[0:00] If you have your Bibles, turn to Proverbs chapter 27, verse 1. That song was amazing. I love getting to hear them sing. That was wonderful. Proverbs chapter 27, verse 1.
[0:11] Let's go ahead and give that a read here. Boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. Paraphrase, don't brag and make plans about tomorrow because you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.
[0:22] And that will be the passage of Scripture we're in today. We'll be around the Bible a little bit here. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your goodness and mercy to us, Lord. I thank you for your kindness, your gentleness, Lord, how you lead and teach us.
[0:33] Lord, I thank you for your word. Lord, help us live lives according to your word. Lord, I pray that you'd help us learn to make plans according to your word. Lord, make plans how you would have us to make plans. Help us learn that you control the future.
[0:44] You control everything, Lord. Help us learn to follow you, Lord. I love you. Thank you for the opportunity to preach, Lord. Work in our hearts. In your name I pray. Amen. Proverbs chapter 27, verse 1.
[0:54] This proverb is wonderful. There's a lot of truth here. You could spend weeks in this proverb. There's a lot of themes covered from friendship to chastisement to rebuke to time to making sure you take care of what you've got.
[1:05] There's a whole lot of things in this proverb. But following Pastor Trent's hermeneutical principle for proverbs, read until it hurts. So I started reading this and I read verse number one. Boast not thyself of tomorrow.
[1:17] Ouch. And there we ended up tonight. And I don't know if you guys know this, but we live in a society that is a planning society. Everything tries its best to go according to plan.
[1:31] I really like football. And football is a game made up of plays, a.k.a. plans. Now, there's a football player I really used to love to watch, Cam Newton. He's from Atlanta. One thing that made him so valuable and he loved to do was his ability to improvise.
[1:43] He would always say, plays go out the window, so when the plays go out of the window, I'm there. He loved it. He had a great ability to, when everything went wrong, he'd still make something happen. Sadly, and in most of the cases, I don't possess that ability in life.
[1:57] Neither do we. Plans don't often happen like we want them to. And rebounding in those plans is not super easy. It's pretty difficult. We're going to learn that from God's Word today. But in our society, we live in a society in which everything's planned.
[2:09] Right? You go to school. They want you to take a career development pathway. They have the next 40 years planned out for you. Or, you know, you're growing up, a young person, high school, you hear, when are you going to do this? Have you thought about this?
[2:20] They throw this weird number called a 401k at you. There are all these things that are planned and future-based at you. When are you going to start doing this? Maybe you've heard, what if this happens? Or, what are you going to do when this happens?
[2:32] Or, hey, have you seen the stock market? Don't you know that in a few months, this will happen? Or, man, if we get a new president, governor, mayor, city councilman, then this will happen. Everything we do is so based in the future.
[2:43] Right? Or, we as people, we go forward and we say, when this happens to me, then I will do this. Or, when this person does this, then this can happen. We live our lives so based in the future. I'm guilty of this as well.
[2:55] Maybe you look at your investments and you look at the, I like the Robin Hood app because I like watching the graph go up and up and up sometimes. I'm not very good at Bitcoin, but sometimes it goes down too.
[3:05] But you look at it and you say, well, if this continues on this trend, then I'll be here in a few years. Or, maybe if my retirement portfolio keeps growing like it does, then this will happen. Whatever it may be, we live in the side of this future base.
[3:18] Right? If I can get into college and I'll do this. Or, whatever it may be, if this happens, I got this thing planned. We need to understand that thinking and living like that is wrong. It is not biblical.
[3:28] It is not how God entailed us to live. There is a reason he calls the present the present because it is a gift and he allows us to live in it. It is incredible. We need to understand that there is a correct and a biblical way to view tomorrow.
[3:41] One, it makes God happy when we have a correct view of tomorrow. But then two, it makes life so much easier. And this divine wisdom we're learning in Proverbs 27.1 has so many implications for everything that we do.
[3:55] Some people say, I'm going to quit doing this tomorrow. Some people say, I'll start serving Jesus tomorrow. Some people say, when these circumstances in my life change, then I can do this or be this or become this.
