Vision Sermon

We’re going to be really all over the place in Scripture today, but we’re going to begin in 1 Corinthians 1:10-13.

As you’re turning there I want to imagine that we’ve got to measure this room for a very important building project. We need to know how many feet it is across. But we don’t have any kind of tape measure, or really even anything to tell us where we start…what’s the point a and point b of this thing?

So what we do is we just kind of guess on the direction that we’re going. And then we know that it’s feet and we look down and figure…well, I have feet. And so each person takes off their shoe and starts to measure…Now for the kiddos it’s going to be like a gazillion feet. They might get to 18 or so and get confused and start over....and that might happen to me too…

Others are going to have bigger feet and so your number is going to be smaller…unless you’ve been drinking a little and you aren’t able to walk a straight line. But what is almost guaranteed to happen is that we all end up with different numbers.

Or maybe what happens is that we end up with some people who are really close…and so you’ve got a whole of people with size 7 womens…or size 12 mens…and your number is really about the same…and so you get together and say…it’s “this many feet”.

Or imagine that you had a leader who came in with his shoe and said, “this is the unit of measurement”. We’ll call this guy Paul. And so everyone is like, “He’s a leader…he’s a king…he’s gonna know…we’d better follow him…and besides it’s helpful for all of us to get around this vision.” And so we say---it’s a size 14 shoe…and we measure accordingly.

But then that guy leaves your community and a new guy comes in, we’ll call him Apollos, and says.... “it’s a size 9”…well you’re going to have some people saying…nah, bro. That’s not my president! It’s size 14…ride or die! But then you’ve got some who are like—well, I kinda think that size 9 matches my shoe size a little better…so I’m gonna pitch in with this dude. And you also get a few new people, or some kids, and they are raised on it being size 9....but then that guy goes bye bye…

Now you’ve got another guy coming into town, we’ll call him Cephas, and saying, you know it’s not really a 9 or a 14…it’s somewhere in between that…let’s call it a 12.5…he’s not very good at math because half way is actually 11.5…but nevermind…now we go through that same cycle again except you’ve still got some size 14 holdovers…some people who are really dedicated to size 9…and now some who are like--- best of both worlds!

But what you’ve really got is division…and nobody likes division…which is why another group comes up and says, “I heard that Jesus wore a size 8”. Let’s forget what all these other jokers are saying and let’s go with size 8. I’m confident of it.

Not really know who to follow anymore you just look down at your own shoe and say…Size 7 women’s...

That’s a silly little illustration but it gives us a background to what is going on at Corinth. Listen in...

1 Corinthians 1:10–13 ESV

I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

Paul tells them you guys need to agree on a shoe size. It isn’t about Paul or Apollos or Cephas or even this group that is claiming to be the ones who follow Jesus. It’s about who Christ really is. There is a standard. Basically what Paul is saying is, y’all need to get a tape measure.

He says it this way in 1 Corinthians 3:1-9

1 Corinthians 3:1–9 ESV

But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.

This is why I think when we are talking about vision casting and all of that…we need to make sure we have a tape measure…and the proper one.

Or maybe I can say it another way for our gaming nerds. Some game systems are backwards compatible. I’m older so I’m going to talk about old gaming systems…But if I throw my xbox games in my xbox 360…they still work. The same is true with most playstations…you can put older games in them. They still work. They are compatible.

But that’s not the case with Nintendo. It’s not backwards compatible…not really. You can’t take your old SNES cartridge, blow on it, and try to stick it in a Nintentdo 64. It’s just not going to work. Yes, they can make some expansion things…you can buy like a game genie or something…but nevermind all that.

My point is that it is, I believe, best to lead a church towards being backwards compatible. To use our old analogy…not according to my shoe size…but according to the unchangeable Word of God…according to the gospel.

That is what Paul is saying here that Paul, Apollos…they don’t mean a thing…We plant....we water…we each do our job…but it’s all about God. It all belongs to God. And so the job of a leader isn’t to say, “Here’s my shoe size…here’s this thing that God has given me…now y’all get all wrapped up around this thing…let’s measure by size 14....”

The job of a leader is to say…this is the tape measure that God has given to us…now let’s measure and get to building this thing. And so what is that tape measure?

Okay, oddly enough I think you can use different words to describe it. Like so long as you know which system you are using it doesn’t matter if you use metric or imperial measurement—so long as you make it clear when you throw out your number.

