Crafting a Vision for Our Future

Purpose Discovery • Sermon • Submitted 4 months ago • Presented 4 months ago

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Good morning everyone. It is so good to be here, etc…welcome kids to go to class, welcome online viewers as part of family. …

About 15 years ago there was a man called Simon Sinek. Simon wrote a book called, The Power of Why. In this book Simon communicated something that churches have known and been doing for decades at least, but maybe for centuries. You see, Simon learned that successful companies don’t sell products, they sell ideas. He gave the example of Apple. You see, Apple was just a computer company. However, Steve Jobs believed in innovating and challenging the norms of life. So, he didn’t sell computers, he sold the idea of innovation…Let me share another example…

There is a man that almost no one knows. His name is Samuel Pierpot Langley. You see, back in the early 20th century the pursuit of powered man flight was like the “dot com” of the 90’s or social media today. Everyone was trying it. Samuel Pierpot Langley had what we can only assume was the best recipe for success. You see, Samuel was given $50,000 by the War Department to figure out how to fly. He held a seat at Harvard and worked at the Smithsonian, and was extremely well connected. Samuel knew all of the great minds of the time, and he hired the best that money could buy. The New York Times actually followed him around everywhere, and everyone was rooting for Langley to get this figured out. So, why don’t we all know about Samuel Pierpot Langley?

Well, a few hundred miles away in Dayton Ohio, there are a couple of brothers called the Wright brothers. Orville and Wilbur did not have the recipe for success…they didn’t have cash, connections, or even education, no one on their team was college educated. They paid for their dream with the proceeds from their bicycle shop, and the New York Times didn’t even know who they were. The difference between the Wright brothers and Langley is that Orville and Wilbur were driven by a cause, a purpose, a belief. You see, they believed that if they could figure out this flying machine it would change the course of the world. Langley wanted to be rich, the Wrights wanted to make an impact! So the people who believed in the Wright brothers mission and vision worked with everything they had. The people who worked for Langley worked for a paycheck. There are stories about how every day the Wrights would go out with five different sets of parts because that how many times they would crash before they came in for supper. Then, on December 17th, 1903 the Wright brothers took flight, and no one was there to experience it. We didn’t even find out about it until a few days later. Then…the day the Wright brothers took flight, Pierpot quit. He could have said, “wow, lets work together and improve on your findings, but he was only interested in being first and getting rich, and that didn’t happen so he quit. Pierpot didn’t have a vision like the Wrights had.

These findings led Sinek to say that “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” So my question for us this morning is, “Why are we here?” Why are we doing what we are doing as a church? Clearly you are here because God has made a profound impact on your life personally, or you have heard about the impact God has had on someone else and you want to experience that for yourself. Over the last 2000 years Christ has made an impact on countless lives, and he has done that in multiple different ways. So what is the core of what Christ has done? The core of what Christ has done, is his character. As a church we desire more than anything else to make sure everyone knows Christ character, because if you know Christ character you know Christ. And our desire as a church is to help others know Christ the way we know Christ…thats why we do outreach, thats why we teach classes, thats why we have potluck and everything else we do…There is a large part of why we are doing things because we want others to know Christ the way we know Christ. Now, that’s not everything , and there is some context for various things, but folks LRBC exists to Worship God and help others know God so they can worship him to…if you would agree with that statement, say Amen…

This morning we are closing our series on discovering our mission, but we are not finished talking about our mission. Actually everything we do this year will somehow revolve around discovering our mission so we can share that mission with everyone we know and everyone we meet. A significant portion of this year is going to be spent getting excited about what the Gospel has done in your life personally so that you can get excited again about sharing that with others. Remember for a moment what your life was like back when you first acknowledged Christ…weren’t you excited, didn’t you want everyone to know and be a part of what God was doing? That is precisely what I desire us all to remember over the course of this year. If you are up for that journey, then Im going to ask you to go ahead and open your Bible to Isaiah chapter 43. We are going to talk about some pretty important stuff today and so I need you to be ready with your Bible so that we can read a couple of verses there together. This morning we are going to be talking about

Crafting a Vision for Our Future

Now, before we read in Isaiah 43 I want to give you a little context into this chapter and a little bit of what is going on in Israels history here. See at this time Israel had been significantly disobedient to God over many years. This is during the Babylonian exile when the Israelites are living in exile and under the control of Babylon. The Israelites would have had a spirit of defeat as they have been living under a worldly dominion and so God uses Isaiah to comfort and encourage the Israelites. Specifically God uses Isaiah to give a message to Israel and its a message that we can appreciate today as well. After Isaiah spends some time telling Israel they will be restored, Isaiah tells them about how God will restore them. So with that said, let’s take a look at exactly what Isaiah shared from God.

Isaiah 43:18–19 ESV

“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

I love this passage right here because it reminds me that God is always moving me forward, and I shouldn’t be focus on the past, but instead I should be focused on what God is doing today and joining him tomorrow! That’s what I want to talk about briefly today. First, what about

Reflecting on God’s Past Work

See, the first thing that we see in this passage is that we are not to remember. Now, this is not talking about not remembering at all, as in wiping your brain of those memories. No, this is saying that you should not dwell on the things of the past. You should always learn from the past because we see God in the past. However, the past should not be the focus of the present.

In this passage to the Israelites it is important for them to put their trust in God’s past action like creation and the exodus, these traditions and historical claims strongly support Isaiah’s theological position that God can be believed, because he does what he says he will do. That should never be ignored or set aside, becuase they provide assurance of God’s character. However, the prophet Isaiah exhorts his listeners not to allow just God’s former miraculous deeds to influence their faith decisions, God is still alive and can be trusted to direct the future history of his people. In other words, don’t live in the past of what God has done because he is still moving and working to the future.

