The Best is Yet to Come

Praying for China, Asking God to guide their decisions in a way that promotes peace, stability, and prosperity for all citizens, and encourages greater respect for human rights and religious freedom.

Praying for Africa - Asking the lord to send consistent rain, for crops to grow and for people and livestock to drink in the Horn of Africa.

Heal the bodies of precious little ones who suffer from malnutrition, and strengthen the men and women who are working hard to return them to full health.

Heavenly Father have mercy upon them.

Father, I pray that you set their governments and organizations upon the solid rock of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Praying for People & Children around the world.

I pray for the wars with Russia & Ukraine, Israel & Hamas, I pray Lord for your comfort for those affected by these wars.

I Pray for the people of Gaza to be able to receive humanitarian relief so they wouldn’t have to experiencing starvation, and suffering.

We invite the Holy Spirit to join us this morning

Faith Vision if you are in agreement, please say Amen!

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Faith Vision Christian Ministries Announcements

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Faith Vision is now using donations for St Jude Children’s Hospital and American Heart Association.

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Save the Children Charity also includes children in Gaza, and Sudan.

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Your donations are reaching all over the world, helping to save our children.

Please help Faith Vision Christian Ministries by donating each month to help us give to

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2 Corinthians 9:7–8 (NKJV)

7. So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.

8. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.

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Pastor Doc - 4

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pEppER: Let’s sing “Happy Birthday Everyone”

Scripture Reading by Lady Pepper

Thank you Lady Pepper for the announcements and the reading of God’s Word.

Welcome! to everyone especially those who are joining us for the first time.

My name is Pastor Doc, and I will be sharing the Word of God with you today.

Have your Bibles Ready and take notes

The Best is Yet to Come - Video

Title of the message this Morning

The Best is Yet to Come

Big Idea:

The great saints of the past lived their lives dreaming about the future—

God’s future for the whole world, indeed the whole cosmos.

We can take courage, hope, and comfort from looking at their example of forward-looking faith.

Prayer:

“Father, help us to look to the example of those who have gone before us on this journey of faith.

And remind us that you are a God who always stands in the future, calling us forward into something more, something better than the past or the present.

Create in us a sanctified imagination, which is the gift of the prophets, to imagine your preferred future for all of creation.

And let that dream, Your Dream, carry us forward with great hope and courage…Amen.”

Scripture: Hebrews 11:8-16

(All scripture references come from the NIV translation, unless otherwise noted)

Introduction

Today we celebrate with much of the Christian world;

All Saints Day.

The Catholic Church observes feast days for many of the saints and martyrs of the past, but as the centuries wore on there became too many to fit into one calendar year.

So on November 1st each year we gather them together and celebrate them all at once.

And it occurs to me how ironic it is that while we look back to remember and honor these giants along our path, which is appropriate, they lived their lives looking forward to our time, and beyond.

Because that’s what saints and prophets always do.

They were dreamers, seeing beyond the present to God’s great dream for all the earth, which Jesus, the greatest of all dreamers, called the Kingdom of God.

Two of my favorite quotes have to do with this theme of looking forward in faith.

- Robert Louis Stevenson – “To travel hopefully is better than to arrive.”

- Soren Kierkegaard – “Life can only be understood backwards, but must be lived forward.”

So today we’re going to spend a few minutes looking at Hebrews, chapter 11, what some have called “The Hall of Fame of Faith.”

The writer’s purpose for this sweeping overview of many of the great heroes from Israel’s past seems to be to inspire his readers with hope for their future.

Main Teaching

God has a great Future planned for us!

I. God’s plans go beyond our Wildest Dreams.

Hebrews 11:8-10 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

Why would Abraham go through such hardship?

Setting out not knowing where he was going, traveling to a place he’d never seen, and when he arrived there he never owned any of it, but instead lived in a tent his whole life like a stranger in a foreign country?

Why did he do it?

Because he saw something.

A glorious city, shimmering on the horizon of his dreams.

A city whose architect and builder is God himself.

Interesting thought: Abraham was a Wanderer, who never owned a single piece of land except the burial plot he bought for his wife Sarah.

He dreamed of a city—which represented, security, and rest for him.

What would a city like that look like?

Let me give you a Scripture Illustration

—Description of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21:

“[the angel] showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal…The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone…The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass.”

It sounds like The Emerald City from Oz.

But remember: This is not a description of heaven.

The text says it was coming down out of heaven to earth.

