Um you may be seated, it's it's that wrestle of you could watch first service online this week, but I feel like something needing to happen or something waiting to happen is needing to be said, and we need to declare some things over this house, and uh I'll tell you this that vision vision is is sight, and vision is always moving forward. I'll never forget the year was 2013, and we had just finished our first year of being a church. I mean, Arshana and I and the four boys, we moved here. We didn't know anybody in Oak Park at the time, knew no one. My brother lived out in the West suburbs, and he told me that they would be the first members, and I'm like, thank God, we're now a church of ten. And our very first freeway that we had, we had 11 people there, so I felt, well, we're growing already. We started with six, added four, and now we added one more, we're 11. But then she moved back to Houston, so we were back to 10 again. I felt like Jesus. Already lost woman. And um, but in that year of 2012 to 2013, God moves so wonderfully, like always kept us provided for us. I'll tell you, there was some quiet Sundays, there were some long weeks, there were some moments where I was like, I don't know God how we're gonna pay that next bill, but God always provided, always made a way possible. And um, I told you that because at the end of that first year, uh, one of the team members that had that was from Oak Park and had joined the team after launch, was like, so what's the vision now? And I was like, Well, it's kind of the same, but we're just gonna try to do it better. And um, I really feel like this year the Lord's been moving in a powerful way. How many can attest to it? It's been your best year yet. In some ways, best year yet, you just gotta like claim it. Like, you may not see it physically, you may have faced difficulty. Miss Ruby, I'm thinking about you and your family. This year has dealt your family so many difficult losses and tests. I wouldn't even call them tests. It's just it's literally, I feel like the enemy has attacked your family in such a way this year, and loss and in what seemed disaster, but I want you to know God knows exactly where you're at in your family, and the way it started, and the way it's going is not the way it's gonna end. That your family's gonna see a revival, your family's gonna see miracles happen. And I just I would just speak to even the looming uh financial need over your family, extended family, that that the Lord's taking care of it, and God's provided a way where there seems to be no way. Matter of fact, church family, just stretch your hand to Miss Ruby right now. Father, I just pray for Miss Ruby's family, Lord. And I need you need to know this. Recently, her nephew was his life was taken through gun violence in the city of Rockford, 18 years old, if I'm not mistaken. Um, tragic, and um such loss. But um I believe what the enemy means for harm, God's gonna use for his favor and his his good. And I just pray right now a prayer of a Ruby. Lord, you give her strength, you encourage her. Would you just, Holy Spirit, no one else can do, Holy Spirit, what you're about to do right now in this family, wherever they're at, in all regions of this location, from here in Oak Park all the way to Rockford and everywhere in between. I pray a Holy Spirit fire of encouragement to burn out any depression, any lack, any loss. I just pray right now, comfort and strength and peace that passes understanding in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So, what I think is that a lot of times we can physically look at something and it not seem like our best year yet, or you can just, I'm not in the name it and claim it kind of church life, but I am in the power of words. And that even when it doesn't look like victory, you can declare victory and you can speak victory. And so, what today is Vision Sunday is us looking into what I believe God is moving, what God wills to do. There's there's promises of God that are yes and amen through Jesus. And God gives a promise, and I want you to know of this scholars debate whether there's 7,000 or 8,000 promises, all I can tell you is that's a lot of promises. And God has never come back void on one promise. When it says in the Bible, God, when God says, I will, he does. When God says I will, you can count on it, and he is not going to ruin his perfect record on you. And so when God says, I will do this, you can count on it, and really you can expect it, and you can actually start to live like it's already happened in a response of faith, of what God wills to do in your life. And so when I share this today, I I want you to know I'm sharing it from a position of these are things God has shown us and that we're seeing, but we don't just want to see it, we want to speak it. Because first you have to see it, and then you speak it, and then you share it, meaning you run together with it, and then it becomes success. Not in the way that we count success, but in God's arena. He says, You'll be the victor, not the victim. You'll be the overcomer, not overcome. You'll be the first and not the last. God says, you will accomplish these things when you follow my commands. And so we are a church, a Bible-believing church. And so when I talk about vision, we say vision is sight. It's always moving forward. I told you that because vision is moving forward. And yes, the vision uh it continues to go to the same space, but sometimes you got to change up how you say it. Because it has to be clear, and it has to be something that you can run with. And a lot of you are saying, well, today it's October 12th, 2025. Why would we talk about vision for 2026 already? It's like jumping the gun. It's because I can't wait to get there. No, the reality is because what I believe