Ascension Presbyterian Lord's Day Worship

Well good morning my brothers and sisters in Christ. Grace and peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Welcome to the corporate worship of our God. Please stand and hear God call you to worship through his word.

Make a joyful shout to the Lord all you lands. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before his presence with singing. Know that the Lord he is God. It is he who made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Be thankful to him and bless his name for the Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting and his truth endures to all generations. Let us pray.

O Lord, you are the king eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God. You are the blessed and only sovereign, the king of kings and lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no name has seen or can see.

To you be the honor and eternal dominion. We bless the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. We praise the glory of your grace that chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

We thank you that in love you predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ. We rejoice that we have been sealed in Christ with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance.

We worship and adore you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Open the eyes of our hearts that we may know the hope of your calling, the riches of the glory of our inheritance, and the surpassing greatness of your power toward us in Jesus Christ.

All of this you have brought about in Christ when you raised him from the dead and seated him at your right hand in the heavenly places. Receive our worship and our praise to the glory of your grace, and we ask all these things in the name of Christ Jesus our Lord.

Amen.

Please kneel as you are able for the corporate confession of sin. Let us join together in.

Confessing our sins. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy. Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquities, and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me be your joy in life. Hide your face from my sins.

Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a white spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore me to the joy of your salvation. Have hold me with the Holy Spirit.

Amen. Please stand for the assurance of pardon. Our confession of sin was written by David, and it is a great blessing when the Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin that we may come back to our Heavenly Father and confess our sins.

Receive with joy this assurance of pardon. This is the covenant I will make with them after these days, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts and inscribe them on their minds. Their sins and their lawless acts I will remember no more.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, rejoice. Your sins are forgiven. Amen. Please take up the hymnal and turn to our first hymn, 693, Blessed Assurance, Hymn 693. Please take up the insert for our Psalm of the Week, Psalm 59.

Free me, my God, Psalm 59. We had gone through the tune just before the start of the service. Brother, when you are ready. Amen. What a great last verse that was. Please remain standing for.

The public reading of God's word from Revelation chapter 11. Hear now the word of the Lord.

Then I was given a reed like a measuring rod, and the angel stood saying, Rise and measure the temple of God, the altar, and those who worship there. But leave out the court which is outside the temple, and do not measure it, for it has been given to the Gentiles.

And they will tread the holy city underfoot for forty-two months. And I will give power to my witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred and sixty days clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the God of the earth.

And if anyone wants to harm them, fire proceeds from their mouth and devours their enemies. And if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this manner. These have power to shut heaven so that no rain falls in the days of their prophecy.

And they have power over watchers to turn them to blood, and to strike the earth with all plagues as often as they desire. When they finish their testimony, the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit will make war against them, overcome them, and kill them.

And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. Then those from the peoples, tribes, tongues, and nations will see their dead bodies three and a half days, and not allow their dead bodies to be put into graves.

And those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them, make merry, and send gifts to one another, because those two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth. Now after the three and a half days, the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them.

And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, Come up here. And they ascended to heaven in a cloud, and their enemy saw them. In the same hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell.

In the earthquake seven thousand people were killed, and the rest were afraid, and gave glory to the God of heaven. The second woe is past. Behold, the third woe is coming quickly. Then the seventh angel sounded, and there were loud voices in heaven saying, The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.

And the twenty-four elders who sat before God on their thrones fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying, We give you thanks, O Lord God Almighty, the one who is, and who was, and who is to come.

Because you have taken your great power and reign, the nations were angry, and your wrath has come, and the time of the dead, and that they should be judged, and that you should reward your servants, the prophets, and the saints, and those who fear your name, small and great, and should destroy those who destroy the earth.

Then the temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of his covenant was seen in his temple, and there were lightnings, noises, thunderings, an earthquake, and great hail.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let us now continue our worship by confessing our common Christian faith in the singing of the Apostles' Creed. Please take up the hymnal once more and turn to hymn number 537, Take Time to Be Holy, hymn 537.

Please now make preparations.

For the prayers of the people. Let us pray together in unison. Almighty and everlasting God,.

In whom we live and move and have our being, we, your beloved children, offer to you our humble praises for having preserved us from the beginning of our lives to this day. Especially do we praise you for having delivered us from the dangers and uncertainties of this past week.

With these mercies we bless and magnify your glorious name, humbly beseeching you to accept this our morning sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. For this sake, who lay down in grave and rose again for us, your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Until now, O Lord, our desires and petitions may be best for us, granting us in this life knowledge of our truth and in the world to come life everlasting. Amen. I ask your prayers for God's people throughout the world, for our denomination, for this church, and for all ministers and missionaries.

