About 350 years ago a shipload of travelers landed on the northeast coast of America. The first year they established a town site. The next year they elected a town government. The third year the town government planned to build a road five miles westward into the wilderness.
In the fourth year the people tried to impeach their town government because they thought it was a waste of public funds to build a road five miles westward into a wilderness. Who needed to go there anyway?
Here were people who had the vision to see three thousand miles across an ocean and overcome great hardships to get there. But in just a few years they were not able to see even five miles out of town. They had lost their pioneering vision. With a clear vision of what we can become in Christ, no ocean of difficulty is too great. Without it, we rarely move beyond our current boundaries.
Lynn Anderson.
Many preachers surrender to preach with a vision for lost souls and leading God’s people in service to Him. In the midst of a committee meeting far, far away, that flame, that fire of vision for the Lord’s work begins to die out. Friends, if we fail as the leadership of the Lord’s churches to have a vision, not our own mind you, but God’s vision for us, we will be like the people in this illustration. We will lose our pioneering spirit. We will become grumblers. We will become ineffective.
I. VISION IS: THE ABILITY TO SEE: AWARENESS.
A) Webster: 1. The faculty of sight, 2. Unusual foresight, 3. A mental image produced by the imagination, 4. The experience of the supernatural as if with the eyes.
B) To see like Joshua and Caleb did Num 14:6-9
1) Optimist or Pessimist? I read about a schoolboy who brought home his report card. It was heavy with poor grades. "What have you to say about this?" asked his father. "One thing for sure," the boy replied, "Dad, you can be proud. You know I haven’t been cheating!"
2) Having a vision is more than just looking on the bright side. It is looking on God’s side. Finding the vision God has for us takes time and prayer. Excited about Interstate Missions program….time of training is time of prayer seeking God’s location.3) What if the vision God gives is not the vision we would have chosen?Bro. Joel Slayton said "Bloom where you are planted."
II. VISION IS: THE FAITH TO BELIEVE: ATTITUDE
A) Steve Goodier says " Both the hummingbird and the vulture fly over our nation’s deserts. All vultures see is rotting meat, because that is what they look for. They thrive on that diet. But hummingbirds ignore the smelly flesh of dead animals. Instead, they look for the colorful blossoms of desert plants. The vultures live on what was. They live on the past. They fill themselves with what is dead and gone. But hummingbirds live on what is. They seek new life. They fill themselves with freshness and life. Each bird finds what it is looking for. We all do.
B) Satan’s greatest attack on the vision that God gives each of us is our attitude. 1) An attitude that says "No body else cares so why should I."2) An attitude that says "No body appreciates anything I do so let’s see what they do when I don’t."
C) I started to find several illustrations of faith in the Bible to share with you. But instead I want you to picture the person or event in Scripture that best describes Faith. 1) Who is it?
2) What did they have in common?
D) Faith is the food that visions live on. Without faith, our vision will wither on the vine.
III. VISION IS: THE COURAGE TO DO: ACTION
A) Now I want to make a confession………This is the most difficult for me.1) As long as I just see it…That is time between me and God.2) As long as I can just have the right attitude…That is time between me and God.3) But when it comes to putting a vision into action…it involves other people.Paul Harvey One summer morning as Ray Blankenship was preparing his breakfast, he gazed out the window, and saw a small girl being swept along in the rain-flooded drainage ditch beside his Andover, Ohio, home. Blankenship knew that farther downstream, the ditch disappeared with a roar underneath a road and then emptied into the main culvert. Ray dashed out the door and raced along the ditch, trying to get ahead of the foundering child. Then he hurled himself into the deep, churning water. Blankenship surfaced and was able to grab the child’s arm. They tumbled end over end. Within about three feet of the yawning culvert, Ray’s free hand felt something--possibly a rock-- protruding from one bank. He clung desperately, but the tremendous force of the water tried to tear him and the child away. "If I can just hang on until help comes," he thought. He did better than that. By the time fire-department rescuers arrived, Blankenship had pulled the girl to safety. Both were treated for shock. On April 12, 1989, Ray Blankenship was awarded the Coast Guard’s Silver Lifesaving Medal. The award is fitting, for this selfless person was at even greater risk to himself than most people knew. Ray Blankenship can’t swim.
B) The courage of vision is to say "Lord if that is you, let me come to you walking on the water."C) The courage of vision is to say "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."
D) The courage of vision is to say "If God be for us, who can be against us."
E) The courage of Vision is to say "The trials of this life are not worthy to be compared with the glory of the next life."
Concl: Brother and Sisters, I believe the Lord has a vision for each of us today. I know it is easy to get discouraged and to give up on being available to God to be used in seeing the vision come to completion. I also know that unless we are moving in that direction, we cannot be content in life. The most frightening thing to me about the role of church leaders in this issue of fulfilling visions is that when you look at Biblical leaders who were not obedient to God in the vision He gave, their followers always suffered the consequences.
