Our Plans and Purpose: Aligning Your Plans with God’s Purpose by Faith

Our plans and purpose belong together: every believer makes plans, but those plans work best when they are built around God’s purpose for our lives. In this message, Pastor Paul teaches that God has given us free will and expects us to plan, yet as sons and daughters of the living God we choose to align our plans with His purpose. Plans can change, he says, but our purpose should not: to receive the Father’s love and to show it to others.

Below you will find the full video, a structured summary of the sermon, the Scripture behind each point (linked to the New King James Version on Bible Gateway), a timestamped outline, and practical steps you can take this week.

Sermon at a Glance

This message was posted by NTC Ministries on August 21, 2025, and runs about 51 minutes. Pastor Paul opens by leading the church in surrendering their will, emotions, lifestyle and plans to God, then builds on the series on faith that Dr. Hohman had been teaching from Hebrews.

His central question is simple: are your plans aligning with God’s purpose? If they are not, he says, we fight, we struggle, and we wonder why. The message moves from salvation as the first step of faith, through practical planning and the Holy Spirit’s leading, to a long line of Bible characters whose plans were interrupted by God’s purpose.

Faith Is Kingdom Living

Pastor Paul starts with salvation, because receiving Christ is itself an act of faith. If you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth, you will be saved (Romans 10:9–10). God takes out the old heart of stone and puts in a heart of flesh that is pliable and moldable (Ezekiel 36:26).

People come to that point by different roads. Some, like Pastor Paul, grew up in a Christian home and gave their lives to Christ young. Others made unwise choices, landed in big messes and finally said, “My way is garbage. I need something new.” Still others think life is going well and they do not need a Savior. They are wrong, he says. We all need a Savior, and His name is Jesus Christ. It is not religion; it is relationship.

Faith matters after salvation too. Hebrews 11:1 calls faith the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen, and Hebrews 11:6 says without faith it is impossible to please God. If we treat salvation as a ticket to heaven and go back to doing our own thing, that does not take much faith, and we are probably not living where God wants us to be.

He also challenges the idea that because God is in control, we can live any way we want. God uses people. We are His hands and feet. If I am His hand but I am working against what He is doing, His work through me is hindered, and He will simply find someone else to use. Faith is needed for a job, a spouse, children, neighbors and coworkers, and even to love our enemies. Most of the time, he admits, faith is not easy.

Why We Still Need a Plan

If God has a plan for my life, why do I need to plan? Because God is not holding our hands and doing everything for us, Pastor Paul answers. He has given us free will. Everyone plans: you planned to come to church or to tune in online. As believers, we use that free will to choose to live for Him, because old things have passed away and all things have become new (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Faith without works is dead (James 2:26), so we need both faith and the work of walking it out, at times with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). He never imagined he would preach or play an instrument, until someone offered to teach him. That, he says, was God ordering his steps by sending people across his path.

He remembers sitting in his father’s office as a confused teenager, crying because he did not know what to do with his life. He loved worship and serving at church, and he wanted to please both his dad and God. His father told him, “Paul, it doesn’t matter what you do. You could be a truck driver. You could work at the factory. You could start your own business. You could preach,” as long as he followed the Lord and stayed sensitive to His leading. He walked out, he says, and the sky was never bluer.

Having a plan is wise. His sister and brother-in-law were building a house and discovered how overwhelming it is to plan every room and color, but just buying tools and lumber without a plan would be far worse. Even a plan to rest is a plan: going fishing or walking into the woods where there is no signal, to shut off the world and talk to the Father. Eventually, though, we come back, because we still live in this world and God has a great purpose for us here.

Plans Change, but Purpose Does Not

Plans get redirected by things we never asked for. Pastor Paul pictures a family road trip planned with a paper map, only to run into summer road construction in Wisconsin, lose the GPS signal and end up lost at noon. Relationships can redirect us too. When he was young, his father told him several times to stop spending time with certain friends. He could not see why then, but his dad saw influences that were pulling him away from the purpose God had for his life.

When you know God’s purpose, anything that distracts you from it becomes easier to spot. You realize you are off course and need to reroute and come back to your first love. Life brings surprises, a new child or the loss of a loved one, and emotions that can be painful one day and jubilant the next. Jesus said that in the world we will have trouble, but to be of good cheer (John 16:33).

