Destiny: A Way to Control

We had recently, it was 2015, we had recently moved to the local area.

We were living in, and we still live in Mount Colah, and our son, Lochie, is a cricketer, and so he joined the local cricket team, the mighty Mount Colah Mustangs.

And so we went along to the first game, and I'm an interested dad, I'm a cricketer, and so Locks joined this cricket team.

And the first game we were at, what year, under 11s?

Under 13s.

Okay.

And there's one of the dads, so the cricket game is happening there, and one of the dads is standing like this.

Just for minutes, like for a long time.

And the game has started, and then I find out that that guy's son is opening the batting.

He's standing like this.

And I'm like, oh, this is interesting.

And then it comes out, they start sort of hassling him about his superstitious way of thinking that his son always gets out when he watches.

So, this guy is an English guy.

He never watched his son bat.

As Stevie Wonder sang, very superstitious.

Riding's on the wall, very superstitious.

Ladder's about to fall.

Superstition is all about the magnetic point of destiny, I think.

A way to control the future.

I don't think we always think of superstition like that, but it is.

We're trying to control the future.

That dad is trying to stop his son from getting out by not watching.

I would put it to you that human beings are very, very interested in controlling their future destiny, would you agree?

No matter what epic of history you think about, what culture, what spot on the planet, human beings are fascinated with how to control their future.

And they are prone, even highly educated, to do silly things in the context of group think, because it's always been done like this.

Cricketers are the worst at superstitious practices.

I think we live with this question.

It's a relentless question.

Who is writing the script?

Is there a script?

Are there puppet strings on our hands and feet, and hearts and minds and mouths and lives?

Is someone controlling what's going on into the future?

Well, we are in this series.

We're unpacking five magnetic points.

It's based on a book called Faith...

What's it called?

Making Faith Magnetic by Dr.

Daniel Strange, and we've sort of adapted from that and launched into our own series.

The idea is that there's five hopes and dreams and longings that reside in human culture.

And one of them is totality, and it's this idea of, I want to be an individual, but I also want to belong.

How do I belong to the bigger group?

And if I do belong, how do I live?

What's the norm of my tribe?

And then, when things go wrong, how do I get delivered?

This idea of deliverance and today's magnetic point, four of five, is destiny.

Is there a way to control the future?

We began the series with this query, is God playing a cosmic game of hide and seek?

Because human beings have these longings.

They want answers to the questions that are deep within them.

No matter what culture you find, humans have these questions.

And so the thought is, well, if there was a God who created everything, he must be hiding, because it's so hard to find the answers.

And so we looked at that idea, is God hiding the truth?

And then we looked at our driving verse of the series.

Every week we've looked at Romans 1.

I'd like to read it again.

And what we've been suggesting is, no, God is not hiding.

In fact, Romans 1 says that it is human beings that suppress the truth He has revealed.

And they substitute it for truth they come up with.

I'm going to read it.

It's Romans 1, 18.

The wrath of God is being revealed, Paul writes, from Corinth to the church at Rome.

It's being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people who suppress the truth by their own wickedness.

Since what may be known about God is plain to them because God has made it plain to them, for since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power, and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made so that people are without excuse, for although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but they're thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being, birds, animals, and reptiles.

So this very key idea that we want to keep remembering is, human beings suppress and substitute truth.

They take the truth and push it like a person's head under the water and go, no, go away.

Whatever God you have told me you have done for me, I don't like you being the boss.

So I'm going to suppress it and also I'm going to come up with my own ideas to empower me to answer the questions I'm longing for by myself and in community.

I'm going to substitute your truth for something that I come up with.

So we have responded to this, just again, there's a little quick recap that Jesus Christ is the one who fulfills these longings.

The longings are real.

Jesus fulfills.

How does Jesus fulfill the longing for totality?

Well, we're made in the image of God, the Bible says, so we have a sense of holy individuality.

But when we put our faith in Christ, we're caught up in Christ, and the biblical language is vine.

So we're part of a vine.

The other language is body.

So we're part of body life.

Would you agree?

Christianity gives an answer to, how do I belong?

Well, you're part of a vine, and you'll bear fruit as Jesus' love and power flows through you.

So this idea of totality and belonging is very much part of the Christian world view.

How we understand things from a biblical perspective.

And norm, how to flourish.

We looked at this a few weeks ago.

The norm is perfection.

