Sermon Brief
Date Written: January 3, 2012
Date Preached: January 1, 2012
Where Preached: OPBC (AM)
Sermon Details:
Sermon Series: New Year’s Day Sermon
Sermon Title: What’s Our Vision?
Sermon Text: Proverbs 29:18 [ESV]
“…18 Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint,[a]
but blessed is he who keeps the law…”
Introduction:
Where there is no VISION the people perish! We must have a focus, a purpose and a drive for our fellowship to flourish within the kingdom of God. We are not here to merely EXIST!
I don’t believe there would be anyone sitting in this room today that would disagree with the premise that for our church to flourish in God’s Kingdom we must be focused on the vision God has for our church…focused on the vision God has for our fellowship!
So the key question is this… What is our vision? Well the vision for Oak Park Baptist church is NOT any different than the vision of ANY other fellowship of believers, and that is to serve God as He has called us to serve Him! Our vision, focus and drive must be FIRST and foremost our OBEDIENCE to His calling!
Ok preacher… I will accept that… but just what is God’s calling on our church? What has God called us to do for His kingdom? And to THAT question I have yet another simple answer! Our calling from God is no different than any other fellowship of believers…our calling is laid out in Matthew 28:18-20 and Acts 1:8… this calling is a CLEAR picture of what God expects of His church!
Matt 28:18-20 [ESV]
“…18And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”…”
Acts 1:8 [ESV]
8But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
In those 2 passages the vision of the church is laid out. Our vision and sole focus in our fellowship is found wrapped up in what we know as the Great Commission! We are called to make disciples… that is what we are saved to do…
Our calling FROM God is to go forth into the world and be witnesses FOR Him and tell the world about Him, and make disciples that will follow Him and learn about Him.
This vision can be fleshed out in many ways and we see Christians all over the world doing many different things to accomplish this ONE mission from God to His church…
We see missionaries going to faraway lands and learning about other cultures and others languages so they can fulfill this mission! They have to DO a lot of different things, but their mission and focus is SINGLE SIGHTED… to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with the world around them!
We see people doing acts of ministry all over our nation and throughout the world, in the name of Jesus Christ. They do these acts of kindness as a means to an end… they do not meet needs and provide for the less fortunate for their own satisfaction… but it is done out of love for Christ and out of an obedient heart to be faithful to the mission and focus of Christ on our lives… but it is always done with the goal of sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ!! We meet a physical need to enable us to reach out and meet the even more important SPIRITUAL need in their lives!
There are many ways of being obedient to this calling on our lives, but we need to remember a few aspects about this calling so that we NEVER come to take it our salvation OR our Lord for granted!
The first thing I can see as it pertains to this calling we have from Christ in the Great Commission is that it must be important to us…
God’s Calling Must Be A Priority:
So preacher, if God has called us to make disciples what does this mean for us? Well it means many things, but the most important point to remember is that this calling must ALWAYS be the priority! It must be behind everything we do as a church! NOTHING we do as a church should stray away from this calling! Anything OTHER than this and we are being disobedient and will not be blessed!
I want us to take notice of something in these verses that point out how important this is and why we need to make this command a priority in our lives! Look at v.18 where Jesus says, “…all authority in Heaven and Earth has been given Me…”
We must realize FROM whom this command is coming! It is coming from the One who has been given ALL authority over heaven AND earth and his word is to be obeyed… his commands are not suggestions!
This makes this a priority for ALL believers. We are His disciples… We are His witnesses and we are HIS followers… so we are called to LISTEN to Him and submit ourselves in obedience to His calling on our lives! This command takes precedence over ALL other things we can do… we are called to make, baptize and teach disciples, so that they can begin to make, baptize and teach other disciples… and the cycle continues!
When this is NOT a priority in our lives, what we are saying to God is YOU ARE NOT IMPORTANT! Your commands mean nothing to me… what I want is MUCH more important to me than what you want!
Is that what you are saying to God today? I know NONE of us would stand up and actually say those things to God… but when we are disobedient by NOT carrying out this commission God has given us… that is EXACTLY what we are saying to God.
Making disciples, baptizing them and then teaching them how to become disciple makers themselves… THAT IS OUR PURPOSE! That must be our priority!
