If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going, You’re Going to End up Somewhere Else – Secret #3 – Part 1

David J. Mullens: Hey podcast listeners, thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's word through the most effective media available, like this podcast. To support Pathway to Victory, go to ptv.org/donate or follow the link in our show notes. Now, here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.
Dr. Robert Jeffress: Hi, this is Robert Jeffress, and I'm glad to study God's word with you every day on this Bible teaching program. On today's edition of Pathway to Victory, it takes a plan to get to where we're going because the truth is, without doing anything—listen to this—without doing anything, we don't drift toward our dreams. We tend to drift away from our dreams. By simply doing nothing in your life, you will drift away from God's intended destination of your life.
David J. Mullens: Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress. When you hire someone to build a house, you expect them to show up on the first day of construction with a blueprint. In the same way, building a successful life takes careful preparation. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress consults the wisest and wealthiest man in the Bible about planning for success. But first, let's take a moment to hear some important ministry updates.
Dr. Robert Jeffress: Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. In my ministry as a pastor, I often hear from people who say, "I wish God would just tell me what to do and script out my personal plan for the future." I understand that it's sometimes frustrating to figure out God's will for our lives. But in reality, he's given us the plan in his word. There's no book that's clearer than Proverbs. This Old Testament favorite contains short, insightful sayings that are like a beacon of light to guide our daily walk. I've written a book that's based on Solomon's wisdom in the book of Proverbs. It's called "The Solomon Secrets: 10 Keys to Your Success." This book includes the topic we'll address in today's message about finding and following God's will. I've written nine other chapters on things like keeping your cool when things get hot and cultivating a pure and satisfying marriage. When you give a generous gift today to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, you're invited to request a copy. Plus, I'm going to include an exclusive 44-page book I've written just for your son or daughter, or perhaps your grandchild. It's called "Timeless Wisdom from Proverbs," and it deals with topics like peer pressure, envy, and advice on relationships. We'll give our contact information later. But right now, it's time to consider today's topic. I titled today's message: "If You Don't Know Where You're Going, You're Going to End Up Somewhere Else." Albert Einstein was once on a train headed to New York City. As the ticket taker came through the coach to collect the tickets, Einstein started searching his pockets. He couldn't find his ticket anywhere. The ticket taker came up to him and said, "Mr. Einstein, we know you can't find your ticket. Don't worry about it. We know who you are. Don't worry." About 20 minutes later, the ticket taker came back through the car, and this time, Einstein was on his hands and knees, searching for the lost ticket. The ticket taker said, "Mr. Einstein, we told you, we know who you are. We trust you. Don't worry about it." Einstein looked up at the ticket taker and said, "Son, this isn't a matter of trust but of direction. I need the ticket because I forgot where I'm going." What about you? Do you know where you're going in life? Are you moving right now toward your intended destination, are you moving away from it, or are you simply sitting idle? Today, as we continue our study in the book of Proverbs, we've come to the third Solomon secret for success. It's one that I thought was especially applicable to our graduating seniors today, but it's one that applies to all of us as well. The Solomon secret we're looking at today is this: If you don't know where you're going, you're going to end up someplace else. Today, we're going to look and see what Solomon, as well as all of the biblical writers, had to say about the subject of planning. If you have your Bibles, turn to Proverbs chapter 15. A few years ago, my sister-in-law was the recipient of $6,500 worth of airplane vouchers. She and her family had been bumped off of a flight, so for compensation, they gave her $6,500 that she could use to go anywhere in the world. She had all of the resources she needed to do and have, to travel wherever she wanted to travel. The only problem is she didn't know where she wanted to go. What about you? If you were to close your eyes for just a moment—please don't, I don't want you falling asleep—but if you were to close your eyes and answer the question, "Where do I want to go in life?" I'm not talking about your vacation. I'm talking about your life. Where do I want to go? Would you have a clear destination in your mind of where you want to end up in life? Let's be specific. Let's think about, for example, your financial life. If we were to roll the calendar forward 10 years from today—10 years from today—where would you like to be in your finances? Specifically, how much money would you like to be earning? How much money would you like to have saved toward retirement? How much money would you like to be investing in God's work? Or think about your vocational life. Ten years from now, what would you like to be doing? Where would you like to be working? What would you like people to be saying about your accomplishments? Or think about your