{"id":33353,"date":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/gods-game-plan-for-life\/"},"modified":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","slug":"gods-game-plan-for-life","status":"publish","type":"sermons","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/gods-game-plan-for-life\/","title":{"rendered":"God&#8217;s Game Plan for Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2005\/08\/18765.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n<p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">If you follow football at all, as almost everyone does these\ndays, you know that every coach has a game plan before he begins the game&#8212;a\nplan they have worked out long before the game begins which is their strategy\nfor accomplishing the desired goal. I was with Tom Landry a few weeks ago in\nDallas, Texas. Tom said, &#8220;The job of a football coach is to make men do\nwhat they don&#8217;t want to do in order to achieve what they&#8217;ve always wanted to\nbe.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">That&#8217;s God&#8217;s business with us, too. To make us sometimes do what\nwe don&#8217;t want to do in order to be what we&#8217;ve always wanted to be. I don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s any passage of\nScripture that describes that more fully and beautifully than Romans 12. I&#8217;m\nonly going to take two verses of it this morning, but I believe these two\nverses in a most remarkable way summarize God&#8217;s game plan for your life and\nmine. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I was flying out of Denver, Colorado, a few years ago on my way\nto Peoria, Illinois. Not a lot of people go to Peoria, but I wanted to go there\nthe worst possible way, so I went by Ozark Airlines. In the plane, I picked up\nthe magazine that every airline has to distract the passengers from what the\npilot is doing. My attention was caught by large letters on the back page that\nsaid &#8220;When you understand that you can change the world, your life will\nnever be the same again.&#8221; Naturally I was curious as to what would make a dramatic change like\nthat. I discovered this was an advertisement for Playboy magazine. The implication\nwas that if you subscribe to Playboy, you&#8217;ll soon come to understand that you\ncan change the world. And when you come to understand that you can change the\nworld, your life will never be the same again. I don&#8217;t know how you react to\nthat, but my reaction was one of anger. It made me angry that a magazine of\nthat character&#8212;obscene, pornographic&#8212;would openly boast that it had the quality\nto change the world. But as I thought about that a bit, I began to see there\nwas some truth to it. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I can remember back twenty years ago when the moral climate of\nthis nation was considerably different than it is today. And in some sense,\nPlayboy and other magazines of that type have successfully changed our nation.\nNot for the good but for the bad. Then\nI thought, what a magnificent slogan this is for a Christian. That&#8217;s really\nwhat God is saying to us: &#8220;When you understand that you can change the\nworld, your life will never be the same again.&#8221; That&#8217;s what this passage,\nperhaps more than anything else, is saying to us. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">You notice it&#8217;s addressed to us as individuals&#8212;not as a church,\nas a body of people, but as a collection of individuals. To them the apostle\nPaul says, &#8220;I appeal to you, brethren, by the mercies of God to present\nyour bodies a living sacrifice.&#8221; You can only do that as individuals. You\ncan&#8217;t do that as a group. And the striking thing to me about this passage is\nthat God&#8217;s game plan for life hardly ever is addressed to the church as a\nwhole. It&#8217;s always addressed to us, single people living right where we live.\nThere&#8217;s nothing said about an organization. There&#8217;s nothing said about money.\nThat&#8217;s remarkable isn&#8217;t it? Nothing&#8217;s said here about raising funds to carry on\na ministry, and yet this is what God proposes to do to change the world. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Is your\nbody available to God?<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Two things I want you to notice, and to see them, I&#8217;d like to\nstart not at the beginning but at the end: &#8220;that you may prove what is the\nwill of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.&#8221; I&#8217;ve been living in California for almost 35\nyears, and I think northern California, the Bay area where I live, is very much\nlike Southern California in many ways. You have a little heavier traffic down\nhere and a little warmer weather, but the moral climate is very similar. I&#8217;ve\nnoticed that living in California we are constantly exposed to the ways of the\nworld. Perhaps more so than any other part of our nation. And God is proposing\na way by which we can change the thinking of people all around us. When you\nthink about this great state of ours and the millions of people that are living\nall around us here, hardly any of them believe that the will of God is good and\nacceptable and perfect. In fact if you could ask them about it, they would\nprobably say that anybody that gets involved in finding the will of God is\nasking for a very, very dull life indeed. If you start getting religious, their\nattitude is, you&#8217;re going to wreck your life. You&#8217;re not going to have any fun.