Two Kinds of Vision [B]

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Transcript:

I talked to you this morning about Proverbs chapter 29, especially verse 18, that says where there’s no vision, the people perish. And I could have very easily given you the impression that I’m against any and all planning. Because the point of this morning’s message was that that verse does not mean what I’ve taught it to me and Brother Shank admitted to me after church, he’s taught the same way.

You know, it doesn’t mean that God’s people are in danger if we fail to plan and have goals and a vision for where we’re headed in the future. It’s not always a bad thing to go and to go without goals. I’m notorious in my family for, let’s go for a drive and you never know where you’re going to end up.

One time we left out of Moore early on a Saturday morning, ended up on a Dairy Queen run to Kansas. You just never know. And last Saturday we went out driving after an appointment, ended up on the Talamena Drive almost to Arkansas.

I mean, we were close enough to the border we could have spit and hit Arkansas. You just never know where I’m going to end up because I don’t like to plan ahead unless I’m going somewhere important. I’m also the kind that one of my first experiences preaching outside of Southgate was down here at Pleasant Hill outside of Chickasha.

Not the one in Blanchard, but the little one outside of Chickasha. I’d never heard of that church before and knew even though it’s a Chickasha address, it’s not really anywhere near Chickasha. And ended up driving out there the day before just to make sure I could find it on Sunday morning.

So when there’s something important, even somebody like me wants to plan ahead and say, I need, this is important. I need to know where I’m going. I need to know where I’m headed because this is not just a leisurely drive.

This is important stuff. Well, if I gave you the impression this morning that the Bible is against planning, it’s not. And what I tried to, the point I tried to make this morning or a point that I tried to make this morning is not that that idea about goals and vision for your church is a bad one or that it’s unbiblical. It’s just I think we use the wrong scripture to support it because that scripture is about really the revelation from God and how God’s word keeps us in line and keeps us from running wild.

But that doesn’t mean the Bible is against planning. Jesus even said that it was foolish to begin building a tower without first counting the cost. Otherwise, you’re liable to end up with half a tower. And we see evidence of this played out every time I drive to downtown Oklahoma City.

You’re driving north on I-35 and you look out to your right to the east. What’s that big mound of dirt over there? The Native American Cultural Center? If you’ve been paying any attention at all the last year and a half, you know I’m Indian.

You know I’m proud of my heritage. Even I’m going, why did we invest all that money in that, especially to not finish it? But now it’s just sitting there because they started, as government so often does, they didn’t really count the cost before they started building the thing.

And so now it sits there unfinished. Really, could we not have planned ahead? Would that be okay?

If it’s something important enough to spend millions of dollars on, can we plan ahead and count the cost? Well, when things are important, we need to plan ahead. And I think in the life of a church, it’s important.

And please don’t take what I said this morning to indicate that it’s not important or that it’s somehow ungodly to plan ahead and have goals. It doesn’t mean that we don’t have faith if we make goals. Oh, God will just lead us and he’ll just direct us when the time comes.

Well, maybe God leads and directs us to make some plans or better yet to ask him what his plans for us would be. Planning is not a bad thing. I think it’s wise stewardship.

And as I said, Jesus questioned the wisdom of building a tower or of starting something without having a plan to see it through. And I think as churches, we need to have a goal and a vision. As believers, we need to have a goal and a vision of what it is we’re supposed to do.

Now, we need to, I always say, make your plans in pencil. If I’m going to plan something, if it’s important enough to have a plan, I want to have it planned down to the last detail. But I’ve also learned over time, we’ve got to make plans in pencil.

So we leave room for God to change our plans if he so chooses. So it’s important to not just live life reacting to things. We don’t live life reacting to things, or we try to live life reacting to things, and we shouldn’t.

Otherwise, we never make any forward progress. We just spend our time putting out fires in life. Folks, our Christian life is important, and I think it’s important enough to have some goals.

And I don’t feel like I’m really in a place to stand here before you tonight and say these are what your specific goals, church, these are what the specific goals need to be. I think as individuals, we need to know what God has called it. What does God want me to do today?

