Sermon Notes 18 January 2026

Pastor Ryan Perry Sermon 18 January 2026

Text: Acts 2:36–47

Baby Dedication is not a sentimental moment – it is a theological one. We stood before God and publicly acknowledged that these children do not belong to us. They belong to Him.

Acts 2:39 – “The promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off.”
Vision is not imagination. Vision is truth lived faithfully over time. But truth alone does not carry a people forward. Vision 2030 is not optional if we intend to be faithful.

Acts 2:36 – Truth must be received, embodied, and empowered. Reality must be correctly understood. When God corrects our understanding, everything else must follow.

If Jesus is Lord, then He outranks comfort. He outranks tradition. He outranks personal preference. He outranks fear-driven decision-making.

That is why Vision 2030 does not begin with plans or programs. It begins with identity. Because Jesus is Lord, who we are must change.

• Christ-centered means Jesus is not one influence among many. He is the organizing center of belief, obedience, and direction. Preferences and traditions do not receive equal authority with Christ.
• Spirit-filled means we depend on the Holy Spirit for conviction, transformation, courage, guidance, and unity, not merely human ability or planning. It costs us control and predictability. We choose dependence over impressiveness.
• Bible-led means Scripture does not merely inform our beliefs; it governs our decisions. It costs cultural approval, convenience, and selective obedience.
• Kingdom-called means we belong to something larger than this church, this town, or this generation. It costs short-term comfort and inward focus. We plan and give as people who expect God’s work to outlast us.

Acts 2:37  - When identity is corrected, response is unavoidable.
The crowd was “cut to the heart.” - not merely emotionally, but also intellectually and spiritually. Their understanding of reality collapses, and they ask the only honest question left: “What shall we do?”

Peter’s answer? “Repent” – turning from untrue knowledge to true knowledge; ceasing actions shaped by false understanding and submitting in obedience to what is now known to be true. That is why repentance immediately leads to baptism, a public act of allegiance.

This is why Vision 2030 includes change. If Jesus is Lord, we cannot continue in the same direction.

Acts 2:16-21 - This does not describe a change sustained by human resolve. It promises the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Vision 2030 is not asking us to strain harder. It is calling us to depend more deeply.

Jesus rose from the dead on the Feast of Firstfruits celebrating the barley harvest. God’s new creation had begun! God acts again fifty days later, at Pentecost and the Feast of Weeks marking the firstfruits of the wheat harvest.

At Sinai, God gave His Law. At Pentecost, God gives His Spirit. What once instructed obedience from the outside now forms obedience from within.

Obedience becomes possible not because people try harder, but because God is now at work within them.

Firstfruits means that what God begins, He intends to complete. The children we dedicated today are not the whole harvest. They are a visible reminder that God is not finished.

Acts 2:47 – Truth does not remain theoretical. It forms a people.
This is the biblical foundation of Vision 2030:

• Evangelism — truth proclaimed
• Worship — lives ordered around God
• Discipleship — believers formed and equipped
• Charity — love made visible

These are not programs. They are the shape of a church reordered by revealed truth.

In 1860 the church built for a future they would not fully see. God honored that faith. Will we honor their faith by doing what they did?

Vision 2030 is not God saying something new. It is God saying, “Now is the time”.

Leaders have already stepped forward to help carry this work, but this vision does not belong to leadership alone.

Are we willing to walk together in what God is already doing?

Good Hope Baptist Church exists because Jesus is Lord and Christ. Because truth corrects our direction. Because repentance leads to obedience. And because God sends His people into the world.

Vision 2030 is our commitment to live faithfully in that truth for our community, for the next generation, and for all who have yet to discover the goodness of God.