\nYou&#8217;re not going to enjoy it. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">God knows that is a lie. Doing his will is the most exciting and\ndemanding and challenging and thrilling experience that anyone can ever\ndiscover. And he offers to put on a demonstration. That&#8217;s what this word prove\nmeans: that you may demonstrate that the will of God is good and acceptable and\nperfect. That&#8217;s God&#8217;s goal. He wants to show people as they look at you and me\nthat having found the will of God we have found the most exciting lifestyle\nthere is. We have found the secrets of living. Of enjoyment. Of fulfillment. Of\nanswering the empty, lonely restlessness of the age in which we live. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Somebody handed me this a few weeks ago: This is the age of the  page and the quick hash and the mad dash, the bright night with the nerves tight, the plane hop with the brief stop, the lamp tan in a short span, the big shot in a good spot, and the brain strain and the heart pain and the cat naps until the spring snaps and the fun&#8217;s done. That penetrating little jingle rather\npointedly describes life in  America, doesn&#8217;t it? You see, the\nproblem is that people don&#8217;t know how to live, and God&#8217;s proposal is that in\nyour life and mine he will teach us how to live. And demonstrate in such a way\nthat people looking at us will discover that we have found the secrets of\nlife. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">He asks for two simple things. The first is in verse one: a body\nmade available to him. God says, &#8220;Bring your bodies. I&#8217;ll use them just\nthe way they are.&#8221; I&#8217;ve discovered\nthat most people don&#8217;t like everything about their body. There&#8217;s always\nsomething wrong. Almost everybody thinks that if they just had curlier hair or\nstraighter hair or if they were shorter or taller or thinner or fatter or their\nknees didn&#8217;t knock or they weren&#8217;t bald or whatever it  has to be\nchanged, they think, in order to be successful. This has spawned a whole industry\noffering to make our bodies look better. And you see how God wipes all that\nout. He says you don&#8217;t have to change your body. Just bring it. Just think of\nyourself as an available instrument that I&#8217;m ready to use any time, any place. This is one of most important themes in the\nWord of God. God says he will change the world by using individuals right where\nthey are. The authentic impact of a\nchurch is made not so much on Sunday morning when we gather in a great place of\nworship like this, but when you are scattered out in your neighborhoods and you\ndiscover that you have a ministry right there, that God is going to use you\nright where you are, and that he has equipped you and fitted you for this. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Notice how the apostle puts it. Bring your bodies, he says,\n&#8220;as a living sacrifice.&#8221; All the converted pagans and Jews that made\nup this church in Rome all knew what a sacrifice was. They&#8217;d offer animal\nsacrifices. But these were dead sacrifices. You only offered them once and then\nyou could never offer that animal again because it was dead. But Paul says this\nis a living sacrifice, and it&#8217;s something you do every day. And every day you\ncan start out with the idea Lord, here I am ready to be used. Whatever I do\ntoday in my normal business relationships or at home or with my children, with\nmy neighbors, wherever I am, Lord, you are offering to use me. I&#8217;m ready. I&#8217;m\navailable. A living sacrifice, holy. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Many people think you have to make yourself holy. This is a sad\nmistake. Nowhere does the Word of God teach us that we can make ourselves holy.\nWhat this declares is that God has already made us holy. Notice that? I confess\nthat for years I did not like this word holy. To me it conjured up ideas of\nstern,  individuals that looked like they&#8217;d been drinking embalming\nfluid. Sad people. Grim people. And I didn&#8217;t like holy people. But I&#8217;ve learned that the word basically\nmeans another word very similar to it in English that we spell somewhat\ndifferently, and that&#8217;s why I don&#8217;t think we recognize from where it comes.\nIt&#8217;s the word whole. That comes from the same root, and it&#8217;s the same idea in\nthe original language&#8212;whole people. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">God is a whole being. Every part of his being functions as it\nwas intended. He&#8217;s never anything less than perfectly balanced, absolutely\ncapable of coping with any situation because he&#8217;s a whole person. And the\nlonging of this world and this age is to be whole persons. You just listen to\nthe television commercials and you&#8217;ll see how true that is. They constantly\nurge us to find this, buy that, smear on this, purchase that, go on this trip\nin order to be a whole person. And God says &#8220;I have taken care of\nthat.