[0:00] Good morning. Welcome to the house of the Lord this morning.
[0:11] It's the first day of the week, and we can worship. Praise the Lord. It's a privilege to start off our week with the family of God getting together.
[0:28] I'm encouraged to see all of you. It's just encouraging to see people desire to fellowship like this.
[0:44] And I trust the Lord will bless us as we continue to do so. We have, like was mentioned, the last Sunday school today for two months.
[0:54] And as we break from that for summer, it eases things off a bit for the teachers to take a break and so on.
[1:07] And yet, I encourage all of us to remain engaged in our walk with God. Let's not neglect Him.
[1:19] Summer months are so busy. I don't know if there's any of you that don't find summer busier. And there's so much out there that's pulling and so on.
[1:32] But let's not neglect our spiritual condition. I think we need it more than ever when we're so busy. So just a word of encouragement with that.
[1:45] This morning, I'd like to deviate from Romans and to have a topical. And it's in regards to visioning.
[2:01] And what is God's vision for you, for me? What's God's vision for us as a whole church?
[2:13] And I thought it would be appropriate to speak to that and to pass on what the leadership sees and what we vision.
[2:26] And so I've titled the message this morning, Are We Walking With Vision? Are We Walking With Vision? How many of you, when you were 18, already had a vision for your life?
[2:44] Some hands going up. That's encouraging to see. And yet, many of us were unsure, right? I was fairly clear then already as well what at least the next years would bring.
[3:00] But God has changed that course a few times after that. But how many of us have a vision today? A lot more hands going up.
[3:14] That's good. We need to know where are we going. What's our aim in life? What's our goal in life? And we may think on the physical side of things, but as well on the spiritual side.
[3:32] And Proverbs 29, 18. And the New King James says, Where there is no revelation, and that means spiritual vision, the people cast off restraint, but happy is he who keeps the law.
[3:52] I got another translation from the Young's literal. It says, Without a vision is a people made naked.
[4:06] And whose is keeping the law? Oh, his happiness. So it's very literal. Word for word translation. But without a vision is a people made naked or exposed.
[4:17] And so we see from that verse that Solomon is giving.
[4:28] Without a spiritual vision, purpose, we will go astray. That's basically in a nutshell what he's saying.
[4:43] He's encouraging us. We need to know where we're going. Where does God want me? What is God's work about here on this earth?
[4:57] And so I want to look at a few aspects this morning. And the first one is God's vision for the church. And then secondly, what is your vision?
[5:11] Or maybe God's vision for you. And just to wrap around that. So those two topics I want to cover this morning.
[5:26] And as we think of vision, looking ahead, not just living for today, but looking forward, the Bible, what's God's vision?
[5:43] We don't need to write up vision statements for our church. Big and fancy, it's here. It's given to us. We may set goals for ourselves, a five-year goal or ten-year goal, to achieve God's vision.
[6:01] But they are goals. They're not the vision itself. And just to know the difference. And so I have two points here within the first one.
[6:14] God's vision for the church. And first of all, in the passage that was read for us in 2 Corinthians 5, we are to be ambassadors for God.
[6:34] We are to be ambassadors for God. This is God's vision. It is missions. It is that His kingdom here on earth grows.
[6:49] more and more people turning to Christ. That is God's heart and His vision. And let's turn back to that passage.
[7:08] Starting off in verse 17 of 2 Corinthians 5, He says, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. old things have passed away.
[7:19] Behold, all things have become new. He's talking to the believer. He's talking to me. He's talking to you.
[7:31] And then He follows through. He says, All things are of God who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ. So first, the work of God was that He brought me to Him.
[7:48] Reconciled. I've been, things have been cleaned up between me and God. We're on the same team now. And then He follows through and He says, And has given us the ministry of reconciliation.
[8:06] He has given the church the ministry of bringing others to Christ. This is God's vision. That here in the church age, Jew and Gentile in Christ, one body, working for God as His representatives, ambassadors, here on earth.
[8:33] And from God's perspective, ambassadors in another country, earth. It's called planet earth.
[8:47] God in heaven, we are His representatives here in this world during the church age. And His vision is that we would bring others to be reconciled as well, that they too can have the peace of God in their lives.
[9:10] We, we've been going through Romans and we're up to chapter 3 and we saw how Paul seeks to prove that mankind is lost.
[9:25] Whether you are a Gentile that is, has no religious background, or whether you are a self-righteous person, whether you are a religious person, we are lost without Christ, without God.