God is putting into this house and through this house is of such that we need to pick up our pace and be at the right pace when we get to 2026. We can't we can't back our way into what God wants to do in this new year. And like, oh, we barely made it. Let's go 2026. No, we're gonna keep with this best year yet and roll into 2026 designed to see what God wills to do in our life. And I would often say, like, there's a lot of things that are really bad in life, but one of the worst things is not having vision. Proverbs 29, 18 says, where there's no vision, the people perish. It's literally, if there's no sight, there there's no movement, there's no going forward, if there's no seeing, if there's some of you are in like, well, I'll believe it when I see it, but no, you've got to see it, you've got to believe it, then see it. You believe first, and then you see it. And so I want to just speak to that for a minute. Um and I want to just lean in for the power of vision, because when we lose our way, we when we lose our why, we lose our way. And Habakkuk 2.2 is a famous passage of scripture talking about vision, but I wanted to draw your attention using the message translation, which says this in verse 2, and then God answered, write this, write what you see. No takers are history makers. You gotta write it down sometimes, but write it in big block letters so that it can be read on the run. This vision message is a witness pointing to what's coming. So we share this today, hopefully, clearly, uh, with clarity, so that you can run with it. And as we post it, you see it and you know, yeah, that's where we're going. That's vision is sight, and that's where we're going. Vision is sight, and then values are behavior. So we have values surrounding what we see so that we get there. But I want to say that vision is sight and we're moving forward. If we're moving forward, let me just quickly talk about where we've been. 2025, we declared at the beginning of the year that it would be our best year ever. Which it's crazy because in 2023 we called 2023 the year of discipleship. Um 2024, I was trying to look through, I don't remember what we said about 2024. I must not like I'm trying to think, what did we say about that year? And I was looking through my notes and I could never find like a distinctive pattern uh for 2024. But and then 2025 we said this is our best year yet. And I just want to show you what God has done in free church and through free church and for his glory. In 2024, we averaged 263 in attendance, and this year to date, uh in 2025, we've averaged 330 people. That's a 25.5% increase. And um, and and God's moving in powerful ways. In fact, on one single Sunday a couple of weeks ago, we had um almost an 80% increase in just adult attendance, which is amazing. And God's moving powerfully, and we're so thankful for that. This year already, we've baptized 60 people. 6-0. And there's one more, one more baptism service happening November 16th. Um, if you've never been baptized, if you've taken a step to follow Jesus but haven't made it public by baptism, I would encourage you to take advantage of November 16th. Otherwise, you gotta wait till 2026. So, but take it take advantage. Bring your family, bring your friends, celebrate baptisms. That's gonna be a powerful weekend. Pastor Robbie will be here, his entire family. It's gonna be a great weekend and baptism Sunday. Uh this year, freeway, which is our path to membership and discipleship and leadership, um, serving on the Dream Team. Freeway, we've had 74 people completed already this year, which is incredible. And we have one more opportunity next week. So if you've never been through the freeway, no matter what age you are, if you've never been through the freeway, we invite you to join us. You just forward slash DM Renee or forward slash freeway, and that's how you register for freeway. It'll we have a light lunch, child care, it's gonna share heart and vision and um do a couple of things that will help you discover your purpose. So it's a powerful time, but 74 have already completed that this year. And then one thing that I'm most excited about is you know, free church operates on the generosity, solely on the generosity of the families and people of this house. And um this year already, we tie we give out and around, so we give, we say we give up, out and around to plant churches for global missions, for uh partners and local support around uh free church and the community. And this year already, we've given$47,846 out, up and around to move the kingdom of God forward. That's all through your generosity. You didn't even know, you didn't even know that's how much we've done this year. It's amazing by your generosity. That's what we've been able to do so far. And so God's done amazing things already this year, but we already have our eyes set on what he wants to do next year. And so I want to just speak to that for a moment. And I'm just gonna skip ahead to Acts. Well, no, let's start here. Let me start here. Don't go there yet. So for the last 13 years, we have been a church that we've always made this declaration. We're here to help people know God, find freedom, discover purpose, and make a difference. And that that part of what we do in church, and how you know, we help people know God on Sundays, we help people find freedom through small groups, we help people discover purpose through the freeway, and then we help people make a difference on our dream team. Yesterday we had an incredible Dream Team Connect. There were 59 Dream Team members here, which was an incredible number and a great Saturday morning, powerful moments of worship and some fun games, and uh, and and we shared and got teams to do best practices with teams, so it's a really powerful time. Uh, but I say