What are human beings required of by God to live perfectly?

That's the norm.

We've all failed, but Jesus did it.

Jesus lived a perfect life in our place, and by faith in him, we can be caught up in his normative living before God.

What that means is he was righteous before God, and by faith in him, we get to be righteous too.

So, that doesn't mean we live however we want.

We're in relationship with God through faith in Christ's perfect life, his norm living, and we then obey him by his grace, not to earn his favour through living the norm, but to show that we have received his favour.

So, Christianity fulfills beautifully our longing for totality, for norm how to live, the Bible shows us how to live and it's by grace in Jesus.

And then, Ben looked at deliverance last week, and he made the point that although we have lots of challenging aspects of our lives, the greatest point that we need deliverance from is sin.

Humanity is caught up under sin, we have all broken God's perfect laws, and we need someone to rescue us, and Christ has done that.

Hallelujah.

He paid for our sin by dying for us on the cross.

So, now we come to destiny, and before we just launch into it, I just want to remind us, we've talked about the four E's.

And this is a great way to do apologetics, to do the sharing of our faith with people who are of a different world view, or a different faith.

And the three, the four E's stand for enter.

So, you meet someone, you enter into a relationship with them, and then you explore in gentleness, with gentleness and respect.

We explore what they believe.

What does this culture believe?

And then we want to carefully and gently, with respect, expose, bring light into that world view, and expose what might not be the truth.

And then, at that point, we want to evangelise.

We want to evangelise them, Jesus.

We want to point them to how the Bible fulfills their longing and longings in Christ.

Does that make sense?

So, that's sort of the outline of today's message.

We're going to think about enter, explore, expose, evangelise.

So, let's think about destiny.

And, I guess, just an excuse.

You're not meant to make excuses when you preach, but...

We have spent all year working our way verse by verse through Mark.

So, we're spending more time in the setup before we get to our scripture today.

So, I'm sorry about that.

I would prefer to just be in the scripture, but we're doing it the other way around.

I want to think about this idea of destiny, and then we'll see how it resolves in Christ and in the biblical understanding.

The human condition produces stress and anxiety about what will happen tomorrow.

Amen?

Like if we enter the human condition and think about how people cope with life, people find it stressful the thought of what's going to happen tomorrow, and I'm actually thinking about the day after tomorrow.

What is going to happen, let alone if I have a family who I'm responsible for?

I'm feeling a sense of anxiety frequently about health and food and safety and shelter, all for the future.

And we look for ways to alleviate these stressors.

That's all I want to say about entering.

I think it's just valid, the fact that we have a challenge when we think about what will happen tomorrow.

So let's explore how humans deal with the challenge of tomorrow regarding destiny and fate.

All over the world, you find people that come up with different ideas about how to control the future.

Often you'll find a shaman or like the witch doctor or the truth teller, the spirit guide who will lead people through tea leaves or stars or tarot cards or some form of spirituality.

But it's so much more normal than that for most of us.

And I would just put it to you now.

How were you superstitious?

What do you just take for granted that like the knock on wood type stuff?

What...

and you might be a Christian here today and surprise yourself how many little superstitious ideas you carry.

The author of the book, Daniel Strange, wrote this.

And I'm just going to read it.

It's a quote.

It's very interesting.

He said he's in an office job and he says, you must...

he found out, you must never say the phones are quiet in the office.

Does anyone know what this is all about?

OK, hands are going up.

He says, when I first started, I thought this was a bit of a joke, but it's considered deadly serious.

You do not say that.

Phones are quiet.

I've tried to talk it out with some colleagues because they are clear that they have no belief in any sort of higher power and are perfectly rational people.

At the same time, saying, the phones are quiet will result in something, someone making said phones busy and unbearable.

We simultaneously have no control over how our phone shifts are going to go.

You'll just have a day like that.

And they're yet responsible for our own others' bad shifts.

Because you said it was quiet, and that made it busy.

There is a level of discomfort around breaking this rule that goes beyond amusement or social discomfort.

It does result in real tension when someone curses another person's shift.

One of the interesting things about this power behind phone calls is that it is clearly malevolent.

There's no good power responsible for quiet shifts or pleasant customers, just bad ones.

Could you raise your hand if you've experienced anything like this?

Okay, it's quite a few hands.

The power of the word quiet.

I can assure you, I've been doing my research, and this is very much the case in emergency departments in hospitals.