What does God maybe want me to start looking at doing a week from now? What is long-term, what has God laid on my heart to do? Same thing needs to be done with the church.

What are God’s goals that He’s given us to fulfill? But in the meantime, I’m going to share with you from the scriptures tonight three things that I think are goals church, any church should pursue. I think these goals fit any church at any time because they are straight out of God’s word.

Now, exactly how we accomplish these things may look different in a different context, may look different in Lindsay than they would in Oklahoma City, might look a little bit different in Oklahoma City than they would in Okinawa, but they’re still biblical principles that at least in the general, these are good goals for any church to follow, any believer to follow and will put us in good stead. So if you’ll turn with me to Colossians chapter 1 tonight. Colossians chapter 1.

There are plenty of places in the scripture that we could look at to talk about planning, but I’ve always loved this passage as it talks about really Paul’s goals for the church at Colossae. That Paul had these goals for the people and really I believe they are again goals that apply to any church at any time. After I’ve begun preaching this message though, after I first started studying on this subject and said what are some things that I think God wants every church to have as their goals, I heard that and I’m not saying they stole it from me because they would have had no way of knowing, but I’ve heard that our seminary down in Jacksonville has really been pushing these three points and I Well, if the seminary and I are in agreement, then we’re probably right here.

But turn with me, if you have not already, to Colossians chapter 1. We’re going to look at really starting in verse, let’s go back to verse 20. And having made peace through the blood of his cross by himself to reconcile all things unto himself, by him I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven, and you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight.

So he’s writing to the church at Colossae, Paul is, and he’s telling them that Jesus Christ has reconciled everything. Has reconciled or will reconcile. But everybody who’s been reconciled to God has been reconciled to God by one person.

That’s Jesus Christ. If we’re to be reconciled today to God, it’s not through our effort. It’s not through our planning even. It’s because Jesus Christ came to earth, lived a perfect sinless life, shed his blood as a perfect sacrifice for sins and opened the door for that reconciliation to take place.

And he says then that we were at one time alienated. We were like foreigners to God’s kingdom. We still use that word today, illegal aliens.

That means they’re foreigners. Or there’s a resident alien who’s a foreigner who lives here legally. But we were alienated from God.

We were like strangers to God. And he even goes so far as to say we were enemies in our mind by our wicked works. We had, I like to say it this way.

We’d committed treason against the king. We were about as separate from God as we could be. And not because God said, I hate you and I’m going to choose to throw you aside and make you separate.

But because God stood here and God put us right here. And then we, through rebellion, said we’re going to go over here. And we moved ourselves away from God.

And he says that even in spite of that, God has come and God has used Jesus Christ to reconcile us to himself. And he said to present us holy. Not just God’s goal for us, not, excuse me, God’s desire for us through Jesus Christ is not only that we would be reconciled and that our sins would be forgiven.

It’s not just salvation, not to mean that salvation is not important. What could be more important? But that God’s plan for us doesn’t stop at merely salvation.

It goes on to say God wants to sanctify us. God wants to make us holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight. Now, God chooses to see us as holy because of the blood of Christ, because of the righteousness of Christ. But God will spend the rest of our natural life working on us to make us in our behavior what he’s already declared us to be.

See, God, in sort of a legal maneuver, says we are legally righteous when it comes to violating his law. That’s already been punished. That’s already been dealt with.

Jesus Christ made all the payment for that. We are declared legally righteous. He says, now I’m going to make it to where your behavior matches what I’ve already declared to be.

He says that he wants to, through Jesus Christ, present us holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight. Then he goes on in verse 23 to say, if ye continue in the faith, grounded and settled. That does not mean.

As a matter of fact, I’ve never even heard anybody teach this, that you could lose your salvation. Meaning that, well, if you’ll be grounded and settled, then he’ll do this. I’ve never even heard anybody teach that passage that way.