all that to say like that that part of saying that mission of what we're here to do to help people know God, find freedom, discover purpose, and make a difference comes out of the scripture. And it comes out of the promises that God has for his people. It's found in Exodus chapter six, verses six and seven. And um, God says this to the children of Israel God says, I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians, I will free you from being slaves, I will redeem you, and then he says, I will make you a great nation. And so when we talk about the mission of this church, it comes from this passage of scriptures. So it's not like that just sounds good or it's easy to say. It literally comes out of a declaration of God's promises for his people. God says to the children of Israel, now this is when they are enslaved in Egypt, and they've been slaves now for 440 years, and God says, I'm bringing, I've heard your cries, I'm bringing you out of Egypt. And whatever we see in the Old Testament is a type or shadow of the New Testament. And so Egypt is a type of sin that distances us or is the gap between us and our Heavenly Father. We're born into sin, the Bible says, and we're born with this gap, or we're born into the slavery of sin, not because we're bad people, it's just because of the fall of man. This is how we're born. And so God says, Listen, my promise for you is that I'm gonna bring you out of that condition. It's a very free promise. The first promise, the gift of salvation. It's an I will. I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. And then he says, and I will free you from being a slave, which always to me sounds like the same thing. Well, you're bringing us out of Egypt, so we'll no longer be slaves. Yeah, but I'm not only bringing you out of Egypt, but I'll get Egypt out of you. And that's what God wants to do when he saves you. He doesn't just want to save you from your sin, he wants to set you free from the habit and the constraint of that sin in your life. The, the, as Ephesians 1:7, Paul says, from the penalties and the punishments of that misdeed. So God says, This is my promise for you, that you'll be saved, that you'll be set free. And he says, and I promise I will redeem you. You it's not, you were not meant to be enslaved. You weren't meant to be captive in Egypt, but I'm gonna redeem the original promise that you walk with authority and you walk with power and you replenish the earth. And that's the promise God has for you. And then he says, and then I promise, everything's personal, but then he makes it real a big family. He says, I'll make you a great nation. I'll make you a part of a family. You had to come through an earthly family to be a part of his heavenly family. He says, I'll you, and how we used to say, we you'll find fulfillment when you serve God's house and serve God's people, you'll find fulfillment in life that goes beyond just being happy. It transcends the idea of just living for yourself. Now I'm living beyond myself, I'm making a difference. So it occurred to me over the course of this year that as we've been saying, we're here to help people know God, find freedom, discover purpose. And we help people know God on Sunday, find freedom in small groups, make a difference, or discover purpose through the free way, and make a difference in the dream team. That really what we're doing is declaring God, it's all a declaration of a promise. Everything we do as a church, we do as a declaration of a promise of God. And so, what I want to position for us and write it plainly so we we can run with it is this idea and move the vision forward of free church like this. We are one church declaring God's promises, fulfilling his purpose until the whole world knows. So we put that in there, one church, because in the future we'll be able to say we're one church, many locations. And who knows? The south side, the north side, the west side, Michigan, Indiana, Iowa, wherever the Lord would lead us and position us here locally, nationally, even globally, but for now, we're one church declaring God's promise, fulfilling his purpose, until the whole world knows. Until the whole world knows God, until the whole world knows they can be free, until the whole world knows they can be redeemed, until the whole world knows that they can make a difference. We're one church. It seems like a big thing, but we're one church and we can do it together. Amen. So, so now let me bring you to the book of Acts, chapter one and eight. The book of Acts, which is a foundational passive scripture for our students, but it's also foundational for us as a church. And this is what Jesus says. He says, but you will, see, there's another promise. So I want you to start considering when you read scripture, that when you read something that's a promise, you underline it, circle it, and it's something for us to make a declaration of. God says, You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. And watch this, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth. Now, I've preached this from many different avenues, but today I want to just kind of camp out in this thought or this process of lanes that I'm not gonna go so much geographical, but in terms of Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth in lanes that we'll run in for 2026. And the first lane is for free church, Oak Park. We're gonna what we're gonna do here in this assembly to move the vision forward, and then next generations, what we're gonna do for our free church kids and for our witness youth and for young adults to move the vision forward. And then the next lane would be the lane of local, national, and global missions or outreach, what we'll do to make an impact. So Jesus is saying you'll be a witness