April 8, 2001

John 12:12-19; Acts 2:42-47

God’s Vision for Our Future

1. Introduction

1. Illustration – I’d like to start out this morning by reading a series of quotes. Helen Keller wrote, The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight but has no vision. George Washington Carver wrote, Where there is no vision, there is no hope. Audre Lorde wrote, Our visions begin with our desires. Jonathan Swift wrote, Vision is the art of seeing things invisible. Woodrow Wilson wrote, No man that does not see visions will ever realize any high hope or undertake any high enterprise. And Charles Swindoll wrote, When I think of vision, I have in mind the ability to see above and beyond the majority.
2. Context – Jesus is a Man of vision. He sees above and beyond the majority. If we are to grow as a Church and reach our world for Christ, we have got to get a grip on His vision for us and do everything He calls us to do to make it happen.

1. Scripture Passages

1. The first passage we’re looking at today is John 12:12-19 - The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. ¹³ They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, "Hosanna!" "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" "Blessed is the King of Israel!" ¹⁴ Jesus found a young donkey and sat upon it, as it is written, ¹⁵ "Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt." ¹⁶ At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that they had done these things to him. ¹⁷ Now the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word. ¹⁸ Many people, because they had heard that he had given this miraculous sign, went out to meet him. ¹⁹ So the Pharisees said to one another, "See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!"
2. I want you to notice from these verses the powerful distraction and temptation that hit Jesus as He entered Jerusalem. The people were praising Him and laying their cloaks and palm branches on the road. The palm branches were a political symbol – the sign of the last freedom the country of Israel had experienced. The Jews wanted a political king. They thought Jesus was it. But Jesus had a different focus. The eyes of His mind were set beyond the immediate on what His Church would look like.
3. Acts 2:42-47 shows us what Jesus had in mind for the Church - They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. ⁴³ Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. ⁴⁴ All the believers were together and had everything in common. ⁴⁵ Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. ⁴⁶ Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, ⁴⁷ praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
4. The most important thing to Jesus was the perpetuation of the faith. In other words, He knew He was going to suffer and die and be raised again, but He also knew that whole process would be pointless without the Christian faith growing and spreading. In a very real sense, the Church was what Jesus gave His life for. In order for the Church to live on, the apostles had to take Jesus’ vision and make it their own. Taking this driving vision of Jesus and making it our own is what we’re talking about today.

1. The Early Church

1. What were the main components of the early church? Reading from this Acts passage we can get an idea:

• They were devoted to the faith and to each other
• They were devoted to learning as much as possible about how to follow Jesus
• They were blown away by the awesome power of God in their lives
• They were united in purpose
• They worshiped together
• They ate together
• They were thankful and praised God
• They brought others to faith in Christ

1. The early disciples were ordinary Jews who knew themselves and knew how the Jewish system worked. They knew how to relate the faith to the people in ways they could understand, because Jesus modeled that for them and because they were people of the trades themselves. They were accustomed to the ways Jewish rabbis taught and the patterns of public teaching and worship used by the Jews. They had their own experiences with Jesus to draw on. So what did God do with them?
2. God used a simple system: He took their strengths and the needs of the people into consideration, then He had the Holy Spirit guide the apostles into using the means that would most effectively reach the people and train the new converts. God’s vision was the same as Jesus’ vision – for a Church that would effect life transformation by the power of the Holy Spirit. That is what drove Jesus to do all He did. That is why Jesus spent so much time with the disciples, even though it would have been easier just to live in obscurity until His time to die and be raised again. Jesus focused on the life transforming power that a community of believers could experience and how that community could spread the gospel to the corners of the earth. The apostles focused on the same vision. That is what we have to focus on, too, if we are going to see the Lebanon area transformed for Christ.
3. Illustration – Simone Weil wrote, We live in a world of unreality and dreams. To give up our imaginary position as the center, to renounce it, not only intellectually but in the imaginative part of our soul, that means to awaken to what is real and eternal, to see the true light and hear the true silence. A transformation then takes place at the very roots of our sensibility, in our reception of sense and impressions and psychological impressions. It is a transformation analagous to that which takes place in the dusk of an evening on a road, where we suddenly discern as a tree what we had first seen as a stooping man; or where we suddenly recognize as a rustling of leaves what we thought at first was whispering voices. We see the same colors; we hear the same sounds, but not in the same way. We need to allow God to transform us so that each one of us can tune in to that vision that He is trying to communicate to us.

1. God’s Vision for Our Church

1. You see, God has done the same thing for us that He did for the early Church. He has taken our strengths and our culture into consideration and has given us a vision of how our church and our community can be transformed by following the vision He has lined out for us. What is that vision?
2. This is the vision God has for us: The goal of Sodaville Evangelical Church is to reach people for Christ by accepting all people where they’re at and moving them toward Christ-like maturity. We do this by providing a safe and stable place to share, serve, and grow together into a loving Christian family. That is our vision statement, but it is only a statement if we do not take ownership of it and make it a part of our everyday lives.
3. The vision God has for us accomplishes the same life transformation that the early church experienced when we seek to fulfill it by the power of the Holy Spirit. The apostles accepted the people where they were at and moved them toward Christ-like maturity by providing them with a safe and stable place to share, serve, and grow together into a loving Christian family. The community of faith they built up was able to withstand persecution, suffering and trials over the centuries. Those of us in this room today who love and follow Jesus are their legacy of faith. We are the result of their focus on the vision God gave them.