So you might say something like God’s purpose is Worship, Ministry, Evangelism, Fellowship, or Discipleship. That’s what Rick Warren used and that’s why I think it was such a best-seller and could become helpful for many churches, though it had some flaws, it got everyone measuring with the same tape measure, pretty much.

Or you could simplify and say, “Love God, love people”. Or something like seek, serve, send. It’s all doing about the same basic thing…it’s saying here from Scripture are the non-negotiables.

For me, I kind of like to think about the type of culture which a church ought to be…like what is the feel of the thing when you walk through the door…what are the values…the things that get you up for.

I think those things like worship, ministry, etc. are what you DO. But I want us for a second to think about who we ARE. Culture eats strategy for breakfast. What I mean is that you could come up with this grand strategy for Ministry…but if the church itself doesn’t have a heart for accomplishing that ministry…well, it’s not going to get very far. You’ve got to create the culture.

And as I read through the Scriptures this is what I see. This is what I believe a church ought to be. If you want a purpose statement or a—this is who we are—then I’ve come up with this statement:

“A church united to enjoy God’s grace and extend His glory”.

And from that we’ve got six key values. That isn’t all that confusing, right. You know this in your family. It might be you’ve got one value to keep a roof over your head, to make enough money that your family can be comfortable....but you have another value that you’re going to spend time together…this is who our family is…even if it’s unspoken and not lined out…you have these…this is who I am as a person.

Well, this is, I believe how Scripture speaks of a church. What are the values that you see.

Kingdom-Focused

We understand that we are not “the” church. There are many other churches with varying expressions that are faithful to our common Head; Jesus Christ.

Therefore, we will be a kingdom-focused church

This value will be expressed through our passion to plant churches, partner with like-minded churches, and pray for the church universal.

Gospel-Driven Community

We believe that the Church is a blood-bought community of believers that have been joined together for the glory of God. Those that comprise the church are believers that have been bought with the blood of Christ and are being transformed into an increasing commitment to treasuring the Lord’s glory. The biblical term koinonia (self-sacrificing conformity to a shared vision) is the expression of life within the body. The gospel that has placed us into this koinoniainforms every relationship.

Therefore, we will be a gospel-driven community.

A gospel-saturated community is marked by:

Authentic relationships: Because our identity is fundamentally in Christ we can authentically relate to one another.

· Vital companionship: Our union with one another is as necessary as a human body needing a brain, heart, lungs, etc. to function. Deep relationships within the body of Christ are not optional for the believer—they are vital.

· Mutual Edification: God is glorified in the display of diverse people unified for a common purpose. Part of this purpose is spurring one another on to take hold of Christ.

· Partnering for Mission: We are fundamentally brought together for the display of God’s glory. The fact that God has joined us together and set us on mission is what separates us from The Rotary Club.

· Family-Equipping: Because the gospel informs every relationship a gospel-saturated community will be engaged in equipping families to further the mission of enjoying His grace and extending His glory.

You will see this value fostered by our passion to equip families (marriage-enrichment, child-rearing, singles ministries), exhort members (practicing regenerate church membership, church discipline, accountability groups), and edify one another to experience ever-increasing joy in God and extend His glory (prayer, discipleship, mentoring groups).

Worship-Fueled Discipleship

We believe that discipleship is the process whereby a believer grows in knowledge and enjoyment of God at the expense of idolatry. We believe that Christian growth into Christ-likeness happens because the believer comes to realize, in an ever-increasing measure, that at His right hand are pleasures evermore (Psalm 16:11) and “the sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply”. Therefore, the fight of faith is a fight to believe that God is the source of all delight instead of the fleeting pleasures of sin (idolatry).

Therefore, our discipleship will be fueled by worship.

This value will inform our every action. Over every program, Bible study, sermon, relationship etc. we will ask the question “How does this help increase my joy in God above idolatry”?

We believe to truly ask this question of EVERYTHING will have far reaching consequences and will greatly inform and shape our discipleship relationships.

This will also shape not only the way we do spiritual disciplines but the fact that we do spiritual disciplines. The spiritual disciplines, such as bible reading, prayer, etc. are primarily for us to grab hold of what Christ has already purchased. The spiritual disciplines are the God-ordained means to increasing our joy in Him. Therefore, the means to live out worship-fueled discipleship is to saturate our lives with prayer and Scripture.