in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the remote parts of the earth. And that's really the lanes that we're gonna run in. So let's talk about it in the few minutes that I have left. So here at here at Free Church Oak Park, this location, what we aim to do through this church in 2026, so in the next 90 days, we will begin to translate our services in Spanish live in the moment so that anyone who English is not their first language or even their second language, they will have uh means and access to hear the preached word of God in service. And so that's in 90 days we'll launch, we'll launch Spanish translations in service. And then in 120 or 180 days, we'll launch a Spanish-speaking small group in response to what I believe our community and the surrounding area is facing right now in terms of culture, and we want to aim to have a voice for a group of people who it seems like they're being overlooked and and um just overlooked. That's the best way to say it. So that's we're doing now. We have a bunch of other things in the portfolio, but I wanted to share those two with you. So that's 90 days, 120 to 180 days, and then two or three years down the road, Lord willing, and the way the ministry grows as we translate in services and then as we run small groups, um, uh then the Lord, this is a dream. The vision is we're definitely doing it. The dream is that we will launch uh Iglesia Libre. I say it right, close a free church, Spanish service with worship and preaching, and um just believe God's gonna move powerfully in that. So, next generation, so that's the first one, free church. So in next gen, next generation are kids, our youth, our young adults, and we have, man, we have a heart full for our next generation, which by the way, they fill this front section in every service. They out-worship all of us. And uh I don't, I mean, I don't ever like I want to see this group continue. I want them to fill all three sections. So keep working, you're doing great, but let's keep going. Um, can you imagine like how how loud that would be in worship? Like they're already out singing the band. So um, but in terms of next level, it's been a dream. So there's a difference between a dream and a vision. A dream is an idea, a preferred, uh a picture of a preferred future. A vision, though, has the means and the support and the steps behind it. So you can dream dreams, and then you have vision that actually is no, this is actually where we're going. But this has been a dream since we moved into this building. In 2017, we moved into this building to lease this auditorium and just a small portion of the lower level where our kids meet. It was like literally the maybe the uh a third of this stage, it was tiny. And it it housed it had to house everything because the Hemingway Museum was the primary tenant downstairs in the lower level. And when we moved in in 2017, we knew they were closing. It had just been announced publicly. And January 1st, they were out of the building, and we assumed the entire uh space to lease. And then uh in 2020, we put the downstroke to purchase this building to God be the glory. But it's been a dream of ours. So, really, we had enough money saved up at that moment to like either do the lower level or to buy the building. And like, whenever you get a chance to own real estate in Oak Park, you go for the real estate. And so that's what we did. And now the vision, the dream of updating the lower level will be a reality as we in the next 120 days move into upgrading that lower level for our kids, world-class accommodations for kids and youth in the lower level. Amen. I think we have we've shown drawings and different um renderings before, but this is what it's gonna look like. Full walls, classroom space, gonna be incredible, and um still very functional for all of the things that we do down there. So that's free church, that's next gen, and then the last piece, local, national, and global. And I'm I'm excited. This again has been a dream of mine, but now it's becoming a reality as we move forward. And in 2026, we build out a Colombian programming center that will be a feeding center to the community. We're still working on the city right now, um, but we're working with Convoy of Hope, and we will be building out a feeding center that um will feed the community, and then as we strengthen our position there, we'll begin to um it will become an empowerment, a women's empowerment center where we'll train women uh as entrepreneurs in areas of business, and then we'll train farmers in agriculture, and then someday, Lord willing, it will be free church, whatever that city in Columbia. Amen, church. So obviously, as with any portfolio, there's probably a number of things in there that we'll share that are beyond these three key things that I've shared. But I feel like it was important for me to share three of them that we're already moving forward on, and then there'll be other things that you'll get to see and be a part of. But how are we gonna do it? How do how do we we've written it plain? It seems to me to be pretty plain, but how do we how do we move forward with it? Well, number one, here's how you run with the vision. Number one, we pray first, and all of us can pray. And I want to encourage all of you to pray, pray specifically for the Latino community, pray specifically for those of you that pray in Spanish. I want you to pray in Spanish over this church, over this congregation, over this community. And if it goes into tongues, that's fine, but like start in Spanish because we want to make we want to make a declaration in the tongue uh in Spanish to say this is gonna be a house that will reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ specifically through uh translation and then small groups and then a campus