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Trusting God with all your tomorrows.
You heard me?
Trusting God with all your tomorrows.
Would you go to Matthew, the sixth chapter,
starting at verse 25, a very familiar portion
of scripture.
I want God to change our thinking this
morning and do something that can really impact
our lives in the future.
Trusting God with all your tomorrows.
Matthew six, beginning with verse 25, Jesus speaking.
Therefore, I say unto you, take what?
No thought for your life, what you shall
eat, what you shall drink, or yet for
your body, what you shall put on.
Is not life more than meat, the body
more than raiment?
Behold, the fowls of the air, they do
not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather
into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.
Are you not much better than they?
Skip down to 28.
Why take thought for raiment?
Consider the lilies of the field, how they
grow, they toil not, neither do they spin.
Yet I say unto you that even Solomon
in all his glory was not arrayed like
one of these.
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of
the field, which is today and tomorrow is
cast into the oven, shall they not much
more clothe you?
O you of little faith!
Take no thought, saying, What shall we do?
Or what shall we drink?
Wherewith shall we be clothed?
For after all these things do the Gentiles
seek.
For your heavenly Father knoweth that you have
need of all these things.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God
and His righteousness, and all these things shall
be added unto you.
Here's my message.
Take, therefore, no thought for tomorrow.
For tomorrow shall take thought of the things
of itself.
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Putting all, trusting God with all your tomorrows.
Heavenly Father, this is a message I want
you to make real to my own heart.
We have such a tendency to worry about
tomorrow.
We have such a tendency to worry about
things that have not yet come, but we
anticipate or fear.
And I pray, Lord, that You take all
that fear out of us this morning.
We're here, O Lord, to hear and understand
and hear what the Spirit has to say.
Lord, it's not right that Your people be
anxious, that Your people be in despair about
the future.
We are, Lord, to turn all our tomorrows
over to You.
Speak it to us.
May we take it to heart and may
this be a challenge to us.
We pray in Christ's name.
Amen.
By the way, Israel, we are going to
Israel.
We're going the first week of June.
Those who have signed up to go, I
think there are still some spaces.
You can contact the literature table back there
and find out.
But what you hear in the news and
all about Gaza and some of the turmoil
in the streets of Jerusalem and in Tel
Aviv, there is peace and calm and there
is not going to be any danger.
We're believing the Lord.
We're going up to Jerusalem.
People are coming from all over the world
for these meetings.
We have delegations coming, pastors and prisoners from
many parts of the world.
We're going to have a wonderful time in
Jerusalem for a week.
So if you have not yet signed up,
you still have some time, I believe.
So you can check that in the back.
God, we're talking now about trusting God with
all your tomorrows.
If you remember the story, God appeared to
Abraham one day.
He made an incredible declaration, an incredible command.
It's simply this.
Get out of your country and from all
your kindred and from all your father's house
to land that I will show you.
He just suddenly comes and picks a man
and he says, I want you to get
up and I want you to leave your
family, leave your country to a place that
I'm going to tell you to go.
Scripture says in Hebrews 11, 8, by faith,
Abraham, when he had been called to go
out into a place, which he should have
to receive for an inheritance, he obeyed and
he went out not knowing where he was
going, not knowing where he was to go.
Now, why?
What is God up to?
Why would he search the whole all the
nations of the world until he found a
man that he believed he can trust?
And he calls him to pick up everything
and go.
He has no map.
He has no idea or concept of where
he's going, when he's going to arrive, how
he's going to get there, who's going to
finance it.
He's just told, I want you from this
day on to give me all your tomorrows.
I want you to throw yourself at my
mercy.
I want you to believe what I'm telling
you.
And I want you to simply walk on
my word.
I want you to commit your life to
a promise I'm going to make you.
If you will get up, if you will
go, I'm going to take you to a
place you've never been.
And folks, it's a place I want you
to see that God wants to take all
of us as the body of Jesus Christ.
And that is total dependence on the promises
of God, total dependence for every tomorrow from
today on the rest of your life.
