As of today, I am three weeks into studying the Beatitudes.

But that wasn’t the plan.

I have a short-list of potential sermon series perpetually floating around my head, but in either June or July, I take some time to make a tentative sermon schedule for the following year.

Throughout the years, I’ve had many chats, particularly with more charismatic-leaning friends, asking how such scheduling fits with being led by the Spirit. My answer is always the same.

First, I explain that I hold my sermon calendar with a firm but still open hand, so I am ready to change my plan if I feel the need to do so. One example was from 2019. I had already made my schedule for preaching through Hebrews in 2020, but in October, I woke up in the middle of the night with this thought: I need to preach Ephesians. I went back to sleep and, in the morning, mapped out my preaching through Ephesians.

Second, because God is sovereign, I trust the Holy Spirit to work through my planning. My favorite example of this is from 2018. In the middle of 2017, I made the plan to preach through Ecclesiastes and Philippians, which I view as very complementary books, which you can glimpse in the graphics that my wife designed:

At that time, I was reading through Thomas Brook’s book on prayer called The Secret Key of Heaven. It was one of my first Puritan writings to read, and I was completely fascinated by how Brooks was able to write any entire book exploring only one verse (Matthew 6:6). So, with Philippians 1:21 being one of my favorite verses, I decided to preach two sermons in that Puritan-style, one on the first half of the verse (“for to me to live is Christ”) and the other on the second half (“and to die is gain”).

But even though I made that plan nearly a year before I actually preached it, they were some of the timeliest sermons that I have ever preached. I preached the sermon “To Live Is Christ” on August 5, 2018, and we had a life-celebration service for my dying father-in-law the day before. On August 12, I preached “To Die Is Gain,” and he passed away the following Wednesday: August 15.

Although I planned those two sermons as more of an intellectual exercise, the Lord, in His good but painful providence, had me write them from within the valley of the shadow of death. Working through my own plans, God orchestrated exactly what we needed from His Word, even when I did not know what was to come.

Proverbs 19:21 says, “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand.” That truth frees us to make our plans with joy and confidence, holding them with open hands. God’s sovereign purpose will be done. And that ought to be a great comfort to us.

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I recently reposted to my podcast those two sermons, which is why all of this has been on my mind. You can listen to them here: