The other day I heard about a woman who was so upset because she was about to be forty years old that she got on an airplane, flew out over the Pacific Ocean, and crossed the International Date Line, where as you may know the calendar changes, just so that she would not actually be anywhere on the day she turned forty. Now isn’t that ridiculous? It didn’t change anything, did it? She was just as old on that side of the date line as she was on this one, and when she came down to earth, she was forty years old plus one day. It didn’t settle anything, did it? Nice try, but no cigar.
You know, maybe I’ll try that when I get to be forty years old. Some day I might own up to that advanced age! Oh, oh, some of the people behind me know that my SON turns forty this coming Saturday, so I guess I can’t hide be forty any more. It won’t work, any more than flying across the International Date Line works. I’ll just come right out and admit it. I will admit that I was born on February 3, in Louisville, Kentucky. In what year? Oh, in nineteen-hundred-and-none-of-your-business!
Oh, don’t we play around with time? Don’t we mess around with dates and age and the calendar? When we’re really young, we like to pretend we’re older. My three-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter informs me regularly that she is not a baby anymore. Her little sister, not yet two, Jackie, is still a baby, says Olivia. But Olivia, aged three and a half, is not a baby any more. I know she’s not because she told me so. She loves to pretend to be older.
When we’re very young we want to be older; we want it to be tomorrow, when we can do all the things we can’t do when we’re very young. When we get a little farther along, we want it to be tomorrow, so we can get out of school and won’t have to do all that schoolwork. When we get farther along than that, we begin to dread tomorrow, because tomorrow we will have to get up and go to work and do the same old same old we did yesterday and the day before that and the day before that, and if tomorrow is going to look like every yesterday, who needs it?!
And then when we get really old – I mean really old, like anybody who’s older than I am – when we get really old, we worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow is might bring sickness and arthritis and weakness. Tomorrow might even bring death.
Not a pretty picture, this thing we have about tomorrow. I guess some of us would like to be on that plane, crossing the International Date Line, trying to avoid tomorrow.
But I want you to see tonight that there are different ways to face tomorrow. Different approaches. Some people face tomorrow with fear. Some people face tomorrow with denial. But some people face tomorrow by getting discovering today. Let me repeat that. Some people face tomorrow with fear; they are afraid of what tomorrow will bring, and so they go into a shell and try to avoid it. And some people face tomorrow with denial; they just won’t face the facts, they just won’t get at what needs to be done, they sort of sit around and wait for the lightning to strike. They face tomorrow in denial.
But, praise God, some people face tomorrow by discovering today. Some people deal with what tomorrow may bring because they can know that what is going on today is a building block. They know that tomorrow is rooted in today.
Let me put it more bluntly than that. Some people get over their fears about tomorrow, some people get beyond denying that there might be a problem tomorrow, some people do this by discovering that God is at work today, right now, right here, that God is at work in us today to equip us for tomorrow. God brings tomorrow into today. Let’s look at this some more.
I
First, let’s talk about how some of us face tomorrow with fear. Would you agree that many of us are not very hopeful about what tomorrow will bring, because our yesterdays are such a mess? If you have lost every job you ever had; if your family wants nothing to do with you; if you cannot even remember half of your yesterdays because you were wasted; if today you don’t have the slightest idea what to do with yourself, then what makes you think that tomorrow will be any different? Lots of people think that way.
Somebody has said that the best description of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. If I am working on some electrical device, and stick in my screwdriver and get a shock, it’s pretty stupid if I stick my screwdriver right back in the same place to see if I get another shock, isn’t it? So the smart thing to do is to be afraid of that electricity and back off, isn’t it?
But if that is all I do ... if I am so scared of what might hurt me tomorrow because I got hurt yesterday ... then I’ll never get anywhere. I’ll never make any progress. It would be like having a nice new car, but you had a fender-bender with it once, and so now you just sit in it, but you won’t drive it. Something might happen. You’re afraid to drive. Or it would be like sitting down to a good meal over in the dining room, and they serve you some fish. Well, once upon a time you ate some fish, and a bone stuck in your throat, and you thought you were going to die. So now you won’t eat fish at all. You’re scared of it.
Do you see what I’m trying to say? Some people have had such a bad time yesterday that they are afraid to get out there and tackle tomorrow. Some people have been so beat up by life that they are afraid to live it. That might be you. Lots of people are like that.
II
But then there are other people who deal with tomorrow by going into denial. They just act as though there is nothing to worry about, nothing to deal with, hey, it’ll be all right. What, me worry? That sounds good. Except that it won’t work. It won’t work just to live in denial.
I probably need to help you understand what I mean when I talk about living in denial. Denial means that I just refuse to notice the problem. Denial means that I just act as though the issue isn’t there. Hey, no big deal, it will all work out.