I just want you to understand. What he’s saying here is not, well, if you’ll do this, then he’ll do this. What he’s saying here is that the way God demonstrates, the way that you are demonstrated to be holy and unblameable and unreprovable is by continuing in the faith grounded and settled.

He said that’s your end of the bargain. That’s how you follow through on God’s desire for you. If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel.

Well, how on earth could we be moved away from the hope of the gospel? It was apparently very easy for the churches in Galatia. When so many of the people were buying into these false gospels, false teachers would come in and say, well, yeah, you need Jesus.

You definitely need Jesus, but you need this also. You need the law. You need this.

And Paul said, if anybody comes in selling any other gospel to you than the one you’ve already heard and believed from us, he said, I don’t care if it’s us or some other preacher or an angel from heaven, he said, let them be accursed. And he said, I marvel that you are so soon. I am shocked that you’re so soon removed from the gospel.

Folks, the gospel is incredibly simple. Now, the gospel can be hard for people to swallow. It can be hard for them to finally say, you know what, I’ve been wrong.

I’ve been sinful. I need God’s forgiveness. When I say it’s simple, I don’t necessarily mean it’s easy for everybody to swallow.

Some people fight for years before they finally relent and trust Christ. but the gospel is a very simple idea that the innocent died for the sins of the guilty that he gave his life for ours, for our salvation and then people want to come in and say because we as human beings we want to complicate everything, make it harder well surely salvation must be harder than that so we want to add all these things and Paul says oh no you don’t so he says here if you will stay grounded and settled in the faith if you’ll stick with the faith if you’ll stick with the faith that you have already received the faith that you’ve already expressed, then God will continue to work in your life and he will continue to grow you like, to be like Christ to where you will be presentable before him.

And be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which you’ve heard and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven, whereby Paul and made a minister. So basically, God wants us to be saved through Christ and then he wants to sanctify us through Christ. he said your part is just stay where you’re put stay where God planted you stay in this fertile soil of the gospel and let God do his work he said who now rejoice in my sufferings for you he’s referring back to himself because he said in verse 23 where of I Paul I made a minister and so when he says who Paul he’s referring back to Paul who now rejoice in my sufferings for you and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake which is church. What he’s saying is, I am glad for everything that I have suffered to be able to minister to you.

That is a man who understands what his calling is all about. We don’t like to suffer. I mean, if we liked it, they would call it Disneyland and not suffering.

It’s called suffering for a reason. But for Paul to say, you know what, the suffering, it really doesn’t matter because this is what God’s called me to do. He says, I appreciate every inconvenience, every pain, every trial, every trouble that I’ve experienced that’s just made it all that much more possible for me to minister to you and to strengthen your faith.

Where have I made a minister according to the dispensation of God which has given me for you to fulfill the word of God? He says, and God has dispensed his word to me to give to you. It’s God who has made it possible for me to pour my life and my teaching into you that you might be raised up, that you might be grounded and settled in the faith and not move from the hope of the gospel.

So everything he’s writing to them about is stay where God planted you, not necessarily in a geographical sense, but in this gospel, in the hope and truth of God’s word, stay planted in that fertile soil and let God grow you into who you’re supposed to be. He said, and I’m thankful for the opportunities that God has given me to be able to pour into cultivating you into the people that God wants you to be. even the mystery which had been hid from ages and from generations, but now has made manifest to his saints.

He’s talking again about the truth of God’s word. And it is clear from the scriptures that in the Old Testament days, they didn’t understand God’s truth as fully as it was revealed later on. You know, it was sort of Jesus Christ was the ultimate revelation of God and his word.

And for centuries, for millennia, they just had types and shadows, pictures of things to come, and then Jesus fulfilled it all. And he said, what was once a mystery, I now have the opportunity to make manifest. I now have the opportunity to share with you what used to be a mystery to God’s people. To whom God would make known, verse 27, to whom God would make known, what is the riches of his glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

So what is this mystery he wants to make known? What is this mystery that he strives to teach them? Christ in you, the hope of glory, that God would send his only begotten son to pluck us up out of the fires of hell, to snatch us away from sin and death and the grave, to die for our sins, and then to abide with us.