&#8221; When you came to Christ, when you believed in Jesus, at the core of\nyour being God made you a whole person. Now the thing is to let that begin to\nwork out. Bring your body, and day by day God will train you in holiness, in\nwholeness. Isn&#8217;t that beautiful? And\nit&#8217;s acceptable to God. He&#8217;s ready to use you on that basis.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The amazing thing in this is how you change the world. I could\ngive a lot of illustrations of this. Let me share with you one out of my own\nexperience. In 1958 I took my first trip into South America in the company of\nDr. Dick Hillis, the founder of Overseas Crusades and OC Ministries. We were\ntraveling down through Argentina. By prearrangement, we had been invited to\nspeak at two evening meetings. He spoke at one, and I spoke at the second. I\ndon&#8217;t remember what either of us said, but I remember when I finished speaking\nthrough a translator in Spanish at the close of the service I stood in front\nwaiting for people to come and say hello, and nobody came up because they all\nspoke Spanish and I only spoke E one young man came. A handsome\nyoung man, and we began to talk, and I found out he was a clerk in a bank. I\ninvited him to come to our Bible study in a missionary&#8217;s home the next morning\nand he showed up and we got further acquainted. He had a tiny motorcycle and I\ntalked him into taking me into town on the back of it to do a little shopping\nand to do a little translating for me. And so we got acquainted. After I left\nthat town, we began to write to one another. And we corresponded for about a\nyear. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I discovered he had a great hunger to be used of God, to be an\nevangelist, and eventually managed to bring him to the United States, where he\nlived with us for several months and then went to a Bible school. And there at\nthe Bible school he met the girl who became his wife, and that led to further\ncontacts. And all of that ended up with this young man becoming one of the\nfamous evangelists of our day. His name was Luis Palau. He and I have often looked back at that\nfirst meeting and remembered how he told me that he was very uncertain as to\nwhether he should come to that meeting or not. He&#8217;d never heard of me, and he\nwasn&#8217;t particularly interested in hearing what I had to say. But he finally\ndecided that he would go because I was advertised as &#8220;a California\npastor.&#8221; He thought that was unusual enough that he might see something\ninteresting, so he came. Looking back now, we can see that brief encounter,\ntotally unplanned by either of us but led of God, completely changed the\ndirection of his life. He didn&#8217;t know it. I didn&#8217;t know it. But God knew it,\nand that&#8217;s how the world begins to be changed&#8212;chance encounters that you may\nhave with somebody on your block. A conversation over a coffee cup. Just a\nmomentary touch with somebody at your office. A conversation in the back of the\ncar as you&#8217;re riding to work. It can be anywhere. This is God&#8217;s game plan. To\nuse you right where you are. That&#8217;s the way he changes the world. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">So that&#8217;s the first thing: an available body. Is your body\navailable to God? That&#8217;s the question each day you must ask. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Are you\nallowing your mind to be transformed?<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The second thing God needs is in verse two: &#8220;Do not be\nconformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.&#8221;\nNow the important thing there is not &#8220;be not conformed to this\nworld.&#8221; That&#8217;s what a lot of people think this verse is saying, but that&#8217;s\nnot the real point; that&#8217;s only the introduction to the real thing. The real\nthing is &#8220;be transformed by the renewal of your mind.&#8221; In other\nwords, let God change your thinking. Let your way of looking at life be\naltered. And when he does you&#8217;ll discover it will be 180 degrees contrary to\nthe way the world thinks. You&#8217;ll not be conformed to this world. There&#8217;s been a\nlot of confusion on this verse because we preachers have emphasized so much\nthis first part, the negative thing. I grew up in churches where I heard this\nthundered at me. And there followed a list of taboos I was to avoid. The\nimplication was if I avoided these things successfully, I would not be\nconformed to this world. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Through the years since, I&#8217;ve discovered thousands of people who\ndon&#8217;t do those things but are very much conformed to this world. I don&#8217;t know\nwhy the idea has taken such firm roots in our minds that God is impressed by\nthe number of things that we don&#8217;t do. He&#8217;s not, and neither is anybody\nelse. What God is after is the second\nphrase: &#8220;Be transformed by the renewal of your mind.&#8221; Let your\nthinking begin to be changed, and there&#8217;s only one instrument that does that:\nthe Word the living God. Thinking God&#8217;s thoughts after him. Where you begin to\nlook at life quite differently than other people look at it. