How many of you expected to be here at Angleton Christian School for worship this morning?

I didn’t!  Some of you saw my post on Facebook yesterday morning: I listed all the activities, all the things we had going today …. Starting with SS, breakfast: Cheryl was making homemade biscuits and gravy … worship in church, New Member class, Discipleship Training, etc.  A big, full day at First Baptist Church!

Then all of the sudden, I get a text from Marilyn Wilson: she was up at church, I guess getting ready for SS, and the fumes in the church were overwhelming … I thought, Uh, oh … 

So I went up to the church to see; was it really “that bad”?  When I opened the office door, It knocked me over … it was not even close. I knew right off there was no way we could meet in our facilities today.

So all of the sudden, in a moment, almost everything I thought I had going for today (Sunday) was out the window …

Everything I thought I had going YESTERDAY (Saturday) was over too! (I thought it was going to be a pretty quiet day: spend a few hours in the morning with final preparations for today, then just a quiet day of rest watching football, eating, and resting up before a big Sunday.

NOW all of the sudden it was “crisis mode” — what were we going to do? Where could we meet? Outside? Where/how?  At our Angleton Christian School?  All the sudden, it’s not “rest and football Saturday”, it’s “Crisis Mode’, a million calls, emails, texts — everything I THOUGHT I had for yesterday & today was totally changed. 

It reminded me of when the COVID crisis kicked off in March 2020;  Cheryl & I were part of a mission team with some of y’all in Mazatlan, Mexico, and we came back to COVID, crisis … our whole world was turned upside down.  I went to HEB (the Texas grocery store) after we got back, and there was nothing there! It wasn’t a matter of what we WANTED to buy; it was more a matter of “what they have”! With NO WARNING, we came back to different world than the one we had left!

ALL OF WHICH REMINDS ME OF JAMES 4:13-17:

“13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” 14 Yet you do not know [h]what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” 16 But as it is, you boast in your [j]arrogance; all such boasting is evil. 17 Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.”

What does the Bible say there? Don’t foolishly think everything is going to be exactly the way you THINK it is going to be in the future — even tomorrow.  It says: “You do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.” Isn’t that true?

We have these “plans,” these “expectations”, these “ideas” about what the future will hold — and often we build our whole lives around these expectations — but how often does something come up that we never expected, and just “upset the whole apple cart”?  We had no idea of what was coming.

It seems like I have seen so much of this in recent days:

— the COVID crisis in 2020

— Our moving HERE in the first place! Texas is the last place we ever expected to live (though we love it!)

— What happened to us as a church this weekend

So many other examples:

— My sister, who is a missionary in SE Asia, has had a very good friend over the years, Anna, who also serves with her husband on mission in a nearby country. She was just diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and is flying to Houston tonight from SE Asia, to go to M.D. Anderson for an appointment. Cheryl & I are going to get them at the airport tonight, to bring them to our house to stay the night, then we are planning to take tomorrow to Austin, where they have some family — pending the plans that MDA has for them. They never expected this. They had served the Lord in SE Asia for many years, and were closing in retirement. Now they find themselves here, and she may be in the fight of her life. They never expected it.

— Then yesterday while we were watching the OU/TEXAS game (talk about something unexpected!)  And my mom sends a text on our family chat:  “Israel at war.” 

I went over to the news website and looked at what was going on: The Palestinians launched a “surprise attack” on Israel, firing over 5000 missiles and rockets into Israel, invading Israel, and killing and capturing hundreds of Israelis, and torturing them, parading them down their streets. Now Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu says Israel is going to take care of Hamas “once for all” — he has warned civilians to get out; that they are going to turn that place “into rubble.” 

Now some are saying this will bring other nations in (some say this was the Palestinians plan, to bring other nations in) and this is the start of “World War III” and nuclear weapons could get involved — and some are saying this could signal the return of the Lord soon ….

WHO EXPECTED THIS? While we were just watching a football game, World War III, the end of the world, might have started.

What about all our plans? What about our football games? What about our lives, our expectations for the next years, for our families, for our careers, for our retirements, our vacations, everything *could* go right out the window!  In the blink of an eye — everything changed.

It reminds me of what I Thessalonians says: “While they are saying, ‘Peace and safety,” destruction will come upon them suddenly, like birth pangs upon a woman with child …”.

Suddenly, everything will change. 

It’s like the story Jesus told in Luke 12:

“The land of a rich man was very productive. 17 And he began reasoning to himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?’ 18 Then he said, ‘This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.”’ 20 But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?’”

Jesus said that man thought he had his whole life ahead of him, in luxury and ease: all his “stuff” saved up in his newer barns. But that very night, his soul would stand before God!