[4:05] When this happens to me, then I'll do this. That's not biblical. Boast not thyself of tomorrow. We're going to look at the biblical reasons for why we shouldn't. We already read the verse here.
[4:16] There is a clear command, clear instruction not to boast. It's pretty simple. I like it when the Bible is simple sometimes. But it's not to boast, not to brag, not to believe and place faith in things tomorrow.
[4:28] Tomorrow is entirely hypothetical, honestly. It's not even here yet. We don't know if it's promised to us. It's so easy to take stock in tomorrow. And we find ourselves falling in this trap so many times.
[4:39] Our friends fall in this trap so many times. Thinking in tomorrow, living in tomorrow is not wise. Even King David fell under the trap. Look at what the Bible says in Psalm 30 verse 6. And in my prosperity, I said, I shall never be moved.
[4:52] Lord, but thy favor, thou hast made my mountain to stand strong. Thou didst hide thy face. And I was troubled. I cried to thee, O Lord. And to the Lord I made a supplication. So King David's here.
[5:03] He's like, in my supplication, in my wealth, in my abundance, I said, I'm never going to be moved. These are my plans. And then King David quickly realized, like, I was so wrong. Those are actually not what was on the plans. Those were not what was going to happen.
[5:14] It's a pretty common trap. I want to say it's a human problem. You see it all over Scripture. They put down their seeds to grow. They banked on the harvest and it didn't happen. It's a human problem.
[5:25] It's common. We're going to learn today how we can have a healthy, biblical, proper, correct view of tomorrow. Because the Bible talks about tomorrow. It talks about the things that come.
[5:35] But it also talks about how we're to process it, how we're living it. Because if you're not careful, it's so easy to be crumbled under anxiety, depression, fear. Unable to move because you're looking at what's going to happen tomorrow.
[5:47] You don't make any progress in today because you're too worried about tomorrow. There's a balance of things. First thing is there's a command against pride in tomorrow. It's a New Testament command as well. Not just a proverb.
[5:58] James chapter 4 verse 13 actually says this. Go now to say, today or tomorrow we will go into such a city and continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain. Don't say you're going to go into town and say, I'm going to do this, do this, trade in the stock market, get all these things, trade up.
[6:12] I'm going to make some money. Verse number 14. Why shouldn't you do that? Because you don't even know what tomorrow holds. You can blow a tire on the way to work, whatever that may be.
[6:24] For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeared for a little time and then vanished with the way. For that you ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that. But now you rejoice in such boastings. All such rejoicing is, say it with me, evil.
[6:37] It's not right. Making and taking stock in tomorrow like it's guaranteed is not right. It's not biblical. It's wrong. It goes against what God would say to do. We don't rejoice in tomorrow.
[6:48] That's what the Bible teaches us. And it's so easy to say when this comes through, this comes through, this transaction, whatever it may be. But rejoicing in that's evil. That's what the Bible teaches us. We're to live in the here and now.
[7:00] Rejoicing in tomorrow is wrong. Why? Well, I guess because God said so. That's a really good reason. But then two, there's a lot of other practical reasons for it. It's assuming that we the humans possess knowledge that only God has.
[7:11] And ultimately, that's arrogant and prideful. It's not right. To make plans and to take stock in plans tomorrow is arrogant. I'm not saying calendar is arrogant. Please use a calendar. Calendars are great.
[7:21] What I'm saying is when you make your calendar your God, your goal, your guide, that's what tells you what to do all the time. That's where the arrogance comes into. Boasting in tomorrow is not right.
[7:32] It's assuming that we possess knowledge that only God has. God has made us limited. He possesses full knowledge. We don't. Look what the Bible says in Psalm 139, verse 4. For there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, thou knowest it all together.
[7:46] There's nothing we can do. We don't know the future. But God, he knows it all. He's got it all planned out. He knows it. He knows it's going to happen. He knows it's coming your way. He knows the problems. He knows the trials.