A Refuge for the Broken

We believe that it is only by grace that we have entered into union with God and union with our gospel-saturated community. Because of this we believe we are to be people marked by grace. We believe in the already but not-yet aspect of redemption. As such we are broken people that are increasingly being healed in Jesus. We believe that Christ calls the church to be a refuge for the broken; but we also believe that this refuge will inevitably provide gospel healing.

Therefore, we will be a refuge for the broken

This value will inform several of our actions:

· Purposeful Benevolence—those that are broken and in need we will help. But we will seek ways to help for more than one day but a lifetime.

· Community Resource—we want our church to be known to the community as a place of resource. As the Lord extends common grace causing the sun to shine and the rain to come even upon unbelievers we want to extend this common grace to our community as well.

· Transformative—we want to be a church that is actively fighting brokenness with the transformative power of the gospel. This will cause us to form redemption groups, provide biblical counseling, and other avenues to heal brokenness with the gospel of Jesus.

· Fighting Social Injustice—a refuge for the broken will fight social injustice, not primarily through political means but through the transformative power of the gospel.

· Hospitable People—it should go without saying that a refuge for the broken will be marked by people that offer an atmosphere of hospitality. Our practices will be ultimately informed by the gospel—but we will act in such a way to be hospitable and accessible to the unbelieving community.

Living on Mission

To be “missional” fundamentally means to “live sent”. When a church “lives sent” we come to understand that when we gather as a church our fundamental task is to train and equip believers to live out the good news of the gospel in our community.

But this also means that we are not only sent to the people in our local community—but we are also sent to be his witnesses even to the ends of the earth. There is no square inch of creation that Jesus cannot cry out, “This is mine”. There is not one person on earth of whom it could be said God is not worthy of their worship. Furthermore, it is a scriptural mandate for the Church to take the gospel to every people group. And we see the fruit of this in Revelation 5 when peoples from every tribe, tongue, nation, and people are gathered around the throne to worship the Lord.

Furthermore, we believe that it is the call, of all believers, to not only tell the gospel story, but to also live the story of the gospel. As such we are called to not only evangelize but also make disciples. This means that we are called to reproduce our joy in God in the life of another person.

Therefore, we will live sent to our local community and our global community, with the intention of spreading Christ for the joy of all peoples.

God-Centered

God is inexhaustible in His glory. The aim of all God’s actions is the honor and display of His glory. Our aim ought to be the same. Therefore, the ultimate purpose and aim of the church and the individual is to glorify God. This is more than just a theological statement it will inform all of our actions.

Therefore, everything we do as a people will be centered upon the glory of God

This is essentially what our mission statement says. We are united together for the common purpose of enjoying God’s glory and extending that glory (and our enjoyment of Him) to all of the nations. What is God’s glory? To say it simply it is the outer display of His inner beauty.

What does this mean for us as a church?

We will constantly ask the question: How does this magnify the beauty of God?

This will shape the way we ask questions as a church. Rather than saying, “how will this grow our church” we ask “is this being faithful”. We do not have to walk around blindly wondering how to give glory to God. He has revealed to us through His Word that which glorifies Him. Therefore, another way of asking “does this magnify the beauty of God” is to ask “does this accurately represent God as He has revealed Himself in Scripture”.

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That’s really the vision…to be a church united around this purpose of enjoying God together. Drinking deeply of the gospel. Swimming in the freedom which Jesus gives. Just being constantly shaped and transformed by the gospel. Not our own personal performance…not measured by our spirituality…or being all like, “we gotta do this or that to move the hand of God.” But just resting and being satisfied in what God is doing and what God has done.

And out of that overflow we want to bring others into that joy. Bring others into the rest which God provides. To believe with all of our heart that God created us to enjoy Him and to extend His grace…that we were created for a purpose, a people, and a place…all those desires that we have for these things are there by God…But sin made shipwreck of that…and it turns us inward and wrecks relationships, and leaves us unfulfilled, basically sin wrecks purpose, people, and place. It makes us measure life by our own shoe size.

But we believe that Jesus restores all of that. And He is the only one who can. He has redeemed us and IS redeeming us. And He’s calling the church into that. Into that enjoyment and into that mission. To tell others the good news…a Savior is born…God is rescuing people…

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Now the specifics of that look different in each context. What exactly does that mean....how are we shaped by our culture to keep us from living out some of these things? And how is our culture here in Neosho resistant to what God is doing in the world? That is what we’ll be talking about tonight...

What does “a church united to enjoy God’s grace and extend His glory” look like in Neosho, MO in December of 2024?