The enemy is real, he warns, walking about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8), and he targets those who are fully surrendered. That is why we cannot live by our emotions. We seek God’s guidance in decisions, though not in every detail: God does not need to choose the color of your first car. But getting what you want cannot be your only plan. When your will lines up with the Father’s, freely you receive and freely you give (Matthew 10:8), and you start looking for ways to bless others.

He repeats his key line for emphasis: “As Christians, sons and daughters, plans can change, but not our purpose.” Our purpose is to receive love and show love, the love of our heavenly Father. Aligning our plans with that purpose takes prayer, reading and studying the Word, and following the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes the Spirit gives a check, a red flag that something is not right. When the church’s new building was going up, Pastor Paul climbed an extension ladder on gravel to paint a red stripe near the second-story window. He sensed something was off, told his friend so, and kept climbing anyway. Two steps later the ladder gave way. His leg caught in a rung, he flipped and hit his head on the ground. He is fine, he laughs, but the lesson stuck: the more we ignore that check, the less sensitive we become to it.

God Plans to Prosper You, Not Harm You

Pastor Paul reads Jeremiah 29:11: God knows the plans He has for us, plans of peace and not of evil, to give us a future and a hope. God never plans to harm you, he insists. He recalls friends in line for a roller coaster saying that if it crashed, that would just be God’s plan for them. Even then, he says, steam was coming out of his ears. That is not God’s plan. He wants us to grow, increase and do well, because every living thing is a growing thing.

Proverbs 19:21 adds the other side: there are many plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails. Jonah is his example. When God sent him to Nineveh, Jonah sailed the opposite way. A storm rose, he was thrown overboard, and God prepared a great fish (Jonah 1:17). After three days in its belly, Jonah finally said yes, and when he preached in Nineveh, the city repented (Jonah 3:4–10).

Even then, Pastor Paul notes, Jonah’s heart had not surrendered. He still felt the people of Nineveh did not deserve mercy. But God loves our enemies too, so we must see through eyes of compassion, love, grace and mercy. Ephesians 2:10 says we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works that He prepared beforehand. You are His masterpiece, his Mona Lisa, he says, and your purpose is not just to get by.

So we take hold of that purpose and run and not grow weary (Isaiah 40:31), knowing that He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4). Romans 8:28 promises that all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.

But love for God is shown in commitment. Some are committed only until the crisis passes. He pictures someone who plans a house, pours the foundation, starts the walls and then walks away, leaving it to rot. Keep pressing in, he urges, keep loving and keep doing what God asked. In Psalm 32:8, God promises to instruct and teach us in the way we should go and to guide us with His eye.

When Plans and Purpose Collide in Scripture

Pastor Paul says you could pick almost anyone in the Bible to illustrate this message. The table below follows the examples he gives.

Abraham was promised descendants as the sand of the sea, tried to do things his own way, and then, after Isaac was born, was asked to sacrifice him. God wanted to know his heart, and He showed Himself as the Lord who provides (Genesis 22:13–14). Noah was told to build not a canoe but an ark. God sometimes asks us to do things that seem impossible, and that is where faith lets Him do the impossible through us.

Moses had run away and planned to just make it through life. When God sent him, he offered excuse after excuse. But he did not need a perfect speech. He simply went and said, “Let my people go.” After the plagues, Pharaoh released Israel and then chased them, and the sea parted so that the people walked across on dry ground (Exodus 14:21–22). Yet because their hearts were not right, they still wandered forty years.

That leads to a warning about our words. Are you complaining, bickering or arguing with God because you want it your way? Sometimes, he says, the Holy Spirit’s check is simply to shut your mouth. Other times it is to open it and speak wisdom, love and kindness.

Job’s friends and family told him to curse God and die, but he pressed through, and the Lord gave him twice as much as before (Job 42:10). God was with Daniel in the lions’ den (Daniel 6:22) and with the three Hebrews in the fire (Daniel 3:19–25). The point, he says, is that God shows up when you press in and do not veer from aligning your plans with His purpose.

Lift Up Your Eyes to the Hills

In Psalm 23:1–4, David begins with green pastures and still waters, then verse four arrives: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” Pastor Paul points out that David is walking through it, not camping there. He fears no evil because the Lord is with him, and His rod and staff comfort him. Picture a sheep running right up to the legs of its shepherd, he says, close enough to feel His arms around you.

Isaiah 43:1–3 adds the promise that when you pass through the waters He will be with you, the rivers will not overflow you, and when you walk through the fire you will not be burned. You have a Savior who can save you from anything, so put your trust and hope in Him.

