Vision Forward Series
Week 1: Seeking God’s Vision-Sean
Theme: Understanding and aligning with God’s vision for the church.
Scripture: Proverbs 29:18 - When there’s no vision, the people get out of control, but whoever obeys instruction is happy.
Seeking God’s Vision. Man that has some weight to it doesn’t it? I mean I don’t know about you but I think sometimes we struggle with having a vision for our own lives but to know what God wants for our lives and for the the church…
So, let’s hear this verse one more time. Proverbs 29:18 – “When there’s no vision, the people get out of control, but whoever obeys instruction is happy.” This is a very familiar verse to some people and I know when we hear this verse the first thing we hear is that vision is important because if we don’t have vision then we don’t have anything. The key is not having a vision but having a revelation that comes directly from God. This is truly a real vision.
What we need and what the church needs is a word from God. We need to hear what God has to say to us, and this is what keeps us from being out of control. We may ask ourselves, what does God have to say to the church? I think scripture is pretty clear of what is needed for us and the church. The first thing I would say for real vision the church needs to focus on is found in 2 Chronicles 7:14
“if my people who belong to me will humbly pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.”
Vision starts with praying and seeking God. We all have at some point wanted to hear from God in some capacity. I know that when I was going through addiction and lost a job, felt I was losing a family, and honestly felt that I didn’t want to be here, I knew in my heart of hearts I wanted, needed, to hear from God. I ended up at a United Methodist Church with my parents and a great United Methodist pastor who prayed for God’s vision for my life over me. It was then I heard from God and knew that I was and will be restored in Christ. I knew that God was going to use me. I knew that God loved me, yes, even me. What it took was as 2 Chronicles 7:14 says, “humbly pray, seek my face, and turn from their (or in my case) my wicked ways.”
The call to the church is the same, “humbly pray, seek God’s face, and turn from their wicked ways.” Well, you might say how is the church being “wicked?” When the church is out of step of God’s will for this world it is seen as a visionary misalignment. When the church doesn’t live into the love of Christ for this world as Christ has called us to love, then we have a visionary misalignment. When Jesus is asked about the greatest commandment, He says this in Mark 12:30-31, “And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, You will love your neighbor as yourself. No other commandment is greater than these.”
So, when the church doesn’t love God with everything we have, we have no vision. When the church doesn’t love our neighbor as ourselves, then there is no vision. The true vision of the church is to go a make disciples and we do that by sharing the love of Christ that is within us. The problem is that we sometimes get too self-absorbed with our own things, our own preconceived notions, and our own agendas that we forget that others in this world need to know that we have a savior who loves them just as much as He loves us. And while we focus on dogma, who’s right or wrong, and play games with church politics, all we see is people taking a step back and looking at the institution of the church and seeing hurt, pain, and judgment. So, I come back to the scripture; if we want true vision, a vision from God, it starts with 2 Chronicles 7:14
“if my people who belong to me will humbly pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.”
You see, there is a “then” part of this passage. If we do these things to seek the face of God and do what is right by God, then forgiveness for the church and healing for the church can happen. Healing and forgiveness is needed for the church and the world today. I know we say that our vision for the church is to be a place of healing and wholeness. But ask yourself the real question: is the church a place where everyone is welcome? Is the stranger still a stranger or someone who starts as a guest and then becomes part of the family? Does the church welcome the foreigner, the bent, the broken, the least, the last, and the lost?
This past year was a hard year for the Church as a whole. We heard stories of people who sat in church pews and were a part of a church for 25-30 or more years and, because of one thing, could not agree or agree to disagree on a particular subject. It led to church divisions and people losing their church homes and what were friends they sat next to for years. It is causing the church to look at itself internally and ask this very real question: is the vision we have for this church about us, or is it about Christ and Christ alone?
The next thing needed for the church to have this divine vision is what I call a “re-vision.” It is time to realign everything back to the source. It is time to focus all our hearts, minds, hands, and stuff back on the central thing, and that is Jesus. It reminds me of a hymn of ours in the United
Methodist Hymnal, “Be Thou My Vision.” It says this:
(Due to copyrights, words as foundat #256 of The Methodist Hymnal, 1964)1. Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;Naught be all else to me, save that thou art;Thou my best thought, by day or by night,Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.2. Be thou my Wisdom, and thou my true Word;I ever with thee and thou with me, Lord;Thou my great Father, and I thy true son,Thou in me dwelling, and I with thee one.3. Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise;Thou mine inheritance, now and always;Thou and thou only, first in my heart,High King of heaven, my treasure thou art.4. High King of heaven, my victory won,May I reach heaven's joys, O bright heaven's Sun!Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.
“This melodic Celtic prayer focuses those singing it on the all-sufficiency of God. Much as the psalmist frequently enumerated the multitude of ways that God was his all-sufficient portion and defense, “Be Thou My Vision” gives the worshipper words to refocus his or her mind and heart to the greatness of the true and living God. The hymn writer beautifully highlights the all-sufficiency of God by contrasting all of who He is with those earthly things that so often compete for our hearts. As the Apostle Paul said to the Philippians, everything is “a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus [our] Lord” (3:8). Whether it is earthly relations, wisdom, or riches, our God is the true God, true wisdom, and true riches to the souls of believers.”[1]
The church’s “re-visioning” is knowing that so many things compete for our hearts and take our hearts away from Christ. The world and people see this. We need to re-vision a church that loves like Jesus, lives like Jesus, and makes disciples like Jesus. “When there’s no vision, the people get out of control, but whoever obeys instruction is happy.” Amen!
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