1. Benefits of and Obstacles to Following the Vision

1. But why should we follow this vision?

• First, because God wants us to. Following His leadership in fulfilling this vision is a matter of obedience. In John 14:21, Jesus says this: "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him." Obeying God in following His vision will demonstrate our love for Him.
• Second, because blessing follows obedience. John 13:15-17 says, I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. ¹⁶ I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. ¹⁷ Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. What did Jesus do during His life? He made disciples. What better way can we serve Him than by helping others learn to lean on Him? We will be blessed if we obey God by following the example of His Son and fulfilling His vision for our church.
• Third, following God’s vision for our church will enable us to be much more effective in keeping people from going to hell. Jesus said, in Luke 19:10, "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost." What is lost? The souls of those who do not have a personal relationship with Christ are lost for all eternity. Jesus came to reconcile sinful mankind to God through His sacrifice. This is the good news! Good news is what gospel means. And we are sinning by not letting those around us know the good news that Jesus Christ died for their sins and rose again so that they can live transformed lives! When we follow God’s vision He will lead us in helping people come to know Him and experience transformed lives. We must follow His vision in order to do so.
• I have to tell you that the fourth benefit to following God’s vision I am speaking of purely on an emotional level. Are you tired of church as usual, of us spinning our spiritual wheels and seeming to go nowhere much of the time? I am. I have been feeling a deep need to come to know Christ much more deeply. I have been feeling a deep need for others to come to know Jesus more intimately. In many of my counseling sessions and contacts with people, I am seeing an inability for them to overcome sin because these people do not have a clear grasp on who Jesus is and what it means to follow Him. I don’t want to be part of a church that just meets once or twice a week, does some nice stuff for some people, feels pretty good about itself, and yet makes little or no impact on the community for Christ. That is where we are headed if we do not focus on the vision God has for us and move forward. I’m tired of people dying and going to hell because the church in America is too flaky to be effective!!! Maybe it’s a bit selfish, but I want to experience the warm and loving approval of God by leading this church in following His vision for us.

1. The benefits are great, but so are the potential obstacles. Let’s go over some of them briefly:

• Sacred cows. Anything that we hold on to that does not fit the vision and mission God has for us has to go. We have to be willing to do anything God leads us in doing. We have to be willing to adjust what we are doing through careful planning as a measured response to God.
• Disunity. We all have to be committed to following God’s lead in this, and we have to be united in this commitment.
• Fear. What God is calling us to isn’t easy – as a matter of fact we may have to go through the toughest times we’ve ever been through in order to follow God. But He is more than able to accomplish His will for us through us, and to protect us from the enemy of our souls.
• "I like things the way they are." The way things are is this: we are a fairly stable congregation right now, and some of our members are making great personal strides in their walks with Christ. But we as a Christian community are making very little impact on our area right now – too many people in Lebanon and Sodaville and Lacomb and Brownsville and Sweet Home and all around us are dying and going to hell. The stakes are so high that we cannot afford to maintain the status quo. And God will remove His blessing if that is what we choose – guaranteed!

1. The cost of obeying God and following His mission and vision for us is high, but the cost of disobedience is higher. Joshua had a tremendous admonition for the people of Israel before he died. Joshua 24:14-15 - "Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. ¹⁵ But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." Will we choose the false gods of our own selves or desires or fears or agendas or even of demons and of the devil, or will we serve the Lord by following His vision?
2. Illustration – Outstanding Christian author and discipler Win Arn wrote, Every significant advance begins by challenging assumptions of the status quo. Often such assumptions are found to be tired, threadbare, incorrect. By challenging assumptions, you are liberated from repeating errors and are freed to establish stronger foundations for new advances. Jesus challenged the "jot and tittle" assumptions of the religious professionals of His day with the "Great Commandment" – to love. The Apostle Paul challenged the assumption of the early church leaders that "only Jews could be saved." Martin Luther challenged the assumption of salvation by works. William Carey challenged the assumption of his fellow churchmen that "If God wants the heathen saved, he will do it without you," and thus was born the modern missionary movement. Donald McGavran challenged the assumption that God was satisfied with non-growing churches, with a new assumption: "It is God’s will that the church grow, that His lost children are found." John R. Mott, the great missionary statesman, put it this way, "challenge the assumptions with which you are asked to work. If a careful study convinces you they are correct, follow them faithfully. If, however, you are convinced they are wrong, try either to revise them, or abandon them. Do not repeat proven errors!" Refusal to follow God’s vision is a proven error. One that we cannot afford to make.

1. Conclusion

1. The choice before us is this: serving God by following His vision for us, or serving ourselves and the enemy. I stand here today with Joshua and say, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." What will you choose? We’ll take a few minutes of quiet for you to decide who you will follow.
2. What have you decided? If you are committing yourself and your house to following God’s vision for us, please stand and come forward. Choose this day who you will serve. If you choose Christ and His will, come forward now.
3. Let’s pray.