Love Reigns Over Our Future – Love Reigns, part 4
Do you worry about problems or your future? This message offers encouragement and actionable steps to overcome worry and find God’s path for you.
Ever wonder what the future might hold or have anxiety? Your future is tied to your purpose and God’s plan. Learn how to seek God first, trust him, and he’ll take care of you. Your life is of incredible worth to God. He sees you. Will you trust God with your future?
Discover the ways that God’s amazing love wipes away our past, redefines our present, and gives us hope for the future. We have been given an opportunity to embrace life and a new way of living that changes everything.
Turn your worries into prayers and trust God’s plan for your life.
Trust In God and He’ll Take Care of You
Are you consumed with worry and anxiety about what tomorrow might hold? This fear can be paralyzing. Worrying about COVID, job loss, businesses and restaurants closing, schools closed, and working from home along with homeschooling kids has not been easy. In fact, it can be overwhelming.
Being required to wear masks everywhere and not being able to socialize or see family members because of restrictions has caused some to become emotionally stressed out and feeling alone. Listening to the news can be draining, and for others the future may seem hopeless.
But there is hope. Hope in Christ.
As Christians we believe that our loving heavenly Father is always looking out for us. He takes care of the birds of the air and the flowers of the field (Matthew 6:26, 28-30) and that gives us confidence that he will take care of us too. There is no benefit from worry, in fact, worry and anxiety will only hurt you and will make you physically sick.
We must trust God and allow him to guide our steps. We must share the good news that there is always hope, even when things appear hopeless.
No one has control of the future, and yet I know the one who knows the future: God Almighty. The heavenly Father is looking out for you and will provide for all your needs.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5-6, NIV).
No one knows the future (Ecclesiastes 8:7), so why worry? Trust the Lord and turn all your worries into prayers and trust God. He has a plan for your life.
The world is not short of people feeling abandoned, hopeless, or having some sort of fear. Hopeless and fear can be found all around, but do not allow the fear or hopelessness to gain a foothold in your heart. Hopelessness and fear have no power over you when you are in Christ. Instead, let the joy of the Lord be your strength. Let the knowledge of Christ break fear, hopelessness, loneliness and worry from your spirit.
About this Series
Today is the final day of our sermon series “Love Reigns.” We have been challenging ourselves to allow the love of God to reign in every area of our lives.
The first week, we celebrated the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter. We celebrate because the resurrection is the proof that Jesus is the true King of the world who has authority over all things. When we obey Jesus, we experience the life he has for us.
The second week, we looked at how God’s love reigns over our past. Though our mistakes and sins can be a heavy burden on us, we embrace the love of God that forgives us our past and offers us a fresh start.
Last week we discovered that God’s love gives us promise for our present. We can make choices that create healthier patterns in our lives and renew our minds to live in obedience to God.
This is the final week of our series and I want to share how the love of God is to reign over our future.
Your future is in good hands when you allow God to Control it
I remember as a kid there being a little toy that was supposed to help us know what the future held. It was a Magic 8 Ball. It was used to ask all kinds of questions a kid had about the future. You would shake up that mysterious little triangle floating in the blue liquid and ask a question:
Did your middle school crush like you? Oddly enough, it always gave answers like “don’t count on it”.
How would your grades turn out? The answer would be “better not tell you now”.
What about my future career? It might have responded, “ask again later”.
This little toy came out in 1950 and is a sign that our culture has long had a keen interest in the future.
Ever wonder what the future might hold? Sometimes we wonder because our current situation is painful and we want to get on the other side of the difficulty. Sometimes we wonder because we are excited about the possibilities before us.
Do you ever wonder what the future might have been if you had made a different decision earlier in life? Let me say here and now, don’t worry about the past. Do not beat yourself up for past mistakes, rather look to the future. You cannot change the past. God can use your past and he will bless you as you seek him with all your heart. Learn to always trust the Lord.
Either way, our curiosity about the future can sometimes slip into an unhealthy obsession with what might happen, and that is commonly called worry.
Exercise:
I want you to take a moment to write down one worry in your life about the future right now. Once you write it down, keep it near you until the end of the message today.
Worry can be an all-consuming use of our time, energy, and attention on things that we cannot control. People will worry about finances, family, jobs, getting sick, everything. The problem with worry is that our worrying does not improve our situation at all. The only true cure to worry is to trust in the love of God and let God’s love rule in our lives. Jesus spoke to this struggle with worry over the future in Matthew 6.
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (Matthew 6:25-27).
Even though this passage of scripture was written nearly two thousand years ago, it is so applicable to us today. It also shows us that human nature is to have anxiety about our future. God sees you. Jesus tells us not to worry about our life and not to worry about our daily needs. We do not need to worry about our daily wants or needs because he already knows them.
God offers proof in his ability to provide for us. He points to the birds of the air. These tiny, winged animals are not anxious about their needs for tomorrow, but God still provides for their needs for each day. If God takes care of the sparrows of the world, surely, he can take care of you.
Jesus reminds us of our incredible worth. He sees you. You are loved by God and therefore he will provide for you today and in the future. Our future is in good hands when our future is under God’s control. We must allow ourselves to trade what we don’t know about the future for what we do know about the love God has for us.
Worry is not worth it because worry does not add any hours to your life, if anything, it takes hours away.
