JUL 12 2015 | Proverbs 29:18

Sea Change Church · "Proverbs 29:18" · Adam Stadtmiller · July 12, 2015
Proverbs 29:18
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Right on. If you have your Bibles, open them up to Proverbs 29, 18. Good to have you here this morning. Today is Vision Sunday where I recap kind of what we're doing as a church. I just felt like that was important to let the people know what we're doing and where we're going. I did a Vision Sunday in December. We are six months into our vision now.

We have an extra printout of some of the things that have been happening. I didn't want to print the entire thing out from December as well, but we have that. You can compare the two. I feel like we're on track. I feel like God is doing some neat stuff. And some things we started we didn't finish and we thought, well, that's not going to work as all things are with our lives.

Other things have gone really, really well and I'll talk about them in a minute. But if you have your Bibles, we're going to talk today about prophetic vision. We're going to talk today about vision not only for a church, but this is vision that applies to your life. How do we find a vision for our lives? I want to say that I see a major difference between having a vision for our life and worshiping at the altar of purpose.

I believe that there is in America and an American church this great altar that has been set up to purpose. If I can just figure out that one secret thing that God wants me to do, if I can do the one thing that I'm called to do, if I can find that one thing, then I will have satisfaction. If I can have that one thing I've always wanted. And then so we find that there is this imaginary, in my belief, imaginary center of God's will.

I don't believe that God's will has a center. I believe that God has many things that he has told us in his word and he's told us how to live. He's told us how to go after these things and the kind of people to be no matter what you're doing. You see, I see vision as having a vision for the kind of person God wants you to be. I want to have a vision for the kind of church that God wants us to be.

I want to say purposes come and go. But oftentimes, the vision for the kind of people and the kind of church that we want to be. And I've seen so many times that people's faith has been shipwrecked on the rocks of purpose. That when the marriage doesn't come, when they thought it should have come, when the job didn't sustain or the economy failed, all of a sudden it's like, God, what's wrong?

There's something wrong here that you must not be delighted in me. But I've said that I believe that vision is hearing from the Lord, what do you want me to do today? To get to where you have me to go. And I'm not saying that we don't have an understanding of what we think God might have callings on our lives. I had someone tell me when I was 12 years old, you are going to be a preacher.

And what he said was after I had used this particularly savory four-letter word with my mom, I won't tell you the letters that were in it, but it was particularly savory. Let me just say that. And my mom put me in the back of the seat and I was wearing my outfit. And I was supposed to be the pitcher that day. I was supposed to go, you know when you're going to be the pitcher, that's a big day, right?

And so she wouldn't let me go. And I went out to the back of the car. We were at a party. And she says, you're not going to go to the game. Go sit in the back of the car. And Lloyd Hart came out, who was not a particularly prophetic guy. And he probably didn't even understand that meaning of being prophetic, meaning speaking things that God might want for your life in the future.

And we'll talk about the difference between prophecy as the big P prophecy, like Bible prophecy that you cannot change, okay? That is untouchable. It can't be changed. There are no new prophets when it comes to the major things. Like, hey, you know what? Jesus said he's not coming back. He's going to do this instead. Like, that's a big P, okay? But little prophecy is when God says something like he did through Lloyd Hart in my life, when he came out and started talking to me like a father speaks to a son.

And he said to me, you know, after talking about baseball and fishing and ping pong, he said, you know, God's going to take that mouth and he's going to use it to bless him. And he goes, I believe that one day you'll be a preacher out of that mouth. But that was prophecy. Now, did it change the world? Was it like, hey, the big bear is coming out of Russia that's going to come down on Afghanistan?

And I mean, I don't know about all that. All I know is every 10 years, a new book of prophecy comes out. And since I've been a Christian in the 70s, if you line them all up, I don't know if you know, but about every 10 years, a new prophetic book comes out. And I won't go back through what they are. But have anybody been around multiple decades and seen the different prophecies?