This is very much the case, and I'm seeing nods, it's so funny.

And people get angry if you were to go there?

Yeah, like it's taken to police stations, fire stations.

It's very real.

You do not say the word quiet because it will change.

But how?

What are we believing in?

The word quiet?

It's hard to know what people are believing in, I think.

What this idea of destiny and fate, or even superstition.

But what I would just notice is, smart people play along with this groupthink.

It just seems to get you in.

And I think there is an innate openness to control in the future.

I think there is honestly where it comes from.

Creatives don't mention what word before the show.

Macbeth.

You can't say Macbeth, and if you do say Macbeth before a show, you've got to do incantations to reverse the curse.

Smart people taking this on.

You know, I don't mean to be critical, you know I love our worship band, but they have this interesting idea.

They say regularly, I don't know who it is that started it, but anyway, there's no judgement.

They say the band practice for the morning or the night went fantastically.

You know what that means?

Service is going to go terribly.

Very superstitious.

It is, but it is.

Look, we just go with this stuff, don't we?

Cricketers, as I said before, aren't absolutely the worst.

If you say, we're batting well, it's like, what?

And then they get out.

And there's this perpetuation of...

Sometimes people have like OCD ticks that they do, but it's maybe more than that.

Raphael Nadal has things he has to do.

It's sort of both ticks and also it turns into superstition.

Some of us want to control the future, so we seek the guide for the stock market or the property.

We take ancestral tests sometimes to understand our past DNA, so we can control maybe our future.

We do personality tests to put us into a bit of a camp and work out, oh, how is my future going to go?

You can see how different, how so many different angles we chase this, how to control the future.

You might remember Ross Clifford, Dr.

Ross Clifford.

He's the principal of our Bible College for 20 years, and he preached here a couple of Easter's ago.

Now, he's an expert in New Age spirituality, and he talks about going for years, decades, to the Mind Body spirit Festival once a year in Sydney, and he would run a stall, a Christian stall.

And, you know, New Age spirituality is all about scripting your destiny.

It's all about, I have the power to...

I am like God, really, if I just understand it, I won with the universe and I script my destiny.

We don't believe that, but a lot of people in that world of spirituality do.

And Ross has this interesting story where he went and had his aura reading done at a booth.

And some might say, oh, that's not a good idea.

But anyway, he did it.

He's the theology lecturer and the principal of the college.

And he went and had his aura reading, and somehow they're sitting in this booth, and the person with the ability can see these colours around you, and that tells you something about who you are and your future.

And so he goes in there, and he's just trusting that he's in Christ, and the person says, Oh, very interesting.

There's all this white light around your head, and there's a powerful white beam going straight up.

And the person says, You know what that means?

You are surrounded by truth and in touch with the highest truth.

What do you do for a job?

He says, I'm a Baptist minister.

Interesting.

You know, Ross used to always tell us, he taught me when I was back in college, Bible College, that the Bible doesn't say there is not truth out there.

After all, there was a star that brought wise men to Jesus.

But he says, the Bible says very clearly, you are not to worship that which has been created, and seek guidance from that rather than the Creator.

Let me prove it.

Deuteronomy 18.

When you enter the land, this is Moses talking to the people, the land your God is giving you, don't learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there.

Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire.

That does happen if you read the Kings.

Who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft or casts spells, or who is a medium or a spiritist, or who consults the dead.

Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord because of these same detestable practices the Lord your God would drive out those nations before you.

You must be blameless before the Lord your God.

The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination.

But as for you, the Lord your God has not permitted you to do so.

Deuteronomy 18, 9-14.

What's interesting is he doesn't go out of his way to say none of this is true.

In fact, there's a time where some of the ungodly kings of Israel are being attacked, and they sacrifice one of the children on the wall, and it says, the battle turned.

So, all I'm saying is, it would seem like there are demonic powers that are conjured up by seeking them.

And it's very clear, the Bible says, do not have anything to do with this.

Don't have anything to do with it.

But people desire this empowering, don't they?

How can I control my destiny?

Have you heard of prosperity gospel preaching?

That's this, isn't it?

If you give money to God, you'll twist his arm and control your future, and you'll get a hundredfold blessing from him.

You want to be rich?

Give money.

That's not what the Bible teaches.

The Bible teaches, yeah, God wants to bless.