[7:57] He knows tomorrow. It's in his hands. But we as humans, we don't know tomorrow. And to assume that we do and to assume that we can control tomorrow is ultimately us putting ourselves in a place that only God really belongs.
[8:09] Not just that. It's also not rooted in faith. Because if my happiness tomorrow is based on how witty, how smart, how much I've got, what I can do, what I can acquire, what I can set up, whatever that is, that's not faith.
[8:21] And the Bible ultimately teaches us in Romans 14, 23, For whatsoever is not of faith is sin. To live tomorrow thinking that it's going to be A-OK because you did something.
[8:32] Think it's going to be A-OK because you're this. Or think it's going to be A-OK because this person or this place or this thing. It's not right. It's not of faith. It's of sin. That's what the Bible teaches us here.
[8:43] Those plans, those promises, those places we've taken hope and stock in. How we put it in the place of God. How we cast what God would say and what God would lead us out to the side.
[8:54] See, it's not trusting in what we know, rather. It's trusting in who we know. It's trusting in God to take care of tomorrow. It's not trusting that we'll take care of tomorrow. It's not trusting in what we have for tomorrow.
[9:05] It's trusting that God himself will take care of tomorrow. James 4, 15 even teaches us this. For ye ought to say that if the Lord will, we shall live and do this or do that.
[9:18] We live our lives according to God's will. And it's easy to say that, but sometimes it's really difficult to live it out. Because everything that comes at us seems to be so future-based. It's natural to want to plan and to prepare and to want to build and want to set up.
[9:32] But the Bible teaches us that we are to live according to God's will. And ultimately, God's will for our lives, scriptures are a really good place to start. You want to know what the next step is? Check the scriptures. Start with that.
[9:43] But we live according to God's will. Anything else outside of that is either just trust in our own power, which is not faith, which is sin. It's us putting ourselves in the place of God. It's us putting something that God has given us in his place.
[9:54] And that's not right. We live according. We live by the Lord. We live by his word. He guides and directs us. We live by his will. Not us. Not our wit. Not our jobs. Not our intellect.
[10:04] Not our money. Not our this. Not our that. It's all by the Lord. We live by faith. Tomorrow, we take it by faith. Jesus lived according to God's will. That's what the Bible says in Luke 22, 42.
[10:17] Jesus, when he was praying, said, If thou would be willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will be done, but thine. Jesus lived according to God's will. When he was in the garden praying, he said, Not my will be done.
[10:28] I won't try to control tomorrow. Lord, what you've set up, that's what I would do. And believers, Christians, those who want to be like Christ, we should live the same way. We should want to live according to what God's will would be.
[10:40] Not, we don't have to be certain about tomorrow. We can be certain that God has tomorrow. That God has tomorrow in control. Look what Jesus said in Matthew 6, 34. Take therefore no thought for the tomorrow. Jesus said, don't even worry about tomorrow.
[10:51] Because it's going to work itself out. It's sufficient to there. The evil is thereof. Jesus said, don't even worry about tomorrow. Today is what we have. We live according to the Lord's leading, the Lord's guiding, the Lord's teaching, the Lord's moving.
[11:03] Jesus even teaches us the principle of Matthew 5, 5. Blessed are the meek. Which meek, old word, old verb used to be meek. I've seen it in an old western film.
[11:14] They'd find a horse and this horse was super crazy. You could not ride it. He jumped on it to kill you. It was a wild bronco. What they'd do is they'd call in some guy who was living in the woods, I guess. He'd come out. He'd take this horse.
[11:25] He'd lead it to water. You know, he'd break the horse's will. And before it was all said and done, this horse that was unrideable, unusable, you couldn't use it to farm or fight battles. He'd ride it. And then they'd say, he is meek to that animal.
[11:37] That's an old verb. But basically, it's a really good descriptor of what meekness is. Meekness is this. That animal has a will or it had a will. A will that was super big. And when its owner said do this, it'd buck and kick and scratch or whatever horse do to get you off of him.
[11:50] And that's what it would do. But when it was broken and tamed and meeked, it's submitted to the master's will. And we as Christians, that's what we do. Submission and meekness is this.