So, right. And so they come and they go. And there's a new hero of prophecy and a new, you know, antichrist and a new nation that's going to destroy us. And now it's the Internet. And I don't know. I've gotten lost. I just want to keep my eyes on Jesus. Because revelation is a revelation about what God's going to do. And I believe we need to be aware of it.

But the revelation is this. Jesus is Lord. You know, the revelation, the point, we miss the point of revelation, right? Jesus is being revealed. Like, that's the revelation. He shows up to John and he reveals himself. Like, we have all these things. We're trying to figure out the picadillos of these, of the different prophetic things. But what it is, is Jesus says, here I am.

I am real and I love you. And you're going to spend eternity with me. I just go to the end of the book sometimes. I don't know what's going to happen. At the same time, I believe that we need to have a prophetic vision for our lives. We need to have a prophetic vision for our churches. And a prophetic vision means this. That you're sitting with God and you're doing the best you can to figure out what he wants you to do today.

So that you can get to be the kind of person that he's calling you to be, not only today, but tomorrow. And we're trying to intrinsically figure that out. And I want to say it's not rocket science. Okay? And God allows for mistakes. One of the things that I really combat against is this idea that we have to be perfect in following God. That there's this perfect center in God's will.

Now, I'm not talking about sin. Obviously, if we're in sin, that's going to throw us off track. But even God can take the things in our lives and cause what? All things to work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. But the first thing I want to talk about in this verse is the fact. And if you look in the, this is the English Standard Version, by the way.

I've been kind of moving away from the NIV. Especially the new NIV. And just to let you know, if you haven't studied it, I want to encourage you to look at what has happened with the NIV since the 1984 version came out. I'm not a person that's going to say, hey, you have to read this certain Bible. I read multiple translations of the Bible. I use the Greek.

I use the King James, New King James. I use multiple translations. I believe that, you know, man doesn't have the translation perfect yet. And so what I want to do is look at multiple translations. But one of the things I'm seeing with the NIV is the new NIV, in a really great attempt, wanted to be gender inclusive. Which I love. There are certain times in the Scripture where the Bible says mankind and that they had been interpreted man.

It is speaking to all men and women. But what they did would just say man and women would be left out of that. And in order to combat that, they wanted to make the Bible more gender inclusive, which is great. The problem is, is when the Bible sometimes is speaking directly to men and you remove that for inclusivity. Now, one of the places that we see this is there's a Scripture in the Bible, and I've forgotten the exact text, where at the end, Paul comes and he says, act like men.

He says brothers. It starts out and it says brothers. And if you look, if you go to the NIV, and I apologize for not having the Scripture, if you want it, I can find it for you afterwards. It was 2 Corinthians 4.16. I think it's 2 Corinthians 4.16. Thank you, Bruce. You want to sit closer to the front? I could use that more often. Or just Google this.

Verse, act like men. It'll come up. If you go into the NIV now, that's been removed from the text. It's been completely just removed. Now, I want to say something. There's nothing wrong, and I'm getting off point, there's nothing wrong with speaking directly to men. There's nothing wrong with speaking directly to women. It's not an insult to speak directly to men.

But just so you know, I'm using the ESV here, and I want to encourage you, we want to be a Bible, a Word of God church that does our best to intuit what God is saying. One of the things it says here, let me read the verse, where there is no prophetic vision, where there is no prophetic vision, found in three of the translations I found, it said prophetic.

And I had to look back into the scripture to find out in the meaning of that, and there is an understanding there that if you're going to have a vision for your life, that it's going to have to have a tie-in to what God wants for you. You see, we're not in the business of creating visions. Do you get that? We're not in the vision of creating vision, doing vision casting, although I've been at many churches where they say, hey, we're going to sit and we're just going to figure it out.