George Barna: Vision for ministry is a reflection of what God wants to accomplish through you to build His kingdom.
In the fourth year the people tried to impeach their town government because they thought it was a waste of public funds to build a road five miles westward into a wilderness. Who needed to go there anyway?
Here were people who had the vision to see three thousand miles across an ocean and overcome great hardships to get there. But in just a few years they were not able to see even five miles out of town. They had lost their pioneering vision. With a clear vision of what we can become in Christ, no ocean of difficulty is too great. Without it, we rarely move beyond our current boundaries.
Lynn Anderson.
Many preachers surrender to preach with a vision for lost souls and leading God’s people in service to Him. In the midst of a committee meeting far, far away, that flame, that fire of vision for the Lord’s work begins to die out. Friends, if we fail as the leadership of the Lord’s churches to have a vision, not our own mind you, but God’s vision for us, we will be like the people in this illustration. We will lose our pioneering spirit. We will become grumblers. We will become ineffective.
I. VISION IS: THE ABILITY TO SEE: AWARENESS.
A) Webster: 1. The faculty of sight, 2. Unusual foresight, 3. A mental image produced by the imagination, 4. The experience of the supernatural as if with the eyes.
B) To see like Joshua and Caleb did Num 14:6-9
1) Optimist or Pessimist? I read about a schoolboy who brought home his report card. It was heavy with poor grades. "What have you to say about this?" asked his father. "One thing for sure," the boy replied, "Dad, you can be proud. You know I haven’t been cheating!"
2) Having a vision is more than just looking on the bright side. It is looking on God’s side. Finding the vision God has for us takes time and prayer. Excited about Interstate Missions program….time of training is time of prayer seeking God’s location.3) What if the vision God gives is not the vision we would have chosen?Bro. Joel Slayton said "Bloom where you are planted."
II. VISION IS: THE FAITH TO BELIEVE: ATTITUDE
A) Steve Goodier says " Both the hummingbird and the vulture fly over our nation’s deserts. All vultures see is rotting meat, because that is what they look for. They thrive on that diet. But hummingbirds ignore the smelly flesh of dead animals. Instead, they look for the colorful blossoms of desert plants. The vultures live on what was. They live on the past. They fill themselves with what is dead and gone. But hummingbirds live on what is. They seek new life. They fill themselves with freshness and life. Each bird finds what it is looking for. We all do.
B) Satan’s greatest attack on the vision that God gives each of us is our attitude. 1) An attitude that says "No body else cares so why should I."2) An attitude that says "No body appreciates anything I do so let’s see what they do when I don’t."
C) I started to find several illustrations of faith in the Bible to share with you. But instead I want you to picture the person or event in Scripture that best describes Faith. 1) Who is it?
2) What did they have in common?
D) Faith is the food that visions live on. Without faith, our vision will wither on the vine.
III. VISION IS: THE COURAGE TO DO: ACTION
A) Now I want to make a confession………This is the most difficult for me.1) As long as I just see it…That is time between me and God.2) As long as I can just have the right attitude…That is time between me and God.3) But when it comes to putting a vision into action…it involves other people.Paul Harvey One summer morning as Ray Blankenship was preparing his breakfast, he gazed out the window, and saw a small girl being swept along in the rain-flooded drainage ditch beside his Andover, Ohio, home. Blankenship knew that farther downstream, the ditch disappeared with a roar underneath a road and then emptied into the main culvert. Ray dashed out the door and raced along the ditch, trying to get ahead of the foundering child. Then he hurled himself into the deep, churning water. Blankenship surfaced and was able to grab the child’s arm. They tumbled end over end. Within about three feet of the yawning culvert, Ray’s free hand felt something--possibly a rock-- protruding from one bank. He clung desperately, but the tremendous force of the water tried to tear him and the child away. "If I can just hang on until help comes," he thought. He did better than that. By the time fire-department rescuers arrived, Blankenship had pulled the girl to safety. Both were treated for shock. On April 12, 1989, Ray Blankenship was awarded the Coast Guard’s Silver Lifesaving Medal. The award is fitting, for this selfless person was at even greater risk to himself than most people knew. Ray Blankenship can’t swim.
B) The courage of vision is to say "Lord if that is you, let me come to you walking on the water."C) The courage of vision is to say "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."
D) The courage of vision is to say "If God be for us, who can be against us."
E) The courage of Vision is to say "The trials of this life are not worthy to be compared with the glory of the next life."
Concl: Brother and Sisters, I believe the Lord has a vision for each of us today. I know it is easy to get discouraged and to give up on being available to God to be used in seeing the vision come to completion. I also know that unless we are moving in that direction, we cannot be content in life. The most frightening thing to me about the role of church leaders in this issue of fulfilling visions is that when you look at Biblical leaders who were not obedient to God in the vision He gave, their followers always suffered the consequences.
George Barna: Vision for ministry is a reflection of what God wants to accomplish through you to build His kingdom.