[9:44] And, and here we are ambassadors to bring, to bring them the good news.
[9:54] it's a challenge to my heart. Is it a challenge to yours?
[10:07] Do we really believe that, that people go to hell without Jesus? Do we believe that from our hearts?
[10:24] Do we have a picture of hell? You know, in German, I'm going to switch tongues here, my parents used to say the word schraklich was reserved for hell.
[10:53] Schraklich. I don't know what a direct translation would be to English. Somebody help me out. Terrible. It's not somehow deep enough, is it?
[11:06] It's not strong enough. Schraklich. It's horrible, terrible, just a depth of, of miserableness separated from God.
[11:20] And, we weren't allowed to use that word in any other context. that was forbidden. And so, I think this is a challenge that we need, we need to glean the heart of God as we, as we live day to day.
[11:41] Am I challenged to be a vessel for God in reaching the lost? Be it locally here or abroad. God. This is God's vision.
[11:54] Let's turn to Romans 10. The book of Romans, chapter 10.
[12:07] And, starting in verse 10. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
[12:31] For the Scripture says, whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek.
[12:42] For all, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
[12:53] So that's the call, the evangelical call to salvation. But then, verse 14. How then shall they call on Him whom they have not believed?
[13:06] And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?
[13:20] As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things. this is also God's heart.
[13:36] That men and women, men and women are able to respond to the gospel, but how can they respond if they have not heard? How can they make a decision if they don't know?
[13:51] And how can they hear unless someone goes and tells them? And how can someone go unless he is sent?
[14:04] And this is where we as a church come into the picture where we can send. It's talking more about missions outside of our community, not necessarily overseas, but it could be that as well.
[14:23] And we all know we're involved in Bolivia, in missions overseas, or at least supporting it financially. And yet this is the heart of God for the church is to send out missionaries.
[14:41] this past year has been wonderful. It's been such encouragement to me.
[14:56] We've gone from myself as a pastor and Peter as a deacon to three pastors and two deacons and many, many others taking up responsibilities in the church in different areas and just taking ownership of it.
[15:16] I've just been blessed through and through. And praise the Lord for that. I want to encourage you with that. But the thought came to me as I was studying through this, have we arrived?
[15:34] is this it? Have we climaxed? Or is this just stage one?
[15:51] It's a good start. Brothers and sisters, we need to keep going. We need to keep going. We need to keep preparing leaders to send.
[16:07] To send. And I would, I would invite you, every one of you this morning, to be part of that.
[16:24] Most of us will be part of the sending group, but a few of you may be the sent ones. You had a thought?
[16:38] We are all sent as in locally around us.
[16:51] Absolutely. And so now I've changed gears to missions beyond. and so there's both components.
[17:02] None of us are exempt from reaching our neighbor at work or physically wherever we're at. And yet the context of Romans 10 is to go beyond.
[17:17] It's to go to evangelize the world. You know, in Acts chapter 8, I'm going to turn there, so not 8, Acts chapter 1, verse 8, Acts 1, verse 8, as Jesus is about to ascend into heaven, he says, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses in me in Jerusalem, in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
[17:56] And we are to start at home, and then go into the country, into the next towns, and then to the ends of the earth, other countries.
[18:10] This is the mandate that God has given the church. This is God's heart. And as we catch that vision, and only when we catch that vision, is God able to use us, not only at home, but abroad, or wherever.
[18:37] It has been suggested that the biggest mission field developing is North America. America. as we're leaving our God and going astray, it's fast growing.
[18:56] That's maybe shocking to hear, but we're going away from God. I'm talking about America as a whole, and believe me, there is a mission field growing, even not that far from home.
[19:15] The book of Acts spells out how the early church followed. In chapter two, we read of 3,000 people that were added upon the first day of the church, the message.
[19:33] In chapter four, we read that the numbers increased to 5,000, 5,000 people were saved and baptized. And then in Acts 13, after much persecution and being dispersed from Jerusalem, in Acts 13, the first missionaries are sent.
[19:59] And it's Paul and Barnabas that go out. They pray, they pray to the Lord. Let's turn there. It's good for us to read that. Acts 13.
[20:11] See it for yourselves. 1 to 3 in Acts 13.
[20:27] Now, in the church that was at Antioch, there were certain prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, Lucius, of Cyrene, Manahan, who had been brought up with Herod, the tetriarch, and Saul.