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Let me give you an illustration. I&#8217;ve been listening to television commercials, and I&#8217;ve been\nimpressed by the number of times I&#8217;ve heard the word deserve. Have you noticed\nthat? Everything&#8217;s sold on the basis you deserve this, you&#8217;ve got it coming to\nyou. You&#8217;re the kind of person who ought to have advantages. The best. You can\nhave it all. And over and over, we&#8217;re impressed with this philosophy that we\ndeserve more than we&#8217;ve got. Do you\nknow what happens to people who believe that? If you believe that, you have\nsuccessfully had removed from your heart every sense of gratitude. You see,\nwhat that does is to inculcate ingratitude. You&#8217;re never thankful for receiving\nsomething you feel you deserve. Most people are angry because they didn&#8217;t get\nas much as they thought they should have, or as much as the next fellow, or\nthat they didn&#8217;t get it sooner. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">We&#8217;re gradually becoming an ungrateful nation, and a whole\ngeneration is rising that knows nothing about feeling and expressing\ngratitude. The truth is, we don&#8217;t\ndeserve anything. When your thinking begins to be transformed by God, you\nbelieve what he says: that we&#8217;re a rebellious race, antagonistic to the program\nand plan of God, and we have wrecked the planet on which we live and ruined the\nlife of mankind, and we don&#8217;t deserve anything from God&#8217;s hand. But what we get\ninstead is grace and mercy. And when you begin to think like God thinks, you\nbegin to be grateful for every little thing that comes into your life. Do you know that we would have no\npossibility of meeting in a place like this this Sunday morning if it weren&#8217;t\nfor the continual mercy and grace of God? Our lives daily would be nothing but\na horrible experience of malice and evil and anger and murder were it not for\nthe restraining hand of God upon our world. Every day we learn to be grateful\nfor the things God gives. Now that&#8217;s allowing your mind to be transformed, and\nI&#8217;ll tell you, nothing will do it but the Word of God. This is why we&#8217;re\ncontinually exhorted to study and learn and understand the thoughts of God\nbecause that&#8217;s the way the world really lives. That&#8217;s reality. When you return\nto the Bible in your thinking, in your daily life, you&#8217;re returning at last to\nrealistic living. Anything else is phony and unrealistic. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Why should\nwe want to make our bodies available to God and allow our minds to be\ntransformed?<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Now one more thing remains, and that&#8217;s the motive. That&#8217;s going to be difficult. Simple as it\nsounds, it&#8217;s still difficult, isn&#8217;t it, because we don&#8217;t like to change. It&#8217;s\ncomfortable not to change. We don&#8217;t like that, and so God has provided a\nspecial motive to move us to do it. Did you see what it is? Right in the very\nfirst line. &#8220;I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of\nGod.&#8221; See, the mercies of God. When you begin to think about those mercies\nyou&#8217;ll find your heart strangely and powerfully moved to want to become an\navailable body and to allow your mind to be transformed by his Word. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">What are the mercies of God? This whole letter of Romans is all\nabout the mercies of God. Did you know that in Romans, there is not a single\nexhortation to us as believers to do anything for God at all until you get to\nthe middle of the sixth chapter. For five and a half chapters, the apostle Paul\nhas been telling us not about what we have to do for God&#8212;that&#8217;s what you get so\nmuch today&#8212;but about what God has already done for us. Those are the mercies of\nGod. You read through the chapter and\nyou can see for yourself. There&#8217;s, of course, first the forgiveness of our\nsins. The lifting of the load of guilt. The canceling out of all that sense of\nfilth, of dirtiness that we all have about ourselves. We know things about\nourselves that make us ashamed, and this book declares that in the grace and\nmercy of God, he has found a way to set it all aside. All the shame. All the\ndirty moments of the past. All the hurts that we&#8217;ve given to other people. All\nthe shameful thoughts that we have entertained. All set aside. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The forgiveness of sins. I don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s anything more\nwonderful than that. The Bible tells us\nin Ephesians that God lavishes forgiveness upon us. Lavish means to heap it up\nmore and more, and every day we need the forgiveness of sins. This isn&#8217;t just\nfor when you become a Christian; this is daily. Every morning, I thank God\nwhile I&#8217;m taking a shower that God has forgiven the sins of yesterday. And as\nmy body is being cleansed, so my soul and spirit is cleansed afresh by the\nmercy of God. Every day I start afresh.\nA whole new clean page in the book. Isn&#8217;t that marvelous? If anything will give you a sense of peace,\nit&#8217;s thinking about the forgiveness of God. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">But not only his forgiveness but his love. That&#8217;s incredible.\nThis magnificent God loves us. I&#8217;m so glad before we began here today we sang\nthat little chorus &#8220;Oh How He Loves You and Me.