The baby of the next century, a famous inventor promised, would be rocked in a steel cradle, the family dining at a steel table in a house of steel. Even the most famous visionaries come up short. So where do we find security when our ideas seem misguided or downright bankrupt?
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Some people are just visionary. You think about someone like, oh, say, Thomas Edison. Because I bet when I said visionary, you quite possibly thought of Edison before I even named him. We think of him as a visionary. Well, since he was so visionary, listen to this from Thomas Edison.
He said, “The baby of the 21st century will be rocked in a steel cradle. His father will sit in a steel chair at a steel dining table.” And he goes on to describe the details of the furnishings of the steel house. Even the things that look like wood, guess what? They’re made from steel. That was Edison’s vision of what the future home would look like. He thought that would be what we would experience. Not quite how it actually is, is it?
Hi, welcome to Steadfast. I am so glad that you are here tonight. And as you are, let’s invite more people to join us. Hit that share button right now. Hit the subscribe button. Get to be more a part of this community in every way you can. If you’re new here, follow us. And then like I said, share the word. More people need to hear because what we’re going to talk about tonight is the only one who actually has true vision.
Because if the best visionaries, if people like Thomas Edison can’t really imagine where things are going, and it sounds so absurd reading it now—who would want to sit in a steel chair? And why would you make furniture out of steel and make it look like wood? If you can just use wood, what would be the purpose of it? And yet, caught up in the Industrial Revolution and the idea that we could just form things out of metal, clearly he was so caught up by the hype that he didn’t ever think about, but sometimes the stuff we already do, sometimes the old stuff is actually good, or sometimes it’s something entirely different that we need.
And if Edison can’t see that, why do we think that we can? Because we try to predict the future. We try to imagine what’s coming up next, and we miss it. We talked last week about Paul’s plans and his struggles to understand what was coming up, and this week we’re going to follow up on that because it’s really important. Because we base our life over and over again on thinking, somehow I am going to know what’s happening, and I’m going to respond to it. I’m going to get it right. You know what? We don’t.
Let’s pray that our God, who is the one who does, guides us. Will you join me in prayer? Father, thank you for this evening. Thank you for your word. Would you help us to be those who chase after the one with vision? That indeed you would be our vision as we sing in that hymn that we so love, not that we think that we have vision. Because we see things, but a lot of times we see mirages. A lot of times we see steel houses with steel furniture, and we never stop to think, well, does this even make sense? Lord, would you guide us, we pray in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
Let’s go ahead and turn back to 2 Corinthians. We’re going to verse 20 tonight. Here’s what Paul says, “For all the promises of God find their ‘Yes’ in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.”
God’s promises, his vision, in other words, for the future—we don’t talk that way because he’s actually the one that authors it, but we could. We could say his vision for the future. Well, it’s a yes because he does author. He actually brings it about, and so he isn’t just imagining what could be. He’s not trying to decide, you know, I bet people will someday want to sit on pieces of metal. That’ll be great. No, he actually made us. He made what’s comfortable for us. He made how we feel and what we need, and so God’s promises are not in any way speculative. That’s so important.
We try to imagine the future, and we come up with these absurd things. We think about them, and I mean, everyone brings up the flying car, somehow completely forgotten about the steel house, but people remember the flying car. And you think about it. How could it possibly work for a bunch of people to be steering things through the air together? That sounds like a disaster. A few things up in the air collide, right? You have a few planes, and they collide because it’s really hard. How would everyone be driving in like rush hour traffic in the air? It doesn’t even make sense.
We’re not very good at predicting the future and knowing where things are going, and that’s where Paul had run into trouble the week before, as we saw. Our week before, not his. He told the Corinthians when he thought he was coming, how things were going to play out, and could he get it right? No. But he was speaking of the God who does get things right, and that’s so important for us as Christians. We need to be humble. We need to be humble and admit when we’re speculating about the future versus when we’re actually speaking what God has to say.
One of the problems that we see so often in people trying to analyze the end times, because a lot of times they’ll take their speculation and present it as here is what God says. And you know when one part of it doesn’t seem to be happening, doesn’t come true, whether it’s setting a date or just the way the world’s going to develop, it reflects on God. It’s really important that we’re careful here, that we realize that we don’t get things right.