family life. Ten years from today, what would you like your relationships at home to look like? How would your relationship with your mate be different, or with your children, or with your grandchildren? Think about your spiritual life for a moment. Ten years from now, what would you like your relationship with God to look like? What spiritual disciplines would you like to have mastered in your life 10 years from now? Dreams are very, very important, but they're not sufficient to take you where you want to go in life. My sister-in-law ended up deciding she wanted to go to London, England. She had the resources to get to London. She knew where she wanted to go, but that wasn't enough to land her in front of Buckingham Palace. She actually had to make a plan to get there. She had to make her airplane reservations. She had to secure a hotel room. She had to have an itinerary. It's the same way in life. It's not enough to know where you want to go in life. Somebody has said, "A dream without a plan is only a wish." It is important that we have a detailed plan to take us from where we are right now to where we believe God wants to take us in our finances, in our work, in our relationships, and in our spiritual life as well. We don't ever arrive anywhere by accident. Did you know the only thing that ends up at its intended destination by accident is airline luggage? The rest of us never get anyplace by accident. It takes a plan to get to where we're going because the truth is, without doing anything—listen to this—without doing anything, we don't drift toward our dreams. We tend to drift away from our dreams. By simply doing nothing in your life, you will drift away from God's intended destination of your life. I remember reading one time the story about a Finnish atheist who decided that when he died, he wanted to leave his farm in Finland to the devil. So, he died. His will stated this farm is to be left to the devil. The Finnish court system pondered how in the world to carry out this guy's will and leave it to the devil. They figured out what to do. They did nothing. They simply allowed the farm to grow weeds and briars. They allowed the barn and the fence to remain unpainted and eventually to rot. They allowed the soil to do nothing, just simply to erode and wash away. In their decision, the Finnish court said, "The best way to let the devil have possession of anything is to do nothing." That's the same truth that applies to your life and my life. You know how to let Satan have control of your life? You don't have to have a séance and say, "I deliver my life over to Satan." You don't have to do that. Just do nothing. The natural course of events will not only lead you away from your dreams, they'll lead you away from God. You know why that is? There's a physical law called the Second Law of Thermodynamics that says all of nature, all creation, is moving from order to disorder. There's a reason for that in the Bible. Romans 8 says this entire world system has been infected with sin. That means the natural direction of everything in this universe is down. Things are spiraling down. It explains everything from the deterioration of your body to the deterioration of your relationships. Everything because of sin—Romans 8:22 says—is moving downward. That means if you do absolutely nothing, if you exert no energy whatsoever, all you have to do is sit by and watch the deterioration of your body, the depletion of your financial resources, the disintegration of your family, and the destruction of your soul. That all happens without any effort on your part whatsoever. If you want to reverse that trend, you have to have a plan to do so. You know, King Solomon, whose writings we're studying in this series, was the wisest, wealthiest, most powerful man who ever lived. And yet, he certainly understood the importance of having a plan. King Solomon knew where he was going in life. God had planted in his life the dream of building the temple, a magnificent place of worship for God. In fact, in 1 Kings 5:5, Solomon said this: "Behold, I intend to build a house for the name of the Lord my God, as the Lord spoke to my father David, saying, 'Your son, whom I will set on your throne in your place, he will build the house for my name.'" Solomon knew what he wanted. But Solomon didn't just sit back like so many Christians today and passively say, "Okay, this is what I want to do, but you know what? If God wants this to happen, he'll do it in his way and his time." A lot of people use spirituality as an excuse for laziness. No, Solomon didn't just say, "I intend to build a house." Then he developed a plan and executed a plan to build that temple. For example, he gathered the necessary resources (2 Kings 5:6). He organized the people (2 Chronicles 2:2). He designed the facility (2 Chronicles 3:3). He set a time to begin the project (2 Chronicles 3:2). He completed the project (2 Chronicles 5:1). In fact, if you'll look at Solomon's life, it was filled with one accomplishment after another. He extended the wall around Jerusalem. He refortified the cities of Hazor and Megiddo. He reorganized Israel into 12 districts. He increased the tax revenue. He did all of these things not just by having a dream, but by having a plan to fulfill that dream. That's why when you look at the book of Proverbs, Solomon's depository of wisdom, you find verse after verse that talks about the importance of planning. I want you to jot some of these verses down for just a moment. Solomon talks about planning in Proverbs 15:22. Solomon says, "Without consultation, plans are frustrated, but with many counselors, they succeed." Or Proverbs 16:1: "The plans of the heart belong to the