TITLE: Tomorrow Belongs to God
TEXT: Matthew 6:25-34 (NIV)
25 “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[a]?
28 “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.
OUTLINE: The Benefits of Prayer
1. Peace in the middle of the storm.
2. Gives you the opportunity to participate in the deliverance of others.
3. Helps us to submit to the process.
4. Pardons the guilt of sin.
5. Is the secret weapon. If we will be private prayer warriors God will openly reward us.
6. Prayer is not only about what we do in church services. Prayer is self-care. It is soul-care.
7. Worry annuls prayer. Rather than worry about tomorrow we should channel our emotional energy into prayer.
8. God has brought you this far through all of the enemy’s attempts at intimidation about the terrors that tomorrow may hold.
9. Jezebel threatened Elijah that tomorrow she was going to kill him (1 Kings 19:2). He woke up the next day alive. Don’t worry, pray!