Christ in you, the hope of glory. He says, whom we preach. Okay, when he uses these interrogative pronouns, sorry, I taught English.

When he uses this interrogative pronoun, It’s just like who in verse 24. You have to go back up to the thought before that and see who he’s referring to. What he’s referring to is Christ. Whom we preach is Christ. Whom we preach warning every man.

Warning every man of what? Warning every man of sin and judgment and hell. That we’ve all sinned against a holy God and that we’re in need of His forgiveness.

And we preach Christ warning every man. A lot of churches, ladies and gentlemen, A lot of the problem that I have with a lot of churches is not what they teach, but what they don’t teach. And there’s a watered down gospel that is taught in a lot of churches today where they bring you the good news.

And it’s not that what they teach you is wrong. It’s what they left out, which was the bad news. And I’m sorry if we’re teaching.

No, I’m not sorry. I don’t know why I said that. I’m not sorry.

If we’re teaching a gospel that says Jesus just wants to love you and why don’t you give your life to him and believe in him. That’s all great and wonderful. But people aren’t going to run to the good news without the bad news.

People aren’t going to throw themselves on the mercy of God in Jesus Christ if there’s nothing that they need mercy from. And so he says, we preach Christ warning every man. They’re preaching Christ, but they’re warning that Christ was necessary.

Christ had to come and die for our sins for that very reason that we had sinned against God. And it breaks my heart when I see the video on YouTube that I’ve referenced before because I watched it several years ago and it still makes me mad. This massive church in Australia.

Folks, their children’s service had probably a hundred times what we have here on a Sunday morning. All these children and the woman is up there preaching her heart out and asking them to receive Christ. But when they present this invitation, she says, now raise your hand if you want Jesus to be your best friend. And I’m going, wait, what?

What? That’s should be our best friend, but that’s not the gospel. If there’s no sin, if there’s no blood, if there’s no cross, it’s not the gospel.

Because how can mercy be offered if mercy is not needed? And mercy is not needed if we haven’t done anything worthy of judgment. So it’s not the gospel if we leave anything out.

So he says we preach Christ warning every man. It sounds harsh in this day and age. It’s not a message that people always like to hear.

We need to get over that because the Bible says that the message of the cross is to the, I want to make sure I get them right, is to the Greeks foolishness and to the Jews a stumbling block. The cross is a hard message, but if we preach it with conviction and compassion, both, need both of those, and I believe some people will still continue to believe. If we preach, yes, you’ve sinned, and by the way, the way we do that with compassion is not.

You’re all a bunch of filthy rotten sinners, but say we’ve all sinned. I know wherever I speak because I’ve sinned as well. I’m a sinner.

I know me and I’m not deserving of anything good from God. But we preach with clarity and compassion and conviction that we’ve all sinned against God and we’re in need of a Savior. And Jesus Christ was the only way to do that.

We warn that judgment is coming. God is not going to just let sin slide forever. We preach Christ warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom.

Warning of the judgment and teaching of what God offers. God’s mercy. God’s grace.

The idea that God wants to change us from the inside out. We don’t clean ourselves up to come to Christ. We don’t have to get our lives in order to come to Christ. We come to Christ as we are. He forgives us and then He puts our lives in order.

He says, what’s the goal of this? Look there after the semicolon. He says that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.

that word perfect doesn’t mean sinless doesn’t mean blameless it means complete it means we would say mature that we want it to be the goal that every man grows up to be a mature every man and woman I’m using the word man here to encompass everybody that everybody grows up to be a mature disciple of jesus christ that’s a tough bill we’ve got churches in this country who are full of people that maybe they really did trust Christ. Now I question sometimes if the lax view of so many in the pews is not because, well, they thought they were saved and they’ve really never been born again. But also it could just be it’s the easy way. I’m going to get saved and I’m going to sit.