If you look around the internet at any television show or movie franchise or even classic novels, you’ll find a whole bunch of fan fiction where people have tried to fill in the details of where characters went after the story ended. And most of those, I’ve looked up a few of them over the years, and I can’t say I’ve ever bothered to read more than a paragraph or two, because most of it just isn’t well written. But the appeal, you can understand, because we get attached to characters and their stories, and we think, but what happened, especially if it ended on a cliffhanger, it was supposed to go on. Or simply we liked the characters and we want to know if Happily Ever After was actually Happily Ever After. Or there’s that cruel novel that ends right at a question mark, and we want to know the period that comes after that. Well, fan fiction says we’ll answer that.
Now sometimes, though, you have all these people who love the story that write it out, and for one thing, you end up with conflicting further stories, right? One goes this way, one goes that way. And then if the original author or director decides to produce a sequel, suddenly all that gets wiped out because the original author, the original director knew where the story was going, and actually has the authority to bring that character forward.
And then the fan fiction that was written doesn’t even have an appeal to fans yearning for more, because there’s already the authorized official story. This is where it really goes. We try to write fan fiction for God a lot. We say, this is where it’s going. And if we can hold that loosely, we can say this, as fans would say, is not canon. This is not official. This is just what I think is going to happen, and we’re trying to answer questions, and it’s at least fun to speculate. Well, okay.
We need to remember who actually can provide stability and true vision, and who, well, is us. Who is going to get it wrong? Because we are. That’s why it’s so important that we listen to what God says. And this is really what Paul’s talking about. He said, you’ve been listening to what I say, and so you’re judging God’s message on the fact that I thought I could come, and I couldn’t, and there was another time I wasn’t expecting to come, but there was a situation, and I came. And you’re saying, well, Paul’s all over, God’s all over. No, Paul’s all over, because Paul doesn’t have perfect vision. But does God have perfect vision? Yes.
If the book isn’t just a beloved story, but the book is reality itself, how much more important is it that we listen to the author? Because occasionally, I’m not a Star Wars fan, but I know Star Wars fans sometimes have mixed feelings on some of the later movies, and they say, well, you know, maybe we like this story where we’d imagine what happened better than the reality. And because it’s all fiction, if you want, you can always just reject the original creator’s vision for it and say, here, do something else. But with reality, you can’t do that. Reality simply is. And we know that, right? I can say, I want tomorrow to be 95 degrees and warm enough to go swimming. That sounds great.
We had Faithtoberfest, and it’s very demanding. And wouldn’t it be nice just to splash into the pool in a temperature that I thought was suitable? I’m going to write that into the story. And you know what? It isn’t going to work. I can’t make the pool warm or the weather warm. It may be warm. In fact, we’re in a weird weather spell. But then one of you might be saying, but I just want to be a crisp autumn day with bright, vibrant colors. And we start trying to write stories over each other. And you know what? One of us might be right, but it’s not because we had such great vision. It’s because of what actually happened.
Paul could say he wanted to go, and in good faith, he should try to say what’s true. But he’s saying here, here’s where you get your yes. Your yes, that’s always a yes, comes from God. God says what the end destination is. We don’t always know where we’re going, but that’s why we listen to him, right? Because I may not know how we get from here to the end of time, but I know what end of time looks like, because God says we’ll be with him.
And all that stuff you hear about, that people are trying to fill in there about the end of time, or even this next year, that’s us speculating, right? When someone says, well, God’s going to do this for you this year, approach that with caution. Where is that set in God’s word? God says the end destination, and that’s where we get the stability. That’s where we get the yes. And we can trust that because that’s what’s actually coming from the one who isn’t speculating.
God doesn’t speculate. He tells us what’s going to happen, and then he supports us through it. Take a look as we go on to verse 21. “And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us, and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.”
Just as God’s promises aren’t speculative, his yes is yes, because he’s actually the author, and the book is always going to come out how he says. Well, his support is there for us as we stumble our way through, because we don’t always know where we’re going, but he promises to be the one who’s with us, even when we’re confused. Even when we say, I don’t know what’s going on. I wish I could write the story. Where am I going? God says, well, let me be clear. I’m with you. That’s the part you need to know.
That’s the part the Corinthians were looking at incorrectly. They were looking at, well, does this circumstance come out exactly how we were hoping, or how Paul was hoping? And Paul says, no, what you need to look at is, is God coming out as he said he does? Is he? Yes. That’s why we can say amen. We can say it. We can affirm the truth of him because we know he is stable. He is the one who’s true. And so what we need to understand is that everything else that isn’t of him, well, it may not come out how exactly we hope, but he is constant.