man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord." Proverbs 16:3: "Commit your works to the Lord and your plans will be established." Proverbs 20:18: "Prepare plans by consultation and make war by wise guidance." Proverbs 21:5: "The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage, but everyone who is hasty comes surely to poverty." It's important that we all have a dream. The Christian retailer James Cash Penney, J.C. Penney, once said, "Give me a stock clerk with a dream, and I'll give you a great man. Give me a man without a dream, and I'll give you a stock clerk." We all need a dream in life, but a dream isn't enough. We need a plan that will take us from where we are to realize that dream in life. I want to tell you, most Christians I talk to, they don't have a dream. They don't know where they want to be 10 years from now or 20 years from now. They don't have a dream, much less a plan to help them reach that dream. Why is that? Why do people just walk around in a daze and a haze without any plan for how they want to live and where they want to go in life? I've found that, especially among Christians, there are four excuses that people have for developing a detailed plan for their life. One of these, maybe all of these, are the excuse you have right now for not doing more with your life. Excuse number one is: What if I fail in my plan? What if I fail? I don't want to set a goal, I don't want to have a dream and then fail in that plan. Maybe that's true of you. Maybe you're paralyzed by the thought of failure. If that's true, let me encourage you to overcome that fear in two ways. First of all, if failure is keeping you from planning, ask yourself the question: How am I going to feel 10 years from now if I've made no progress in my life? How am I going to feel at the end of my life if I have never reached my dream in life? Secondly, keep your dreams to yourself. One reason we don't want to set goals and have dreams is we don't want to be embarrassed in front of other people if we don't make our dream. A lot of times, we're surrounded with people who, either intentionally or even unintentionally, will try to discourage us from reaching our dream. And so we don't make plans. We don't want to be embarrassed in front of our friends or our enemies. Remember Nehemiah? He had a dream. He wanted to rebuild the wall around the city of Jerusalem, but he had two people who were always trying to discourage him: Sanballat and Tobiah. Nehemiah had publicly stated his dream. He had two antagonists who tried to discourage him from his dream. Even well-meaning friends will sometimes be a discouragement to you in your dreams, which is why you ought to keep your dreams to yourself for the most part. I remember 25 years ago, I had a real clear revelation of what my life purpose was going to be. As a part of that life purpose, which I'll share with you in a moment, I decided that one way to fulfill that life purpose was to start writing books. So I announced to some of my friends, "I'm going to become an author." Everybody applauded, "Oh, that's great, Robert. You ought to be an author." About a month later, my friends started asking, "When is your book coming out? What's the publication date?" There was no publication date because I didn't have a book; all I had was a desk filled with rejection slips from publishers. It would have been better to keep that dream to myself until it came to fruition. The same thing is true for you. Secondly, some people say, "My objection to planning is, well, I've got plenty of time, there's no hurry." Or, "I don't have enough time to fulfill my dream, there's no use to do it." Both views of time, by the way, are erroneous. The idea that I've got plenty of time or that I don't have enough time. I remember reading Rabbi Harold Kushner's what he called "Instant Coffee Theory of Life." Rabbi Kushner said that life is like a new jar of instant coffee. When you open it up at first, you tend to be very generous in your portions of coffee you dole out because, after all, you have a whole jar. Halfway through that jar, you start to get more conservative in your portions. By the time you get to the bottom of the jar, you're searching around the corners looking for every grain possible. Life is a lot like that, isn't it? At the beginning of our life when we're teenagers, we think, "I've got all the time in the world. What's the big hurry?" Then when we reach about halfway through our lives, mid-life, we realize we have as many years behind us as we do in front of us. When we get close to the end, we wonder where did it all go and how did it go so quickly? That's not an original observation. Moses wrote the very same thing in Psalm 90, the oldest psalm in the Bible. In Psalm 90 verse 10, he said—and this is from the Living Bible—"Seventy years are given to us. Some even live to eighty. But even the best years are filled with pain and trouble; soon they disappear, and we fly away." Therefore, verse 12: "Teach us to realize the brevity of life so that we may grow in wisdom." You know the verse as, "Lord, teach us to number our days so that we may present to you a heart of wisdom." I remember the first time I ever heard that verse. I grew up in church, but I never remember hearing that verse until, seniors, I was your age. It was at the end of my senior year. I was sitting in the orientation session at Baylor University. The chapel speaker was preaching on this verse: "Lord, teach us to number our days and realize how few they are." The chapel speaker kept talking about how quickly time goes. I remember sitting there looking at him thinking, "You old codger, you don't know what you're talking about." What do you mean how