No, no, God’s goal. If you’re thinking, well, I’m saved, that’s all I need. That was never God’s goal for you and you’re missing out on so much He has prepared for you. He wants everybody not just to be saved, but to grow up to be a mature disciple of His.

Someone who grows to be more like Jesus Christ every day. It’s not the easy way to live your life. It’s so much more fulfilling than saying, I’m just going to stay a baby Christian forever.

And He says that we may present. We preach Christ warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect in Jesus Christ. Our goal here is not just to get people saved, but to help them grow up in the faith. Where unto, he says, I also labor.

Striving. You ever strive? We don’t have to strive for a lot of things.

Strive means I work hard and I struggle. I put some effort into it. He says, I also labor.

Where unto, I also labor. For the same reason, I also labor. Striving.

Struggling. Putting effort into it. according to his working.

Folks, even as hard as we are called on to work and to strive, even then it’s really not our effort. It’s his working in and through us, which worketh in me mightily, he says. So what are some of the things that I believe should be going?

Because, wait a minute, how did we get here? We’re talking about planning. Here are three things that I see in this passage that should be the goals of every Bible-believing church.

Now, I’m not saying these are the only goals. We pray about it. We see where God wants us specifically to go, but I think these are three good goals for any Bible-believing church that we can get behind.

First of all, our goal should be Christ-centered worship. Christ-centered worship. Not just worship.

Everybody’s worshiping something. I don’t care if you’re a Bible-believing Christian or a militant atheist. Everybody worships something. It’s human nature.

We are made to gravitate towards something. it’s why people get so excited over celebrities I look at it and I think why are you worshiping that band or that actor or that act there have you ever heard of interviewed they’re so dumb I mean not all of them but I some come to mind why do you base your entire life around this person but I find myself occasionally getting swept up in in different things not not uh I don’t think I go to the extreme of worship and certainly not of celebrities. But folks, I watched the debates last Thursday night.

And there were some of those people on the stage I just wanted to smack. I’ll be honest with you. I never would, but the desire was there.

There were other people that I was like, yes, I really like him. I really like her. And I had to go follow him on Facebook and had to read more about him.

And there’s just an element of, I want to get on the bandwagon. This is exciting. Wait a minute.

It’s okay to like a candidate, but I don’t need to be putting my hope for the future of this country. Okay, let’s back off now a little bit. But if we’re not careful, I’m just telling you, there’s that human nature.

We’re drawn toward wanting to be part of something bigger than ourselves, and we are drawn to want to worship something. And if we are not actively seeking to worship in a Christ-centered way, we’re going to worship idols. It’s just, you can’t get through life not worshiping something.

It’s not human nature. But he said in verse 27 that he wanted to be a part of making known the riches of the glory of this mystery. The mysteries of God.

The glory of God among the Gentiles which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Folks, anytime we are focusing on God and His glory, it’s worship. Now, coming together as a church and singing songs and prayer and the things that we do in this service, That is part of worship.

That’s corporate worship. But that’s not all worship is. Do you know you can worship on a Tuesday?

Don’t tell the other Baptists. We’ll get in trouble if we start doing that and they know. We can worship on a Tuesday.

And I don’t mean we can come to church. I mean, you want to come to church on Tuesday, you go ahead. But I mean, in your job, in your home, on your tractor, I don’t care where you are on Tuesday, on Wednesday, on Friday, you can worship.

We worship when we give God the praise and the glory that he deserves, and when we live in such a way that our lives are oriented around him. And when he said, it’s my goal for you, church at Colossae, it’s my goal for my ministry among you, that I make known the riches of his glory, he’s talking about worshiping Jesus Christ and getting other people to worship Jesus Christ. Folks, as a church, our worship, any church, our worship needs to be centered around Jesus Christ. Not, hear me on this, I could make somebody mad if you tune out one of these, not centered on what’s the latest worship trend. Also not centered on this is what we did 50 years ago.