That you will make a commitment.
This was a call that received not only
by Abraham.
Paul the Apostle calls those who are in
Christ the children of Abraham.
Abraham was a pattern man.
God says, I'm going to take a man
and I'm going to show all the nations
of the world.
I'm going to show all the peoples to
come.
What it means to please me.
And how a man should live and walk
before God.
I'm going to make him an example.
I'm going to thrust him into my care.
Now, he's up in age now.
He's up in life in a number of
years when he got this call.
He was not just a young man.
Now, he had surely had many plans for
his family.
And his wife.
And for Lot, his nephew.
And those who were with him in his
immediate family.
Surely they had made plans for the future.
For the children to come.
And for Lot, there had been surely plans
made.
You make a lot of friends.
There are so many things involved in this.
Any of you know what I mean?
If you got a command to pick up
and just go and not told where to
go.
And the Lord said, if you would just
trust, I'll guide you.
I'll tell you if you take the first
step what the next step is going to
be.
And I'll take you one day at a
time.
And that's all.
And you will trust me for your food.
You will trust me for everything.
Now, that's an incredible demand that is made
on this man.
And the Bible says, and Abraham believed in
the Lord.
And God counted it to him for righteousness.
And Jesus picks up the theme here now.
And he said, don't take any thought for
your life, what you eat or what you
drink.
Take therefore no thought of tomorrow.
For tomorrow shall take thought for the things
of itself.
Sufficient of the day is the evil thereof.
This does not mean that you cast aside
all your plans and you don't make plans.
The Lord is talking about don't be anxious.
I will show you the way, but don't
be anxious about it.
Don't get in despair about it and don't
preconceive what might happen.
You see, there are two little words that
the enemy uses to disturb our spirit, mentally,
spiritually and physically and every other way.
Two little words.
What if?
What if the economy fails?
What if I can't pay my mortgage?
What if I don't have a job?
How am I going to live?
What's going to happen to my family?
What's going to happen to my children?
What if I get sick and what if
I'm in the hospital?
What if my insurance runs out and we
have a thousand different what ifs?
And these cause anxiety, can lead to depression.
And the Lord comes along in the midst
of this and he provides a call and
he makes a call to his church and
to his people.
He comes in the middle of all of
these what ifs and he says, your father
knows what you have need of.
Your father is going to take care of
you.
He said, look at the lilies, look at
all of these things that I'm showing you
and I'm trying to prove to you that
you have nothing to worry about.
You don't need to say what if you
have to say God is.
God will supply.
The heavenly father will feed you.
He will clothe you.
He will care for you.
Oh, ye of little faith.
Now, we gladly turn all of our past.
Over to the Lord, all of our past
sins and all of our past failures, and
we take it to the victory of the
cross and we say, thank you, Lord.
My past is under the blood.
I'm clean.
And we are so ready and so glad
to give him everything in the past.
We love that scripture for getting all things
that are behind and we give him the
past.
But we want to hold the right to
the future.
In fact, we make our plans and then
we go to God and pray, Lord, bless
my plans.
Bless my dream.
Now, we live in an incredible age, unlike
anything in history.
We have a doctrinal disarray in the world
today, doctrinal disillusioned illusions because the pressure.
Now you hear it from pulpits all over
America.
You have to be great.
You have to ask.
You have to do big things.
You have to be a success.
And we have a driving.
Now there's a spirit in America, especially of
driven.
And our kids are driven that they are
driven to be a successful sort of they're
just ordinary kids.
They feel that they're nothing.
They are under stress.
They are stressed out.
Now they tell us that the great numbers
of high school students are taking all kinds
of amphetamines and all kinds of drugs, trying
to calm their spirit and their stress like
we have never seen before.
And parents are trying to plan their children's
lives all the way out into the future.
And this cry for bigness and success and
drive.
In the middle of it all, you hear
this cry that God gave to mankind through
Abraham and all the children of Abraham.
That's not what I've called you to.