God’s calling MUST be a priority in our lives, and this leads me to my 2nd point this morning and it dovetails nicely with it being a priority in our lives and that is that God’s calling is NOT a passive request by God… It is an ACTIVE calling from God for response by us in obedience to Him!
God’s Calling Is An Active Calling:
Another aspect of this calling from God we must remember and put into practice in our lives is that this calling is an ACTIVE calling… it is NOT a passive thing we can do if we choose or NOT…
This is a CALLING and a COMMAND from our Savior… the One who has been given ALL authority! This calling is for us to “GO FORTH and make disciples…” I want us to notice that Jesus give options here…
Jesus didn’t say, “Well Peter you are good at speaking so YOU go out and tell others about Me, but Andrew since you struggle in front of others… well you just hang back in the background and look busy…” For His disciples this was NOT a choice they were going to make… this was a command to them to complete!!
This sense of priority and action on the part of the local church member has all but become a memory for the church today. In the middle part of the 20th century it took about 4-5 members to win a lost soul to Christ… in other words for every soul won, baptized and taught, there were 4-5 other members within the church!
BUT TODAY… it takes, on average, 12-15 believers to win a lost soul to Christ. That is triple from just a few years ago. That means that over 2/3rds of today’s believers simply choose to NOT be obedient and to NOT share their faith in Christ Jesus! And to this I have to ask the question…WHY? Why won’t you share your faith?
If you are NOT sharing your faith and making disciples, then you either don’t truly believe in Jesus OR you are being willfully DISOBEDIENT to His calling on your life! You either believe Jesus for EVERYTHING or you cannot believe Him for ANYTHING!
We are called to be obedient and take action on behalf of Christ… We are the legs, arms, feet and hands of Christ here in this world! Are you being the hands of Christ you should be?
Jesus uses 3 very active verbs within v.18… and EACH one of these verbs take initiative by the believer… we are called to ACT… to be ACTIVE in our service to Christ!
Let’s look at that 1st verb… Go… the Greek word used here is poor-yoo-oh-my and this word implies not just directionality but intention… it is about the journey and NOT just the destination! This tells us that EACH day, EACH hour, EACH minute is to be used to share Christ and make disciples! AS YOU ARE GOING thru your life… as you are living your life!
So what does this mean for us? What does this mean for our vision this year here at Oak Park? Well what this means is that there is NOT a time when we are excused from making disciples… that HAS to be our focus! We cannot be worried about what families will transfer in or what our offerings are all about… our focus has to be on winning the lost to Christ… about MAKING DISCIPLES!
This means that as individual believers AND as a body of believers our fellowship, we are all ‘on-call’ 24/7! But the other thing that this is very clear about is that ALL of us are on call… ALL of our lives!
No where in Scripture can we find a retirement age for our service to Christ and fulfilling our Christian calling…If you profess Christ as your Savior then you are called to serve Him all the days of your life!
The 2nd verb we find in this verse is MAKE which is the Greek word math-ayt-too-oh which is to teach or train another… to shape them… to mold them… in this case into the image of Christ through sharing the gospel and leading them into a relationship with Christ…
BUT then it has to be followed up with godly discipleship… discipleship can take a formal shape in the discipleship classes we have each week here at the church, but it also comes to the new believer in an informal manner… the way you live your life teaches them how to live their life!
We are called to GO… We are called to MAKE disciples through teaching and through our living… but the 3rd verb in this verse is BAPTIZE…
WHOA pastor! That is for YOU to do… I can’t baptize anyone, I am not a preacher! Well the fact that I do the majority of baptisms does not mean that I am the only one who can… the Bible does not specify any qualifications for the one doing the baptizing, other than implying that they be a born again and baptized believer themselves.
Let me give you an example of what I am speaking about… let’s say you begin to witness to a young person, and you develop a friendship with them and eventually God allows the opportunity for you to experience them coming to Christ through your witness and the living of your life.
You are able to lead them to Christ and you begin to disciple them on how to grow in Christ, and out of that relationship you grow close to them… what better person to be in the baptismal waters with them than the one who led them to Christ and is teaching them and discipling them in their growth in Christ!
All three of these verbs are commands… all three of these verbs require a great deal of believers… they are actions that MUST be carried out! These are NOT suggestions by Christ but they are commissioned commands that direct our very life!