Some folks come here to the Mission, and the deal is that you are supposed to get out on the street and look for work during the day. Isn’t that right? Nobody hangs out here and watches TV all day long. Nobody lounges around and shoots the breeze. Everybody is supposed to be out looking for work and getting on with your life. There’s a reason for that. The reason is that a lot of us, given half the chance, will put off until tomorrow what we should be doing today. A lot of us, with the slightest opportunity, will shrug it off, “Tomorrow is another day”, and we won’t deal with reality. We’ll just keep on hoping that something will turn up, by some miracle. Guess what? It won’t. Unless your long-lost granddaddy is the chairman of the board of some Fortune 500 company and leaves you a gazillion dollars, things don’t just turn up. You cannot face tomorrow by living in denial. You cannot make tomorrow happen without putting some sort of effort into it.
The Broadway song has it, “Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you, you’re only a day away.” And that’s just the trouble. Some people are living only for something that is always just out of reach. They are in denial.
III
Now the Bible teaches us about all of this. The Bible teaches us, first of all, not to live in fear. The Bible teaches us not to fear tomorrow. It says,
... you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption.
You did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. That means that you don’t really have anything to be afraid of. You have a heavenly father who cares about you. There is a God who wants you to come home to Him. You may not have money in your pocket and you may not have all you would want, but the Bible says, “Don’t face tomorrow with fear”, because God loves you.
And then the Bible teaches us, too, not to live in denial. The Bible teaches us not to put off until a tomorrow that never comes what we could be dealing with today. It says,
We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now;
Listen to that. We groan. We strain. We’ve been waiting. Here we are. It’s time no longer to wait. We’ve been working toward today. So don’t live in denial.
So how do we live? How do we deal with tomorrow? If we can’t face tomorrow with fear, and if we can’t face tomorrow in denial, how do we get a grip on tomorrow? What are we going to do?
We are going to sit right down today and discover what God is doing. We are going to live today and find out what God is doing in our lives, right here, right now, to prepare us for tomorrow. And then we’re going to accept God’s gift. We’re going to build on today and what God gives today, and we’re going to take that into tomorrow and see what else God will give.
What does this Bible say about that? Just about the most important thing you will hear tonight. The Bible says,
We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
Did you hear that? Do you believe that? All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Brothers, that means that today, right here, right now, God is at work in you, trying to show you His purpose, trying to give you a gift of today so that He can give you even more tomorrow.
Think about it. Were you homeless yesterday? Were you on the streets, with no place to go? Well, today you are not homeless. Today you have this shelter. Today you have this Mission. No, it’s not a palace. But let’s not cry about what we don’t have. Let’s not fantasize because we don’t have a mansion in Potomac. Let’s not grumble because we don’t have a gentrified house in Logan Circle. Let’s look at what God has given today, this place; let’s see that God is giving you something that works for your good. Tomorrow is here today.
Were you out of work yesterday? No job, no prospects, no skills, no breaks? But would you believe that God has brought you here where you can learn something that will help you? God has brought you here, where they will teach you how to deal with your issues. God has brought you to Central Union, where they can show you how to get a job and how to hold a job. Hey, a lot of people have jobs and hate them, can’t wait to get out of them, feel stuck in those jobs. You are not stuck; you have a chance to get some training to do something. Praise God, He is at work in all things for your good.
Were you a family yesterday or last week or last month, but today you can’t go home? They won’t let you in the door. Or maybe you don’t even know where they are. They have their issues too. That’s tough. That’s not pleasant. I know it’s not. But I tell you, I know that God is a reconciling God who wants to bring you back to those you love and who wants to bring you to Himself. And I know that when you let God go to work on your heart and your attitude, when you let the mind of Christ grow in you, it will surprise you what the Lord can do.
Tomorrow is today. The key to tomorrow is to see what God is doing for you today, right here, right now. Yesterday is past, tomorrow is not guaranteed; today is all we have. God is in it. God is at work in it. God is at work today to give you life tomorrow. Look for Him, and you will find Him. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened to you. Ask and it shall be given to you. God is at work, in your life, to bring about good things according to His purpose for you.
How do I know all this? Where do I come off saying all these things? Well, first of all, I’ve tried it, and it works. And second, my friends have tried it, and it works for them. And more than that, the God who will do all this has already done impossible things. The God who will do all this has taken the dead body of His son and has raised Him to new life. I just know that the same God who was able to break out of the tomb and give life to Jesus after three days is able to break you out of your fear, break you out of your denial, and give you new life. Tomorrow is today.
Because He lives, I can face tomorrow. Because He lives, all fear is gone. Because I know He holds the future, and life is worth the living, just because He lives.