And I think I don't think that's a
testimony to the world that God's people should
be as stressed as the ungodly, that we
should be stressed out, that we should be
in despair, that we should be walking in
depression because we fear tomorrow.
And most of you that are sitting here
now, what I'm talking about, the fear that
comes upon us, the anticipation of the future.
We know that God has taken care of
us up to this point.
You can't tell me that God hasn't been
faithful to you.
I don't care how old you are.
God has been faithful and he supplied.
Some of you have faced death and the
Lord has given you grace.
Some of you face divorce and God gave
you grace.
Some of you face poverty and God brought
you through.
And you know that.
And we all know that.
And we say, I will trust God with
my future.
I'll give him tomorrow.
But then about midnight, it comes creeping back
in.
What about tomorrow?
Paul, the apostle, wrote an epistle to the
Philippians and he was in prison in Rome
at the time.
And Paul is chained between two guards, the
praetorian guard.
At that time, if you read Josephus, if
you read biblical history or secular history, also,
you find that the custom at the time
was that two praetorian guards were chained, one
to each foot.
And they were 24 hours working in various
shifts.
And Paul is chained between two ungodly guards
day and night.
And these men, I'm sure, are hardened.
You see, they look at everyone.
Everybody says they're innocent.
These men are hardened.
They've seen it all.
And to them, Paul is a criminal.
He's guilty.
He's not innocent because when you are in
this kind of work and a police officer
can tell you, you have the tendency to
think that everybody is guilty.
Everybody's got an alibi.
This man must have lived in such such
horrible condition.
The tearing down of a man's dignity is
so easy at this kind of treatment.
He has to have his food brought to
him.
And his ministry is stopped as far as
the church is concerned.
The Philippians, there were some in Philippi, as
I preached last Sunday, some in Philippi that
were saying that Paul was bringing disgrace on
the body of Christ because of this kind
of treatment.
If he were really holy, if he were
really a man of God, nobody could put
him in jail.
Or an angel would come and release him.
Where is his power in prayer?
All kinds of things coming down on this
man while he's imprisoned.
You see, he's an active man.
He loves to travel.
Paul loved just going from house to house
to meet God's people and to establish churches.
He was always going.
He loved the open road and the open
sea.
And here he is chained and he is
down.
And here's reports of his young preacher boys
that he's raised in the spirit.
They are having great results.
And God is blessing Apollos.
Apollos is not in jail.
He's not suffering.
Timothy and Titus are having results.
Epaphroditus is moving in the spirit.
And so many things are being done.
And here's Paul sitting chained to a circumstance
beyond his control.
Now, how is Paul going to react when
he's changed, chained by circumstances?
I want you to keep that phrase in
mind, changed by circumstances.
Because you see, your circumstances can change overnight.
You've heard it said bad things happen to
good people.
And that's true.
There are many bad things that happen to
good people.
I remember one time when Gwen was going
through a very, very difficult time.
And I overheard her.
I heard her quietly weeping.
And I overheard her cry.
And she said, Oh, God, did I do
something wrong?
Did I hurt you?
Because she couldn't understand.
And it broke my heart.
So I ran into the room and said,
Oh, honey, please.
The Bible says many of the afflictions of
the righteous.
Many of the afflictions of the righteous.
You haven't hurt God.
You haven't hurt him.
And it was an encouragement to her.
But you see, overnight, you can lose control
of the future.
You can lose control because everything changes.
And we don't like to hear that.
But that's the reality.
And I doubt there's a person hearing me
right now that couldn't say amen to that.
Something that happened in your life, a death
of a husband or wife.
Some tragedy or some circumstance came into your
life that you did not anticipate.
Anticipate.
And it changed everything.
You were chained by your circumstances.
I was in a doctor's office recently when
Gwen had an appointment with a doctor.
And I was sitting out in the doctor's
outer office.
And an elderly woman, someone had come up
to me and said, Are you Pastor Wilkins?
And I said, Yes.
And she had found or overheard that I
was a pastor.
And she said, Can I talk to you
a moment?
And I was waiting.
