Sermon Tone Analysis

This week wraps up our series on vision.

And even though I’ve been calling this series VISION, what I’ve actually been talking about the last three weeks is mission.

We have been using the three key words from Fellowship’s mission statement: Love, Grow, and Serve as the themes for the last three Sundays.

So, today is where we bridge the gap and see how it is we jump from mission to vision.

You see, sometimes I think people use those two terms interchangeably.

Call it mission, call it vision, we’re talking about the same thing, right?

No. Mission and vision are not the same thing.

Today—in a little bit—we’re going to look at a story from the Old Testament that shows us a picture of vision.

But before we get to that, let’s make sure we understand mission first.

Because you cannot have a vision without first having a mission.

Stay with me.

I promise I will do my best to make this all clear by the end of this message.

So, right now, before we read the passage, we are looking at mission.

The things I’ve talked about the last three weeks with Love, Grow, Serve are mission.

Mission is about laser focus.

When my Colorado Rockies are on a mission to win the NL West division and head into the postseason, it means this is a baseball team with a laser focus bent on doing what it takes to win ball games.

When a military operation is being considered, the mission at hand requires laser focus so that those who plan and coordinate the efforts know what their objectives should be.

Mission gives us focus.

This is true in the church and true for each one of us no matter where we are in the journey of faith.

God gives his church a mission—a laser focus—and calls each of us to be disciples who take part in that mission.

Jesus has given my life a focus.

I have a mission.

Here’s how we have talked about that the last few weeks.

Love

Love God in faithful obedience

Three directions - upward, inward, outward

Three weeks ago, we talked about love.

We talked about what it means for this church and for us to have Love as a part of our mission.

If you were here, maybe you remember that we saw from the story of David and Jonathan that love for God takes expression in three directions.

A love for God is pointed upward towards God in worship.

A love for God points inward to one another as God’s love becomes the foundation upon which our relationships are built.

It is the love of God which joins us and unites us together as disciples in Christ.

And it is a love for God is pointed outward as the reason why we reach to our community and sacrifice something of our own time and our own resources to benefit others beyond our own walls.

Mission is a laser focus.

I know that we can easily start talking about our mission to love and get pulled in a million directions.

I know we can probably make the case for love spreading all over the place.

We can say that we have a mission to love God.

And we can also say that we have a mission to love each other.

And we can say that we have a mission to love those out in our community.

And we can say that we have a mission to demonstrate loving care for the creation which God has made.

Alright, I see where that goes.

How can I argue that any of that is bad?

Not really.

But this is about mission.

And mission is about laser focus.

And the focus of our mission to love begins with God.

It is a mission built upon God’s love reaching down to us, and our response of love to God.

Now then, all those other applications of our Christian love in this world are all held together and all have their laser focus because they all proceed out of our professed love of the Lord.

Our expressions of mutual love inward towards one another all come from a singular focus.

It springs from a love of God.

Our activities that express love outward towards our community all come from a singular focus.

It springs from a love of God.

Even our worship that is pointed upward to God springs from a love of God.

Alright, maybe that statement sounds like it ought to be obvious.

But let’s admit that sometimes we all might struggle with worship being about things other than a love for God—like maybe music I love (or don’t love), or what I feel like I need to get out of worship or what’s in it for me.

We talked a few weeks ago about this mission of love, and we talked about the necessary balance of love that is pointed upward, inward, and outward.

I want us to pull through that today the reminder that all those expressions of love come from a single laser focus mission to love God.

Grow

Two weeks ago we talked about growing.

And here again we found that we could interpret what it means for us to grow in many different directions.

We can grow in personal devotion and personal piety in our faith.

We could grow intellectually in our knowledge of God as we read scripture.

We grow numerically when we reach out to neighbors and others with the gospel message of Jesus.

And we grow in maturity as our relationships with one another take root and lean upon one another with increasing responsibility and dedication.

Grow in relationships with one another

It was the instruction of the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 4 where we saw how this growing of interdependent relationships became something of the laser focus mission upon with all other forms of spiritual growth find connection and flourishing.

Spiritual growth is something that for each one of us happens at its best when we are in a community of believers.

Mature growth in Christ recognizes that we need relationships with one another.

The church is God’s gift to his people, a gift that does much more than place us in each other’s company.

It places us in each other’s lives.

Flourishes in unity with those who are different

If you were here a few weeks ago, maybe you remember we noted that unity in relationship is about more than just sitting together in the same room facing the same direction for one hour each week.

We noted that unity is not the same thing as homogeneity (sameness).

But the laser focus mission of what it means for us to grow points us toward deepening relationships in ways that reach beyond ourselves and beyond our own social bubbles.

Serve

Serve surrounding community

Not projects, but people

Last Sunday was talked about serving.

We saw in a story about two sisters—Martha and Mary—that serving is not just piling on more busy work of making projects happen.

We noted last week that nobody wants to be treated as a project.

Nobody wants to just be seen as a problem that needs to be fixed.

And so, our efforts to reach into our community to serve others follow the pattern of Jesus, a pattern that never treated others as his project, but always accepted others as his people.

And once again, this gives us a laser focus mission for what it means to serve.

Loving, Growing, and Serving.

These things form a mission for us.

We love God because he loves us and created us to be in relationship with him.

That is the laser focus of our mission to love.

All the various other ways that we love spring from this love of God.

We grow in relationship with one another.

That is the laser focus of our mission to grow.

All the various other ways that we grow in faith spring from this unity of relationship together.

We serve our surrounding community because God loves other people as his creation.

That is the laser focus of our mission to serve.

All the various ways that we serve spring from this devotion to treat others as people loved by God rather than projects to be fixed.

We love God in faithful obedience as our creator and redeemer.

We grow in relationship with one another as our expression of unity.

We serve our surrounding community as our devotion to other people loved by God.

Love God.

Grow relationships.

Serve community.