Pray for the church. I ask your prayers for the poor, the sick, the bereaved, the burdened, and for the widows, orphans, and prisoners. Pray for those in any need or trouble. I ask your prayers for those who do not know Christ and for those who seek a deeper knowledge of him.

Pray that they may find and be found by him. I ask your prayers for our children and future generations which will be born to them. Pray that the knowledge of the Lord will fill the through them. Pray that we may have grace to glorify Christ in our own day.

From person to person, that would spread like wildfire in this country, in this world, and Father, we would continue to seek your glory around that. Finding ourselves in agreement with all these things, we join our voices together and say, Amen.

Please stand and take up the insert for our new Psalm of the month, Psalm 56. Be gracious unto me, O God. Brother, any words of encouragement or instruction? Psalm 56. Be gracious unto me, O God. Please turn in your Bibles to the book of James and.

Chapter 4, the epistle of James in chapter 4. I'm going to begin reading today in verse 8. This is God's holy and infallible word. James chapter 4, verse 8. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.

Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he will lift you up.

Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother speaks evil of the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge.

There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another? Come now, you who say today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell and make a profit.

Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow, for what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.

But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin. May the Lord be pleased with our consideration of his most holy word.

Please pray with me. O Lord, we are a people of unclean lips, reflective of unclean hearts, but we have Christ and he washes us. O Lord, we pray that that fresh water and praises would proceed from our mouth and that we would put away all the sins of the tongue and that we would say with our Lord Jesus Christ, not my will, O Lord, but your will be done.

We ask all this in Jesus name. Amen. Please be seated. If you happen to read old Christian literature and commentaries, there will be an ending at the end of letters that would say DV, a D, a period and a V.

And you may wonder what that meant. And that is the Latin phrase Deo Valente. And that means God willing. The people of God have historically recognized that that their lives are in the hands of God, that he is the one who orders their steps.

They make plans, but he directs their steps. The title of the message today is if it is the Lord's will taken from the last part of verse 15. And I have a couple of points for you to consider for your outline if you have need of such a thing.

First, presuming upon the future. Number one of this outline would be presuming upon the future. Second, a huge existential question found in verse 14. What is your life? We will not get into the hugeness of the existentialism there, but a big question.

What is your life? Third, the title of the message, Deo Valente, if the Lord wills. And fourth, there is a proper boasting that we should be doing. There's a boasting we should not do. And there's a boasting that we ought to do.

Number one, presuming upon the future. What's what is your life? If the Lord wills and a proper glorying and boasting, as has been repeated now dozens of times, James desires a genuine faith that is revealed and demonstrated with good works that accompany salvation.

He desires that his hearers and I believe the Holy Spirit obviously desires it of us as well, that we would grow up to full maturity and completion, that we'd lack no good thing in Christ. And here James is warning his hearers against particular sins of the tongue.

Remember last week, if you look back at verse 11, we learned of the impropriety of speaking evil of one another, particularly those who belong to the household of faith. Now, we didn't reach the conclusion that we could never call out sin and sinners.

We didn't go along with the culture and say, we're not going to judge anyone, but we are not going to take the place of God and pronounce condemnation upon those for whom Christ has died. That's the great sin that James is warning against in that section.

We don't want to be judges of the law. And in the arrogance of our folly, if we were falling into that sin, we'd be usurping the very authority, at least attempting to the authority of God. But today, another sin is exposed and we are warned against arrogant boasting and presuming upon the future.

We are in danger of glorying in accomplishments that have not already been attained. And a proper application of James teaching today will give the believer an occasion for boasting and glorying, but not in themselves, but in what the Lord himself has done.

We pursue vain glory. We were created and redeemed to pursue God's glory. Let us boast in his glory alone. Amen. Let's consider the first point. Come now, you who say today or tomorrow, we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell and make a profit.

The Jews were scattered all over the Roman world, and not only because of persecution in the Diaspora, but also because they were tradesmen and merchants. They would travel with their wares and they would sell their goods and services in cities and they would find along the way, but it was good for business to stay in a place like Tyre or Sidon or some other place outside the realm of Israel.

And so this will be very common for them to say, my plan is this year to go to such and such a place. If we read the book of Romans, I don't think Paul ever made it to Spain. He desired to go, but he doesn't ever get there.