What I think the scripture says is we want to see what God's vision is. We want to get in touch with what the Father's doing. And when you get in touch with what the Father's doing in your life, I want to tell you it's going to get a lot easier in your life to accomplish the things that He has for you. You're stepping into a flowing stream as opposed to moving against it.

And so today, as I talk about our church vision, let me ask you this. Do you know what God wants to do in your family? I'm not saying buy a new house. I'm not saying go on that vacation. But do you know the culture that He is trying to create? Do you have a vision for the culture? And I want to tell you what, it's not your responsibility to figure out the vision.

Do you get that? It's your responsibility to sit with the Father and do your best to hear what you think He's saying to you. To do your best and to eventually show up to God and say, God, this is what I think you're saying to me. Wait or move forward in this or don't move forward in that. God, I'm just going to do the best I can. And you know God wants it that way?

You know, He's not looking for you to perfectly figure it out. It's called faith. He wants to walk with you. I had a TV guy come in to my house. We're living up in Upper La Jolla Shores now. And every single person that has come into the house to do any kind of work, fix the AT&T, whatever it is, they've just started asking about the Bible. And I've been sharing the gospel with them.

I have not had one person come into the house yet who have not known that I haven't got to share the gospel with, three or four different people. And one guy said, hey, I've gone to all these different churches, but I just have so many questions. I went to the Jehovah Witness for a while, and then I went to a Baptist church, and then I did this.

And I have so many questions, and I can never figure out the answers to the questions. And I can't, you know, I can't really move forward until I figure out the answers. And I said to him, I was praying about it as he was working there and trying to get my HDTV to work. And I went to him afterwards, and I said, what if that's the answer? What do you mean?

I said, what if the answer is not knowing the answer? Like that was the answer. In the end, not knowing all the answers is the answer. What if that's it? What if you get to heaven, and you say, God, I never figured it out. And he's like, yes! You know, I never got it all perfectly right for my life. Yes! Why? Because you get to lean on me. You get to let me build the house.

And the guy thought about that, and he goes, oh, he was tripping out. He's just like, what? I don't get it. But I have to know. But no, now he has this new thing that maybe the answer is not knowing, and he doesn't know what to do with it. So I just left him with that. Just thought I'd give that to him. Vision's doing the best we can. I want to say, let's lower the bar, okay?

I just want to say, lower the bar. But let's raise the bar on spending time with our Father. And saying, God, what are you doing? I want to say, if you're just so worried about your purpose, or what you have to do in your life, or this thing, and it feels like a burden, God never meant your purpose to be a burden. He wants to give you a vision for the kind of person he wants you to be, no matter what.

Somebody said to me this week, well, it's different for you because you're at your church, and you've written a book, and you're living in your purpose, and you get all that enjoyment, and you don't have to worry about it. And I thought to myself, I mean, that used to be true. I used to have to have all this. I want to tell you what. I don't need, this isn't my purpose.

I don't know if that makes sense. Like, I don't have to be a pastor. I don't have to write a book to be happy. I love it, and I'm happy to do it, but I don't find my purpose. You know what my purpose is? Being a son of a beloved son of a father and sharing that wherever I am. Really, that has become my purpose. I tell you what, it has made life a lot easier.

It has sure made life a lot easier. I just wake up and say, I'm just going to be a son today. I want to love people. It just put a smile on my face. You know how few people smile in the world today? They're just angry. I was walking around. I went to the World Market up there in the Trader Joe's place in UT. What is that? What's that called? It's a mess, La Jolla Village Square.

Oh, my goodness. I got to tell you what, North County does not have that. We have our own little deals, but that was a, man, and the Costco on Moreno. Oh, do you guys go to these places? It's a mess. I don't want to go back. But I was walking through. I was just smiling at people. You know what? It is like they think you're mentally ill if you smile at them.

