Hope in the Future God Has Ordained
Pastor Tan Thai · May 1, 2021
This sermon explores humanity's universal desire to know the future and affirms that only God truly holds the future in His hands. Through fulfilled biblical prophecy, believers are encouraged to place their hope in the One who has overcome the world and to actively participate in His work.
The sermon opens with a humorous story about a famous Chinese fortune-teller who visits a king claiming to reveal the future through four fortune sticks, but the story ends with the mystery unresolved. Through this, the pastor emphasizes that all people crave knowledge of the future—from reading horoscopes and consulting fortune-tellers to listening to experts predict economic trends, technological developments, and geopolitical conflicts at the start of each new year.
The central section of the sermon affirms that God alone truly holds the future. He reveals it through the natural laws that scientists discover, and through Scripture given to chosen prophets. The sermon presents concrete evidence: Isaiah's prophecy about the birth of Jesus Christ, the restoration of Israel in 1948 foretold by Moses and prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and Jesus Christ's prediction of the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 AD.
The pastor highlights the most remarkable truth: God not only writes the future but invites each person to participate in it—not as puppets or robots, but as those who can genuinely influence history. The founding of Google by Larry Page and Sergey Brin illustrates how a handful of people with a vision can change the entire world. In the same way, Jesus chose twelve apostles and Paul, who transformed the course of human history because they trusted the One who holds the future.
The sermon calls believers to be active contributors to both the Kingdom of God and earthly society, based on Jesus's teaching to render to God what is God's and to Caesar what is Caesar's. Believers are reminded of the legacy of Christians who built schools, hospitals, orphanages, and wells, and who fought for freedom and equality.
The sermon closes with encouragement rooted in biblical promises. Despite hardship, difficulty, weariness, or despair, believers can take heart because Jesus declared, 'I have overcome the world.' The promise of Romans 8:37-39 assures us that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.