A Future Greater Than Our Past (Ashtabula)

Ashtabula First UMC Worship Plan: A Future Greater than Our Past (November 9, 2025)

Theme: A Future Greater than Our Past: Trusting God in the Latter Glory

Color: Green (Ordinary Time)

I. The Gathering

Welcome & Announcements

Good morning, everyone, and a warm welcome to Ashtabula First United Methodist Church. Today, we address a feeling common to all of us—the temptation to think our best days are behind us. Our message today, "A Future Greater than Our Past," is a promise that God is always leading us toward a greater splendor than we can imagine. Now, let us rise in body or spirit as our prelude begins. I invite our acolyte, Jeff, to bring forth the light of Christ to our altar as we begin our worship service.

Prelude

Call to Worship

Leader: Inhale the bounty of God’s peace.

People: Splendor is a gift of the presence of God.

Leader: Serenity is the treasure that comes from God’s Spirit.

People: Through the love of God, we find our rest.

All: Let us worship the God who firmly holds us in the midst of a quaking world.

Opening Hymn [Insert Opening Hymn Title and UMH Number Here]

Opening Prayer

Let us pray. Divine Foundation, even as tumultuous winds shake us and the floor beneath us quakes, you firmly hold us. As the world around us rattles, you erase fear from our hearts. Your loving Spirit endures, pervading the limitless reaches of your creation. Lift us during times of trembling, enduring Spirit, and still us during moments of uncertainty. Amen.

II. The Word

Scripture Reading 1: Haggai 1:15–2:9

Haggai 1:15–2:9 NIV

on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month. In the second year of King Darius, on the twenty-first day of the seventh month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: “Speak to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, to Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people. Ask them, ‘Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing? But now be strong, Zerubbabel,’ declares the Lord. ‘Be strong, Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land,’ declares the Lord, ‘and work. For I am with you,’ declares the Lord Almighty. ‘This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. And my Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.’ “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘The silver is mine and the gold is mine,’ declares the Lord Almighty. ‘The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the Lord Almighty.”

Hymn of Response [Insert Hymn of Response Title and UMH Number Here]

Scripture Reading 2: Luke 20:27–38

Luke 20:27–38 NIV

Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. The second and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. Finally, the woman died too. Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?” Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

Sermon: A Future Greater than Our Past

Pastor: Let us pray. Divine Foundation, hold us steady in your presence. Open our hearts to hear your promise, that we may trust the glory you are building, which is greater than any glory we remember. Amen.

Good morning.

I want to start today by asking about a profound human tendency: nostalgia. Nostalgia is a powerful, warm memory of a better time. But sometimes, nostalgia becomes a trap. It traps us when we become so fixated on the "former glory" of the past that we cannot see the potential, or even the current reality, of the present. This is true in our personal lives—when we talk about the health we once had or the career peak we once reached—and it is especially true in the life of the church.

We all share a communal nostalgia for the way things used to be: the pews were fuller, the children's ministries were booming, the offering plate was robust. We look at the photos of the past and then look at the reality of today, and a dangerous, quiet question whispers in our hearts: "Is it not in your sight as nothing?"

I. The Trap of Former Glory (Haggai 1:15b–2:9)

This very question haunted the people of God after they returned from exile. Our first reading comes from the prophet Haggai, speaking to a generation that had returned to Jerusalem. They were attempting to rebuild the Temple, but their efforts looked small, humble, and poor when compared to the magnificent Temple of Solomon they only knew through stories.

The people were discouraged, and Haggai acknowledges their pain: "Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing?"

Haggai doesn't deny their feeling. He validates their sense of loss. He knows the rebuilt foundation looks pitiful next to the legend of Solomon's gold and cedar. When we, in the church, measure our current efforts against the high-water mark of a past generation, we fall into the exact same trap. We are paralyzed by the belief that our best days are behind us.

