God - Your Vision is Our Future

God - Your Vision is Our Future

SCRIPTURE: (NCV)

SCRIPTURE: (NCV)

I. Introduction

You have two roads you can travel.

One is the road that will make you popular with the world.

The other is the road that will make you faithful to God.

The first is based on human planning, human strategizing and human determination.

The second is based on God's vision, God's guidance and your faithful following of both.

You stand at the beginning of a new year. (Pause)

You have all stood at the beginning of many years and made decisions about the road you would take into the new year. You have regretted some, I am sure. The question to ask at this time each year is what you base your decision on with respect to the road you choose to walk.

For many there is no conscious decision. You simply let life throw at you what it may or you choose to simply wander through the year like a pinball machine ball bouncing here and there as you go on. Some at the other end of the spectrum plan the year in great detail, hoping to leave nothing to chance and determined to be the master of your own destiny.

For us as Christians neither extreme is for us. You are neither to be masters of your destiny nor acceptors of fate. You are to be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ basing all your decisions on the truth of God as he has revealed it in and through Jesus Christ. This makes all the difference with respect to the road you choose for your life and for the life of your congregations.

For you as congregations it makes all the difference because you are not to be an organization that makes plans to just keep it going. You are part of the people of God whose mission extends far beyond just survival. Literally you hold people's lives in your hands.

No, you do not save people - that is God's purview and his alone, he sees into the hearts of people and knows their deepest needs and it is he who brings them back into a right relationship with him. You hold people's lives in your hands in the sense of being the vessels through which God seeks to have his Spirit work to touch lives, and renew them.

So it is, only as you seek to understand and live by God's vision that you as congregations have any future. When congregations become nothing more than secular helping stations you loose the presence of God's Spirit and become a social service agency. Don’t get me wrong. Social Service organizations aren’t bad in any way. They help in very meaningful ways. But the mission of the church is much more.

In the year ahead you are going to have to make some decisions and you are going to have to decide which road you will follow.

II. A people who first and foremost, seek the will of God.

You are going to have to become a people who at all times and in all things first and foremost seek the will of God.

Our passage today say's...

So you should look for the LORD before it is too late; you should call to him while he is near.

The wicked should stop doing wrong, and they should stop their evil thoughts. They should return to the LORD so he may have mercy on them. They should come to your God, because he will freely forgive them. (NCV)

In our passage today it says, "look for the Lord", seek him out, discover his way - before it is too late.

The Old and New Testaments are constantly telling people to seek God. But listen to how that seeking is to happen

(NCV)

But even there you can look for the LORD your God, and you will find him if you look for him with your whole being.

(NASB95)

Seek the LORD and His strength; Seek His face continually.

(The Message)

“And you, Solomon my son, get to know well your father’s God; serve him with a whole heart and eager mind, for GOD examines every heart and sees through every motive. If you seek him, he’ll make sure you find him, but if you abandon him, he’ll leave you for good.

(NASB95)

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

(NASB95)

“So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

Seeking God with your whole being is the foundation of understanding what God wants you to do. And this is particularly true for you as congregations.

There are many Christian congregations that have for years forgot this need to seek God's direction. Oh, sure you have opening prayers at meetings. But during the meeting before you make a decision do you stop and pray. Do you say, "Ok God what do you want us to do, or act or say on your behalf? Do you who are leaders have seeking the will and guidance of God anywhere on your daily prayer list - Do you have a prayer list?

You need everyone in your congregations praying for God to lead you down his road.

Seeking and praying - these are two keys for developing a congregational plan for your future.

Listen to . It is a promise that you can bet your congregational life on.

(NCV)

Then if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves, if they will pray and seek me and stop their evil ways, I will hear them from heaven. I will forgive their sin, and I will heal their land.

Pray and seek - do it humbly and live in right relationship with me and I will guide you says the Lord God Almighty.

III. Know and understand who I am and what I am doing

Growing congregations seek God with their whole being, all that they are, and pray, pray to understand who God is and what he is doing?

Our passage today says,

(NCV)

Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

There are people who interpret this to mean that you can never know what God is thinking so why even try. Let God do his thing and you will do yours.

Scripture shows us that this is not true. You do not know God's thoughts not because he does not want to tell you, but because you do not want to hear.

Look at Scripture, he is concerned that you know his plan.

• He walked in the Garden with Adam and Eve

• He talked with Abraham and Sarah

• He talked face to face with Moses

• He revealed himself to the Judges and prophets and kings

• He revealed himself to all the world by entering into human history in Jesus

• He continued to reveal himself through the apostles

• He continues to reveal himself through all those who humbly seek him and pray.

And his revelation of himself can be trusted as it does not change.

Scripture reminds us to...

(NCV)

Remember your leaders who taught God’s message to you. Remember how they lived and died, and copy their faith.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Do not let all kinds of strange teachings lead you into the wrong way. Your hearts should be strengthened by God’s grace,...

IV. Seek, Pray, Learn and Walk with God

Seek, Pray, Learn and Walk with God

Walking the road of faith is not an easy road. There are those who ignore it and those who get into the door of faith who are like the little boy who went to bed one night and his parents heard a loud bang on the ceiling above them where the boy's bed was. They hurried upstairs and found the boy on the floor beside his bed. They asked him what happened and he replied, "I guess I fell asleep to close to where I got in." This is what happens to many of us. You fall asleep too close to where you get into the faith. You don't grow in your faith, you don't seek to understand God's purpose for life and you don't enjoy the joy of life God wants for you.

Walking the road of faith is not an easy road. Growing in faith is a marathon event not a short sprint. A Sunday School knowledge of God is not sufficient. It gets us to the starting line, but fails to equip us for the long run.

As congregations you need to be not only a worship centre, but also an equipping station, not only an outreach depot, but a mission outlet as well.

Today in many congregations these are not seen as important, but they are what God has told you what you are to be about. All this is made clear when you first - humbly seek, pray, learn and walk with God - who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit - community in his very being and into which he invites us.

V. Closing

So this year you as congregations are going to have to look to your future. Will it be a future based on your limited understanding and a secular business model of strategic planning or will it be based on what God's plan is and how you fit into it.

Will you be willing to take the difficult less traveled road and humbly seek, pray and learn as you walk closer and closer with God or will you take the easy road and say thanks God, we can handle it from here?

Will you be able to say with Robert Frost in his famous poem, "The Road Not Taken

“I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”