[20:46] And they ministered to the Lord and fasted. The Holy Spirit said, Now separate to me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.
[20:58] Then having fasted and prayed and laid hands on them, they sent them away. And that was the first missionary journey into Asia Minor or today Turkey.
[21:14] But it started with the church, a church like this, a local church. They were fasting and praying, seeking God's will in reaching the lost.
[21:27] And the Holy Spirit said, Separate these two men. They obviously made choices. God, whom should we send? And through the revealing of the Spirit, Paul and Barnabas went.
[21:43] And we have the first of a number of missionary journeys. So that's the vision of the church. What does it take for us to have that kind of vision?
[21:58] It is to glean the heart of God from His Word. It's to pray. It's to ask God to give you vision, to give you a heart for His work.
[22:16] The second element of God's vision for the church, so the first is missions. The second is that the church prepare leaders, people to go.
[22:31] Second Timothy 2 in the first two verses.
[22:44] It's Paul writing to Timothy. So second Timothy 2 is a younger pastor is asked to pass on what Paul has taught him.
[23:19] Pass on the baton, so to speak. Teach younger men. Teach faithful men. Not necessarily just the younger, but faithful men.
[23:31] Pass on to them that they too are able to go and teach. So it's not to stay with me or with Henry or Peter or any one of us to keep on passing on.
[23:48] More and more of us get involved and trained in the Word of God. And in Ephesians chapter 4 we have another passage that says the same thing.
[24:07] Ephesians 4 11 and 12 And he gave some and he himself gave some to be apostles some prophets some evangelists some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come to the unity of the faith.
[24:39] So God gives spiritual gifts to various people to teach to equip to equip others for the work of the ministry.
[24:55] That's God's purpose. That's God's heart. God's heart. And you know in our conference six years ago six years ago at least we had a vision and we had some requests from Two Hills from southern Alberta from Tabor area to do church plants.
[25:23] We went there we explored it there was requests from those areas to come and evangelize to come start church plant a church there.
[25:39] And so as we gathered back at home not only in this church but in the conference we fell flat on our face.
[25:56] we had no one to send. We had prepared no one. And that gripped my heart with sadness with realization that as the leadership in the conference we have disobeyed God in not preparing leaders.
[26:23] We've been so inwardly focused on just doing church. It's wrong. We've missed God's vision.
[26:37] therefore those needs have been unmet. They're still out there.
[26:55] God's vision. God's vision. This is God's vision. What does that mean for us?
[27:08] What does that mean for me? What does it mean for you? There's two things that I want to bring out as you look at God's vision in your life.
[27:23] life. Are you willing to commit yourself to teaching and training? To allow God to have purpose.
[27:43] To show His purpose. From His commandments that we are to do that, it takes a willingness on each individual's part.
[27:55] Does God want me to be involved in His kingdom work here? I believe the words that bless our Heavenly Father the most is when we settle in our hearts to say, yes, Lord.
[28:15] Lord. I've heard that phrase from numerous brothers and sisters in this church. They've come to a point in life, I have come to realize I need to say, yes, Lord.
[28:36] No matter where God will lead me, it's yes, Lord. that is music to His ears. It's a surrendered heart, willing to go.
[28:51] And so as the church seeks to teach and to train, are you willing to be part of it? Are you willing to open yourself up to God and say, wherever you will have me, it will remain physically in this area.
[29:15] But for some of you, it may not. I can remember the first time I was challenged by a mission board.
[29:32] Would you be willing to sell the farm and go? go? When that brother walked away, I said, I can't.
[29:46] I'm not willing. And sadly, you know what the biggest reason was? What will people say?
[29:58] What will people think? that was a year that God worked in my heart in a big way. And the call to go to Bolivia came the year after.
[30:10] And we did sell the farm with joy. He needs to catch our hearts with vision. And he's inviting to be part of that.
[30:25] So that is submitting to the training, to teaching, allowing God to prepare us to serve is vital. The second component that I want to spend our last minutes here is God is blessed when we open, I'm going to say this very crudely, when we open our wallets.
[30:55] God wants us to worship Him by tithing, by giving money into His program, by supporting the work of God.
[31:12] We have that theme throughout the entire Bible. We don't have a lot of time to dig in, but I want to share a few thoughts. us. We all stem from different backgrounds, have been taught different things on giving to the church.
[31:34] And it doesn't matter what does God say is what's important. God loves a cheerful giver.
