of the plan. I’m not going to fumble today because I’m trying to get my hands on tomorrow; I’m just going to be steady with what He’s given me today, knowing that it’s His job to take care of tomorrow.
Then the last part is just to keep entrusting everything to Him who is faithful. I love this passage in 2 Timothy. Paul is under pressure, so this message is best applied for people who don’t know what’s going on right now. If you’re on cruise control and everything’s great, then you don’t even need this message. Because you don’t need a plan if you’ve got one—you’re doing fantastic!
But for those in a situation in life where nothing seems to be adding up: you can understand this guy, Paul, who’s under a lot of pressure. He’s coming to the end of his life. He’s imprisoned for his faith, and this is what he writes, starting in verse 6:
«For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands; for the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline. So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me, His prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel by the power of God. He has saved us and called us to a holy life, not because of anything we have done but because of His own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time. But it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.»
And of this gospel, I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. That is why I am suffering as I am.
Can we just pause there for a moment? The part I really want us to see is the next line. But can we pause? God has done this amazing work; God has had this amazing plan. That amazing work and plan included me, Paul is saying, «and that is why I’m suffering.»
You might ask, «Wait a minute! Are you saying that sometimes, in God’s plan, that it ends up hurting?» No! He’s saying that Paul, who has written most of the New Testament, said, «That is why I am suffering as I am,» because I’m in God’s plan. God’s plan put me in this prison, in these chains, under this emperor who thinks he has a plan, but God has a bigger, better, unstoppable plan—one that includes me, a plan for my good and His glory.
Sadly, I’m going to have to die for a minute, but that’s also going to be good. He says that a few pages later. That’s going to work out okay, and He’s going to get glory.
In other words, I am in His plan. I’m not trying to get Him into my plan. On this earth, all the plans are not the way we think they will be. We have a good God that we know we can trust!
He then says this part at the end: «Yet this is no cause for shame.» In other words, I’m not stressed because I know whom I have believed and am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.
Talk about certainty! If there’s a line of scripture that has certainty in every core puzzle of it, it is that line: «I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.»
In other words, whatever I keep entrusting to God is in good hands. Whatever I keep trusting to His care, I know He will care for. Whatever I entrust to Him, I know I can count on God doing what God’s going to do, which is to take care of it until that day.
So, are you trusting your coworker to God? Are you entrusting your children into the hands of God? Are you entrusting your situation into God’s hands? Are you saying, «You know what? It’s not A. We prayed for A, and now we got B, but we’re just taking B and entrusting it into Your hands, believing we know who we have believed in and we know that You are able to keep that which we have committed to You against that day.»
We’re giving You B, God, because that’s what we’ve got right now, but we believe You’re going to take care of it. Then when we see You in that final moment, that final revelation, that final glimpse, when everything is finally known, that B in Your hands is going to be something more amazing than we could have ever dreamed or imagined.
We’re just going to keep entrusting things in our life into the hands of God rather than saying, «Well, God didn’t give us A; He gave us B,» by holding on tightly to what we got. Instead, we say, «No, God, I’m going to entrust this to You.»
I want to be faithful. I’m going to do good. I’m going to dwell in the land. I’m going to cultivate faithfulness. I’ve got a grid that says You have a plan. I’m certain and confident You have a plan! When the circumstance is diminishing our understanding of the plan, the cross reminds us again that we can trust the heart of God, who always has a plan.
There will be days, times, and seasons where the plan of God is obscured by the circumstances around us, and that’s when we’re going to cling again to the cross of Christ. In that moment, the cross and Christ are going to help us see and know again that we can trust His heart—that His arms are strong and His heart is good.
We’re just a few days away from Passion at Mercedes-Benz. I think most everybody knows this story, but given the season we’ve been in for the last while, we’re kind of sharing the stories of our house and the stories of our movement. At Passion 2013, we were in the Georgia Dome—a building that doesn’t even exist anymore; that football stadium is gone. It was a big step for us.