For us that means we need to let go of past failures, but also we need to let go of “the old days”, or “the way we used to do things”. Listen, just because God worked in a specific way in the past doesn’t mean he will use the same method in the future. That’s why Ive been sharing this idea in varies way, The Gospel remains fixed while our methods remain flexible

Listen, God is always teaching us, but we can’t do things the way we did 50 years ago…We can’t because in order to reach the culture around us, we ned to be flexible with the methods that we use to reach them. For instance, 50 years ago, or even 20 years ago door to door evangelism was the normal. However, in today’s culture it would be seen as offensive to just show up at someone’s house unannounced. Thats why people struggle with Mormons and Jehovah Witness missionaries. So even those those organizations have adapted to modern ways of connecting with people.

So, we need to learn from the past…remember that God moved in the past to encourage us that God is still moving today, but we can’t live there.We really need to focus on

Recognizing God’s New Work

You see, just like in the Scripture we are able to see how God moved in the past and continued to move as time went on. We need to realize the same thing. We need to remember the things that God did in the past in your life individually as well as corporately as a church. For instance, we need to remember the sacrifice of those men and women who God used to plant this church, purchase this land, and build the original building. Then we need to remember the way that God brought this new building along. God has never turned his back on this church and that knowledge can encourage us and remind us that God never will turn his back on this church as long as we are focused on him and not ourselves.

Remember, the Gospel remains fixed while our methods remain flexible. So what is it that God is doing new within LRBC? Well for one thing God is bringing new people into the family of LRBC. God is bringing new ideas into LRBC. God is bringing new ministries and ministry opportunities into LRBC. God is constantly doing new things and we need to be ready and willing to embrace those new things that God is doing. Of course, if I am stuck focused on the way things used to be then I will never be ready for what God is doing next will I? So I want to challenge you personally in your life, are you allowing God to do new things in your life? As a church we are taking this year to genuinely search for what God is doing next right here. God is still moving and working in our lives, but we need to be ready to flex in order to join in with what God is doing next, even when we don’t think its possible.

There was a time in my life when I can remember asking a question frequently. I used to say something to the effect of, I want to do God’s will, I just don’t know what it is. This was a statement in regards to ministry and being a part of God’s work in Puerto Rico when I lived there. Well, someone told me one day, and I don’t remember who said it, so Im just taking it for my own. To be in Gods will, I need to join him where he is. Same is true for you today .Listen, God is working all around you every day, you just have to recognize where God is doing something and join in what he is doing. If you see God working in someones life, then go talk to them. If God is doing amazing things within the Ministry to Farmers, join that ministry. See, God does not work according to your plans, no his plans are far better than yours are. Remember what else Isaiah tells us

Isaiah 55:8–9 ESV

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

So after recognize God moving, then we need to start

Relying on God's Continued Work

Now we are looking for where God is working and we need to be ready to step up and join in, but thats really scary isn’t it? I mean when God is doing something it can be terrifying to jump in and join in. Do you know what else it is…surrender. When I recognize that God is doing something but I am not willing to jump in is when I am putting more faith in myself than in God. In regards to LRBC, we are in a time where we have a group of people who are very soon going to be looking into what our purpose is as a church. This is a group of people that are going to be working with you as the body to understand how God is molding and shaping us so that we can be ready to jump in and join where ever God is moving. Part of that process is going to be understanding our values as a church so that we can craft a vision that is aligned with God’s ongoing work here at LRBC. Remember I need to align my values to Gods direction not try and change God’s direction to align with my values. See that is important because that is exactly what the secular and progressive churches are doing all around us. They are defining their values and then creating a God to align with those values. That is repulsive to God.

So, we are going to rely on God to guide us. We are going to spend time in prayer and study to understand what God is saying. We will check everything against our statement of faith as a church to ensure we are not violating our own stated beliefs. The Elders are a part of this process as the spiritual leaders of LRBC. Of course we will focus on understanding how God is fitting our goals within our current context as a church and finally we are going to remember that “The Gospel remains fixed while our methods remain flexible:

Of course the same principles that we are applying here to the church should be equally applied to your personal walk with the Lord. Are you watching for God to do new things in your life? Are you focused on the past so much that you cant see towards the future, or even the present?

Listen, there is something incredibly important as we seek to discover our purpose over the coming months. We must, as a church, and as leaders rely on Spiritual discernment as we seek to see what God is doing all around us. Im going to ask each and every person here to begin to seek to be more spiritually discerning. So, how do you develop discernment, or how do you rely on discernment. First you must

A. Cultivate a heart of surrender and openness to God's leading.

Pay attention to what God is doing…Next you should B. Seek wisdom through prayer, Scripture, and fellowship.

Stay connected to Scripture and your spiritual family. Finally, C. Stay attuned to the Holy Spirit's guidance and promptings.

In other words…pray, read Scripture, and pay attention…I know I say that alot, but thats because its true!

Conclusion:

Listen, I know God is in the midst of preparing us as a church for something amazing, I don’t know what that thing is just yet, but I know he’s working. God is shaping us and refining us and calling us to be a part of this spiritual war that is waging all around us…we just need to get ready to jump in the fight. Are you ready for that?

Remember I told you about the Wright brothers earlier. See, they had a belief that if they could learn to fly then the world would be changed…Well, do you know what I believe? I believe if we can align ourselves with Gods purposes…this entire region will be changed! I believe that God saved me from so much and has given me far more than I deserve that Ive gotta tell everyone! I believe that when God calls us to do something, and we rely on him to do it, there’s nothing that can stand in our way! Finally, I believe that Jesus said he was going to build his church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it! Do you believe that to be true also? If so, let me invite you to join me this year as we stay focused on what God is doing and as we craft a vision to take us into the future together!

Let’s pray (personal reflection and response to God's invitation to a new beginning)

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