I'm just happy. Just happy because that's my purpose. I want to say this before the Lord. I could be the janitor here and be just as happy, and I mean that before the Lord. I could be the janitor here and be just as happy. Okay? I've been a janitor before. Okay? When we moved to Australia, I moved there. It was going to be my purpose. The vision. God had told us we were going to go, and I was going to plant a church, and all these things were going to happen.

I ended up being a janitor at a camp. And Jesus said, clean this place like I was the next guest. I said, okay. I'll tell you what. It taught me so many lessons. I love it. I want to say the vision is this, that I want a vision of Jesus. Now let's get about being that kind of person. Because you know what? We're all, so many of us are focused on when we're going to write the book, when we're going to do this, when we're going to do that, and not the kind of people he's called us to be.

Do I love other people? What kind of character am I building? No matter where you are. You're trying to become the person you're supposed to be, not do the thing that person should do. And by the way, you can't do it anyways until you become the person you're supposed to be. We can't do the things that is in God's heart for this church until as a church we become the kind of heart, we become the kind of church that God wants us to be in our character, in our nature, in our heart.

You see, that's the vision. That's the vision. It's not the purpose. I want to say, if you become the kind of person you're supposed to be, the vision is going to take care of itself. It says in Proverbs 16, man makes his plans. But what does the Lord do? Directs and guides your steps. You become the person you're supposed to be. You spend time with the Father.

Let me say, your purpose, you won't have to worry about it anymore. It's going to come and lay at your feet. Let me just say that. You become who you're supposed to be in spending time with the Lord, seeking him, asking him, what do you want from me today? What might you want from me tomorrow? And you work in it today. And your purpose will lay at your feet.

Because it says you can't figure out your purpose anyways. It says he will direct your steps. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. I want to say, we're trying to delight in the desires of our heart. But not knowing and delighting in the Lord. Vengeance is not rocket science. Vision is not rocket science. Let's lower the bar.

That doesn't mean that we don't have plans. It doesn't mean that we don't have goals. But who are we becoming? Vision, as you'll see in the notes, finds power. It's power in today. For it cannot find its path till tomorrow unless it is well lived today. I'm going to say today. If you want to be a songwriter, sing today. And you don't need to cut a record deal.

You know how many people I've met that because they haven't cut a record deal, they just invalidate their whole life? They're amazing singers. But unless they have a record deal, unless they have a book deal, unless their business succeeds, they can't be happy with just using the gift that they have. This church, I want to be a church that uses the gifts that we have.

Let me just look at this as looking through this scripture here. First of all, vision is communal. And I want to say that a vision is communal between its prophetic leader and those that surround the vision. So here we see in the scripture that a visionary casts an idea of what God wants to do for a church, and then people buy into the vision.

I want to say the same thing is true for your life. Do you have an idea of what God has for your life, for your business? And in those things, drawing people into that vision, drawing people into that calling. I know that Joe Brandy here has a heart for orphans. And so he goes every two weeks to an orphanage. And I know that one day when he first started thinking about it, it was this grand vision.

But now it's just every two weeks he has to get in a car and go across the border and fight traffic and meet with kids. And all the, I'm sure, the allure of all the shiny, I want to be a missionary someday, and the excitement of that has probably worn off, Joe. Now you have to get up at 7 in the morning, get a stale donut, a cup of coffee, show up to see if anybody's going to meet him, and go to Mexico and do the deal.

And he invites other people to be part of it every single week. He's one of our missionaries here in the back today. If you want to go to Mexico, go with him. But it's communal. One of the things it says here that there is a connection here, because look where it says, where there is no prophetic vision, the people cast off restraint. One of the things we see is if there is no contact with what God is doing, the people will do what they want.

Let me say it's true for you as well. If you don't have contact with what God is saying through his word to you, if you don't have contact with him through what he's doing through prayer, we will oftentimes just cast off restraint and do what we want. Do you understand? That's the theme, the current that's going through our culture right now.