Trust God with your future; he has a great plan for you
The Lord’s Prayer is a prayer spoken in churches all around the world each and every week. We pray, “give us this day our daily bread”. In other words, we pray “God, give us what we need today. Not too much so that we might forget about trusting you for our future. Not too little that we are tempted to take matters into our own hands. Just enough for today.” This is how we learn to trust God, even when we do not know what is around the corner.
Trusting God for the future instills deep hope that he is there before we ever get there.
Have you ever found yourself listening to talk radio or the news and then noticed yourself feeling anxious about the things that had just been discussed? The radio station might talk about political divisiveness, the struggling economy and or potential wars. It can become too much to handle at times. After listening for a while, you experienced anxiety because everything seemed so out of control. You became anxious about the future. You may need to turn off the radio to feel normal again. You may need to remind yourself that God sees you.
God sees every single person on earth, and he has a great plan for you. He will take care of you. You can trust him.
One of the most quoted scriptures of all time is from Jeremiah 29:11. It is a promise given to the Jewish people, but I believe it is something we can hold onto today as well.
‘“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart”’ (Jeremiah 29:11-13 ).
God has a preferred future that he longs for you to live. You experience it when you begin to let go of trying to control everything and you begin to submit to him and follow his lead. Worrying about the future does not have any positive effects. It only causes you to become paralyzed by fear.
4 Simple Questions to Determine God’s Path for You
The question we need/should ask ourselves is how do I know when opportunities in the future are God’s plan? There are four simple questions you can ask yourself to help you determine God’s leading in your life:
Does this opportunity align with scripture? Would you be violating some kind of direction that has already been given through God’s word? If so, there is a good chance that is not a part of the plans God has for you.
Will this opportunity make me more like Jesus? If you take part in the activity or make this decision, will it make you more Christ-like? If it will help shape you and mold you into the person God desires for you to be, then there is a good chance this could be a part of God’s plan for your future.
Will this opportunity benefit others? Will this decision result in the blessing of other people around you? God is always looking to use willing people to help serve others in need. This may be a good indication that this thing may be a part of God’s plan for your life.
Is the opportunity free of obstacles? Does the door open freely or are you needing to force the door open? If the door opens freely walk through and see what God has for you.
To discover God’s plan for your future is to live with the purpose for which you were born. This is the future that we want to experience. As Mark Twain once said, “The two most important days of your life are the day when you are born and the day you find out why.” Your future is tied to your purpose and God’s plan. Seek God first.
Are you a good steward of the time and resources God has given you?
Jesus gives us a way to ensure that our future falls in line with his will for our lives. It is about priority. Some people have their priorities focused on the wrong things because they are nervous about the future. What are your priorities?
‘“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own”’ (Matthew 6:28-34).
Verse 33 tells us that our priority should be to seek first the kingdom of God. Living to see the kingdom of God come to earth should be the defining aspect of our lives.
The problem is that many of us are more focused on increasing our popularity and status on social media, finally getting that house, or finding true love, rather than focusing on the kingdom of God. Focusing on personal needs are not bad within themselves, but they can cause us to veer off track in life.
Jesus tells us that if we seek God first everything else will have a way of falling into place. When we seek God first, and we come across a new relationship, it most likely is the kind of person that God would want for us. When we seek God first, we live life with humility and that becomes what we are known for. When we seek God first, the wants and desires we seek look more like the things God would want for us.
It is like the illustration of the glass jar being our future. Some of our lives are filled first with the worldly wants and desires… all the little things that are not priorities. But what can happen is that our lives become so cluttered that we do not have space for the more important things God wants to bring into our lives in the future. However, if you were to fill your life with the priorities and most important things first, they have a way of all fitting. This is why Jesus says to put the kingdom of God first. Everything else will be added.
So, don’t worry about your future. It’s in God’s hands. Besides, Jesus says today has enough things to be concerned about anyway without worrying about things that do not exist yet. Most things that we spend our time worrying about never come to pass anyway and yet so much of our energy is spent on them.
Remember: the things we worry about nearly 91% of the time do not come true. Instead, use your time wisely. We each only have so many days in our lives. Our futures must be stewarded well.
The author of Psalm 90 had this concept in mind when he wrote verse 12:
“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).
The author is writing a prayer. He is asking for awareness so that he uses the days of his life in a manner that honors God and honors people.
A survey years ago reveals some astonishing information about how people spend their lives. In a lifetime the average American will spend:
6 months sitting at stoplights.
8 months opening junk mail.
12 months looking for misplaced objects.
2 years unsuccessfully returning phone calls.
4 years doing housework.
5 years waiting in line.
6 years eating.
(Survey of 6000 people polled in 1988, US News and World Report, January 30, 1989, pg. 81)
As you live your life, it is important to ask yourself if the places that you spend time, energy, attention and affection are the most important places they could possibly go. I have heard it said before that the only thing that will matter one hundred years from now will be people’s relationship with God. If this is the case, then we need to use our futures to ensure that as many people come to experience and trust God as possible. As the psalmist said, living wisely means realizing that we only have so many days in our lives and we must use them wisely.
Exercise: Remember the worry I asked you to write down earlier?
Flip over the piece of paper or cross out the text.
Now, instead of allowing yourself to worry about that issue, I want you to pray about how you want to spend your time and ask God to turn your worry into worship.
Write down what God has helped you replace that worry with (such as a song of gratitude, a promise from scripture, a quiet reassurance in prayer).
Suggested Praise and Worship
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Matthew 13:44-46: What does your forever—your eternity—look like? As hard as it is to imagine, God has already promised us a priceless, personal treasure. All we have to do is say yes to Jesus and He will help us get there.