When life presents mountains, rivers and intense pathways, it is natural to look everywhere but to God. Psalm 121 gives a different perspective: “I will lift up my eyes to the hills; from whence comes my help? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.” He who keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. Whether you face health issues, relationship troubles or just feel lost, he says, your help is not merely on its way. It is already here.

His final verse is Proverbs 3:5–6: trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, acknowledge Him in all your ways, and He will direct your paths. If you have surrendered to Him, he says, you have already won, so walk in your victory and in the plans God has for you.

Aligning Your Plans This Week

Pastor Paul closes by praying for breakthrough in relationships, workplaces, homes and marriages, for loved ones and even enemies to be saved, and for the church to see others through eyes of love. Here are the practical steps drawn from this message on plans and purpose:

• Surrender your plans in prayer. Like the opening prayer, hand God your will, emotions, lifestyle and plans before you make your next decision.
• Make a real plan. Use the free will God gave you to set goals for work, family and service, then hold them up against His purpose.
• Heed the check. When the Holy Spirit raises a red flag, stop and listen rather than pressing on.
• Watch your associations. Notice who and what is influencing you, and reroute when they pull you away from your first love.
• Keep building. Do not walk away from what God asked you to do once the crisis has passed; keep loving and keep pressing in.
• Look up first. When the mountain seems too high, lift your eyes to the Lord before looking anywhere else for help.

Timestamped Outline

• 0:00 Opening prayer of surrender
• 1:09 Salvation is a step of faith
• 3:08 We all need a Savior
• 4:17 Hebrews 11: faith pleases God
• 5:14 God uses people as His hands and feet
• 7:33 If God has a plan, why do I plan?
• 8:42 Faith without works is dead
• 9:48 A confused teenager in his father’s office
• 12:43 Building a house takes a plan
• 13:37 Redirected by road construction
• 14:36 A father’s warning about friends
• 19:30 Plans can change, but not our purpose
• 20:38 The check in his spirit and the ladder fall
• 24:38 Plans to prosper you, not harm you
• 27:40 Proverbs 19:21 and the story of Jonah
• 30:18 Ephesians 2:10: God’s handiwork
• 32:29 Commitment beyond the crisis
• 34:42 Abraham and Noah
• 37:13 Moses and the Red Sea
• 39:56 Job, Daniel and the fiery furnace
• 40:59 Psalm 23: walking through the valley
• 43:09 Isaiah 43 and Psalm 121
• 46:51 Proverbs 3:5–6: trust in the Lord
• 48:20 Prayer for breakthrough

Plans and Purpose Series

This is the first of two messages on this theme at NTC Ministries. Continue with the next message:

• You are here: Our Plans and Purpose: Aligning Your Plans with God’s Purpose by Faith
• Next: Our Plans and Purpose, Part 2: What God Requires and Why It Is for Your Good

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to ask God about every small decision?

Pastor Paul says no. Using a young person buying a first car as his example, he explains that you do not have to ask God what color to get. God wants you to enjoy life, so get what you like within what you can spend. The issue is whether getting what you want has become your only goal. When your will lines up with the Father’s, your plans start including ways to bless others.

Does God ever plan to take someone’s life in an accident?

Pastor Paul is emphatic that God never plans to harm His children. He tells of friends who said that if a roller coaster crashed, it would just be God’s plan for them, and he rejects that view. Jeremiah 29:11 describes plans of peace, not of evil. He teaches that God wants us to grow, increase and do well, because every living thing is a growing thing.

What if I have already gone the wrong way?

Then reroute, Pastor Paul says. Jonah sailed in the opposite direction and still ended up preaching in Nineveh. When you realize you have been distracted, come back to your first love and to God’s purpose for you. As he told the congregation at the end, your plan is not done yet, no matter how old or young you are. The road God has for you is an amazing road.

Scripture References

All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:

• Proverbs 19:21 — the Lord’s purpose prevails
• Jeremiah 29:11 — plans of peace and a future
• Hebrews 11:1 — the substance of things hoped for
• James 2:26 — faith without works is dead
• Ephesians 2:10 — created for good works
• Romans 8:28 — called according to His purpose
• Psalm 23:1–4 — through the valley
• Psalm 121 — my help comes from the Lord
• Proverbs 3:5–6 — He will direct your paths

How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.

Watch More Messages

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