The world's taking a big selfie. If you want to do it, and it doesn't hurt anybody else, it's all good. It's a giant selfie right now. It's all about me. It's just like you have the selfie stick and check me out, okay? They cast off restraint. We see here a connection between the one bringing leadership and those following the visionary leadership.

I want to say, anybody ever read the book of Judges? The book of Judges ends horrifically. The worst story in the entire Bible is found in the book of Judges. I'm going to spare you the details, but a woman is killed because of it in a very graphic way. And I will leave another part out because I'm not preaching it today, but just read the end of the book of Judges.

In the end, the entire tribe of Benjamin is almost wiped off the face of the earth, okay, when the other tribes mount, and it causes a civil war in Israel, and it wipes them off the face of the earth. Israel had completely lost its ballast. It was no longer listening to the judges who God had sent to give them an understanding of what God was doing.

What is God doing today? Not what is God doing tomorrow, what he will do tomorrow, but what he's doing today. And it says that they cast off restraint. And here's what it says in Judges 21-25, that it just sums up the entire degradation of Israel and the fall of Israel. And by the way, it's exactly what is happening in America today. Exactly. It says this, in those days there was no king in Israel.

Everyone did what they thought was right in their own eyes. There was no communal vision. You want to know what communal vision does? It's checks and balances. Why do we want to have membership in this church? Because it creates a governance that when I make a decision, I have to run it past an elder board. When I run it past the elder board, then we have to take these decisions to the congregation.

We ask the congregation, what do you think? On a couple nights here and there where I think about our budget and staff salaries and all the things I carry on my shoulders, I lay there and I think, oh my goodness, you made the decision to go forward with this. And then I thought, no, but the elders said they thought it was right. And then the congregation voted on it and said, we're going to support that vision.

We're not only going to vote on it, we're going to support it. By the way, if you voted on it, support it. Abstain. Okay? If you're a member and you voted on our vision, if you're not going to support it, please don't vote on it. Like, support what you're going to vote on. That doesn't mean that you can't, but what I'm saying is support the vision.

And so I lay there in bed at night and I think, no, we made this decision. It wasn't me. It terrifies me to not have those checks and balances. When I see church systems where it's Episcopal, where there is no checks and balances between the people, this is why I want to grow the membership, because I want to have those voices. This is why elders are so important, because otherwise you have a church where everyone does what they think is right.

I want to say for your life as well, who's holding up, who's holding down the tent pegs in your life? Do you have anybody that can look you in the eye and tell you the truth? Or have you become the kind of person that has created and inculcated yourself with people who tell you what you want to hear, or they know not to tell you what you might not want to hear, because you're going to go Richter.

Or you're going to give them silent treatment. Or you're going to be sarcastic. Or you're going to be, I'm Mrs. Fragile now, and I'm so fragile you've wounded me because you told me the truth. I'm not saying we don't speak the truth in love. Who's holding down your tent pegs when the wind blows? Is there anybody that can speak honestly to you? Can your spouse speak honestly to you?

That's one of the things that Carrie and I, oh, by the way, happy anniversary, 18 years today. Bingo. 18 years ago today, we were surfing right now, and then we got married in the evening, so we all went surfing together. It was super fun. We'll be renewing our vows this summer, which will be fun. But one of the things we've been working on is how to be able to approach the other person without immediately having the reaction that you learned as a child.

Meaning, I need to say this to you. How can I say this to you without immediately, ah, yeah, you can't, you know, or doing some escape tactic or whatever the thing is. How can we have, because I need her voice in my life. She has saved me so many times, so many decisions. Who's in your life? Who are those people? I want to say, for us as a church eldership board and me as the head pastor, you're those people.

Okay? You are those people that bring that checks and balance. And I want to encourage you to have it yourself. Vision is communal. Between the vision and what is happening. Next thing, his vision is prophetic. Proverbs 3.16 says, think about or consider him in all your ways, and he will guide you on the right paths. Who's in charge right there? God.

