Nov. 24, 2002

Last Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 25:31-46

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

“He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Sermon: "Vision"

In the latter part of the 18th century, when this nation was just a collection of British colonies, King George III of England kept a daily journal. On July 4, 1776, the King of England wrote in his journal, "Nothing happened today." Boy was he in for a surprise! How could he have foreseen what was happening on these shores?

For the next several weeks, at least until the end of the year, we are going to be studying the subject of vision.

- What is vision?

- How do you get a vision?

- How do you know if your vision is from God?

- When you get the vision, what do you do with it?

Last week I asked you to join in prayer. I asked you to pray for God to reveal His vision, His Big Holy Audacious Goal (BHAG), for St. George's. WOW! When you folks pray, God answers. I saw it on Monday night at the Vestry meeting. God immediately began expanding our vision, and we had the most exciting meeting we have had in years. There are some great things happening here, so please, keep praying. God is answering your prayers.

Now, let's continue our study of vision. Message number 2: What is vision?

Let me give you a definition of vision that I got from John Maxwell. It's on the leaflet in your bulletin. It gives us an outline of what we are talking about, and it goes like this:

Vision is....

Awareness- that is, The Ability to See

Attitude- that is, The Faith to Believe

Action- that is, The Courage to Do

Achievement- that is, The Hope to Endure

1. The Ability to See- (OPEN YOUR BIBLE- LET'S READ IT TOGETHER)

Hebrews 11:24-27 "By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin even for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible."

The very first thing you have to do in order to receive God's vision is to stop looking at all the negatives, all the circumstances, and look for God's impossible, miraculous, wonderful, awesome positives.

Max Lucado in He Still Moves Stones writes about this critical principle for seeing the unseen. It is this: "Ignore what people say..... Ignore the ones who say it's too late to start over. Disregard those who say you'll never amount to anything. Turn a deaf ear to those who say you aren't smart enough, fast enough, tall enough, or big enough- ignore them. Faith sometimes begins by stuffing your ears with cotton." Some of us just need to shut out all the noise of people’s opinions, and tune in to God’s opinion. There's a powerful example of this in the Gospel.

When Jesus came to the house of Jairus, whose daughter had died, he saw the mourners weeping and wailing, focused on death. He said, "Why all this commotion, the girl is not dead" but they mocked him. He turned to Jairus and said, "Don't be afraid. Just believe." Then He chased all the mourners out of the room before He raised the girl.

What about you? Where in your life is your vision, your BHAG, your dream, dying because the voices in your head are killing you, dragging you down, telling you it’s too late, you're too old, it’s all over, it’s impossible for you to have a future. You need to take authority over those voices in the name of Jesus Christ, shut them up, and throw them out, and slam the door on them! And then, when you have made that quiet space, you sit down, focus your attention on God, and say, “Now Lord, what were You saying?”

Friend, can you hear Him calling you today? I know you're facing something that scares you to death. We all are! And maybe your friends, your family, even your own past experiences are telling you that this situation will not go well for you, that your potential is all gone. Well you've come to the right place, because in this place we don't listen to what people say, we listen to what God says. And God is saying,

"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." (Jeremiah 29:11-13) By the way, this verse is on the poster at the bottom of the stairs so you will see it every Sunday as come up to worship. It’s been there for several years. Have you noticed?

Think about all the people we love to remember because they took on the impossible for God. They turned a deaf ear to all the nay-sayers, all the worriers, all the skeptics who said "You can't do that", and they turned a deaf ear to their own flesh when it said "I don't do that." They trusted God. And aren't you glad they did?

Aren't you glad that.....

Noah didn't say "I don't do boats"

Moses didn't say "I don't do parting the sea"

Samuel didn't say, "I don't anoint little shepherd boys to be king"

that little boy named David didn't say "I don't do giants"

Mary didn't say "I don't do virgin births."

Jesus didn't say, "I don't do crosses"

and one more for you, church....

Aren't you glad the Apostles didn't say, "We don't do tongues, healings, prophetic visions, or Pentecost revival meetings." All through the New Testament we see in the church a people learning to say "YES" to what God was doing.

Question: Where in your life are you telling God "I don't do that?"

Watch out for saying "I don't do that" because I can almost guarantee you that the moment you say you don't want to do it, that is the very thing God will set before you, and you will be stopped dead in your tracks until give in and say, "Yes, Lord."

Sometimes we're waiting to receive a vision that's already been given. We just need to stop saying "I don't do..." to God and start saying "Whatever you ask, Lord, I will do" and the vision will appear.

