New Year's Eve Address: Committed to 2020 Vision

Introduction:

Open with discussing how the 2020 vision will focus on building a structure for discipleship…it’s going to be hard work but, seeing your work bare fruit is well worth it.

Growth and Unity

This year will be the year of growth, but that hinges upon one powerful word, unity. You see if one is to have clear vision, their vision cannot be skewed by an astigmatism. If a church is to have unity, the saints cannot be skewed by rebellion, lack of desire to see God’s kingdom grow, and hatred for one another.

Pastor Noles can correct me if I’m wrong: Let me put it like this, if you desire a spiritual gift this year…you better leave that gift and desire at the altar and make yourself right with your brother and sister before pursuing it. Otherwise that gift will drive you insane. Their is no room to operate in the Gifts without the fruits. Those who harbor hatred do not bare the fruits.

Brother Webster defines astigmatism as such:

“a defect in the eye or in a lens caused by a deviation from spherical curvature, which results in distorted images, as light rays are prevented from meeting at a common focus.”

In other words when the shape of your cornea is altered, the image is distorted because the light cannot meet in a common place.

Discuss how the Church cannot function when people get out of line…they alter the shape of what God intended for the Church; thus, refracting God’s light to places it does not belong.

Altering the shape of God’s structure deteriorates growth because the image of who Jesus is cannot be properly portrayed to the people who need him most.

Order keeps unity

Structure or shape provides for a surface to reflect properly

God intended for their to be order in the Church:

King James Version Chapter 14

40 hLet all things be done idecently and in order.

Growth will require sacrifice, but those who are not unified will miss out:

The Greek verb αὐξάνω means to increase, grow, or extend. The Apostle Paul’s account in Ephesus, according to , addresses this word after he had ministered the gospel unto the Jews and gentiles alike. The Word of God did not prosper and grow throughout Ephesus until the disciples banded together in unity to eradicate the enemies grasp on their lives. They did this by burning books of witchcraft; however, this was a sacrifice as these books were costly in their day. The Bible tells us that the books equated to fifty thousand pieces of silver or 50,000 workdays in an excess of 8,300 weeks of labor. The gospel had a profound and powerful effect on the Ephesus community; thus, one can view that sacrifice brings growth of God’s kingdom on this earth. Radical reaction equates to radical growth.

Being a radical church is more than just a couple of radicals in community of folks, it’s community of radicals with a few normal folks in the mix. You see we’re not called to be like everyone else, so stop trying to be! We’re called to grow God’s kingdom in unity!

Let me end with this:

(29 And if thy right eye ||offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. .)

The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), .

So many times we look and use it to evaluate our hearts through the lens of holiness and purity, but when viewed in conjunction with Revelation we have a much larger picture put into view.

Let’s look at :

King James Version Chapter 2

2 Unto athe angel of the church of bEphesus write; These things saith che that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh din the midst of the seven golden candlesticks; 2 eI know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not fbear them which are evil: and gthou hast tried them hwhich say they are iapostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: 3 And hast fjborne, and hast patience, and for my name’s sake hast laboured, and khast not fainted. 4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left lthy first love. 5 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else mI will come unto thee quickly, and will remove nthy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.

Brother Morgan puts it like this: the first love that the Ephesians had lost was love. Thus, let me explain to you this: if God deems there is a church that cannot love he will remove his Spirit from those people. God does not have a problem removing parts of the Body that do not function. Unlike us, he can rebuild what has been removed.

Misshaped corneas through rebellion of leadership make for a right eye that offends God…my point is, don’t be the reason that you, your family, and even a portion of the Church is removed from what God is doing because you cannot get in line with what God has put into motion.

Get and stay in line with God: Prayer, Reading His Word, and crucifying the fleshly man…be the spiritual being God has transformed you to be through the regeneration of the Holy Ghost!

Get in line with your Pastor

Get in line with your ministry leader

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If we desire to see a powerful move of God in 2020, we will need to get unified inside and outside the walls of the church building. Now is the time to take on the farmers mindset of sewing, growing, and most importantly going.

Get in line, commited and submitted to what God has in store for 2020!