Look what it says. There's only one thing. What is that verse in Proverbs 3.16 asking you to do? Anyone? Consider him. It's pretty simple. Consider him. When you sit and say, God, what do you want to do today? What do you want to do this week? What do you want to do in my life this year? What do you want to do in the next five years? I think five-year plans are kind of, it's great to have a tenure, you know, and 401k and all those different things.

How much changes in a day, right? Just do the best you can. But I would say this. Consider him. God, with my marriage. I just want to consider you. God, with my volunteering. God, with my friendships. God, with my business. God, with my finance. God, just consider him. Basically, this is how you do it. Let me just, it's real simple. Sit down, get a cup of coffee, tea, if that would be your liking, okay?

Make sure there's no one around. Maybe have a pad of paper. And maybe write down marriage or friendships or family. And then say, God, what do you want me to do here? And you've probably read the Bible a little bit, so read a couple chapters of the Bible. You choose whatever chapters you want. And then just sit there and say, God, what do I think you want me to do?

Well, that verse kind of reminded me today of something about trusting the Lord with all your heart. Okay, well, you want me to trust you more. Okay, how can I do that five concrete ways? I'm going to trust you here. I'm going to trust, you know, whatever your deal is. That's all you got to do? Then finish your coffee, put the book down, and go live your life.

Okay? And it says that he will what? Direct your paths. That's it. All you have to do is consider him. Just be considerate of God. I want to say we do that. That's how we run the church. It's, you know, behind the scenes of every church I've ever been in. It's a mess. Okay? I've been in some really big churches that look amazing on the outside. But there's certain areas that are just a mess.

We don't know what we're doing. We're just trying to figure it out, you know. And then, whew, that worked out. Or that didn't work out. Even though that was miserable. Like it's still, like God fixed it. Do you get it? Just do your best to consider God. Just consider him. He's going to direct you. It says that your purpose will come lay at your feet.

It'll just come lay at your feet, and he will direct you on that path. The only thing we need to be careful, though, is when we're looking for prophetic vision. And prophetic vision just means this, that God is giving us an understanding of what he wants us to do. I believe that if God says to you in your heart, today, you know, sometimes I'll get a thought.

And I'll be at, let me just give you one. Oh, yesterday when I was at Trader Joe's. And I was sitting there at my new Trader Joe's. I felt like the Lord said, hey, there's a person over there. I want you to go pray for him. And this is what I feel is going to happen. And I want you to know I didn't do it. I'm like, God, I'm not going to pray for somebody.

This is not my normal Trader Joe's. Okay, I'm at Carlsbad. This is the new Trader Joe's. I'm not bursting onto the scene. But I do feel like sometimes God speaks to me about what he wants to do. Now, what we have to be careful with is this. Is when we start taking the little prophetic Ps in our life of like, hey, I think God might be saying this.

And maybe he wants to do that. And maybe this is happening. And we start making giant capitalized Ps. That this has to happen. That God said that. And then you start controlling people. And you get these prophets that come up. I believe in prophecy. I believe we cannot change Bible prophecy. But I believe that God can speak to a person. Let's say they're working with governance in South America.

Let's just make a person up. And God says, hey, I want to work and open up the prison system to bring freedom and evangelism in the prison system. And I feel like I'm going to do this. I believe God speaks to us because he wants us to know his ways. The problem is some people have misused prophecy in such a strong way that other people have cast it aside.

Here's the scripture that I love that keeps everything in balance when we think God has told us something. Because I don't know about you, but there's been a lot of times where I thought God told me something. And I was wrong. A lot of times. And I've learned not to shipwreck my faith on it anymore. It took me out. I had one. It took me out for three years.

Three years of like, God, I can't trust you. Yada, yada, yada. I'm angry. Why don't you do what you say you're going to do? I trusted you. I did this. I bet God's up there going, I never told you to do that. Seriously, now? Like anything God, most of the time you'll hear might, maybe, I think. I don't know why there has to be this thing with the prophet movement where it's like, thus saith the Lord.