The spiritual exhaustion of Haggai's people is completely relatable. Imagine a family inheriting a beautiful old farm or a historic home after a long absence. They cherish the memory of its former glory—the grand parties, the thriving crops, the full table—but when they arrive, all they have is the enormous debt, the dilapidated structure, and a worn-out field. They are too broke and too tired to restore it to the past, and their victory in simply owning the land feels like a failure. This is the spiritual state of Haggai’s people: they won the right to return, but they were exhausted by the sheer reality of starting over. But their work—the humble effort of tilling that worn-out field—was exactly where God met them.

The challenge of that moment was spiritual, not architectural. The people were suffering from a deep crisis of purpose. They were pouring their meager resources into fixing their own leaky roofs, convinced that investing in God’s house—which looked so small and inadequate—was pointless. This paralysis is rooted in comparison. They looked at the past and decided their present was worthless. This is the danger of nostalgia: it’s an emotional thief that steals the energy we need for the future. It convinces us that if God isn’t doing something grand right now, God isn’t doing anything at all.

When this exhaustion sets in, the church ceases to be a force for the future and becomes a museum for the past. The greater cost of this paralysis is that the people stop looking for God’s presence in their humility. They mistake the absence of Solomon’s gold for the absence of God's spirit. The fear of failure becomes so overwhelming that they stop tilling the ground entirely, allowing the memory of past glory to devour the potential of the present moment.

The Prophet's Response is immediate and revolutionary: God meets their discouragement not with a scolding, but with a promise.

Haggai delivers a three-part decree that completely reframes their reality. The first part is an immediate command to action: "Take courage… and work!"(v. 4). God tells them to stop looking at the past and focus on the task at hand. The past is memory; the present requires effort. He is speaking directly to the spiritual exhaustion that tells us: "What's the point?" God's answer is: The point is obedience, and the glory will follow. This is God declaring that the size of the worker does not determine the size of the work.

The Wesleyan Connection: Work as Means of Grace

For us as Methodists, this command to "work" is not about monumental architecture; it’s about the humble, daily work of piety and mercy. John Wesley insisted that our growth in grace—what we call sanctification—is rooted in the disciplined use of the means of grace: meeting for prayer, studying the Scripture, sharing in communion, and, crucially, practicing acts of mercy in our community.

When God says, "Take courage and work," He is calling us into this spiritual discipline. This is the true "tilling of the worn-out field" that God honors. The Spirit abides with us not for us to lament the past, but to actively practice love and faithfulness in the present. This effort, however small—whether it's checking on a lonely neighbor or supporting a food bank—is the engine of the "latter splendor." It's not the grand size of the past, but the active, present love that truly announces God's glory.

The second part of the decree gives them the only resource they truly need: "My spirit abides among you; do not fear!" (v. 5). God assures them that their greatest resource is not money, materials, or memories; it is the active presence of God. They are not working alone. This assurance of Immanuel—God with us—is the fuel that turns disappointment into dedication. This Divine presence is the true replacement for Solomon’s gold.

Finally, God delivers the explosion of hope: "The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former." (v. 9). God promises that the future He is building with them will surpass anything they could imagine recreating from the past. The New will always be greater than the Old. The glory is not in the wood and stone, but in the enduring, active presence of God's Spirit. The glory they are building now, in their humility and labor, is infused with divine purpose that the original Temple never had.

Haggai's message is clear: Our hope is not found in recreating the past, but in trusting God's presence for the future.

II. The Earthly Logic of the Past (Luke 20:27–38)

But if the danger of Haggai's people was mistaking a small building for a small God, the danger of the Sadducees is far more subtle. They didn't struggle with the building; they struggled with the boundaries. They tried to put a limit on God's love and God's time. We, too, fall prey to this 'earthly logic' when we worry more about the church budget than the size of our welcome, or when we value traditions over transformation. Jesus forces us to lift our gaze from our own temporary systems to the eternal, limitless reality of the Kingdom.

Our second reading, from Luke chapter 20, brings us face-to-face with the Sadducees. They were the spiritual conservatives of their day, famous for rejecting the idea of the resurrection and eternal life.