I don't believe. So you and I make our plans. My brother, my friend who died recently, I listened to his last sermon. He had many plans for the upcoming weeks in life of his church, and he didn't get to fulfill those.

We must recognize, and this is a big problem for us, that God is in control of our very lives. The breath that we take, the heartbeats that we get, the brain activity, the electrical charges, all of that are in the hand of God.

You and I are by nature control freaks, and we want to have everything go a certain way, and we are not in control. Praise be to God, but our Lord is. I'm gonna ask you to take up your hymnals now, and I didn't write the page numbers.

I have to find it really quickly. Forgive me. Go to the back of the Trinity hymnal and turn to page 851 to presume upon the future is to forget that God governs his creatures and their actions by his decrees and providence.

I'm going to read sections here from chapter 5, and this shows you, maybe affirms somewhat of what Mark was talking about, the value of scriptural teaching coupled with the confession in the interplay that would go between them.

This is on page 851, chapter 5. I want you to listen carefully. God, the great creator of all things, doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things from the greatest even to the least.

Now, I think we believe this propositionally, but we need to believe it practically. We know this is true, but we have to live and act upon the fact and the reality that God governs all of his creatures and all of their actions.

You and I are completely responsible for our behavior, but we have to understand God superintends all that comes to pass. Section 1 again, he does this by his most wise and holy providence. According to his infallible foreknowledge and the free immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.

If I say I'm going to tire in Sidon, that I'm going to go to Asia minor and I'm going to sell my goods and services without a humble acknowledgement of God and his providence, I'm sinning. We boast about tomorrow and tomorrow is not promised to us.

How many times have you been on the highway and avoided an accident? Trees fall on houses when people sleep. They've done nothing. Over on the West coast, a couple was in their home and a plane crashed on them and they died.

They didn't do anything wrong. They weren't inviting the plane to land on their street. The plane lost power and it crashed. The reality is God governs all of his creatures and all their actions. Look down at verse section three.

It says God in his ordinary providence maketh use of means. God uses hospitals and doctors to heal people. He has a nurse running behind you in a marathon. Sometimes you have a heart attack and she revives you.

God uses means. Yet he is free to work without above against them at his pleasure. There is a way that things go in the world. God has put things in place. He uses means the ordinary way that men, women and children grow up in the faith is the word sacrament and prayer and life of the church.

The ordinary means of grace. That's how people grow up in the faith. But sometimes God in the power of his Holy Spirit enables someone to mature rapidly for some purpose. Section four, the almighty power, unsearchable wisdom and infinite goodness of God.

I should pause here. These superlatives and about God's character and attributes when we think about him, we should live a life of trust. His knowledge is perfect. His will is perfect. We put a lot of stock in our plans.

Your plans can be wrong. Gods are never wrong. It's arrogant, isn't it? We think this is how it should be. Things would be good if things went this way. And when they don't go that way, we're gravely disappointed because our will was not the Lord didn't listen to us and do it our way.

But his way is better than ours. So it should be a life of trust implicitly. God and his prominence. Look down at section five. This helps us when we think about our sin and our struggle against it. The most wise, righteous and gracious God doth oftentimes leave for a season his own children to manifold temptations.

In the corruption of their own hearts. To chastise them for former sins or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled. And to raise them to a more close and constant dependence with their support upon himself.

And to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin and for sundry, other just and holy ends. What a great answer to the question about what about my continuing sin as a believer? The Lord would allow us to fall into temptation that we would ultimately be humbled and have a greater and more constant, close, constant dependence upon him.

One other thing really quickly. The turnover to the shorter catechism, just a few pages to the right. I want you to find question 11. What are God's works of providence? And children, you should know and parents, you should know.

These shorter catechism questions, God's works of providence are his most holy, wise and powerful, preserving and governing all of his creatures. And all of their actions. James is warning against an idolatrous neglect of God's providence.

So I pose the question to you. Have you failed to appreciate and accept the providence of God? Moses is the meekest man because he saw the world and he understood these things happen because of the providence of God.

And he was comfortable with that. He was not bucking against it. He welcomed the twists and turns of life, knowing that it was God who directed all of these things. You and I should not superstitiously but add to our plans.

Today or tomorrow, we're going to do this or that if the Lord is willing. I believe this is the plan that God has given me. This passage of scripture does not say to stop making plans. You would be unwise not to make plans in your life.

But it is saying do it in humble reliance upon and faith in our God, knowing that he has a perfect plan that's being executed. All of the things that go wrong in our lives, I think we respond improperly to them in many respects because they're contrary to our own control and plans.