Sometimes his blessing comes with suffering and poverty.

I don't think the Bible teaches prosperity gospel at all.

But people preach it because human beings are vulnerable.

They want to control the future.

I think it can be true if people say, you know what, you can always ask God to get healed.

No matter what, he will answer your prayer and you'll get healed.

Most of us who have lived long enough know that doesn't wash.

It does heal people in the future.

He changes people's tomorrows, but not always the way that we ask.

Does he prophetically give us ideas of the future?

Some of us would be more inclined to the prophets speaking and that power and peace and comfort and hope that comes from that.

Yeah, the Bible does talk about prophetic insight.

There's Jeremiah who's known before he was born.

The Apostle Paul, it would seem, was very much set apart before he was born.

But it's not always the case.

There's the power of positive thinking.

Do you think that has any power?

Obviously, it does.

How we renew our mind, if we sort of set ourselves up with pessimism, you can sort of set up how your future will go.

And there are sins that are passed on to the third and fourth generation.

The Bible is very clear.

I say all that stuff, because I just...

as we explore the idea of destiny, it's nuanced, isn't it?

I would encourage you, in your small group, to just take 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and ask the question, what do you think about destiny?

I can promise you, it opens up an interesting conversation.

Because we have different ideas about how God plays a role in our future.

He certainly does, but it's this interesting labyrinth of conversation and discussion.

So we come to expose.

We've looked at enter and explore the idea.

firstly, considering superstitious approaches to the future, there are superstitions that people build their life around, and if we were to expose them for being false, the first question I would just like to ask is a question that you're probably not going to get an answer for, is why do you believe that?

Why do you believe that saying, it's quiet, changes the atmosphere?

And it's going to be anecdotal, I think, but it's not built on anything that's robust.

Would you agree?

And I think if you work through the different aspects of superstitious beliefs, they're either coming directly from the demonic, or they probably don't have that clearer basis.

They seem a lot, and I say this carefully, they seem a lot like what Paul is referring to in Romans.

He says, although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Although they claim to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal human beings and birds and animals and reptiles.

I think having my son playing and standing like that, I think he's a fool.

And by the laughing, I think a lot of us think, I think that's foolish.

And I think that that's not to pick on that guy.

I think reaching over and tapping wood, to stop someone getting out, I think that's foolish.

Would you agree with?

Romans 1, it actually explains it.

It says, you stop believing God's in control, you're probably going to end up believing stuff that's futile and foolish.

With regard to the biblical ideas, if we were exposing them, as I said before, it's clear that there can be truth, but basing your life too much on an extra-biblical prophetic word can be dangerous.

Absolutely.

It just can be so subjective.

Not that it doesn't happen, but it's something to be careful about.

So enter, explore, expose, evangelize.

What does the Bible say?

What does the Bible say about controlling our future?

Well, there is one voice the Bible says who legitimately is worth listening to about the future.

One voice in particular, and his name is Jesus.

He personally claimed that he was God.

Now, if you think, I don't think Jesus even lived, you need to do some work, because he is historically verifiable.

There are so many people who weren't in his camp who acknowledged, yes, that man lived.

And it is clear that he died on a cross executed by the Romans.

It's part of history.

And many have said that he rose again from the grave, and no one has been able to definitively prove that he didn't.

And in 2000 years, that continues to remain the case.

So there is an authenticity about this story that Jesus is who he said he was, the Saviour of the world.

And in one or many parts of the New Testament, he says, I am actually God.

Excuse me.

John 8, this famous passage, Jesus answers, before Abraham was born, I am.

He uses the holy name of God.

And you might think, well, what does that mean?

Well, what it means is he's saying, I am God.

And the people, the Jews who listen to him say that, they wanted to kill him immediately.

So I make that as a point of Jesus' own self-understanding is that he is God.

So he's eternal, always been around.

Philippians 2, is another well-known passage, tells us that Jesus humbled himself, became obedient to death, death on a cross.

Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place, gave him the name that's above every other name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow.

In heaven and on earth and under the earth, every tongue acknowledges that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

So, he's eternal, and he has the highest name, he's the most powerful being in all creation.

1 John 1 says, That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, this is Jesus, which we have looked at, our hands have touched, this we proclaim concerning the word of life.

The life appeared, we have seen it, testified to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life.

That's what Jesus is referred to as.

The eternal life, which was with the Father, has appeared to us.