[12:02] Lord, I want to do this. What you say is this. So I'm going to take what I want to do and I'm going to submit it to what you want to do. I'm going to take my desires for tomorrow and I'm going to submit it to your promises and truths in the Bible for today.
[12:13] I'm going to take what you've said do and I'm going to take what I want to do. I'm going to place it under that. And that's what meekness is. And Jesus says, living your life like that, living your life according to God's will. Blessed are you for doing that.
[12:23] Christians, we should live lives that are meek. That means leadable, followable. We follow God. We listen to what he says do. We receive the scriptures with meekness. Not with our own will and not with our own thoughts of what tomorrow should be like.
[12:37] But with meekness. Not just that. This proverb is also a reminder against pretending that we possess knowledge of tomorrow. Flash forward. If you want to say you know what tomorrow is like, we really don't.
[12:49] That's one thing we've come to realize here. If you told me a year ago that everything would look like it looked like right now, I'd be like, you're crazy. If you told me a year before that, it'd be 2020. That 2021 would look like it was going to look like. I'd be like, you are insane.
[13:00] We've come to find out that we don't know what tomorrow holds. We don't know what tomorrow possesses. That's what this proverb says in 27.1. Boast not to self tomorrow. Why? For thou knowest not what the day may bring forth.
[13:13] So to boast in tomorrow is arrogant. And to make plans for tomorrow is just ignorant because we don't know what's going to happen. We don't know tomorrow. We're ignorant of tomorrow. And thankfully God made us like that because it's a lot more comforting not knowing what's going to happen tomorrow.
[13:28] Let's look at what the Bible says in Ecclesiastes 10.14. A fool also is full of words. A man cannot tell what he shall be and what shall be after him. Who can tell him? Biblical principle. Humans, we don't know tomorrow.
[13:39] Weatherman's wrong sometimes. We don't know tomorrow. Let's look at what the Bible says. The God in Acts 1.7. It is not for you to know the times or the season which the Father hath put in his own power. It's not up to us to know.
[13:50] Ultimately what tomorrow holds, that's for God to know. This is a quote by Charles Spurgeon. This is what he says. To know the good might lead us to presumption. To know the evil might tempt us to despair. Happy for us is that our eyes cannot penetrate the thick veil which God hangs between us and tomorrow.
[14:06] That we cannot see beyond the spot where we are now. That in a certain sense we are utterly ignorant as to the details of the future. We may indeed be thankful for our ignorance. God not letting us know tomorrow is ultimately quite merciful of him.
[14:19] It's called the present. It's where he places us. And what's amazing is we serve the God who calls himself the great I am. The God who calls himself the alpha and the omega. We serve the God who's got all the tensors covered which is really neat.
[14:30] Which means he's also got your future. Acts 1.7 says it's not for us to know the seasons, the times. It's up to God. And it's God who knows the future. Could you imagine how hard life would be if we had to live knowing what was going to come tomorrow?
[14:45] Could you? I mean that would be some serious, serious pressure. I mean if you knew that the next 10 years all the bad stuff that was going to come your way. Could you not imagine the weight of all of that? And thankfully God allows us to live in the here and now and to trust him for tomorrow.
[14:59] That's an incredible thing. We don't need to know tomorrow. God made us not knowing tomorrow. But he did make us with the ability to trust him for tomorrow. And that's a much safer, much more comforting spot to live.
[15:11] Because ultimately if you do know anything about tomorrow, there's not much you can do about it. But when the Lord is on our side, he's our God, we have our faith in him, we trust him to deal with tomorrow. Ultimately he can take care of us.
[15:22] He can provide for us. He can handle the situation. He's bigger than tomorrow. He's already there. He already knows how it's going to go. He's already there. Tomorrow is very real for him. It's not very real for us. Our Lord has it worked out.
[15:33] And failure to recognize our lack of foreknowledge is just foolish. We don't know tomorrow. And to live a life thinking we do is ultimately foolish. There's a lot of people who place people who make really good guesses in a really high regard.