We think we know best for ourselves, our family, the church, the world, but we don't. But according to his holy and wise counsel, our God does. That's the first thing to consider today. Verse 14 says, whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow, sufficient is the trouble of this day.

I would also argue sufficient is the glory and the rest and the joy and thanksgiving of fellowship of God and his people. There is trouble tomorrow on Monday morning, but not today. The people of God are resting in Christ.

The people of God today are taking a respite from all their ordinary business. The people of God today are trusting God in their faithfulness to work out tomorrow's problems. We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.

Point two, the question for what is your life? If I opened it up to the room and we weren't thinking so intently about the Bible, I'd say, Ryan, tell me about your life. And he would begin to rattle off the things about his life.

He's a husband. He's a father. He cares about these things. He's studying this. And I asked Jacob and his life now is he's got a baby, a new baby in his house, and that's going to be dominant in his mind.

And David and Sada are going to have we're married now. We're pregnant. There's a future. There's our mind that this is who we are. Brethren, I'm here today again to tell you that your life consists of many subordinate things.

But Christ is your life. Colossians three. We have no life outside of Christ. There is no salvation. There is no hope for the future. There's no being a good husband. There's no being a good wife. There's nothing apart from us being alive in Christ.

Think about all the things that describe us. What is our life? And for men, it's their vocation. For women, it's often their family connections to their children, their husband. The answer to the question and James is halting and makes us to pause.

If I live to be an old man, my life is essentially two thirds over. I feel like I'm a young guy. I'm not. My life is two thirds, but I could die tomorrow. What is your life? My friend and his two sons went to bed and a 10 year old boy and a 17 year old boy, they had plans for their life and they didn't wake up.

They died. Maybe they woke up and found out and learned they were dying. It's all terrible to think of. What is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time. And then vanishes away. Children, I want you to do something the next time, maybe tonight or tomorrow night, if your mom's making dinner for you.

She has occasion to boil water in a pot, maybe for a bowl, big thing of pasta or something. She fills up the water into the pot. She puts it onto the stovetop. She turns up the heat to high and begins to boil.

I want you to do not too closely. I want you to get a chair if you're not tall enough with the approval of your mom and dad nearby. And I want you to trace the rolling ball of water inside of the pot that's boiling.

And I want you to pick out one little spot of it. I want you to see what happens when the water molecules heated to that two hundred and twelve plus degree temperature begin to rise out of the pot and the coolness of the air causes a condensation.

It causes the molecules to form a solid, very briefly, a wispy vapor of air. And I want you to watch it go from the center of the pot until it disappears. That process and that timeline is picturesque of the language here.

Our life is the extent and eternity of the water molecule going from the water pot to vanishing into thin air as a vapor. In the antediluvian world, people live to be nine hundred years old, but Methuselah, living to be nine hundred and sixty nine years, has been dead for thousands of years.

Nine hundred years is a very long time. We don't live that long today. But now it's been thousands of years since the death of Methuselah. It's all very sobering, isn't it? Mark and Sheila, how fast has it gone since you had little children in your house and now you have a lot of grandchildren?

A blink of an eye. Every year goes a little bit faster. It's the end of the toilet paper roll. It's going quicker. That's what life is like. High school, elementary school, summer, it took forever to come and to get here, and now the years tick off and they're gone.

You and I need to be circumspect in the way we live, and we actually need to be living in such a way where we have the kingdom of God and eternity in view. What are you doing today for eternity? Caring for your children?

Make sure that that is entirely sanctified to the Lord and you're thinking about Christ and his kingdom and the future when you talk with them. There is a practical nature to the work we do around our house, and we can miss the fleeting nature of our lives.

We have a limited window. Moses says in Psalm 90 that it's appointed for men to live 70 years, and if by reason of strength, 80. It's just really not a very long time. What are you doing with your life?

Is Christ preeminent in your life? What is your life? What a question for a young man or woman, child, or even the aged among us for us to ask. What is your life? It's but a vapor appears for a little time that it vanishes away.

Ephesians chapter five verses 15 and following don't need to turn. There says this. See, then you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Wherefore, be not unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

Seems to follow on nicely with what we're learning about today. Job chapter eight, verse nine, for we are but of yesterday and know nothing because our days on earth are a shadow. I remember the summer when school was out.

I remember being a young boy, and back then we ran the streets. Nobody knew where we were. There was no cell phones. We're riding bikes, building forts. I remember standing and watching my shadow and watching it change.