This elderly woman said, You know, my husband,
we had such a wonderful life.
We had such fun together.
And in his early 70s, he was afflicted
with a stroke.
And she said, I've been his I was
his caretaker for five, almost six years.
And he was crippled.
I had I had to I had to
take care of him 24.
I mean, it was 24 hours a day.
I was on call and there was no
other caretaker.
And I was the only one.
She said he he became very depressed.
He died last year.
But she said just before he died, he
called me into the room and he was
so depressed.
He said, Wife, I want to tell you,
you don't know what it's like to to
to to lose the ability to walk.
And there's no more joy.
There's nothing you can do.
You can't drive.
You can't go out.
And I've been robbed of my future.
I've been robbed of my tomorrow's.
And and there's been no happiness.
There's been nothing but sorrow.
And I can't tell you the pain that
is in my heart for having lost everything
of my future and to sit here suffering
in this bed.
And the lady turned to me, she said,
Sir, you know what I told him?
I said, look, you're forgetting something.
I was here, too.
I went through it, too.
My future was robbed from me.
My tomorrows were taken away from me.
I've spent all these years just waiting on
you.
And I did it with love.
And I love you.
But you do not think of my pain.
You see, it comes on.
And there was just a little bit of
bitterness in her heart.
She said, I miss him.
But, you know, I feel that through his
condition, I, too, was robbed of my future.
Has robbed of my tomorrows.
You see, with Paul, the apostle, I'm going
to say again, suffering comes to all of
us.
And many of you here now, I've got
to get this through to you.
I'm not trying to preach a good sermon.
I'm going to talk to you as a
father.
And there are some of you now that
are chained right now to a circumstance.
It may be in a marriage that seems
to be out of control.
It can be a financial situation.
I know what it is.
There are so many ways that people suffer.
So many incredible things that happen.
Our mailing list, by the boxes of letters
that come in, of elderly people losing their
sight.
And suddenly it's gone.
Slowly, but then one day they wake up
and it's gone.
And all of the horrible, incredible sufferings we
read about and hear about.
Now, see, with Paul, the apostle, there are
two options.
And the same two options we all have.
One, you can spin out of control in
despair.
You can just spend the rest of your
life in a morbid investigation or contemplation of
why am I here?
Why does God allow this in my life?
And, folks, if you're not careful, you can
spin out until you become so depressed, you
become so down.
You forget those around you that suffer.
You forget those all around because you become
so centered on your own pain.
And centered on that suffering.
Because you've taken this option.
You say, I didn't deserve this.
I don't know why it's happened.
Why me?
And you spend the rest of your time
saying, why?
Why me, Lord?
What did I do?
Why are you mad at me?
Why don't you answer my prayer?
And you can get so involved in your
mind and so confused that you become a
burden to yourself and a burden to all
around.
And there's no joy.
There's nothing but depression.
And if you don't get a hold of
this truth today, some of you could spin
out into depression that cannot be cured outside
of a miracle.
Paul took the other option.
And that is to say, it's not a
matter of not the question is not why,
but how I'm going to react to it.
How I'm going to react to this circumstance
that has come into my life.
God has allowed this, that the steps of
a righteous man are ordered by the Lord.
I'm in God's will.
I'm going to make this count.
I'm going to let this preach to others.
By the way, I react.
I'm going to become a testimony.
And Paul writing to the Philippian church, he
says, don't worry about me, said, I want
you to know.
Yes, I'm in chains.
I want you to know.
Yes, I'm suffering.
But I want you to know something.
The gospel is being preached through my suffering
that with all boldness as always.
So now also.
So now while I'm in chains, now I'm
in circumstances above my control.
You may think I've lost my ministry.
Paul is saying you may think that I
don't have anything to do for Christ anymore.
You may think that my hands are tied,
that I'm a hopeless case.
He said, no.
Just as sure as I've been preaching to
churches and raising and building up churches.
So even now also Christ shall be magnified
in my body, whether it be life or
by death.
He said, I'm going to take advantage of
my present situation.