We had been in the Dome the year before with a curtain halfway across, and we said, «What do you guys think about tearing down that curtain?» So we did, and in January of 2013, we filled the Dome. I think they have a photo of it; we had what a lot of people called the «Pokemon stage,» which I didn’t know a lot about, but maybe we did and maybe we didn’t. We will pay someone later.
As we approached that moment, the craziest series of circumstances brought us to where we are today. Passion exists because of a very foggy season for Shelley and me. In 1995, I lost my dad. He died on April 28, and he was buried here in Atlanta on May 1, a Monday. Shelley and I, in the season just before that, sensed the Lord saying to us, «You need to leave behind your ministry in Texas and move to Atlanta to help your mom take care of Louie’s dad.»
So we transitioned through the school year. Now we’re at the end of the semester, moving to Atlanta, saying goodbye to our Bible study movement in Texas at Baylor. Ten years of Monday nights gathering students together there and leading them for our last Monday night—May 1—our 10-year celebration. Goodbye, thank you, God bless you.
We are sending you off to Atlanta on May 1, the day we were burying my father in Atlanta. So we were in a city without a job or a purpose; we had no reason on a Monday except to settle my dad’s affairs and help my mom transition back into life, which she had been slowly checking out of for seven years of caring for my dad.
I can tell you about feeling confused and frustrated, even angry—not at God, but at myself. I was saying, «Duh! When He said in November, 'You should move, ' you needed to go in November!» But a vision came about six weeks later: a picture of me sitting on an airplane. We didn’t know what it was, how to get there, what to call it, or what the first step was. We just knew that’s what we were supposed to do.
That vision is Passion. So we took a step, and about 18 months later, Passion 97 in Austin, Texas—2,000 students showed up. In '98, 5,000 came. In '99, we went to Fort Worth; 11,000 came. Then in 2000, 40,000 college students came to Memphis, Tennessee, from all over America and around the world for a solemn assembly called One Day 2000. It was the picture I had seen on the plane.
So we thought we were done; we didn’t do anything the next year. God was like, «Uh, not finished.» We were back in it, and by 2013, here we were coming to the Georgia Dome in faith and belief that if we took that step, God would bring the people and that something powerful and transformational would happen, changing lives and history.
As I walk up to the Pokémon stage in the middle of the field, I almost completely lose it. Because I was standing on that field the day before giving the invocation for the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl. I was right out on the field, and Clemson and LSU were playing. In the middle of the field was, of course, the Chick-fil-A logo.
Once that game ended and the field was cleared, that black tarpaulin that you saw was put down to cover the field quickly, then lighting that we had already suspended was lowered, a stage was built, chairs were put in place—now we were starting the largest indoor event we had done up until that time.
I’m walking up the stairs onto the stage, and I realized I had just been here looking down on this field. What’s still on that field underneath the tarpaulin and underneath this stage that I’m going to stand on for the next four days?
It’s a Chick-fil-A logo that my dad created in 1964 at the biggest event in Passion’s history, which exists because my father died, and I ended up in a season of «I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.» In all that confusion, I didn’t get an answer from God that day. I didn’t get an answer for why my dad became disabled. I did not get an answer for why our family went through seven years of hardship. I did not get an answer for why my dad suddenly died of a heart attack on the day that he did. I didn’t get an answer for why we left one ministry behind to come to another.
I just got a re-confirmation in my heart that God is in control. «Louie, you’re going to lead these four days, standing on your dad’s logo that he created—one Louie Giglio down below, and another one up above. Louie, don’t forget, I’ve got a plan! I’ve got a plan, and my plan for your life is to be in my plan. I’m not telling you the whole plan; I don’t owe that to you. But I’m including you in my plan; you just be faithful with what I put in your hands today.»
I believe God has probably given every one of us a little glimpse like that. Oh, you probably didn’t get the whole three-ring binder; I know I haven’t. But I bet God’s given you a glimpse—a tiny one, even a minuscule glimpse—just to let you know, «I’m here, and I’m working. You can be sure of this: I’ve got a plan, and that plan includes you.»