[15:46] Well, I know what's going to happen because I've seen this before. The Bible teaches us that though they may be good at guessing, living your life based on what a man says is going to happen tomorrow, it's pretty foolish. It doesn't work.
[15:56] Look at what the Bible says in Luke chapter 12, verse 16. And he spake a parable unto them saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentily. There was a rich man, had some fields, planted a whole bunch of stuff, brought forth a lot of crops.
[16:08] Good for this guy. In verse 17, he thought within himself saying, What shall I do because I have no room to bestow my fruits? He's like, Man, this is so much stuff that my safe isn't big enough to hold all the money that I'm getting.
[16:19] Where am I going to put this? He says, I know what I'll do. I'll pour down my barns and I'll build greater. And there I'll bestow my fruits and goods. Like, I'll get rid of what I have and I'm going to build even bigger. I'll build on extra square footage.
[16:29] I'll build on extra whatever. I'll put in all this extra stuff so I can hold all the wealth and abundance that I'm getting. Verse number 19, Now say in my soul, thou hast done much good, laid up for many years.
[16:42] Take ease, eat, drink, and be merry. He's like, And I'll say to myself, because I was smart enough to plan ahead and take stock in these things, and make them sure I'm so smart. I can rest, eat some food, kick up my feet, and relax.
[16:55] That's what he said to himself. And then, but God, verse 20. But God said to him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall surely be required of thee. Then who shall these things be which thou hast provided?
[17:08] So he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God. So there was a man, got all this stuff, said, I'm going to tear down my stuff and be comfortable. I got my plans for tomorrow. Trust in these plans.
[17:20] I'll be all right. And then God says, No, actually, you're going to die tomorrow. That's the story. And sadly, that's the same thing for us. We don't know our days. We don't know tomorrow. We don't know our days. We don't know the future.
[17:31] And to live like that's not wise. It's foolish. The Bible says we need to live by faith. 2 Corinthians 5, 7 even teaches us we walk by faith, not by sight. We walk by faith in God.
[17:43] We live by faith in God. We trust him to provide for us. We expect God to take care of us because he will. But we have to have faith in him, not by sight, but by faith. That's how we move and how we operate.
[17:53] And that's ultimately the story where it's going to come down to us for here. We're going to bring it down to this level. Because it's really easy on a Sunday to believe it and to hear it.
[18:04] But then you go to work on Monday and you hear about what's going to come Tuesday. And then you're worried about Tuesday on Monday. Then you hear what's going to come on Wednesday. Or you hear about this thing that might happen. You start to worry. But ultimately, we need faith, trust, hope, confidence in God.
[18:17] Are we believing him? Do we trust that he's going to do what he says he's going to do? Because not to do it is foolish. And that's ultimately the choice we have today. Do we want to live by faith?
[18:28] Do we want to live by sight? Do we want to trust God to take care of us? Do we not want to trust God to take care of us? And this proverb does so beautifully of demonstrating that for us in just one verse. Boast not of tomorrow. Why?
[18:39] Because it's not your job to. You don't know tomorrow. It's not promised. It's not here. That is for God to handle and to deal with. First, don't boast no ROI. It's prideful. Second point, it's arrogant.
[18:51] You don't know about what's going to happen. It's ignorant. It's not promised to you. It's not given to you. You don't know it. Our days are very limited. It's said in James chapter 4 that our life is like a vapor.
[19:03] We don't know how it goes. We should know that our days, we don't know them. And it's really easy to try to say when this happens and this happens and this happens, then I'll start doing this. We don't know that.
[19:13] We know people who say one day I'll get saved when I see this happen or this happens to me. Or a person who has not trusted Jesus, that's a bad way to live. You don't know your days.
[19:24] Or a young person, when this happens and God provides me this, then I'll start serving him. That's a bad way to live. You don't know your days. Or Christian, when God gives me this pay bump, then I'll start giving.
[19:34] That's a bad way to live. Or when this comes my way, then I'll start serving God. That's not how we live. We live by faith. We do right now. We trust God now. We obey him now.
