OLD SCHOOL WISDOM | Week 5 | Full Service · Rewind

Pastor Bill Bush · Jul 3, 2023 · 76 min watch · 3 min read

OLD SCHOOL WISDOM | Week 5 | Full Service

Big Idea

Quoting the message: Success is about the goal, not the gain, end quote. — trusting God's ordering of life rather than pursuing possessions, power, and prestige.

Drawing from Proverbs 16:1–3 and John 6, Pastor Bill challenges the congregation to examine whether their version of success is built around worldly gain — possessions, power, and prestige — or around God's goal for their lives. Just as the crowds followed Jesus for free food rather than for eternal life, many Christians organize life on their own terms and then ask God to bless it. True success, Pastor Bill argues, begins with surrendering to the love of Christ, letting that love transform us from the inside out, and ordering our lives around the gospel rather than around comfort and self-interest.

Key points

1
1We tend to order life the way we think it should be, but God has the right answer — our plans are not inherently His plans.
2
2God examines our motives and the goals of our hearts, not just the outward religious actions we perform.
3
3Committing our actions to the Lord means surrendering our plans to Him first — not making our own plans and then asking God to bless them.
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4The crowds followed Jesus for perishable gains like food rather than for eternal life, and many disciples deserted Him when His real mission didn't match their expectations.
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5Possessions, power, and prestige are not inherently wrong, but they are not adequate — they can never fill the God-shaped longing placed in every human heart.
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6True success is knowing and showing the love of Jesus — you live not for His love but from it, and that love transforms you into someone who loves others.
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7What looked like total failure — Jesus crucified on a cross — became the most successful act in history three days later, because God's definition of success is entirely different from the world's.

Application

Pastor Bill calls every person in the room to stop organizing life around worldly gain — possessions, power, and prestige — and to make a genuine decision to trust Jesus' love as the foundation of everything. The practical starting point is honest self-examination: What does your prayer life actually sound like? Are you bringing God a list of wants and complaints, or are you asking what He wants to do in and through you? If following Jesus feels frustrating or empty, the question to ask is not what is wrong with God, but what is wrong with how you are seeing His love. Like working out when you don't feel like it, faithfulness is a daily choice made not on the basis of emotion but on the knowledge of who God is. You please God not by performing for Him, but by trusting His love and letting that love flow outward — into your relationships, your generosity, and your willingness to stay faithful even when everything seems to be going wrong.

Take it into your week

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7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

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There is something quietly revealing about the plans we make. We sketch out what we want our lives to look like — the career arc, the family situation, the financial security — and then, almost as an afterthought, we ask God to show up and make it all work. Pastor Bill pointed to Proverbs 16:1 as a gentle but firm corrective to that habit: we can arrange our thoughts and intentions, but the answer that actually comes out of our mouths belongs to the Lord. In other words, God is not a co-signer on a plan we already drafted. He is the one who has the right answer from the beginning. That is not a threat — it is actually a relief. It means we are not carrying the weight of figuring everything out on our own. The question this verse invites is honest and a little uncomfortable: when you sit down to think about your life, who is doing most of the talking? Are you presenting God with conclusions, or are you genuinely open to His? Surrendering the pen on your own story is not weakness — it is wisdom. It is the starting place for the kind of life that actually holds together. Today, just notice where your planning begins. That noticing is itself a kind of prayer.

For reflection

When you make plans — big or small — at what point, honestly, does God enter the conversation?

Pray

Pray for the humility to hold your plans loosely and genuinely open today's decisions to God's direction.

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Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

Think about the last time something you worked hard for turned out completely differently than you planned — and it somehow ended up better. That tension between our plans and a different outcome is right at the heart of what Pastor Bill explores in this message.

Discussion questions

1
In Proverbs 16:1–3, the writer describes a person who arranges their plans and then discovers that God has the final word. What do you think the writer is saying about the relationship between human planning and God's purposes — and what does that suggest about where planning should start?
2
In John 6, Jesus tells the crowd they are following Him because they ate bread and were satisfied — not because they saw the deeper meaning of what He was doing. What do you think Jesus is getting at with that distinction, and why does it seem to matter so much to Him?
3
Pastor Bill pointed out that possessions, power, and prestige are not wrong in themselves — they just can't fill the longing placed in every human heart. How might that idea change the way we as a community talk about what a 'good life' actually looks like?
4
After many disciples walked away in John 6, Jesus asked the Twelve whether they wanted to leave too. Peter answered, 'Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life.' What does Peter's response reveal about what had shifted for him compared to the crowd that left?
5
Pastor Bill described true success as living not for Jesus' love but from it — letting that love flow outward into relationships and faithfulness. What would it look like, practically, for a group like ours to build our shared life around that kind of love rather than around shared comfort or common goals?
6
Pastor Bill observed that the crucifixion looked like total failure and yet became the most successful act in history. How does that reframe the way we might think about seasons of life when faithfulness doesn't seem to be 'working'?

Pray together

Surrendering our plans to God, and asking Him to shape our definition of success around His love rather than our own comfort

Made by Rewind AI from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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OLD SCHOOL WISDOM

Week 5 · 4 messages

Where these passages are preached

Proverbs 16 John 6 Hebrews 12

Explore related topics

Surrendering Your Plans The Love of Christ True Priorities Trusting God's Definition of Success Worldly Success vs. God's Purpose

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