Now, when I talk about turning your tomorrows
over to the Lord and taking this option
of saying, I want this to be a
testimony, I want this to be a ministry.
Paul said this has become a matter of
rejoicing to me.
My affliction to become a cause of rejoicing.
He's not going around saying, well, thank you,
Jesus, for these chains.
He's not going around saying, I'm so happy
I'm in.
I'm so happy I'm eating rice three times
a day.
He's not doing that.
No, no.
I believe that he's human.
And I think many times during the day.
So, oh, God, deliver me from this bondage.
I believe if he's not thinking like I'm
thinking, then he can't help me because he's
human.
And many times he had to pray through
the day.
Go, God, give me grace to get through
this next day.
Because every visitor is being monitored, everything he
says is being monitored.
And those men are within your shot.
They hear it.
And someone was snickering, no doubt.
Crazy preacher.
But Paul writes and he says, don't.
Don't.
What he's saying is, don't.
You don't have to pity me.
You don't have to say poor Paul.
Because he said, I will tell you something.
These guards that are guarding me.
These very chains.
He said, they're going back.
They go back to their barracks.
What he said, everybody's talking about my gospel
that I preach.
And he's inferring, well, they go to the
barracks and they talk about this man that
they're chained to.
And they're repeating.
Paul said some of the repeating it just
to mock him, so to speak.
They're not preaching it honestly, but they're repeating
what Paul said.
And then they're going home to their families
and they're telling their families and their friends.
And Paul said, I'm just sitting here praising
God.
I'm in affliction.
But as always, I would that
you should know and understand, brethren, Philippians 1,
12.
That the things which have happened to me
have turned out rather to further the gospel.
Now, think of it.
These things that are happening to me.
This.
It looks like such a tragedy.
This that I'm going through in my life,
I could think about it and be depressed.
But he said, it's turning out.
God's turning it around.
And it's furthering the gospel because people know
what I'm going through.
They know what they would do in that
case.
They know that most of them would cave
in and they'd complain and they would murmur
and they would cry.
And everybody would be trying to pity them.
But Paul said, no, I'm not reacting that
way.
My countenance, he's not going around just putting
on a false smile.
Paul is not murmuring.
He's not complaining.
Folks, let me tell you something about when
we ask why, when a tragic God understands
he's not a meanie.
Jesus even said, father, why the first impulses?
Yes.
And the Lord is paced with that.
What I'm talking about, he's made provision so
that those what is and those wise can
be answered and solved by his word.
So we have to go around always asking
why.
You have to bypass that.
You have to get past that where you
say, I want not a false smile, but
I want a genuine word from the Lord
that I don't have to question why this
has happened to me.
You see, two weeks before my 12 year
old granddaughter, our 12 year old granddaughter, Tiffany,
died of cancer.
The Lord came to me.
I stood in this pulpit once and even
tried to warn family and others that she
was going home because I'd had a moment
with Tiffany and she said, Grandpa, I want
Jesus told me I'm coming home and I
don't I don't I don't want to suffer
like this.
I want to be with Jesus.
And the Holy Spirit told me, you put
her in my hands and you trust me
with her, that I will never do anything
is contrary to my will.
And if I take her and I'm going
to take her because there's something, you know,
don't know about the future.
And I have to do it this way.
Will you trust me as a tender, loving
heavenly father that if I say I'm going
to give you the grace to go through
it, I'm going to give you peace and
I'll give it for your whole family.
And my wife and two daughters were have
a little.
Chain around the neck with picture of of
Tiffany.
And it's furthering the gospel everywhere they go
in every store.
Who's that?
And then Gwen tells a story, Debbie tells
a story, Bonnie tells a story, and there's
one testimony after another.
Folks, I'm trying to say something maybe very
weakly, may not be coming across like I
wanted to.
But God is faithful in our time of
suffering and time of pain.
And God is looking at us how we
react to that.
What is going to be our reaction?
How long do we go sulking?
How long do we keep on touting?
How long do we keep questioning the faithfulness
of God?