They come to Jesus with a question they think is unanswerable—a riddle designed to trap him in the absurd logic of their earthly rules: If a woman marries seven brothers sequentially (following the Old Testament rule of levirate marriage), whose wife will she be in the resurrection?

The Sadducees' fundamental mistake was assuming that heaven is just earth with better seating.They are trying to force the glorious, eternal future of God into the tiny, temporary categories of their earthly past. They are stuck in the details of ownership, legal duty, and human marriage—categories that exist only for "the people of this age." Their question is fundamentally a joke rooted in scarcity: Who gets to own the resource (the woman) in heaven? They see heaven as nothing more than a continuation of earthly competition and finite resources.

Jesus doesn't just answer their question; He corrects their fundamental error. He tells them that their entire premise is flawed because they are trying to define the limitless reality of heaven by the temporary rules of earth. The Sadducees' fundamental mistake was assuming that heaven is just earth with better seating.

Jesus reveals that eternal life is not a continuation of the old reality; it is a completely new reality. This new reality radically transforms our understanding of relationships. Jesus says: "The people of this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age... neither marry nor are given in marriage."

This is not a condemnation of marriage; it is an elevation of relationship. Marriage, in its earthly form, is a beautiful, sacred, but temporary covenant established by God for this age—an age defined by mortality and procreation. In the resurrection, the need for these earthly structures ceases. Our human relationships are not eliminated; they are transcendedand transformed into a greater, eternal form of love that is direct, immediate, and permanent, no longer dependent on temporary legal bonds. Imagine the liberation in that promise: love without loss, relationship without legal anxiety, and commitment that death cannot break. This is a glorious truth, not a tragic loss!

This is a profound comfort, especially for those who have loved and lost. Jesus is assuring the widow and the widower that the love they shared is not erased; it is perfected. The fierce, temporary covenant of marriage gives way to the permanent, unveiled presence of Christ and the complete, familial love of God. Our ultimate hope is that all the love we've ever experienced is made whole and eternal in Christ.

Jesus confirms this transformation by saying the redeemed "cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection."

The phrase "like angels" is not about growing wings or halos. It means possessing an eternal nature. Angels do not die, and they do not procreate. In the resurrection, we take on this eternal nature and fully participate in the divine family. We are fully children of God, and our relationships are no longer defined by the fleeting needs of this mortal world, but by the permanent, unconditional love of our Creator. This means that our ultimate identity is rooted entirely in God, not in our spouse, our job title, or our financial account.

Jesus then delivers his triumphant declaration that is the bedrock of our hope: "He is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive."

The Sadducees were wrong because they tried to define the infinite by the rules of the finite. They believed that when Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob died, their relationship with God ended. Jesus corrects them: God's covenant love cannot be contained by death. The promise made to Abraham is as alive today as it was 2,000 years ago. God’s faithfulness is the unbreakable thread that ties the past, present, and eternal future together.

III. A Resurrection Hermeneutic

This is a revolutionary message for us. The temptation of the church—and the believer—is always to live by the rules of the Sadducees: to look at our limitations, our history, and our failures, and believe that those earthly rules dictate our future.

But Jesus reveals a Resurrection Hermeneutic—and by hermeneutic, we mean a way of interpreting or seeing the world—a way of viewing our lives through the lens of God's limitless, eternal future. This means we trust that the love and community we cherish are permanent, even if their structure changes. We are called to stop trying to solve the great mysteries of God with the small logic of the past. Instead, we look forward with the confidence of Haggai: The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former.

The foundation of our hope is not nostalgia, but God’s presence—the promise that "My spirit abides among you." This presence means the Lord is active in the world right now, not just in the memories of the past. Our call is to work with courage and discipline, knowing that the humble work we do today is building toward the latter splendor that God has promised.

Living as Children of the Resurrection

This Resurrection Hermeneutic is the ultimate assurance of Social Holiness. If God is the God of the living, and if the love we practice is permanent, then every act of justice, every visit to the sick, and every offering of compassion is an investment in that eternal future. This truth is profound for congregations navigating transitions. When we worry about 'who will fill the pews,' we are thinking like Sadducees, bound by temporary, earthly logic. When we trust that we are children of the Resurrection—already citizens of the age where love is permanent—we are freed to serve the community, to welcome the stranger, and to invest in the next generation not out of panic, but out of confident hope. We are called to live into the latter splendor today, acting as if the glory has already arrived, because through the Spirit, it has.