And by extension of that, Paul says, I wasn’t trying to get it wrong. I’m not just making things up about God. And that’s the key thing all of us can do. We can’t tell anyone who says, well, what do you think I should do? Or what do you think this week’s going to be like? We can’t tell them absolutely ironclad, this is it. It’s going to be just like this, or this is exactly what you should do. And I am infallible in that answer. Well, unless we can point to God’s word, right?
If God’s word says, as it does, “You shall not murder.” We’re talking to the mafia member who’s thinking about taking out the rival gang. You know what? We can say you should not murder this week. That’s an infallible rule because God says it. But if we say, well, God says he wants good things for you, so therefore you should go enter the lottery this week and you’re going to win, well, that’s us speculating an awful lot and seemingly falling into a lot of traps as we do it.
What we need to do is speak confidently on God’s promises and speak confidently about the one who’s with us. Yes, this week or this year or this life is uncertain, but God is with you. That’s what you need to know. He is the one who stabilizes us. And that’s what we need to hold on to. It’s the very thing we saw last night as we looked at Paul’s conversion. As he was sent out to be a fisher of men, what made him able to go do that when everything that he had based his life on was being turned upside down?
What enabled him to do that is he realized he was being held up by the one who was stable. That he was indeed, just as he mentions is true for the Corinthians as well, sealed by the Spirit. And so did he know exactly what was going to happen? No. Could he predict every part of his life? No. Did he know he was going to face opposition? Yes. I mean, he was experiencing that, but he didn’t know how or when or where. He might have suspected he was not going to die of natural causes, but how or why or when or where, he wouldn’t have known that either.
But he could proceed with confidence, not because he knew all those things, but because he knew the one who actually authored life. That’s what he yearns for the Corinthians too. They’ve been trying to attach their sense of stability onto Paul, and now they’re not feeling stable. But if they attach their sense of stability onto the Lord, they will, because in everything, even when plans change, God is with them. That’s what we need, right?
Let’s say you need to open up a new bank account. Maybe your employer requires direct deposit, and you say, I want this new checking account. I’m going to go get one that I can have direct deposit into. And so you go and you do that. Now, if I told you the bank down the road from you was going to become insolvent next week, it’s going to go belly up. Would you go there and open the account there? You can mention in the chat, but I think the answer for all of us would be no. Why would I do that? I’m not insane. I’m not going to go and intentionally open an account and start putting my money into an account where the bank is going to close. It would be a hassle at best, right? No reason to do it.
Now, of course, that had a lot more risk a century ago. A century ago, you put your money into a bank and you hoped that they stayed open. But even if they looked secure, what could happen if things went wrong? We’re coming up to the 100th anniversary of the stock market crash that led into the Great Depression. And a lot of people had money in banks and other financial institutions that died off during that, when everything went awry. And you’d have a run on a bank and some people wouldn’t get their money. It’d be gone.
And that directly led to the creation of the FDIC and the related agencies for other types of financial institutions. Government created a backing for financial institutions to say, if this institution goes belly up, the government, the full faith and credit of the United States government will provide you your money as long as it’s within a certain amount.
What was the goal of that? To say, well, you can’t know for certain, right? I may get a tip that this bank is about to close, but most of us don’t get that tip. I don’t. I’ve never been given a clue ahead of time. Oh, don’t go. Don’t go to that bank. And even if one’s secure, do I really trust myself to pick it correctly? Well, no, I don’t. But if I know it’s backed by the government and that if it were to close, as we’ve seen even over the last couple of decades, a few times, what happens? Well, everyone that had under $100,000 or later $250,000, they got their money. It might have taken a day or two. It might have been a little inconvenient. But it’s not a big deal.
They didn’t necessarily know where the institution was going, but they knew it had the full faith and credit of the United States government behind it. And that was essential so they could move forward. They’re not frozen, wondering constantly, can I analyze enough bank financials to trust in it? But when it comes to life, sometimes that’s exactly what we try to do.
We either try to say, I’m going to go with this thing that has no guarantee on it at all, but I think it’s going to work really well. And I’m going to trust myself to understand every possibility about it. Or we get frozen and say, well, I wonder if I should just stick my paycheck in a sack under my bed because I don’t know what’s going to happen. Maybe the bank will close tomorrow. Well, both of those are kind of careless.