[31:45] in the Old Testament examples, the teaching was tithing, very clear teaching, giving of one-tenth of all your income and produce or whatever it was.
[32:05] And in the Old Testament example, God selected one out of the twelve tribes to live off of that, to do the work of God in Israel, to be representatives for God.
[32:21] In other words, today we would say missionaries or pastors, they were to do God's work, and he had eleven tribes supporting one tribe.
[32:33] And they're all supposed to give ten percent. And if you add that up, that's 110 percent going to one. so that the Levites who were only half as strong in numbers as all the other tribes, even under half with some of them, got 110 percent to live off of, to do the work of the ministry.
[33:05] And so they had, so when the people were obedient and tithed, the Levites were blessed. God's work was blessed and it went forward. But when they refused to tithe, or when they fell away, the Levites suffered.
[33:22] The work of God suffered. We don't have tithing mentioned in the New Testament, but has God's work diminished?
[33:36] Has the need for God's program to go forward diminished? Or lessened? It has increased. It is greater.
[33:48] And therefore, like was mentioned, God loves a cheerful life. Paul in 2 Corinthians makes it very clear that those that preach the gospel should live off of the gospel.
[34:06] In other words, those that are receiving the gospel should help with the physical needs to enable the missionary or the pastor.
[34:19] This is God's way. He says, do not muzzle the ox that treads the grain. As an example, as an illustration, that we are not to cut them short.
[34:33] So God's principle on giving is that we are to worship Him by giving freely the first fruits that He gives us, supporting the work of God.
[34:54] In 1 Timothy 5, 17, he says, elders that teach well, or in the word and prayer, are worthy of double honor.
[35:10] They are to be allowed to go at it full time. In other words, supported. Yet, that takes the people of God giving freely to His work.
[35:23] And, you know, when we struggle to let go of that dollar bill or that check, if I struggle with releasing that, my heart is not at a place where I'm ready to worship God with giving.
[35:50] Our hearts need to be trained to know the will of God. So regardless of where you are at, how you've been taught from home, I would encourage us to look at God's word on giving and examine where you're at.
[36:11] As we look at sending from this church, it will take resources from God's people.
[36:23] I'm going to read a couple of verses in closing on this. In Luke chapter 6, words from Jesus himself, Luke 6, 38, he says, give and it will be given to you in good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom.
[36:56] For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you. If we give freely, willingly, lovingly, God will bless you.
[37:13] When we don't give, we're withholding God's blessings from our lives. And the last verse in Malachi chapter 3. Malachi chapter 3, and verse 8 through 10.
[37:45] It's the last prophecy before the New Testament. verse 8 in Malachi 3. Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed me.
[37:56] But you say, in what way do you? In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you have robbed me, even this whole nation.
[38:09] Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And try me now in this, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven, and pour out for you such blessing, that there will not be room enough to receive it.
[38:31] Is that a challenge, or what? God says, try me. See if you can outgive me. And if you bring in your first fruits to God, God, He's going to open the windows of heaven and bless you.
[38:52] And it may not be with finances, but there are so many ways that God blesses us. Our decisions are blessed, our families are blessed, there are multiple ways that God does that.
[39:09] And even in financially, that often things just work out better. things just seem to fall into place, and it works out. I had one pastor that was a mentor to me, he told me, you cannot afford not to give.
[39:31] You can't afford not to, because you're withholding the blessings of God on your life. And God wants us to worship there as well.
[39:45] But we take the money part, it's one aspect of missions, it's a very crucial one, but it's a part of the vision. If we don't have the vision, then we struggle with why give?
[40:01] Why does God need money in the program? So that is the challenge that God has for us. us. And as we continue to move forward as a leadership, as a church, and we've been praying about, Lord, when will it be time to send out?
[40:28] We invite you, pray with us. Pray with us. What a blessing that would be, a family leave this church to be on missions.
[40:58] I'm encouraged. I've been blessed, I will say that again. Many of you have been very faithful, faithful, and God is calling more and more to this work.
[41:11] Let's pray. Father, we are so blessed that you have given us such a clear vision, and yet, God, we often fail to be part of it or to catch that.
[41:31] Lord, I realize that it's ourself that gets in the way, our own dreams that are non-spiritual.
[41:46] But Lord, as we've presented, as your word is so clear, I pray for your spirit to work, to speak to our hearts, to draw us and to commitment, and to service, and to willingness.
[42:05] And God, all of this is for your honor and your glory. May your will be done. In Jesus' name. Amen.