But centered on Jesus Christ and what He’s doing among us now. And again, that’s not saying you have to use one style of music or the other. But when we come together, you know what, I think you can worship with some of the modern music, I think you can worship with the old hymns.

To me, to me personally, it’s not a big deal as long as we’re worshiping Christ in spirit and in truth. You’ve got to have both of those. Folks, our worship has got to be centered on Jesus Christ. Not on what they’re doing today, what’s hip and what’s avant-garde, not on what we did a hundred years ago, not on what I want.

Folks, focused on Jesus Christ. If we don’t come together, I mean, this is true, we should be worshiping Christ every day, but especially when we come together. If we come together and we don’t lift up Jesus Christ together, if we don’t encourage one another and tell the world in a corporate way how great Jesus Christ is and how good Jesus Christ is, we might as well not even come together to worship. And he said, it’s my goal that we make known the riches of his glory.

Folks, our goal needs to be Christ-centered worship. What does that look like for Lindsay Missionary Baptist Church? That’s up to God.

As I said, we can worship out of the hymnal as long as we’re worshiping in spirit and truth. It doesn’t have to look like what any other church would do. But we need to have a goal that we’re going to come together and we’re going to worship Jesus Christ. Second of all, we should aim for Christ-centered preaching.

Now this one’s more of my responsibility, but you have a responsibility in this as well. Our goal in preaching, our goal in our teaching should be to point people to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Now, worship is to express our devotion to and our reverence for Christ, but preaching is to point people to Him, to accept Him as their Lord and their Savior.

And he gets to this in verse 28 when he talks about preaching Christ, warning every man and teaching in all wisdom. Now, the reason I say this is more my responsibility is because I am the one doing the preaching and teaching. On Wednesday nights, Brother Shank, you’re the one doing the preaching and teaching.

It’s our responsibility as the ones filling the pulpit. In Sunday school, whoever’s teaching, it’s your responsibility.

but folks there’s also responsibility on the church to make sure that that’s the message being preached and whether it’s me or anybody else if the message doesn’t ultimately point back to Jesus Christ there’s a problem and it’s a problem for the church to address because our goal should not be to come together and just well let’s have a message on how to be nice to each other or let’s have a message on how to have a happy life or let’s have a message on how to manage your money or let’s have a message on who to vote for or let’s have a message on the and that stuff goes on in churches unfortunately and we can very easily even say we’re going to talk about these things it’s important to talk about everything that’s in the bible but the whole bible points back to jesus christ folks we’ve got to make sure that he’s the heart and soul of the message I’m not saying we can’t have messages on other things two weeks ago I preached on tithing and whether you should or shouldn’t or whether whether or not that’s the rule I should say it that way it’s not really a should or shouldn’t thing.

Whether or not that’s a rule for today. Message on tithing is not in and of itself on Jesus Christ. But did we not go back and talk about the condition of the heart behind the tithing? If you just come in every week and you’re hearing messages on you need to do this and you need to tithe, you need to give your money this way, or came in and heard a message tonight about we need to make plans and we need to work God’s plan, and it was never about Jesus Christ, there’s a problem in the pulpit.

And if the church allows it to go on, there’s a problem in the pews. Folks, ultimately our message is not about our goodness or what we can do or what we should do or how great we can be or how great we are. It’s about Jesus Christ. And it’s about preaching Him and warning every man.

And everything else, as important as it is because it’s in the Scriptures, it needs to ultimately point back to Jesus Christ. So we should have a goal for Christ centered worship. We should have a goal for Christ centered preaching and we should have a goal third and finally tonight for Christ centered discipleship. Our goal in making disciples should be to help others conform to the image of Christ. Not to be like statues of Christ, but the Bible says that that he predestined us to be conformed to the image of his son.

What that means is it has always been God’s plan that when we trust Christ, he wouldn’t just leave us there, but that he would work in us and work on us to make us to be more and more like Jesus Christ as we go throughout life. And Paul said that we present every man perfect or complete or mature in Jesus Christ, whereunto I also labor striving, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily. Folks, our goal as a 

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