How many examples of that do we need to give? WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT TOMORROW HOLDS.

I had no idea Israel was going to be attacked.

I had no idea my Saturday would be different.

I had no idea our whole Sunday would be radically changed.

I had no idea we would be going to the airport tonight or to Austin tomorrow

Anna Kuhlmann had no idea that her whole life was going to be hit with a curve ball …

And I don’t know WHAT ELSE may happen tomorrow — in my own life, in our church, or in our world — and NEITHER DO YOU!  

Like James says, “We do not know what our life will be like tomorrow … we are just a vapor that appears for a short while, and then vanishes quickly away.”

Life is uncertain. We don’t know what to expect. SO WHAT DO WE DO?

Just live in fear?  NO!  That is not the point. The point of this is NOT for us all to walk out here, just “shaking in fear,” worried about some unexpected “thunderbolt” that we think might be about to come down out of the sky on us!  The Bible says in II Timothy 1:7 “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and love, and a sound mind.” God does NOT want us to live in fear. I tried to emphasize this the first Sunday of the COVID crisis. Whatever happens, we as Christians do NOT need to live in fear. And quite honestly, that is exactly what a lot of people DID do during COVID, they just totally lived in fear — and some still are! That is NOT God’s will for us.

We are to live in FAITH, not in fear. Trust God!  I was reading Isaiah 50 this week, and it’s all about trusting God. Verse 10 says, “Let him trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God.” 

God wants us to trust Him. Our whole life is about learning to trust God. Hebrews says: “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” So don’t live in fear, even with all the uncertainty; live in FAITH. Trust God. While everyone else is panicking, YOU trust God; that will please God in these days — and it will help you! 

And really the most important thing you need to do: MAKE SURE YOU DO KNOW JESUS CHRIST AS YOUR LORD & SAVIOR! 

Many people can’t trust God in these times, because they don’t know Him as their Lord & God. 

Somebody says, “Yeah, I will do that … sometime.” James 4 says NO! “You don’t know what your life is going to be like tomorrow.” You don’t even know if you will HAVE a tomorrow!   That’s why II Corinthians says “Behold NOW is the accepted time; TODAY is the day of salvation.”  Do not wait another day. THE single most important thing you can do, in these uncertain days, is to make sure you know Jesus as your Lord & Savior.

AND: make sure that people you care about know Him too. Don’t just “coast along” and hope that “someday” they will. Pray. Fast. Seek God for their salvation. And share Jesus with them as God leads you. Don’t be content for any of your loved ones to face these uncertain times without knowing that God is in THEIR life too.

And then live life with a Biblical balance. So tomorrow may hold the unexpected … does that mean we don’t plan, we don’t saved, we just wake up every day and see what happens? 

NO, God doesn’t want us to live that way. That’s foolish too.

Proverbs tells us we should plan; we should save; those are responsible things to do.

But don’t bank your whole life on things that can be taken away from you in the blink of an eye. Don’t build your whole life on storing away more and more stuff, and then live “a life of ease” that like the man in Jesus’ story, you will never get to live — because of illness or death or war or a million other unexpected things. DO plan; DO save; but put your ultimate hope in HEAVEN, in GLORY; don’t think that you’re going to have “heaven on earth”; because you aren’t.  THIS isn’t the place where you need to put all your hopes. Earthly hopes often get disappointed. Put your hope in heaven. Send your treasures ahead of you to heaven, Jesus says, “Where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves cannot break in and steal.”  

So live the life on earth that God gives you — but always keep one eye on heaven. Because THAT is where our ultimate hope is.

It kind of reminds me of the quarterbacks I saw in yesterday’s game. When you’re a quarterback, you drop back to pass, and you are looking for those receivers down the field to throw the ball to. But at the same time, there’s some defensive linemen who are rushing at you. You can’t just stand back there forever, looking downfield, you kind of have to keep “one eye” on the linemen who are coming after you, and respond to them. You may need to hurry your throw, or take off scrambling down the field. The best quarterbacks know how to keep the balance, of watching their receivers down the field — but also keeping one eye on the rushers around them too.

And that’s how we as Christians need to be too. Keep one eye on what we’re doing here on earth. This is what God has you here for: to live this life, to learn to trust Him; to impact others for Him. He wants you to live, and love, and work, and save, and plan, and do. But at the same time, always “keep one eye on heaven.” Because this world is NOT our ultimate home. Our ultimate home is in heaven. 

Like James says; “You do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.” So always say, “Lord willing.” We plan to do x-y-z, but it’s “Lord willing.” Don’t walk in fear, but trust God. And always keep one eye on heaven — because that is where our ultimate hope is!  And most importantly, make sure that you are going there!