So what's he's saying about Jesus as a person who's worthy of the respect he deserves, to listen to him about the future?

His I am, his God, he is also eternal life, that is, he is Alpha and Omega.

That means he's the beginning and the end.

He is truth from start to finish.

If he's at the finish as well as the start, guess what he knows about the future?

Everything.

He actually does know it.

And so let's think about what this God, man, eternal being, what he says about our future, the long range.

He says, God loved the world so much that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

What he's alluding to is there will be a judgment for all humanity, and sin will be brought to account.

And that's what that passage in Romans 1 is all about.

His eternal power and divine nature.

Eternal power means he's the one with the power and I'm not.

I'm dependent on him, and he has a divine nature.

He has personhood.

I'm accountable to him also.

So I'm dependent on his revelation of who he is, and I'm accountable.

And so we will all be held accountable when we die before a holy God.

And Jesus, the one who is the smartest person who ever lived, who is from the beginning and the end, he's eternal.

He says, to secure your eternal life, your long range future, you need to believe in me.

So can I just leave that with you?

If you're concerned about the future, let your eyes look further from tomorrow.

Look out beyond your life.

That's what we want to secure.

Amen.

We really do.

Eternal destiny is based in our faith in Christ, who has died for us in our place and risen from the grave.

And that's just a wonderful thing, wonderful truth.

So long range, destiny is about faith in Christ, and that secures for us eternal life in heaven and the new earth.

But what about tomorrow?

Does Jesus, this all-powerful, all-knowing one, say anything about tomorrow?

Yes, he does.

He says, I'm the good shepherd.

I'm the good shepherd.

I lay my life down for the sheep, John 10, 11.

You can trust me.

You can trust me.

I'm a good shepherd.

The sheep don't know what's going on, really.

I'm in charge.

They don't know where their food's going to come from the next day.

They get moved around by the dogs and by me.

I'm the good shepherd.

And can I encourage you today, if you're concerned about tomorrow, that's who Jesus reveals himself to you.

That's who he is.

He's a good shepherd.

Hallelujah.

So you can trust me.

You can trust the one who went through death and came back to life.

And he's at the right hand of the Father now.

You can trust him.

He's a good shepherd.

Have you discovered that there are other shepherds who ask us for our trust, and you can't trust them?

There are other shepherds.

I found this psalm, the psalm of the addict.

And that's what it's called.

It's a confronting thing.

I'm going to read.

I'm sorry if this is sort of a triggering thing for you, but I thought about it, and I think it is worth sharing.

This is from a person who has come to the end of their road in 1970, and they say, Addiction is my shepherd.

I shall always want.

He maketh me to lie down in the gutters.

He leadeth me beside the troubled waters.

He destroyeth my soul.

He leadeth me in the paths of wickedness for the efforts' sake.

Yea, I shall walk through the valley of poverty and will fear all evil for thou addiction art with me.

Thy hit of relief, it tries to comfort me.

Thou strippest the table of groceries in the presence of my family.

Thou robbest my head of reason.

My cup of sorrow runneth over.

Surely addiction shall stalk me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the damned forever.

Now that's confronting.

But I think many of us can substitute that.

I took away the word heroin and put in the word addiction, because I just wanted to sit in that and think, you know what?

There are powers in this life that offer us to be our shepherd.

There's only one good shepherd.

We have to be very careful who we put our trust in for our tomorrows.

So, Jesus, the good shepherd, what does he tell us about tomorrow?

And this is what we heard read for us by Meredith.

Matthew 6, this is what Jesus says, and it's brimming with eternal wisdom, and I hope we can receive it today.

Therefore, I tell you, don't worry about your life.

What you will eat or drink about your body, what you will wear is not life more than food in the body, more than clothes.

Look at the birds of the air.

They don't sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them.

Are you not much more valuable than they?

Can any one of you, by worrying at a single hour to your life, this is the God-man, eternal good shepherd.

This is the smartest human who ever walked on earth.

He knows everything.

And yet we want to sit here and go, oh, that's a bit more nuanced than that, mate.

It's not as simple as that.

Don't we?

Don't we want to say, oh, yeah, you just don't...

Not in the 21st century, Jesus.

Maybe back in an agrarian society in the 1st century.

You really know what you're talking about here.

Don't worry.

We all know you have to worry.

That's the whole destiny piece.

That's why we're superstitious, Lord.