Oh, but if you were in my shoes,
Pastor Dave, if you only knew what I'm
going through.
Well, everybody can say that.
I can say that.
That doesn't answer anything.
And Paul, the apostle, says, no, the issue
now is how I react.
Paul wrote another word to the Philippians in
four, four.
Rejoice in the Lord always.
And again, I say, rejoice.
He had not resigned just to the will
of God and said, well, this is what
has been this is what has been served
out to me.
This I was in the hospital visiting a
rather wealthy man in this from the city,
and he was dying of cancer in a
hospital here and he was Jewish.
And a friend of mine, I went in
to just to console him and I said,
may I pray for you?
And I said a few things to him
and he said, look, Pastor, these are the
cards.
That have been dealt to me.
I just have to take it.
This is these are the cards have been
dealt to me.
No, folks.
Paul, the apostle, didn't resign to this.
Well, this is the card.
This is the life that God has handed
to me.
He didn't resign.
He was not ignorant of the future.
He was not just giving in.
No.
He said this.
This has to be not only give us
tomorrow, but believe that you can rejoice.
He's saying to the church, rejoice now.
And again, I say he saw him first.
And so once that he says again and
again, I ask you to rejoice the testimony.
It doesn't mean that you don't have times
that you cry.
It doesn't mean that there are times that
you just wonder if you can make it
another day.
But it's something that says, Lord, my life
is in your hands.
I don't have to do something great for
you.
I just have to trust you.
I just have to give my life over
to you in my future and believe that
you will do what is best for me.
Paul, the apostle, says, I am set for
the defense of the gospel.
Christ is being preached through my affliction.
Therefore, I rejoice.
Yay.
And I will rejoice.
I'm going to read it to you again.
I am set for the defense of the
gospel.
Christ is being preached through my affliction.
In other words, says, I'm going to make
sure that the gospel is validated.
I want to make sure that I don't
despise or disgrace the word of God, preaching
to others that God can give me grace
through any situation, preaching and telling others about
the glory of Jesus Christ and how he
can take you through storms and floods and
fiery furnaces and lions dens.
The message that we preach to the world.
And Paul said, I am set.
This is going to be my defense of
the faithfulness of my Christ.
The whole world is going to know and
everybody knows me that the gospel I preach
takes me through my hard times.
I'm set for the defense of the gospel.
Christ is being preached.
I'm going to ask you the question, is
Christ being preached through your reaction now to
what you're going through?
What do your relatives and what do your
friends see and what do they hear?
Is it panic?
Is it questioning of the faithfulness of God?
Is it the why me?
What if you've said it?
Pass on.
Is Christ being preached to people who know
you that you're Christian and they know you're
going through something that is serious?
They know that you're going through a deep
trial.
And they're looking for the reaction.
The whole world is looking.
Brother Sam, one of our elders sitting on
the platform here, told me one day, said,
Pastor, I watch your life, how you respond,
how you react to your hard times.
But you see, I watch Sam.
Sam has been a testimony to me.
Sam, he's never been in this pulpit.
He has no license to preach.
He's one of our dear elders.
But he's had years of pain.
Doctors can't help him.
He gets most times two hours sleep at
night.
And he is in pain now.
He's in constant raging pain.
But he spent his first Sunday.
I've seen him up here in a long
time.
He's sitting on the end.
He's downstairs underneath leading prayer services, praying for
the pastors while they preach.
And he's a testimony to everybody who knows
his life.
He's not up quoting scriptures.
He's not given sermons.
But his life is preaching Christ.
I ask you again.
I don't know what you're going through.
I don't know what you brought into the
service this morning.
But is your reaction preaching Christ and who
he is?
Otherwise, all that you say, all that you
preach, all your testimonies, all of your teaching,
everything, all of our preaching, it's in vain.
Because I am not validating it by my
reaction to my suffering.
I'm going to wrap this up.
Paul speaks of the day when he's going
to stand before the Lord.
Philippians 2.10. Holding forth the word of
life, that I may rejoice in the day
of Christ, that I've not run in vain,
neither labored in vain.