[19:45] Because the present is all we really have to obey God with. That brings us to, there are certain things we can be certain about, which is amazing. Let's look at what this Bible says, or the Bible says. Thankfully, God does give us certainties.
[19:56] One, he's given us two day. How great is that? We can serve God right here, right now. We don't have to wait for tomorrow. That's a much better way to live. We can live worried about tomorrow, live worried about what we're doing tomorrow.
[20:08] Or we can live in the present, right now, with what God has done. Look what the Bible says in James 4, 17. Therefore, to him that knoweth to do good and doeth not, to him it is sin.
[20:19] So the Bible says at the end of that passage we read at the start about boasting in tomorrow and doing good tomorrow. If we know to do good and we don't do it, it's sin. So waiting for tomorrow to do good, according to James 4, 17, is sin.
[20:31] Waiting for the prime opportunity to do good, and you have an opportunity now, according to James 4, 17, is sin. If we know to do good, we have an opportunity to do good right now, let us do it. We should be bold now.
[20:42] It shouldn't take a future event or something down the road for us to want to do the most, or to be who God has made us to be, or to start trusting him, or to start taking him at face value. We should want to do it now because the present is what we have to do it in.
[20:54] Past already happened, nothing you can do about that. But the present is where we're at, and God has given it to us, and we can do things for God right here, right now. That's a great comforting truth.
[21:06] We can leave here, or I guess that's the future, but you know, when you're there, you can leave knowing that you can serve God. You can leave knowing that you have an opportunity right then and right there to serve God. Because if you wait to the future to serve God, you miss out on a lot.
[21:18] Let me remind you of a story. There was a young man named Joseph, okay? And God had placed in Joseph's heart something really, really, really good for the future. He was going to be a king. He was going to rule. He was going to take care of his family.
[21:29] But then one day he was in Potiphar's house. And he had a choice. Am I going to act like the man that God has made me to be now? Or am I going to wait until he set me up to act like it? And he made the right choice. He decided he was going to serve God then.
[21:40] He was going to do what God wanted to do then. Because him getting there to turn was based on what he did right then. And then the same thing is true for us. We want God to take us further. We want God to lead us more. We want God to bring more our way.
[21:51] It's obedience now. It's faith now. It's trusting him now. It's doing right then. There's so many stories all over scripture of people who have been placed in the same situation. Do I want to obey God now?
[22:02] And with the hopes he'll take me further, do I want to wait until I get there, then I'll start obeying God? Which is not, ultimately, that's not the right choice. We serve him now in the present. The present's guaranteed because the present is here.
[22:15] That's a great comforting truth. We can serve God right now. We can do good right now. We can do big things for him right now. We can surrender to him right now. You're not saved.
[22:25] You can repent right now. There's something you're holding on to in your life. You can give it to him right now. We can serve God in the present. That is incredible. But what the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 6, 2, Today is also the day of repentance.
[22:38] For he saith, I have heard thee in a time, except in the day of salvation I have succored thee. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Believers, there's people I know who have friends and family members who say, Well, when I see this happen, then I'll sit down and trust Christ.
[22:56] Or I'm not ready yet. When I get to my deathbed, then I'll trust Christ. That time is not promised. The Bible ultimately teaches us that now, today is the day of salvation for people.
[23:06] And we share the gospel. We need to know that today is the day of salvation. That should change the way we live. People aren't promised tomorrow. Those we work with aren't promised tomorrow. Those of us who are waiting to obey God, now is the time to do so.
[23:18] It ought to change the way we live. Because when we live knowing that the present is what we really got, it helps us serve God with urgency. It helps us serve God with the sense of we've got to do it now. And that's where we're at here.
[23:29] And also, it builds faith. The Bible says in Psalm 39, verse 4, That's what the Bible teaches us.
[23:57] The psalmist prays, Lord, help me to know my days. Help me to do with my days what you'd have me to do. Help me to know how frail I am. Help me to learn dependence on you. That's the prayer we should pray. That's the prayer I want to pray.