Why do you worry about clothes?

See how the flowers of the field grow.

They don't labour or spin, yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these.

If that's 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 of little faith?

So don't worry, saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink?

What shall we wear?

He's speaking directly to the magnetic pole of destiny.

How do you control what the future brings?

He says, do not worry, saying, what shall we eat?

What shall we drink?

It would seem like we're not meant to control the future.

That's what it would seem like to me.

And then he says, for the pagans run after all these things, right?

Every pagan on earth runs after these things.

Because they're all coming up with a way of controlling the future.

And your heavenly father knows that you need them.

There are things you need for the future.

What does he say?

The good shepherd.

Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.

Each day has enough trouble of its own.

How does that sit with you?

Where I come to is, I've come to believe that tomorrow, tomorrow is holy.

Tomorrow is holy.

I don't get to live tomorrow till tomorrow.

It's there, and God knows about it, and I don't.

It's the realm of the eternal God, and I'm not eternal.

I'm dependent and accountable.

He's the one with eternal power, which means He knows tomorrow.

Amen?

How would it change you if tomorrow is holy, and you carefully come to it by grace as the Good Shepherd leads you into it?

But I don't get to control it.

But who can I trust as I go into the unknown?

I can trust my Good Shepherd.

Today has enough problems.

What does that tell you about today?

Problems are real.

There's plenty of problems.

Does this say we are never to plan for the future?

No.

It's not.

We're not meant to be just either or, black and white.

It's the sense of it, isn't it?

We trust the Good Shepherd for tomorrow.

Yeah, look, we plan, we do our best, but we hold all these plans lightly.

Amen?

Romans 8.

Mike prayed it today.

In all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

God is working together the angles for good, and our job is to trust him as he does it.

He's working on your tomorrow for your good.

So let me ask you again, how do you relate to the future?

Do you try to control it?

I hear people say, I'm a control freak.

Maybe this is a difficult thing for you.

Do you see how any superstition is a veiled attempt to control what is not ours to control?

Let me ask you that again.

Can you see honestly that any superstition is a veiled attempt to control what is not ours to control?

We don't get to control the future.

So let me ask you, do you use God to control the future?

Are you behaving in certain ways to wrangle God into providing a certain blessing you need?

Now, it's nuanced, isn't it, because there's the tapping widow on the door asking for God to respond.

And we hold that intention.

So, let me ask you some just questions.

Are you stressed about your destiny?

Tim Keller once said, as before I get to it, he said, we are floating down a river in God's plan.

He's taking us to a destiny.

We do get to kick around a bit.

Kick around a bit, the raft over here, and I'm really in control.

He said, yeah, you are, mate.

I'm taking you somewhere, but trust my grace.

Are you stressed about your destiny?

Regarding health?

Success?

You're wondering, why are you going to be a success?

Career.

Relationships.

Don't we get stressed about this stuff?

Children, grandchildren.

Survival financially, to the level I want.

Survival maritaly.

Addiction.

We could go on and on with the list.

Can I encourage us all to be careful who we allow to be the master of our future?

Who we allow to be our good shepherd?

You know, the good shepherd loves you.

Amen?

Do you know that today?

Do you just sit there balanced?

I am loved by one who is eternal, with an eternal love.

He can't show me any more love.

Amen?

Can't show me any more love.

He has shown it once and for all, just how much we matter to him.

He died for us.

And he will never let you down.

Next time, you find yourself paying homage to a superstitious alternate power to control your future, can I encourage us to take that idea, and take it to the feet of Jesus, and say, no, Lord, I'm not trusting in that.

I'm trusting in you.

Amen.

Thank you, Lord, that you are our good shepherd, and we can trust you.

And I pray here for my sisters and brothers.

Some of us are going through really hard times right now, and tomorrow is hard to imagine the day after that.

So I pray, Lord, good shepherd, Lord Jesus, that you would fill us with a peace that transcends all understanding.

You would do a spiritual work today that only you can do.

Close us in the comfort of being a sheep in your care.

Of being a child of the living God.

Take your tomorrow maybe and just put your hands out and give it over to God.

Can you do that?

Can you give it over to Jesus?

He has said, don't worry about tomorrow, today's got enough worries.

Don't put your hope in anyone else.

Trust me.

I have got your tomorrow.

I thank you Lord Jesus, that's the truth.

Amen.

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