It's all hyped up. And why can't you just say, hey, I think God wants us to do this. I think God's saying this. There has to be this like, you know, emphatic, you know, thing. Right now I'm hearing the prophecies about what's going to happen to America, okay? All the prophecies that are coming out. I was at a pastor's thing gathering a San Diego people in there prophesying this is going to happen.

And I was just thinking, can we throw a maybe in there? Can we throw like a, you know what I mean, financial collapse, a Chinese stock market. You saw it this week. It's already happening. Ah, it would just scare the crud out of me. Like, you know what I mean? I just wanted to run. No, no, no. I don't know what God's going to do. Because here's a verse that I love that has kept prophetic vision in balance.

And when you feel like God tells you something for his life, you know how you're going to know you were right when it's over? Hindsight, okay? Hindsight. That's how you're going to know that what God told you was what God told you. I love this verse. 1 Corinthians 13, 9 through 10. For we know in part and we prophesy what? In part. But when the perfect comes, the partial shall pass away.

Every person who has, and I have a gift of prophecy. God speaks to me about the future and he tells me what he wants to do. And I believe he tells me and I do my best to lower the bar and go figure that out. But here's what I understand. I always only see a bit of it. I don't have it all. And when you see a prophetic movement that says, yes, this is going to happen for sure.

That is unbiblical in my opinion. Actually, I think it's unbiblical in the Bible's opinion. Because you only see in part. And when God shows you something for your life, you're only going to see it in part. Why? Because one, it lets God be God. Okay? He's never told us the whole story, ever. Okay? Because he wants to be part of the story. And he wants to wow you.

And he wants to fascinate you. And he wants to bring you joy. And he wants to collaborate with you. And he wants to hug you and care for you and say, I love you. And when you're afraid, he wants to kiss you goodnight. He wants to sit with you. He wants to snuggle and cuddle and love you. I could never say those things a year ago. But now I'll use words like that.

I know. People used to preach and go, oh, Papa. I love Papa. I'd be like, oh, stop saying that. You're making me creepy. Look, do your best. Lower the bar. And in the midst of it, make sure that it follows the values of God's word. See, that's key. Look what it says here. Look how it ties up vision for your life with just doing what the Bible says. Because we can have points in our lives where we go after vision.

And there's some, I've seen church movements or people that the vision is the thing. Do you get that? The vision of the prophetic vision, everything's prophetic and everything we're doing is after that prophetic vision. And we lose sight of Jesus and we lose sight of God's word. I want to say I love vision. But in the end, vision is going to pass away.

But the truth of God's word is not. As we look here in the scripture, in the Bible, it says in that verse from today, Proverbs 29, 18, in the back of it, it says, But blessed is he who keeps the law. This is the anchor to prophetic vision casting for your life and for a church. Where there is no prophetic, the people cast off restraint. That's for sure.

Where I am not in touch with the Lord speaking to me about my daily life, I will cast off restraint and do whatever I want and take a big selfie. Okay? Just take a big selfie. But then it goes on with an anchor. It says, But blessed is he who keeps the law. The law is God's word. That's the Old Testament way of saying, But blessed is though those are them, tripping over my words today, who do what the Bible says.

That's the deal. Great. Vision, let's go after it. But in the midst of it, are you loving? In the midst of it, are you forgiving? In the midst of it, are you grace-filled? In the midst of it, are you compassionate? With yourself even? You see, I think we care so much about purpose and we forget about the kind of people God wants us to be. You know what I love that I keep hearing?

I had three people come up to me. I'm so proud of you guys, of this church. I am, literally. It was here before I got here and you that have joined us have joined in on the fun. Three, I had four people. I don't want to have any hyperbole. At the pastor's gathering I went up to. And said, hey, I've either come to your church or I've heard about your church.

