Intro: Today we’re beginning an Advent series tied together by the film It’s a Wonderful Life. It’s likely you’re familiar with it. It airs on television almost every year. It sells in Target every Christmas. It was first created in 1946, That makes this year it’s 60th Anniversary. 60 years! I mean, my dad was 10 when it was made! I don’t think they had toasters then!
The film is certainly no theological masterpiece. And I wouldn’t use it as the basis for your beliefs.
For example: there’s nothing biblical about angels earning thier wings. Also, all biblical indication is that it’s God who sends angels on assignment, not Joseph.
Nevertheless, it’s themes are human themes and God in his grace has much to share with us about our humanity.
If you know the story line, you will remember that George Bailey has all kinds of plans for his life. Take a little look...
[show clip here: timing 25:40-27:35 starting with “I’ll throw a rock...” through “...why don’t you kiss her?”]
The sore spot for George is that his plans don’t turn out.
He doesn’t get to be a world traveler and see the Roman collesium.
He doesnt’ get to go to college.
He doesn’t get out of his dusty little town.
He doesn’t get away from the family business, Bailey Building and Loan.
He doesn’t get to stay single and free, not tied down.
He doesn’t make a lot of money or build famous things that people talk about.
In addition...
His friends do get to leave town.
His friend Sam Waynwright makes loads of money.
His brother goes to college, and becomes a famous flying ace.
And here in lies our question. What makes it a wonderful life when my plans go awry?
1. It’s great to dream, but dreams alone are not what make life wonderful.
A. In many ways we set ourselves up for disappointment. It’s a product of the “American Dream” mentality, though I’m sure it’s common to all of humanity. Come to America where you can get rich quick, get your own plot of land, govern yourself, be free to express any latent angers or perverted desires under the guise of freedom of speech. Do your own thing. Be your own man. Get your own stuff.
It all sound deliciously appetizing. The sad reality is that very few feel they have reached the illusive American Dream.
In Jr.High you watch Shaquille O’Neal and you feel a rush inside. I’m going to do that. You go out for the Jr. High team. You make it but you’re benched most of the time. No matter. You’ll come into your prime. In High School, it’s your time to shine, but the competition is stiff and your don’t make the cut. There goes that dream.
The scene is repeated a thousand times over.
You’re gonna be a great hunter, but you can’t seem to hit the broad side of a barn.
You’re gonna be the next great rock band
You’re gonna be wealthy, but fact is, for every millionaire, there are millions who must stay poor. And your one of them.
You’re gonna raise upstanding kids and at least live vicariously through their success. But for all your efforts, they can turn into persons your sometimes not sure you like. You have parenting breakthroughs now and again -but unfortunately they come after your daughter is grown and out of the house.
Do you know what all our disappointments do to us? They make us bitter people. We become fearful, and lose confidence. We experience life as a tangled mess of accidents waiting to happen
But it is not so. It is not a accident.
2. It’s a wonderful life because God has his dreams for me. My life is not an accident.
A. God planned me on purpose. The Bible tells us that God makes every human on purpose.
1) You’re not here because your parents were frisky. Plenty of people are frisky and have no children. No one can force that issue! You’re here because God wanted to love you.
“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.” Jeremiah 29:11, NIV.
Lots of people have heard these verses. They appear on many Christian greeting cards. What most don’t know is that they were written to Israel while exiled in Babylon as slaves to Nebuchadnezzar! It was no American Dream!
v10, 14 Even the disaster was part of God’s plan. God says: I know the plans I have. I’m not up here guessing . I’m God. What you think is so hopeless isn’t throwing me off. It’s not messing me up any.
2) You’re not here because by some freak accident we sometimes pretend is science, a dolphine became deformed, sprouted feet, and started venturing onto the terra firma. You’re here because God wrote your name into his planner.
All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Psalms 139:16, NIV.
3) You don’t live in the country you live in by accident either.
“From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.” Acts 17:26, NIV.
Want to know something even better?
B. God planned for me to know he planned for me.
Some people go along with the “idea of God” as they put it. OK, he made us. But he’s pretty much up there and we’re pretty much down here in the real world.
But that is not so either.
Remember the Acts 17 verse? Well that next verse tells us why he planned you and me.
“God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.” Acts 17:27, NIV.
Remember the Jer.29 verse about God’s plans? Well the next verse tells us why he does it.
“Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:12,13, NIV.
All this non-accidental planning with your name on it means God is personally interested in you. Hear this friends. God is not just generically in love with mankind. He loves you by name. He knows your story. He wrote your story. The whole reason you’re in your story is he wants you!
God was saying to Israel, “Look, it’s not having everything the way you want it that makes for a wonderful life. It’s keeping in step with my good plans for you that does it.”
C. God thought about my future before I even had a present!
Let me explain. I know that some of you are already saving money for sending your kids to future education. And you don’t even have kids yet! You are pre-planning! That’s awesome. That’s the love of a parent, getting ready to give that love away before the person even exists.
Adoptive parents do this. So do birth-parents: they get ready in advance! It shows the passion level on their heart meter.
Guess how long God has had a plan about your life?
“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will--” Ephesians 1:4,5, NIV.
“[God] 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,” 2 Timothy 1:9, NIV.
Think about Christmas, the celebration of the fact that God isn’t just up there cooling off by a pool while we’re down here sweating it out. When did God’s plan to solve our sins begin? It wasn’t after we were born and he saw us mess up. And it certainly wasn’t after we made ourselves really quite nice people!
When he promised in Eden a descendant of Eve to crush the serpent’s head, it was a plan already in motion before there was moon and stars, evening and morning. Before! That’s how excited he was about you.
[Thank you for loving me, Pappa God!]
3. It becomes a wonderful life when I accept the good God offers me.
In Jeremiah 29, Israel might be wondering what they are supposed to do with they’re in exile, waiting for God to make the good plans come true.
read v5-7. Interesting isn’t it. Get on with living. Build houses, plant gardens, get married. Don’t sit around fussing and griping. In fact, while you’re waiting on the plan for your well-bing, seek the well-being of the people around you and this will bring well-being to you!
I don’t know if Frank Capra knew about this text, or this biblical truth, but It’s a Wonderful Life says practically this very same thing. It’s the epitome of George’s character!
Lets take an example of this. In It’s a Wonderful Life, Mary has been in love with George since their childhood days at the soda fountain. George has been overlooking her his whole life. At one point he’s wrestling with the thought of courting her. He stops in to visit, but seems argumentative. Sam Waynewright calls while he’s there and offers him a business opportunity that’s the “chance of a lifetime”. But theres another chance of a lifetime he needs to think about....
(watch 49:00 -50:10 from “George, I may have a job for ya.” through “They’re coming!”)
Maybe you too have wrestled like George. Fought to keep life the way you wanted it, and almost missed the “chance of a lifetime” in the gift of a wonderful mate, or the opportunity to love a friend, or any number of things.
Now it’s not explicit in the film, but it is in God’s word. What makes for a wonderful live is when we finally get past our plans and begin to see the good plans God has for us.
Conclusion: What do we do about all this? Well, how did verse 13 go? “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” Seek God’s plans. Pray to him. Ask him for his desires in your life.
For some just beginning to investigate the claims of Christ, this will mean taking him at his word, and asking for his help.
For some of you that will mean asking the Christ of Christmas to indeed save you from your sin and become your God.
For others it will mean letting him take over another area of life that you have been insisting on controlling.
May I assure us on one thing: Everything works better when it goes according to plan. God has a plan for you, a plan to love and prosper you and give you a wonderful life.