This Resurrection Hermeneutic frees us from the trap of comparison and empowers us to see the immense potential in our current reality. It challenges us to stop living like Sadducees—clinging to the legalistic, temporary rules of the past—and to start living like the children of God we are called to be. The humility of the present—the smaller sanctuary, the effort required to simply show up—is the very raw material God uses for the "latter splendor." God is telling us that our current efforts are not contemptible; they are vital building blocks, infused with the presence of the Spirit.

Our task is to take courage and work, trusting the promise of the God of the Living. We must work because God is here, now, and the future is certain. We work not to earn our glory, but because God has already guaranteed it. That guarantee is what enables us to move past past failures, past losses, and past disappointments. We do not mourn the end of the "former glory" because we trust the beginning of the "latter splendor." When we put our hands to the work today—whether it is teaching a child, helping a neighbor, or committing to the Advent Bible study—we are actively investing in that guaranteed, glorious future.

Our ultimate joy is to live every day as children of the resurrection, trusting that our current humility is simply the building block for the unparalleled glory God has prepared. The God of the Living is leading us toward a future of glory greater than any past we can remember.

Amen.

Anthem (The Choir performs the Anthem.)

III. Response and Intercession

Transition to Prayer

We now turn our hearts toward prayer, bringing the burdens of the world and the needs of our lives to the God who is the Divine Foundation of all things. I invite you now to a time of silent intercession, lifting the unspoken needs of our community and the global church. (A period of silent intercession is observed.)

Pastoral Prayer & The Lord’s Prayer

Gracious and Holy God, we praise you as the God of the Living, whose covenant love cannot be contained by death. We lift up the joys and burdens shared this morning.

We turn our hearts now to intercede for our nation and the turbulent global community. We pray for leaders in government and economy, knowing that human wisdom often fails. Where anxiety shakes the marketplace and political division threatens peace, firmly plant the seeds of justice and compassion. We pray for strength to face the challenges of this age, that we may trust your promise of a greater splendor more than we fear economic instability. Let your Spirit, which abides among us, be the source of our courage.

We pray for our Amboy community, outside these church walls. Bless our schools, our local businesses, and our neighbors who are struggling. Empower this church to be a visible sign of your Living Presence—a voice of hope when people feel their best days are behind them, and a partner in building the greater splendor you have promised.

Strengthen the discouraged among us, those tempted to believe their best days are behind them. Erase our fear, and give us courage to work toward the greater splendor you have promised. We trust that to you, all things are alive, and we pray as Christ taught us:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

Transition to Offering

Pastor: Our offering is our pledge to invest in the greater future God is building with us. Our generosity declares that we are citizens of the Latter Splendor, trusting God's provision over our own hoarding. Will the ushers please come forward?

Doxology

Pastor: As the gifts are brought forward, please rise in body or in spirit, and join us in singing our praise to the God who gives us courage and hope. (Congregation stands as able.)

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; Praise him, all creatures here below; Praise him above, ye heavenly host; Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

Prayer of Dedication

Pastor: Let us pray. God of the Living, accept these gifts as a commitment to the future you have promised. Use them to build a latter splendor of ministry in our community that is greater than any glory we remember. Amen.

IV. Sending Forth

Closing Hymn [Insert Closing Hymn Title and UMH Number Here]

Pastor: Having been assured that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the God of the Living, we are freed from the trap of the past. Let us sing a declaration of God's goodness and enduring presence.

Benediction

Pastor: Go now, and do not fear, for God’s Spirit abides among you. Go forth to work with courage, knowing that the splendor of your future is greater than the glory of your past. And may the God of the Living, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be with you all, now and forevermore. Amen.

Postlude(The acolyte will carry the Light of Christ out during the Postlude)