quickly it goes? I was sitting there in that chapel. Amy was down at the pagan University of Texas as a freshman. It was going to be two weeks until I got to go see her, travel the 90 miles down I-35, and time was creeping along. It seemed like those two weeks will never pass. That was my perspective as a senior in high school. Let me tell you from my perspective as an old codger: it goes by very, very quickly. That seems like just yesterday. You wonder where did the time go? There are a lot of people who will say, "Well, I've got all the time in the world." No, you don't. Time is a precious commodity. Use it wisely. But other people go to the other extreme. They say, "Okay, well, I'm sixty, seventy years old. I don't have enough time now to realize my life dream." That's also an equally erroneous view of time. I heard time management expert Ted Engstrom say one time, "We tend to overestimate how much we can accomplish in a year, but we severely underestimate how much we can accomplish in five years." The fact is, God has given each one of you here today just the right amount of time you need to fulfill his plan, his dream for your life. A third objection some people have to making plans is: doesn't the Bible warn against planning? Doesn't the Bible say we shouldn't make plans? They always like to turn to James chapter 4 as a reason not to make goals or set plans in life. Well, let's look at these familiar words. Turn over to James chapter 4 beginning with verse 13. And let's see what James really says and what he doesn't say about planning. Verse 13 says, "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.' Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You're just a vapor, a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will give and live and do this or that.'" Some people say, "See what James said? Don't make plans. Just kind of flow along with life. Don't make any plans." That's not what he's saying. He's not saying there's anything wrong with making plans. What he's saying is what is wrong is to make plans without any thought of God whatsoever. What he's saying here is, "Go ahead and make your plans, but always preface your plans with these words and, more importantly, this attitude: 'If this is God's will, this is what I want to happen.'" There's nothing wrong with making plans, but always remember your plans, my plans, are subject to the sovereignty of God. When we make our plans, our attitude ought to be: "God, this is what I believe you placed in my heart to do. This is what I would like to do, but I am laying them at your feet to do or not to do according to your wise and good plan." We submit our plans to the sovereignty of God. Making plans—listen to this—making plans that are within the will of God for the glory of God are pleasing to our God. God says we ought to make plans, but make them within the boundaries of his will. Listen to Proverbs 19:21: "Many plans are in a man's heart, but the counsel of the Lord will stand." Fourth, some people object to making plans by simply saying, "I don't know how to make a plan. I don't know how to determine what my dream in life is and a roadmap for how to get there." If you want to know how to determine what God's dream is for your life and how to get there, there are three keywords you need to understand. One is purpose, the second is objectives, and the third is goals.
Dr. Robert Jeffress: Each of us is called to make plans that are within the will of God for the glory of God, that are pleasing to God. And at Pathway to Victory, it's our hope that these daily programs become a guiding force in your life as you discover God's plan for you. To guide you, I've written a bestselling book that explores these principles in a deeper way. It's called "The Solomon Secrets: 10 Keys to Your Success." One of the chapters is devoted to the subject we addressed today. But maybe you're thinking, "That all sounds too good to be true." Well, I can assure you that it's not my opinion, nor my wisdom. These are promises from God. I'd be pleased to ship my book to your home today when you call, write, or go online and give a generous gift to Pathway to Victory. Again, it's called "The Solomon Secrets." Finally, as you count on Pathway to Victory, can I count on you to faithfully support this ministry with your voluntary gifts? It might surprise you to learn how few people actually respond with generous gifts, even though millions listen to this program. Maybe you're one of those folks who has listened but never responded, or perhaps it's been a long time since you've been in touch. Well, let today become the day you call, write, or go online. Your gift, no matter its size, will be used by God to pierce the darkness with the light of his word. Here's David with all the details.
David J. Mullens: Today, when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, you're invited to request a copy of Dr. Jeffress' bestselling book, "The Solomon Secrets." Here's our toll-free number: 866-999-2965. Visit ptv.org or text PTV to 78800. And when your gift is $75 or more, we'll also send you this month's teaching series, also titled "The Solomon Secrets," on DVD video and MP3 format audio disc. One more time, call 866-999-2965 or make your request online at ptv.org. You could also send your donation by mail. Write to PO Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. That's PO Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullens, wishing you a great weekend, and join us again Monday when our series "The Solomon Secrets" continues right here on Pathway to Victory.
Guest (Male): Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas.
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