[24:08] It's really easy to say, down the road I'll do it. But we should be now, Lord, help me to know how few days I have. Help me know how little time I have. Help me to realize the importance of the present. Help me realize I can serve you now.
[24:19] I can do big things for you now. Every man walketh in a vain, show surely they are disquieted in vain. Keeper of riches and knoweth not who shall gather them. We can set up things for ourselves down the road, but we don't know how it's going to go.
[24:31] It's a real biblical truth. We don't know tomorrow. God has made us limited in that aspect. But we can do big things today. Don't wait. We shouldn't wait.
[24:42] Waiting isn't the right thing to do in this situation. We want to respond, obey, believe, trust, follow God in the present. Right here, right now.
[24:53] Not just that. We know we have the present for sure. We know that today is the day we do something for God. But also we know down the road you want some hope, some things that are guaranteed in the future? You can trust Christ's promises.
[25:04] We can boast in those. We can take that check to the bank because that check doesn't change. That is God Almighty. We can trust what he says he's going to do because he is not a human and he will not change. He's immutable. He doesn't change.
[25:15] He doesn't shift. He doesn't bend. Our God has already set out to do his purpose. We can trust knowing that he will do what he says do. We can't trust in our plans, but we can for sure trust in his plans.
[25:25] We can trust in Christ's promises. What's amazing is Revelation 19.10. Let's read this. And I fell at his feet to worship me. He said unto me, See, see thou do it. Not I am thy fellow servant, thy brethren, that have testimony of Jesus.
[25:36] Worship God for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Really, really neat. You share the gospel. You are sharing prophecy. You are a prophet. Congratulations. Put on a name tag. But you start talking about Jesus. It is a spirit of prophecy.
[25:48] Really neat. Jesus is coming back. That is a future event that is guaranteed to happen. Jesus is going to rule and reign and set this mess of an earth in correct order. Future prophecy that's going to happen.
[25:58] I can take it to the bank. I promise you it will happen. We can take that one to the bank. We can trust that. We can trust God's purposes for the future. We can trust God's plans for the future. Not ours. We can for sure trust God's.
[26:10] How comforting is that? We can leave knowing that God and what he set out to do and what he says he's going to do will happen. We can trust that that work he said he started in us, he's going to finish. We can trust that when he says he's going to come back and set things straight that he really is going to finish.
[26:24] We can trust that when he says he has a spot for us in heaven with him, he really does. We can trust in Christ's future events because he doesn't change. He keeps his promises. He is true. He doesn't bend.
[26:34] We can have faith in Christ in the future. We can trust him. We can take his promises at face value. And what's really incredible is it says boast not in tomorrow, but the Bible does say we can boast in the Lord.
[26:46] And how comforting is that? Can't boast in me. Can't boast in my plans. Can't boast in what I'm going to do. But I can for sure boast in God. I can boast in what he's done for me. I can boast in what he's doing in me.
[26:57] And I can boast in what he's going to do in the future. And that is amazing. You want to talk future stuff? Don't talk stock market. We can talk Jesus. It is amazing. He will do what he said he's going to do.
[27:09] And that is comforting. That ought to give us hope and confidence. Because tomorrow is not based on us. He's going to do what he says he's going to do. We can trust Christ. We can take his promises at face value.
[27:20] I love what Adrian Rogers says. Prophecy is not primarily given to tell you what the future holds. Rather, it is given to tell you who holds the future. That is Jesus. And that is so comforting.
[27:32] Because no matter how hard it gets. No matter how bad the situation is. No matter how bleak it is. And no matter how much we want to go back and trust ourselves and what we've done and the little nest we've built. We can leave knowing that Jesus has tomorrow.
[27:45] It's in his hands. He's got plans. He's got purposes. He's going to do what he set out to do. He's going to accomplish his plan. And there's nothing that we or our enemy or people or the devil or trials or swarms can do to mess that up.
[27:59] God will do his plans. We don't know tomorrow. But he does. And that should comfort us. That should embolden us. That should build our faith. We should trust that.
