Be Glad God Knows Your Future and You Don’t
1 Sam 18:5-9
Raise your hand if you would like to know the future? Keep your hands up. How many would like to know the future if it
included you losing your job next week and not finding work for 6 months? Your children die in a car wreck in one
year?
All of a sudden, knowing the future doesn’t sound so
appealing? Yes, you might make the most
of the time between the tragedies, but how would it change who we are to know
those tragedies are coming throughout our lives? Could we live our lives fulfilled knowing what is to come? Personally, I’m glad I don’t know everything
about my future.
God never changes.
He knows our future and knows how to help us through it. We don’t have to worry about all those things
because we don’t know they are coming.
We live our lives in the blessing of knowing just about today.
As we will see in David’s life, God gives us what we need to
make it through the difficult times to come.
We have his help before we are even aware we need it.
PRAYER
I. David’s
Story
A.
The past
1.
David goes to meet up with his brothers in the Army. They are camped on one side of a long valley
area and on the other hillside are the Philistines.
2.
Day after day the giant Goliath comes and taunts the Israelite
army. Day after day, Saul and his army
quails in fear and no one stand up to him.
3.
David, the boy with a slingshot does what no other man with
his weapons of war was willing to do.
4.
He took Goliath’s challenge and won!
B.
The Present
1.
Now David is a hero. No
longer the shepherd boy nobody noticed.
2.
Now David is the man everyone praises. He’s the talk of the town, a celebrity.
3.
Many young people fold under instant celebrity. All you have to do is pick up any tabloid
and you see young stars and starlets crumbling under the pressures of
celebrity.
4.
Yet, David doesn’t. He
has a sense of who he is and who he belongs to that carries him through those
heady days, and the dismal days to come.
5.
What would David had done if he knew what would follow his
great victory over Goliath?
6.
Would he have acted differently if he knew about the months
and years of volatility, running in fear, being cut off from his people that
would soon come?
C.
God’s Care
1.
David was able to live one day at a time because he didn’t
have to deal with the knowledge of what was coming.
2.
Someone once said that loneliness is the most desperate of all
English words
3.
Have you ever been there?
I have. When I graduated from
college I moved back to Alaska. My
family and I almost crossed each other on the Alaskan Highway as they moved to
Indiana. That first Christmas I was
living alone and was just beginning to know the people of the
congregation. On Christmas eve and
family invited me over for supper and I appreciated that, but I knew I was a
guest in their family celebration. On
the way home, a drunk driver ran me off the road and I was buried in 3 feet of
snow of some guy’s lawn. After a lot
of work he as able to get me to his driveway and I got home. The next morning was Christmas and I got up
to an empty apartment and empty heart.
The frustration of the night before sank into me as I experienced a
Christmas with no friends and no family.
It was a miserable day.
4.
Imagine that type of feeling intensified by the things that
David was going through. Loneliness.
5.
God have him the way to handle the dark times to come because
he knew what David would need the most.
6.
From the moment David killed Goliath, he life changes forever.
7.
Never would he go back to the innocent life of the youngest
son of Jesse tending his father’s flocks.
8.
He would need help in the days to come. God provides that help in a young man named
Jonathan.
a)
These 2 young men become instant best friends.
b)
Jonathan was Saul’s son.
c)
At first, everything was great and they enjoyed their
friendship to the fullest, but as Saul began to hate David more and more, their
friendship was put to the test.
d)
As David began to have to constantly watch his back, he found
Jonathan already there. READ 1 Sam 23:16-17
e)
Throughout the next few years Jonathan was a rock of friendship
that David needed so badly.
II. Our
Lives today
A.
Not knowing the future lets us live one day at a time
1.
READ Matt 6:34
2.
David had no idea what each next day would bring. All he knew was that God was there to be
with him.
3.
We would be crushed by our futures if we really knew what was
coming up.
4.
It gets hard enough dealing with one day at a time, but that
really is a blessing.
5.
All I have to deal with is today, God’s dealing with tomorrow.
6.
He knows what I will need.
He knows what will get me through.
7.
He knows and will provide, so I don’t have to worry. I just have to trust. READ Matt 6:31-33
B.
Having a friend helps us handle whatever comes our way
1.
I met Bryan and Rick in college 20 years ago. We became the best of friends and have
stayed that way ever since. When our
children were known, they got the call right after our parents. When I have had difficult times, they are
the ones quickly go to for advice.
2.
When Mom died, they were among the first I called. At her funeral Rick drove 3 hours to be with
me for the day.
3.
Having friends like that offers a strength that is
unbelievable.
4.
Job realized that with his three friends who came and sat with
him for 7 days and never said a word, but shared his grief and pain as only
friends can.
5.
So many of our members have shared stories about how this or
that friend from church was there when they need someone the most.
6.
God gives us those friends for a reason. Use them.
C.
A positive attitude and wisdom are the best defense against an
enemy.
1.
In war morale is almost as important as weaponry.
2.
In the famous battle of Thermopylae,
300 Spartan held off thousands. They
believed in their cause, their leader and themselves.
3.
Instead of sinking to
the level of your enemy and fighting fire with fire, let God do the battling
for you.
4.
Take strength in knowing that in the right time and right way
God will deal with your opposition.
5.
Armed with that attitude and wisdom, you would be amazed at
how well you can navigate life in a much more happy way.
D.
Concl
1.
We don’t know the future.
As we saw this morning that’s a blessing from God in many way.
2.
What we have to do is trust him with the future and live for
him in the present.
3.
Will you commit to living for him today?