Churches, like individuals, go through cycles. There are up times, and there are down times. In terms of vision, there are times when God is giving you a new vision, and there are times when you are in between visions. When you are in between visions is the time when God really tests your commitment to the mission.

When you're waiting for the vision to come, one danger is that you become discouraged and give up. You get tired of waiting on God, and you fall away. This is what Israel did in the desert when they got thirsty, or hungry, or just tired of walking. After weeks, months, years on the mission trail, they just got tired of doing the day-to-day work of being a holy people. These were the times when they grumbled, and they said to Moses, "Why have you brought us out into this desert to die. Better for us that we go back to Egypt."

Every time I read that story I think, "Are these people crazy?" Why would they want to go back to slavery in Egypt when God is offering them freedom and a new land of their own? And yet, truth is, most of the people in the world today are doing exactly the same thing. They would rather live in bondage to the past than take a chance on God's vision for a new life.

You see, God will test each one of us in our own desert journeys to see if we are truly willing to wait on Him. There is a principle here: When you're waiting on God to give you the next big vision, be sure you keep doing the things He last told you. If you remain faithful to the mission, even in the down times, the vision will come in its time. Wait for it! Don't go by your feelings. Go by God's Word, and God's promise.

Question: Are you looking for good feelings, or goodness? When just feeling good isn't enough, let Jesus show you how to be good. If you're going to walk in love as Christ loved us, you cannot do it because you feel like it. You will have to do it on purpose.

And when you commit yourself to the goodness of God, regardless of how you feel, you enter into what Jesus calls, "Purity of Heart". Now I want you to think back to the Sermon on the Mount. The beginning section, in Matthew 5, that we call the Beatitudes. There is one of the beatitudes that talks about purity of heart. If I give you the first part, can you finish the thought?

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall ________ ________."

That's right- they shall see God. That's Vision! Don't give up. Commit yourself to purity. That means having your mind set on one thing, one goal, one guiding vision for you life.

This is what we are about, what the church is here for. Bring your biggest challenge, bring it to this altar. Bring your most insurmountable problem, bring it before the cross of Christ. Bring your most crushing heartache, bring it to the Crucified One. Bring your biggest, wildest dream, bring it to the King of the New Kingdom. Let us join in prayer with you today. That is the way we want this church to run- the vision we seek. We want to see God making things happen here.

We want to see God

healing disease that medicine cannot heal,

providing miraculously for the needy,

opening doors of opportunity where there was none,

restoring broken families who had lost all hope,

empowering the helpless,

saving the lost,

giving the depressed a new purpose for living,

and giving the hopeless a new vision of what is possible.

For with God, all things are possible.

We're going to pray now, but before we do, let me leave you with this. Christopher Columbus kept a daily journal of their voyage to the New World. Some pages are filled with details of the working of the ships, but more often, in fact page after page, the entry simply reads, "Today we sailed on..... Today we sailed on..... Today we sailed on."

Obviously there were many more things happening that he could have written about. He could have written "Today the weather was foul", or "Today the crew really started getting on my nerves" or "Today it suddenly hit me just how far from home we are", but none of those things rise to the top of his thoughts the way this one does: "Today we sailed on". Unlike the king of England, who on the most tumultuous day of his life wrote “Nothing happened today”, Columbus knew that something wonderful had happened anytime he could say, “Today we sailed on!” That's what a person with vision looks like. So what if the weather was lousy, or the crew was irritable, or the food was bland, or you felt a little homesick. When you're following God's vision, every day is a great day if at the end of the day you can say, "We sailed on. Praise God, we sailed on!"

Let's Pray- the prayer is in your bulletin:

Almighty God, Who created all that is with a single word, Who set the galaxies in motion, Who carved out the sea beds and raised up the mountains, Who formed every part of my being according to Your perfect plan, and to Whom nothing is impossible, show me Your vision for......

my life- thoughts, attitudes, behaviors, opportunities

my marriage- sacrificial love, forgiveness, wholeness, home-building

my children- to be a godly parent raising godly kids

my career- to serve joyfully with integrity, add value to the company, witness my faith

my neighborhood- peace, caring concern for other's needs, share Jesus

my world- a great cause that needs my gifts

.....that in all these things I may serve Your purpose.

And show us, the people of St. George's, Your vision for Your Church, that in everything we do we may honor You, through your Son Jesus Christ, who with the Holy Spirit lives and reigns in majesty, glory, splendor and power without limit and without end.

(Note: Saying this prayer is not a stand-alone exercise. Along with this kind of prayer, read the Bible, worship regularly, keep your repentance up to date, quickly confessing any known sin, and practice a lifestyle of giving. These things, in combination, will transform your whole life. Try it for 30 days and see what happens.)