He said, let me tell you why I'm
reacting like I do.
Because Paul is picturing the day when he
stands before Christ.
And Paul taught that we're going to have
our eyes open.
We're going to have a revelation.
We're going to know who Christ is.
And Paul is picturing himself before the presence
of the Lord on that day.
Paul said, on that day of Christ.
He said, let me tell you why I'm
holding forth the word.
Let me tell you why I'm making my
reaction something that preaches Christ.
Because he said, one day I'm going to
stand before him and he's going to open
our eyes and I'm going to be there.
He's going to show us his glory.
He's going to show all the guardian angels,
the warrior angels that encamp around about them.
That from the very beginning, those angels have
been there, always available.
We're going to have a revelation.
We're going to see them.
Face to face, he's going to show there's
going to be a revelation.
We're going to see what they did and
how available they were.
And the work that they did in camping
around God's people.
And then he's going to reveal the Holy
Spirit's ministry to us.
How he was always there and his power
and his majesty.
And then he's going to show us the
Father.
And we're going to see the majesty of
almighty God, creator of all things.
The great I am the majesty of God.
And Paul said, when I stand before Christ,
I don't want to be standing there saying
this was all available.
I was blind and I missed it.
Paul said, no, I want to stand there
rejoicing, knowing that I didn't waste my time
in vain.
He said, I'm
holding forth.
I'm holding the gospel.
I'm letting Jesus being preached to my by
my countenance, by my not murmuring, by not
complaining.
He covers it all in Philippians.
He said, don't murmur, don't complain.
Let your affliction be the message of Christ
faithfulness.
I'm preaching to myself this morning.
I have never needed a message like this
more than I do now.
And I thank God I'm I'm I'm getting
it.
I'm hearing it because I've spent enough time
worrying about the future by God's grace.
And I'm going to need a lot of
grace to keep this.
Paul said, I've not yet apprehended, but I
know where I'm headed and I know the
answer now.
Glory be to God.
I wrote something down here before I close.
Will you stand for just a moment?
You want to know what your future is
going to hold you, hold, bring to you.
Paul, the apostle says, one thing I do
for getting those things which are behind.
I'm reaching forth now to those things which
are before.
He said, I know all about tomorrow.
I don't have any details, but I know
God.
I know I have a heavenly father and
I'm going to rejoice because he cares.
I rejoice because he keeps his word, because
all things are going to work together for
my good.
According to his purpose, because he's with me,
because he said he never forsake me.
His eyes are on me because his thoughts
toward me are good because he said his
promises never failed.
He's made me a promise.
He's going to keep his promise.
I'm not afraid.
Raise your hands and give him praise.
Hallelujah.
God, you're so good.
You said my thoughts for your future.
Nothing but good.
I have good thoughts concerning you.
He said, if I could just open up
the veil and show you what is coming,
the glory that awaits you, the beauty of
Christ set before you, an eternity in the
arms of Jesus, grace sufficient for the evil
of the day.
He said, if you could just believe that,
that's righteousness.
That's how to live.
That's how you please me.
By just trusting my promises.
And I'll see you through.
I'll guide you.
So just come into my rest now.
I'm speaking to some within the sound of
my voice.
You need this so badly.
You need it so much today.
There's somebody coming.
You're visiting today.
You just walked in here.
God knew what was in your heart.
He knew the pain.
And he just trying to get through to
you and saying, look, lay down your worry,
lay down your fear and your anticipation.
And ninety nine percent of what we fear
about the future never happens anyhow.
And it's all wasted, wasted worry, wasted fears.
So just lay it on Jesus.
If you don't know Christ as Lord in
your life, in the annex overflow rooms and
here in the main auditorium, the balcony.
Or if you have drifted away from that
first love you had for Christ.
I invite you to get out of your
seat, walk down this aisle and stand here
and make a commitment.
The Holy Spirit is faithful.
He knows when to speak to you and
how to speak lovingly.
And this is a loving invitation from Jesus.