And so it is with life. If we say, well, it seems like it’s all cattywampus. I don’t know if the apostle is going to show up when he says he’s going to. I don’t know if his yes is always going to mean it actually happens, even if he means well, bank means well. But Paul can’t guarantee it, right? His bank of travel kind of went belly up. Now what? Paul says, well, it’s inconvenient.
But no, the ultimate promise is backed by the full faith and credit of the only one who can never run out of credit and faith, God himself. And so if I go belly up, guess what? God hasn’t. And it might be a little inconvenient because you have to change your plans or you were counting on hearing this sermon preached or this epistle written, and it’s not going to happen. But God’s still there. Still true today.
If you feel frozen, wondering if you can invest in what God’s calling you to do because you say, well, but what if I choose wrongly? But what if I choose wrongly? No, yes, there might be a time that the bank of life feels like it’s closing down. But salvation itself isn’t ever in question. That God backs that even when the individual things we’re trying to work through go belly up. And the answer isn’t to hide our paychecks of life under the bed and hope that somehow that works out.
But to go ahead and invest in the things that God’s calling us to do. Because he’s going to back us. Doesn’t mean there aren’t going to be those times where we have to wait for the bank to go into receivership and for God to provide for us. But he’s going to. And so the crucial thing, and this is the thing that Paul’s challenging the Corinthians to, because clearly they’ve chosen wrongly. Who is backing us? Who is backing them and who is backing us? If that was Paul, they were in some kind of speculative commodity and it was as unintelligible to them as those financial things are to most of us today. And sometimes it was going to go terribly, terribly wrong. Even when Paul, which was the case, meant to do what he said. But if they invested in what God is providing, he’s going to back them even when things got upturned.
That’s still true today. I can’t promise you that if you feel like God’s calling you to this, this new job, that you’re going to take it and it’s going to work out for you for the rest of your life. I can’t promise you if you feel like you’re being called to move on to the mission field, that it will definitely be something that you should do and you should do for the rest of your life. But I can promise you that if you take the next step in whatever God’s calling you to do, trusting that he is the one with you, that even if that door closes and God redirects you, that his backing of you has not gone away. And it never will for anyone who trusts in Jesus, anyone who is his.
And so make sure today that is what you can say what is true. God’s promises are real and amazing. Ours are kind of mediocre at best. But God’s promises are true and amazing. And here’s the thing that we can take to the bank. You can always count on them, even when everything in life fails.
Would you pray with me, please? Father, thank you for this evening. Thank you for your word. Would you help us to be those who trust in the full faith and credit of our God, not in our own human abilities and attempts that so often fail? We know we need to trust in you and you alone. Help us not to fall into the trap of trusting into other things, and help us to not fall into the trap of calling people to trust in us rather than you. We don’t want to be on either side of those bankruptcies. We want to be instead always pointing to the only security that truly exists, which is our God. We pray this in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
I hope this has been an encouragement to you today. Hope this has been an encouragement to you today. And if it has, again, please give it a share and a like, but give it that share. Let the algorithm know that someone else should see it, because when you do that, someone else will see it. And you know what? We all live in uncertainty, and we all need to know that Jesus is the only security we can truly find. So please, please, please hit that share button right now.
If there’s any way I can be praying for you, you can always text us at 833-356-4032. That’s 833-356-4032. It’d be great to hear from you. You can find that right there on screen, or leave a comment in the comments below. It’s so good when I get to hear from you. So please, please do.
The prayer walk’s coming up. You should mark on your calendar that two Thursdays from now, all day long, from 8 a.m. until the end of the night, we are going to be praying together all around the world on our prayer walk. We’ve been waiting a long time for this one, and it’s the Faithtober prayer walk, as we continue to celebrate 25 years of Faith Tree, and more importantly, the steadfast God, who is always faithful, and allows us to do ministry, and allows us to see things keep going. And he’s going to continue that ministry of his, whether it’s through an online prayer walk or something else, the ministry of his people praying for the rest of time.
And we get to come before the God who does that, and trust in him, and hear from him, and be encouraged by him. So please mark that on your calendar, two Thursdays from now. And as you do, invite others to that as well, because others need prayer. We all need prayer, and we can pray together, and be encouraged by devotionals and prayer prompts from all around the world. So I can’t wait to share that with you in a little less than two weeks.
Again, if you have any prayer requests, if there’s any way I can encourage you, you can always text us at 833-356-4032. But in the meantime, I hope you have a wonderful and blessed day. I’ll see you again very soon. Bye.
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