James 4:1-17

Tomorrow Never Comes

Tuesday morning I conducted a funeral service for Mary Dees. I first met Mary almost 41 years ago through here middle son Steve. She was a good woman and a strong one. Her husband died in 1968 when she was 36. He was career military and left her with three teenage sons. She got her GED and went to Nursing school. She became a nurse and put two of her three sons through college. (The third joined the military right out of high school.) She also had to provide for Steve who fought with addiction issues and never held a steady job. She was 79 when she died but six years earlier she buried Steve. He was 53.

James tells us to not boast about tomorrow. He isn’t saying that we should never think about tomorrow. He isn’t saying that we should not make plans. He is saying that we should always realize two things. 

One thing we should realize is that not only do we have no promise of life on this earth tomorrow; in fact, we have no promise of life on this earth for the rest of today. I’ve preached too many funerals to not know that this is true.

The other thing we should realize is that both tomorrow and today belong to God. If we put our lives in His hands then we need not worry about tomorrow, or today. 

If we live or if we die we belong to the Lord. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Those without the Lord have no real hope of tomorrow and indeed will never see it. Those with the Lord will one day see tomorrow come. Now that is a miracle. To live with the awareness of this truth is to live indeed.