[28:10] Because our God has tomorrow worked out. And that brings so much comfort to our lives. So much goodness to our lives. So much amazingness. So many amazing things. I'm making up words up here.
[28:21] I'm so excited about it. We can leave knowing that he's got tomorrow. So whatever it looks like for you, when that trial comes, that bad news comes, that situation happens, that coworker walks in.
[28:32] We all got the one. Not me. My coworkers are incredible. But we all got the one. Trust knowing that he's got it. Trust knowing that he's going to take care of us. Trust knowing that he's going to provide for us.
[28:44] We can trust his promise and you can take it to the bank. And now we can go forward in faith. Which our knowledge of what God is going to do changes the way we live now. Big story of that is the man Noah.
[28:56] Noah lived his life not trusting what he was going to do, but he lived trusting what God was going to do. And what's amazing is Noah's knowledge of what God was going to do in the future changed the way he lived in the present.
[29:07] Because when Noah found out that this whole thing was going to flood, suddenly his house didn't matter as much to him. When Noah found out that the world was going to flood, suddenly the things that he used to care about didn't matter as much to him.
[29:18] Then he spent the next 120 some odd years building this ark because he knew that God was going to do what he said he was going to do. And the same thing is true for us. Do we live like God? What God says he's going to do, he's going to do?
[29:29] Noah preached for 121 years faithfully, didn't see any converts besides his family. Why did he do it? Because he knew that what God said he was going to do, he was going to do. Which is just great because how much of a contrast is that?
[29:43] We can live thinking we can change tomorrow and ultimately nothing happens. But we can know that God already has tomorrow and it can change our present. That's a much more comforting way to live.
[29:53] We go forward in faith. Not based on our perception or how we think things are going to go. We go forward knowing that God has tomorrow already worked out. We can go forward in God's promises and God's truth.
[30:05] 1 Peter 1.13 even reads this. Wherefore, gird the loins of your mind, be sober and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. How great is that?
[30:16] Christian, we can have some hope in the future and it's not based on us. We can't boast in ourselves. We can't boast in what we're going to do. We can't boast in the things we've set up. But how comforting is it to know this?
[30:27] We can for sure go forward boldly based on what Christ is going to do. We can for sure go boldly based on how he's going to come back. We can go boldly based on how he has already worked it out. We can go boldly based on what he's going to do.
[30:39] Look what the Bible says in Hebrews 12.1 and 2. Wherefore, seeing we are compassed so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay us out every weight and the sin that so easily beset us. And let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith.
[30:56] That is a great verse right there. Because we know that God's got the future, we can run our race with patience. That means long-suffering, enjoying the here and now. Because we know that Jesus, who's got the future, is the author.
[31:08] He's the starter of our faith. And he is also going to finish it. Our knowledge of the future really does change the way we live. It should change the way we live. We don't boast in today.
[31:19] We don't boast in tomorrow. But ultimately, we boast in the Lord. Because we don't know tomorrow. I don't know what your work week looks like. I don't even know what my week looks like. We can try to take guesses at it.
[31:30] But it's in the Lord's hands. And that's where it comes down to this. You're in a trial. You're in a situation. You're in wherever the Lord has placed you. It's really easy to try to make sure things go our way.
[31:41] It's really easy to try to make sure we make things line up the way we want it to do. Let's make sure we go out in faith. Lord, not my will be done, but your will be done. God, not what I want to happen. Let your plans and your purposes happen.
[31:52] And help me submit to it. Help me not buck to it. Help me be meek and leadable in this. Why? Because it's not for me to determine. It's not for me to set. And it's not even for us to know.
[32:02] Because God has made us ignorant of such. Let's make sure we live lives that are bold, pleasing, submitted to God. Because he's the God of the future.
[32:14] He's got tomorrow nailed down for us. He's already handled yesterday. He's already got us today. We can't boast tomorrow. Because we don't know it. We ultimately don't. But what's amazing is we do know who has tomorrow.
[32:26] And we can boast in him. That is what I challenge you to do. Let's make sure we boast in him.