Some early preachers from some tradition interpreted this as a vision of the church, the Bride of Christ, “coming down out of heaven from God beautifully dressed for her husband.”

This is a description of God’s dream for the future of humanity.

The story of the Bible begins in a Garden but ends in a City.

That’s simply a picture of life together in community, with everything united in oneness in Christ Jesus.

This dream is straight from the heart of God, and it is beyond our wildest dreams.

God’s plans for you will always be beyond your wildest dreams.

Think about it: your wildest dreams are still your dreams.

But God’s dreams are beyond imagining.

We can only glimpse them from a distance, by revelation, as God plants in our imagination a little piece of his glorious future for us.

God’s plans for this church are beyond our wildest dreams.

What would a church look like “whose architect and builder is God”?

What would a church look like that is shaped by God’s heart?

Each local fellowship will be unique, of course, but there are a few things that would surely describe them all;

1. It would be a Missional Community, always conscious of our calling to join with God on his mission in the world.

2. It would be a Church for Others, not just providing programming for ourselves.

3. It would be a Community of Servants, sacrificially serving the community, not just each other, in ways that sometimes inconvenience us.

4. It would be a Community of Love, with Calvary-quality, selfless love permeating and defining all its activity.

II. God’s plans go beyond our Deepest Failures.

Hebrews 11:11-12 And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. 12And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.

Remember that this miraculous birth happened after the debacle with Hagar and Ishmael.

(tell the story from Genesis 16:1-13)

God’s plans for Abraham and Sarah were not even sidetracked by their own stupidity.

Isn’t that good news! That’s grace!

Scripture Illustration—Mark 14:27-31 Shortly before his crucifixion, Jesus told his disciples,

“You will all fall away,” Jesus told them, “for it is written: ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’ But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.”

Mark 14:27-31

Sure enough, after Jesus’ resurrection, the angel’s words to the women:

“Go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” (Mark 16:7)

Why was Peter singled out in the angel’s message?

Because Peter had failed so badly, denying Jesus three times.

This is important: no matter how badly you have failed, Jesus still has plans for you.

He’s not done with you!

He will never throw you out on the scrap heap of life.

You say, “But surely there’s a limit to what he can do with me now.”

Have you read the Bible?

These people were a mess!

They were just like us, only more so!

There is no limit to God’s grace.

God’s plans for you beyond your failures are still beyond your wildest dreams.

III. God’s plans go beyond even Death Itself.

Hebrews 11:13-16 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 14People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

This is where remembering the great saints of the past brings such hope for our future.

They were still dreaming when they died.

And they have now become the great cloud of witnesses spoken of in the opening verses of

Hebrews 12. I - Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

picture them like the crowd in an Olympic stadium at the end of the Marathon, which is always the last and most climactic event of the games.

Scripture Illustration:

1 Corinthians 2:8-10 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”— the things God has prepared for those who love him—

these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

Christ-followers are people who live their lives in such a way that causes others to ask, “Do you see something I don’t see?” And the answer, of course, is

“Yes. I see God’s bright future for all of creation. And I live today in the light of that future glory.”

Conclusion

The witness of the lives of the saints who have gone before inspires us to always look forward in hope.

Because God’s dreams for you go beyond your wildest dreams, beyond your deepest failures, and even beyond death itself.

So never stop dreaming about a bright tomorrow, even on your death-bed.

The best is always yet to come!

Closing Illustration:

Reading from C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle, book seven in the Chroicles of Narnia series.

The last chapter, Farewell to Shadow-Lands, is one of the most moving descriptions of life after death in all of Christian literature.

The Last Battle tells the story of the last war of Narnia, when King Tirian (tear-ri- ann) and his loyal followers fight the Calormene (cal-or many) invaders and their allies. This conflict leads to the end of the old world of Narnia and the beginning of a new adventure in Aslan's (as-land) real country.

“And as [Aslan] spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

Let’s pray together.

Salvation:

The Word of God says in: John 3:16

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Romans 10:13 NKJV

For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

If you’d would like to receive Jesus today, please pray this prayer with all of us:

Lord I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that He died On the cross for my sins and His resurrection from the dead gives me eternal life. I ask forgiveness of my sins, and I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Amen.

Pastor Doc@FaithVision.org

Church Office: 909-922-8090

And I will send you a Bible & a Free Book on how to begin your first 21 steps with Jesus (show the book)

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Lady Pepper Please Join Me

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Benediction

“God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them” — Hebrews 11:16 —

We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.” -Madeliene L’Engle (Lang ill)