We must be intentional and focused in serving God as He has called us to serve! Service to our Savior must be our PRIORITY! Service to our Savior must be an active part of our lives…
We have seen how God’s calling must be a priority in our lives and that we must be ACTIVE in the commission of that calling, we cannot sit idly by… many of us struggle with being obedient because our thoughts are that WE CANNOT DO what God has called us to do, and that leads me to my 3rd point… our calling is NOT something we can do on our own!.
God’s Calling Is A Work Of God not US:
Preacher this is some really heavy stuff you are laying out for us this morning… we are called to make serving God the UTMOST of a priority in our lives… we are also called to be active and intentional in our obedience to God’s calling on our life… this sound FAR too hard for me!
Well if you are relying on your own power… on your own desires… on your own intentions… then you are right it is FAR too hard and difficult for you to accomplish and you WILL fail!
However, what we have to understand is that God’s calling on our lives has never been and NEVER will be contingent upon our own power, desire or intentions…
God knows that He has chosen to use a flawed human vessel to carry out His plan and because of that God provides us with the strength, power and knowledge to accomplish His calling! God’s calling is fueled entirely by the power of God’s Holy Spirit… but we must be willing to be powered… we must willing to be fueled and sent forth!
Let’s look at this verse and see how we can rest assured that we will NEVER have to rely on OUR own power, desires or intentions to accomplish God’s work…
“…18And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”…”
Here we find Jesus assuring His disciples that all the power of the created universe has been laid upon Him, and that He is promising to NEVER leave or forsake us as believers! He commands us to go forward and be obedient to His calling and assures us that not only will He be with us, but He has to power at His disposal to help and assist us to complete the work He has started in us…
Paul assures us of this in Phil 1:6 [ESV] 6And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
When God begins a work in us… it is His full desire to complete that work so we can rest assured that He will not leave us and that He will equip us for the work He has called us to accomplish!
But preacher, God has called me to share with my neighbor and he is the nastiest and most rude person I know… I just don’t have it in me to talk to him about Jesus. Well what this verse is telling us is that you DO have in you what it takes… you have Christ and he has promised to be there with you, leading you, guiding you and directing your steps, words and actions.
Do you believe Scripture? Do you trust in God? Jesus said if you trust in God, to trust also in Him! If you trust Jesus, why won’t you answer the calling He has for your life?
So What Does This Mean For Us?
My friends, here at Oak Park we can do great things for Christ, if we do but ONE thing… FORGET what WE want and begin to do what Christ has called us to do!
I started this sermon with the Scripture from Proverbs 29:18 that basically states… without vision the people ‘cast off their restraint’ or they begin to do what they want to do… begin to live their desires…
When we place that in the context of the church… if there is no vision then we find the people beginning to seek out their own vision of what the church should be…rather than seeking God’s vision!
The vision for our church here in 2012 is to be focused on our calling in Christ! With that being said, how are we going to do this? I believe God has laid upon my heart the instrument we can use to flesh out our outreach to our community in seeking to make disciples for our Lord…
Adult Reading and Writing
English as a Second Language
Celebrate Recovery
When we look at the ministry of Jesus we find one very constant theme… Jesus went where He was needed, and that was to those who were IN NEED! He was ridiculed and mocked because he did not seek out the company of the religious leaders… in fact He actually rebuked them on many occasions!
But what Jesus did was go to those who needed Him the most, the sick, the lame, the blind, the deaf, and those who were outcasts from society, the poor and the lepers… Jesus reached out to those who had no other hope!
Well this was not just HIS strategy for HIS ministry but this is a model for ALL ministry! We are called to reach out to the less fortunate and those who are in need and this is where we are going to start!
So today I want us all to set our hearts toward focusing on the mission of making disciples and how we can make disciples in the community around us… how we can (AS A CHURCH) minister to those who NEED us… how we can make a difference through the love of Jesus Christ!
So many of us make a New Year’s Resolution each year… well today you have the opportunity to make a commitment to something FAR greater than just losing weight or eating right or not watching as much TV… You can make a commitment that will make an eternal difference in the lives of many who need the Good News of Jesus Christ…
how about you this morning? Are you ready to make that commitment? This altar is open for you… come as Bro Ken comes to lead us in our hymn of invitation… you come!