Also, for those who have been almost in
a state of panic, you have been so
afraid.
There's a spirit of fear that has come
upon you because of circumstances that you're in
right now.
I invite you to come and bring that
to Christ.
Bring that to the foot of the cross.
And we'll believe I'm going to pray for
you and believe God from your cup on
the balcony.
Go to the stairs on either side and
come down and down the aisle and here
on the main floor.
Just step out and come forward and we'll
pray for you.
Don't sign anything.
We're not going to say anything foolish or
put you to shame.
We're here to pray for you, minister to
your need up in the balcony.
Go to the other side and in the
annex.
Please just go and stand between the screens
so you won't block the screen and I'll
pray for you.
Our prayers are certainly reach into the annex.
God bless you.
Come as.
You can still come while I'm speaking.
Holy Spirit, something in my heart.
I want you to listen very closely, not
just for those who came forward, but those
in the annex.
Every one of the sound of my voice.
There are some of you may have to
take your plans that you've made back to
the Lord or to the Lord.
You have made your plans without acknowledging him.
And I'm going to sit just as I
hear from the Lord.
It could be very disappointing and even dangerous
if you make those moves that you planned
just because you think it's the way you've
not talked to the Lord about it.
Tomorrow could be trouble the next day, next
week, whatever.
The Lord's faithful when you honestly said in
all your ways, acknowledge the Lord and he
will direct your path.
You never take anything away from you that
is good for you or that's necessary for
you.
He knows that you need.
But some of you need to just halt
your plans and just say, I'm willing to
cancel my plans.
If you raise a red flag, I'm ready
to cancel.
I'm ready to obey you.
I'm speaking to somebody.
I'm speaking to more than one.
I know.
I'm sure of it.
God is saying, wait a minute.
That's your plan.
And if you want my blessing, you have
to sit and listen to me.
I'll give you my heart.
But take quality time.
Come into the secret place and just lay
all your plans.
I'm willing.
I'm willing to just obey.
When you hear the word of the Lord
and he speaks a plan or a step,
the secret to it, it grows on you.
It'll grow.
That which is of God will grow.
The Holy Spirit will reinforce it, completely reinforce
it.
He'll just keep reinforcing it, reinforcing it.
If it's not God's plan, he's going to
put an uneasiness in you, that disturbance.
It's God just shaking things up.
I just had to add that.
Now, all of the rest of you, all
of you that have come forward now, some
of you are coming back to your first
love.
And some of you may be here for
the first time.
I would like everyone that came forward to
pray this with me, please.
Lord Jesus, I have heard your call this
morning.
And I believe the spirit of the Lord
is working in my heart.
Forgive me and cleanse me of all that
is unlike you, Jesus.
I give you my confidence that you hear
my cry and you hear my prayer.
And I do repent of doing things my
way.
I want to do things your way.
Now, let me pray.
Heavenly Father, only the Holy Spirit can cause
us to remember what we heard today.
It's the same for me, Lord.
Unless you imprint this truth in my heart,
I can't retain it.
I won't remember it tomorrow in its power
and its authority.
So you come right now and you stamp
it on our minds and on our hearts.
And say, trust God.
Believe now in this crisis.
Let this time of suffering, this time of
pain be turned around now as I just
give all my tomorrows into your trust.
Lord, I'm going to trust you with the
future.
And I know whatever comes, you'll give me
the strength and the grace to endure it.
You said you'd give us the endurance to
endure it and come through victorious.
And so we'll be able to say one
day, God was faithful.
God did what was right.
God did not fail me.
Hallelujah.
Now, come Holy Spirit to the whole people,
to the whole audience, to everyone that's hearing
me.
Come now with a spirit of faith and
joy that God has everything under control.
God has everything under control.
Beloved, nothing is out of control.
Your life is not out of control if
you love Jesus.
I want you to repeat it with me.
God has everything under control.
Louder.
God has everything under control.
Do you believe that?
That's what we're preaching about.
Glory to God.
This is the conclusion of the message.