Proactive People (Because of God’s Providence)
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Speaker: Dave Royes
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 11:1-6
August 30, 2026
Ecclesiastes 11:1-6: Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, or even to eight, for you know not what disaster may happen on earth. If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves on the earth, and if a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie. He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap. As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything. In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.
Sermon Outline
1. Introduction
You never know
A marvelous truth in a tiny text
Main point: The fear of God causes us to translate the effort we expend to secure our lives into serving God
2. The call to be courageous
Cast your bread
Upon the waters
Persistent investment in the face of the unknown
3. The paralysis that afflicts us
A fixation on anticipating disaster
Fearing the end of provision
4. The God who makes us
God knew you before you were born
God decreed that you would be born
The God who redeemed you can be trusted
5. Applications
John 3:3-8: Jesus answered [Nicodemus], “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.