&#8221; It&#8217;s true, isn&#8217;t it?\nThis book declares that God loves you and me. In fact, the Book of Romans\nbegins on that note. Paul says, &#8220;To the saints at Rome who are loved by\nGod.&#8221; Look it up in the first chapter yourself. Loved by God. That&#8217;s\nincredible. I like the way somebody&#8217;s put it: &#8220;Isn&#8217;t it odd that a being\nlike God who sees the facade still loves the clod he made out of sod. Now isn&#8217;t\nthat odd?&#8221; It is indeed. But that&#8217;s what all our hymns are about. When we\nsing these hymns most of them are based on the wonder of God&#8217;s forgiveness and\nGod&#8217;s love. My favorite hymn is Charles Wesley&#8217;s great hymn, &#8220;And can it\nbe that I should gain an interest in the Savior&#8217;s blood? Died he for me, who\ncaused his pain&#8212;for me, who him to death pursued? Amazing love! How can it be\nthat thou, my God, shouldst die for me?&#8221; <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">And do you know the more you think about the love of God, the\nmore your heart will be stirred and moved to love him back. And to love your\nneighbor as yourself. That&#8217;s the key to love. &#8220;Herein is love,&#8221; John\nsays, &#8220;not that we first loved him but that he first loved us.&#8221; And\nwe just respond to the love that is daily given to us. Another mercy is the hope we have. The hope\nof the future. We Christians don&#8217;t live in fear and despair about the days that\ncome. Those without Christ do. They&#8217;re without hope. Without God. Without hope\nin the world. But we aren&#8217;t. What a hope we have. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I find myself growing older and my body weakening. I didn&#8217;t\nexpect it to happen, but it has. I look in the mirror and I say to myself,\nWhat&#8217;s a young man like you doing in an old body like that? But you see, I&#8217;m\nnot headed for darkness or death or despair or dissolution. I&#8217;m headed for\nlife, glory, victory, and joy and peace, all the great things that are promised\nto us. And the older we grow the more our eyes should be a light and our faces\nlight up with the glory of that coming joy, that coming hope, that coming\nfulfillment of all that life has been. Now that&#8217;s the mercies of God. I&#8217;ll tell you, friend, if you are giving\nyourself to understanding the mercies of God, you&#8217;ll find yourself motivated to\nbe an available instrument and to have a transformed mind. And when you do,\nyou&#8217;ll discover what this verse is saying. When you understand that by that simple\nprocess you can change the world, literally, in ways that you&#8217;ll never know at\nthe moment perhaps. When you understand that, your life will never be the same\nagain. That&#8217;s what it&#8217;s saying. People looking at you will say, &#8220;I don&#8217;t\nknow what he or she&#8217;s got, but he&#8217;s found the secret of life. They know how to\nlive. They&#8217;ve found what life is all about.&#8221; That&#8217;s what God is saying to\nus in these simple verses. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <em>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Ray Stedman was for 40 years the pastor of Peninsula Bible\nChurch in Palo Alto, California. He authored many books, including <\/span>\n      <\/em>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">God&#8217;s\nLoving Word, God&#8217;s Final Word,<em> and <\/em>Body Life. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">\n      <\/span>\n      <em>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Ray Stedman<\/span>\n      <\/em>\n    <\/p>\n    <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\">\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"subhead\">Preaching Today Tape # 25<\/span>\n    <\/h2>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">\n        <a href=\"http:\/\/www.preachingtodaysermons.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">www.PreachingTodaySermons.com<\/a>\n      <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">A resource of\nChristianity Today International<\/span>\n    <\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[306],"tax_ctp_authors":[2741],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_field_guide_subcategory":[],"tax_ctp_field_guides":[],"tax_ctp_format":[170],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[412],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_sermon_series":[],"tax_ctp_tags":[5181],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-33353","sermons","type-sermons","status-publish","hentry","tax_ctp_authors-ray-stedman","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-transformation"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>God&#039;s Game Plan for Life - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/gods-game-plan-for-life\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"God&#039;s Game Plan for Life - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you follow football at all, as almost everyone does these days, you know that every coach has a game plan before he begins the game&#8212;a plan they have worked out long before the game begins which is their strategy for accomplishing the desired goal. 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