someday. And um, but I'm everybody can pray, and I want you to pray for next level, the the next generation, pray for our kids, pray for our youth witness, pray for our young adults, pray for the global impact we've had. We've had already a tremendous response of people saying how they want to serve in this area, but we're gonna pray. Everybody can pray. In fact, we always start the year off with 21 days of prayer and fasting, and I want you to already put this on your calendar, January 4th through 25th, that we're gonna go into 21 days of prayer and fasting, and we're gonna pray and fast our way through all of these projects and believe God moves powerfully in them. So we can all pray. Number two, most of us can give. Not all of us can give, but most of us can give. And um, I just want to, you know, let you know um we've done this over the last few years. It's been one of our most generous days of the year. We call it it's it's a part of Giving Tuesday. On Giving Tuesday, over there'll be billions of dollars given to non-for-profit causes all over the world, but we've participated in this and it's moved the vision forward every single year. This year we're gonna do it with some intentionality and significantly move the vision forward through the fund we call Kingdom Builders. We we launched that uh right before we started raising money for Puerto Rico this year. We've used Kingdom Builders to advance the vision of the church and above and beyond our tithe, and and we're positioned to move forward on many of these initiatives already, but we want to move it forward in and really it's not about the size of the vision, but what paces the vision is how we see it, how we pray through it, and how we give to it. And so just on December 2nd, I'm you'll start to hear more information about Giving Tuesday, but start preparing and thinking about and praying, God, what would my part be to move the vision forward on Giving Tuesday? And as a church, we'll all participate. And I really I I'm believing for 100% participation on Giving Tuesday, not equal gifts but equal sacrifice that we move the vision forward. So we're gonna pray, we can give, and then we're gonna serve. And already in Renee, we have set up for you if you forward slash DM Renee a forward slash serve, and you can select from these four new teams that we're launching as part of the effort to see the vision through. Number one, the Spanish translation team. So if Spanish is your first or maybe second language and you're fluent, and you think you can take my preaching and translate it for the people in the audience, I'll never forget. Um, I told a story in first service. Uh Liam, you guys can come and we can close this thing out. I feel like I might need to land this plane. Um I uh Edgar and Nisma came to Free Church back when we were in the theater from Columbia. And I'll never forget Edgar caught me after that first service that he came to, and in very broken English, he told me that he was gonna learn English through my preaching. And I told him, I'm so sorry. Like I might be the worst person to learn a language from because I'm not ever I'm very rarely can I be grammatically correct. I'm a marketer, not a not a linguist, and so like I'm so sorry. And I talked to him after service today. He said, and he's fluent, brilliant, teaches kids downstairs. His daughters have both graduated out of free church, and one the youngest one, Sophia, is a student at UIC, becoming an engineer, just incredible. And um, it's just amazing. But if Spanish is uh a language that you're fluent in and you want to be a part of translation team, somebody I'll preach. You'll have a headset in the back room and you'll translate live and then people can listen in the service. And I think it's gonna be a blessing to our community. So that's one team. The second team is construction team. We have we have a good number of qualified men that are in the trade. That'll that'll general contract this project, but I told somebody at the end of service, first service, like, well, we're gonna need a lot of hands, a lot of people to carry sheetrock and hammers, and let's go. Let's get it done. And I believe this is my thought. I don't know, the guys will probably shoot me down on this, but I believe we could clean out the lower level on a Sunday afternoon, start the project on Monday and close it out by the next Sunday. Come on. One, build a church in a week. Come on. And um, because we got enough people to do it. And then, so that's a team. The third team is our missions team. If you want to be a part of global efforts through free church, you can be a part of that team. And then the last one, the last one is for there, there are many of you that can do this that'll feel called and compelled to do it because you have a gift of giving and giving beyond your tithe and your offering, and everybody could be a part of this team. But I want to encourage those of you that just feel like the Lord has put on your in your life the ability to give above and beyond and to give generously. You have the gift of giving. It's literally one of the gifts that Paul talks about in uh 1 Corinthians, but you have the gift of giving, and this would be our kingdom builders team, and that's how we're gonna advance this vision by believing together, giving together. And it's not, it's never, well, I've already said it once, it's never uh equal gifts, but equal sacrifice. So I just believe we're gonna move the vision forward exponentially. And I'm excited about the year 2026. I got a lot more to say about it as we get closer to it, and obviously we're gonna start the year strong, but that is my belief that God is moving in this church through this church and for his glory. Can you receive that word today? Amen. Hey, let's all pray.