Sermon Tone Analysis

Announcements

Wednesday evening changes.

LifeGroup signups.

SLIDE

Youth meeting after service.

Recap

Last week we kick off our new series for the year, 20/20 Vision.

I gave brief Webster definitions for Vision before we began to look at what Scripture says about it.

One thing I want to clarify that often gets confused is Vision vs Mission.

Organizations, businesses, and even churches get these two mixed up all the time.

The vision is typically the bigger picture of what you hope to overall achieve.

This doesn’t usually change.

For Chick-fil-A it might be to make the best chicken sandwich.

Under Steve Jobs Apple’s vision statement was, “To make a contribution to the world by making tools for the mind that advance humankind.”

But they make phones and computers and watches and mp3 players.

Amazon’s vision statement is, “Our vision is to be earth's most customer-centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.”

You know how much my family loves coffee, so Starbucks shares its vision statement as, “to inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.”

These are large, bold, broad-stroke statements that can remain for quite some time.

What ebbs and flows, however, is how you achieve these statements, how you reach these goals so to speak.

That is where you mission comes into play.

Mission statements are important because they help you strategize and plan on practical ways to reach your vision.

God’s vision for you won’t change, but how it gets accomplished may take different forms and variations depending on different seasons of your life and the choices and circumstances that accompany you.

I shared with you this verse that is often read or quoted when talking about vision.

We discussed how the first antithetic clause in this proverb of having no prophetic vision applies not simply to the OT prophets because of what history tells about the seasons they arrived on the scene.

We saw that the Holy Spirit is vital to us having 20/20 Vision and guided direction, guardrails along the way even, that keep us in our life’s lane.

What I didn’t mention last week that I love about this verse is how it ties the Law and the Prophets, the Word with the Spirit so to speak.

In the same verse, we get the importance of both unction and command.

It is not enough, IMO, to have only the Word without the Spirit to bring it to life in our lives.

Having prophetic vision for your life will require the Holy Spirit making real the Word of God in your life.

I am talking about revelation.

I am taking about the Spirit of God bringing vision to your life in 2020.

Jesus said:

I hope you prayed with me this week Paul’s prayer in the first chapter of Ephesians (1:15-23).

Verse 17 says this:

Let me visit one more passage to show you how the Spirit is involved in the process of us knowing the Heavenly Vision for which God has for us.

What has been hidden Jesus now wants you to live with purpose and vision in this New Year.

He desires you to have 20/20 Vision of who He is and how He sees you as His son and daughter.

He wants you to have the Spirit’s vision.

So this week I want you to ask the Lord to give you revelation through His Spirit.

Ask Him to give you through His Spirit of wisdom and revelation what it means to have vision for your life in 2020.

Answer these with me this week:

What does it mean to have vision for your life in 2020?

What does it mean to have vision for your family in 2020?

What does it mean to have vision for our church family in 2020?

What does it mean to have vision for our city in 2020?

Our nation in 2020?

For God to reach our world in 2020?

Let’s have 20/20 Vision!

TRANSITION

The next few weeks, I am going to unpack the vision we have as a church.

It relates to each one of us one a personal level, a corporate level as a church, as well as a global level as the Body of Christ at large.

You have seen it, heard it, maybe even worn it.

ENCOUNTER | CONNECT | GROW

Today, we will discuss the importance of having a vision for encountering God.

Encounters often leaving different.

They leave us wanting more, creating a desire within us that can only be satisfied one way-meeting with the Lord again.

Encounters, and not Close Encounters of any kind (Third or otherwise), can often leave us dumbfounded and overwhelmed.

STORY

I remember when I lived in LA, we were out celebrating my Australian friends birthday.

We were eating at a restaurant right outside of UCLA campus, and as we were walking down the street we saw this incredibly nice car.

That wasn’t that uncommon in LA.

But this particular car looked familiar.

I felt like I had seen it on some TV show before.

It was a convertible with custom leather seats that included the Superman emblem.

As we were gawking over the car, we looked up across the street from where it was parked and inside KINKO’S (yes, the copy place) there was this very large African-American man.

He turned around, and we immediately recognized Shaquille O’Neil.

He was massive.

We waited till he finished his business in that store and got a group photo with him and his car.

He was a giant towering over the rest of us.

It was an encounter with a celebrity for sure.

TRANSITION

What about when we encounter God?

How can we position ourselves to encounter Him?

What can we expect as a result?

Meaning, what are normal outcomes and responses to encountering the Lord?

These are all things that as we examine Scripture we can see not only the desire and regularity that it occurs, but what responses were common.

Let’s look together.

ADAM & EVE

From the very beginning we can see presidents set for God’s desire to have relationship with us.

For me this is a primary purpose of encounters with Him.

When we fellowship with God we a.) see Him for who He is, understanding His nature & character more fully b.) foster relationship & rightly relating to Him as He is.

In this first occasion, we see God desires to commune and have fellowship with us.

It must not have been the first time that Adam and Eve had experienced this because they recognized the sound.

They knew what that noise meant, that it was the Lord God walking among them.

They had fellowshipped with Him before but without shame or guilt.

vs. 8 “They heard the sound of the Lord God.”

EBC: The judgment scene opens with the “sound” (or “voice,” qôl) of the Lord.

There is irony in the way this scene is depicted.

The expression “the sound of the LORD God” (qôl yhwh ʾelōhîm) occurs elsewhere in the Pentateuch, especially in Deuteronomy (5:25; 8:20; 13:18; 15:5; 18:16; 26:14; 27:10; 28:1, 2, 15, 45, 62; 30:8, 10), where along with the verb “to hear/obey” and the preposition be (šāmaʿ beqôl yhwh ʾelōhîm) it expresses the Lord’s call for obedience: “You shall obey the voice of the LORD God.”

It can hardly be without purpose that the author opens this curse scene with a subtle but painful reminder of the single requirement for obtaining God’s blessing: “obedience to the voice of the LORD God” (lišmōʿ ʾet-qôl yhwh ʾelōhênû; cf.

v. 8).

The coming of the Lord to Mount Sinai is also foreshadowed in this scene of the Lord God’s coming to the first disobedient couple.

In Deuteronomy 5:25 and 18:16 (cf.

Ex 20:18–21), when the Lord came to Sinai, the people “heard the sound of the LORD our God” (lišmōʿ ʾet-qôl yhwh ʾelōhênû).

The response of Adam in the garden is much the same as Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai.

When they heard the sound of the Lord at Sinai, they were afraid “and stayed at a distance and said … ‘Do not have God speak to us or we will die’ ” (Ex 20:18–19).

When Adam and his wife hear the sound of the Lord in the garden, they also fear and attempt to hide.

Encountering the Lord reveals His holiness and in contrast His otherness to us as fallen in our state of sin.

He reveals Himself and a response is innately expected to seeing Him for who He is.

Let me jump to the encounter Isaiah would have with the Lord Most High.