I'd be standing there as a long shadow, and then it would start to move and it would be altered. I'm standing in the same place. Job says, it says in Job that our life is but a shadow. It's there. It's a mist.

It's a vapor. And then it's gone. The psalmist says in Psalm 102, My days are like a shadow that declineth, and I am withered like grass. But thou, O Lord, shalt endure forever. And your thy remembrance unto all generations.

The Christian recognizes with great sobriety that his plans may not align with God's, and he's eager for his plans to align with God's. He recognizes that his life is short. He has a limited opportunity for faithfulness, and he diligently acts upon it.

There are no second chances. He's got one life. He needs to be a good steward of it. But there's another part of this that's very encouraging. You and I can live our lives according to the Lord's will.

I want us to turn to Romans chapter 3. We have a little bit of time now. Turn to Romans chapter 3. We boast improperly, and yet we don't boast enough. It's quite a little irony, isn't it? We begin reading in Romans chapter 3, verse 21.

But now the righteousness of God, apart from the law, is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe.

For there is no difference, I should pause here, children, in your desire to be a good witness for Christ. I would encourage you to know this little section of Romans chapter 3. It would be very helpful for you when you try to tell people about Jesus.

Paul is confiding all under sin, verse 23. This is referring to Jews and Gentiles. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And here's why we have no cause for boasting when it comes to our salvation.

Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by his blood through faith to demonstrate his righteousness. God's providential care of his creatures includes the salvation of sinners like you and me.

It's a good plan. A covenant keeping God, keeping his promises. In his forbearance, God had passed over the sins that were previously committed to demonstrate the present time, his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Where is boasting then? It is excluded. How is your perfect law keeping? You haven't. The good works that that James imports us as a response to salvation. Could we pile up your good works and can we say to God, you must accept me because of these righteous deeds I have done.

No cause for boasting. Only by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ are we saved. You can't boast in anything. We conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. There's another element.

Our Lord has given, I believe, two extraordinary examples of Deo Valente, according to the will of God. I'd first like us to turn, because I believe it does have profound influence on James's epistle to Matthew chapter six.

Please turn there quickly with me to Matthew six. This is the Lord's prayer. Look at how central this idea of the Lord's will is to the Lord's prayer. Verse nine of chapter six says this. In this manner, therefore, pray.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. A recognition of the Father, a recognition of his authority, a bursting forth in worship, worshiping, howling, valuing the name of God. Your kingdom come. This Father has a kingdom and a kingdom that comes to the earth.

And we cry out to you, O God, that your will be done, your perfect will, the works of creation and providence, that your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. How many of you middle and upper middle class, reasonably successful people have prayed Thanksgiving?

Give us this day our daily bread. You say, well, I've got it in the bank. I don't have to worry about daily bread. The rich man needs to pray, understanding the providence of God and that in order for him to be fed tomorrow, it's not because he has money in the bank, it's because God is merciful and generous to his people.

A very different way of living calls us to forgive those who have sinned against us. And all of this, you can see an answerable in the will of God prayer. Does he want us to ask for his forgiveness for our debts?

Yes. Does he want us to forgive our debtors? Yes. Does he want us to be protected from temptation? Yes. Does he want to deliver us from the evil one? Yes. That's how you pray in the will of God. If you say, God, I want to be a righteous, upright man, I want to lead my family well, I want to walk in your ways.

That's in the will of God. The wife says, I want to be a godly wife and mother. And but but even more importantly, I want to I want to be a lover of Christ and I want to be a righteous woman and I want to worship at his footstool and I want to give him my life and glorify him in all ways.

That's that's how you pray. That's. That's the Lord's will. Skip over to verse twenty five. He goes through, of course, that fasting as hypocrites do laying up treasures on earth. Verse twenty five. Just before that, serving God and money, verse twenty five says, therefore, I say to you, do not worry about your life.

Or what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. It's not life more than food in the body, more than clothing. Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly father feeds them.

Are you not of more value than they? Which of you, by worrying, can add one cubit to his stature? Why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin.

Yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now, if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you?

Oh, you of little faith. Therefore, do not worry saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear for? After all these things, the Gentiles seek for your heavenly father knows that you need all these things.

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

You and I need to live very much in the present, make future plans according to his will, seeking his guidance, a daily intake of prayer in the word, counsel. We are trying to order our steps in the way that the Lord would have us to go, but we come open handed.

We don't know what tomorrow brings. And the insecurity of an unknown tomorrow is overshadowed by the providence of a good God who loves you. I'll try to fix all the pieces and control all the levers. It's not possible.