And how loving and hospitable and friendly it is. Four people came up to me and said that. Maybe it might have been more. Came up to me. In fact, I hear it all the time. I hear it all the time. And they have just met me for the first time. They've either, you know, come and they didn't meet me or something. But it's something that God is doing. It's powerful.

It's powerful. See, I want us to be a church. I want us to be that kind of church. I want us to have grace. I want us to have love. I want us to have compassion. Is that the kind of people you want to be? Because I can't create it. You create it. And you're doing it. Finally, as we come in for a landing. As I said there, vision is always supported and underpinned by God's word.

Your vision will never be outside of the bounds of God's word. And the way you go about your vision and the vision God has for you, the way we go about the vision of the church, I think is a lot more important than the vision itself. God cares more about us as a people than he cares about what we're going to do. God brought me into ministry because he loves me and he wants to create a clean heart in me and he wants to show his love to me.

That's why I am in ministry. Because God loves me. And he's working a work in me. Now all these other things that happen through me and my ministry, that's icing on the cake. And the same is true for you. Wherever you are, you're there because God loves you. He loves you. Why is Olin up there leading worship? Is it because of his gifting? Is it, you know, or Joe in Mexico?

Or whatever you're doing. Why? Because God loves them and he put them there because he wants to love them in the midst of that and grow them into the kind of people that they are called and created to be. That's it. Become who you're supposed to be as you go about your vision. That's who we want to do. We want to become who God has called us to be.

Vision. Vision. The final point there says vision brings safety. Safety. Now once again, remember, all vision means is we are borrowing the binoculars from God. You see, we're on a big vista. And we're really short-sighted. Do you get that? Super short-sighted. Can't see close to us. And that's happening to my eyes recently and it really bothers me, okay?

Because like in one year I've lost my vision. So I don't know. The rest of you have had glasses. But now I can't read. And my arm's not long enough anymore to read the book. And we're on a giant vista. And we can just, you know, we can only, you know, everything's blurry. And God's there and he has these big binoculars and he's looking out. And every once in a while, every once in a while, he takes the binoculars and he says, hey, check this out.

And he gives them to you and then you realize you're at the corner of the Grand Canyon and he shows you the whole deal. He did it in the Old Testament all the time. He does it in the New Testament. He gives them a sense. And then he takes the binoculars away. Get that? Because you can't live there. Because you'll never get down into the canyon and to the other side unless you live with your eyes on today.

Can't live in the vision. You know, I was guilty of that for a long time. Always living in the vision. Because there's a lot of hype in vision, right? So much hype. You can run a church for years on hype of a new vision. I had a friend tell me he left a movement because every three years, two years, there'd be a new vision. They'd never finish the one they started.

He said, I did six visions and then I quit. He said, I was done. But every once in a while, God will give you a vision. And it's just saying, Daddy, Dad, can I have the glasses? And every once in a while, he'll give you a sight. I want to say, just sit with the Lord. Write down the things that are important to you and say, God, what do you want me to do here?

Write down what you think he tells you. See if it checks in the Bible. Looks good. Go do it. That's it. Consider him in all your ways. Lord God, I just want to thank you for what you have done today. Lord, we want to consider you as a church, God. And Lord God, without vision, it says people will cast off restraint. God, your restraint brings safety.

Lord, we want to hear what you are saying. We want to do what you're doing. We fix our eyes on you. And if you have lost your fixation with Jesus, today is the day to renew your vision. To fix your eyes on Jesus because he is the author, Hebrew says, and the perfecter of your faith. That he will write your story. He is an author. Father, just in this moment, just say, God, I want to renew my fixation on you.

Bless you, Jesus. Jesus. Father, just in this moment, just in this moment, just in this moment, just in this moment, just in this moment, just in this moment, just in this moment. Thank you, Jesus. Do you just in this moment, just in this moment, just in this moment, just in this moment, just in this moment, just in this moment, just in this moment.

Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.