Aug 31 2009
Pastor’s notes
Over the past month I have been addressing the issue of faith. This has been very relevant for Margie and I in this whole relocation from South Africa to WA. How much faith do we need? – just a mustard seed (and we’ve found that’s a whole lot); When do we act in faith? – only when we hear the voice of Jesus calling to us to come to where He already is.
But beyond that we need to be clear about where we are going. In the letter to the Church in Philippi, Paul writes these words, “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize.” He also used the example of running a race in order to win the prize. But what is the prize? And what is this race? The prize is the ultimate consummation of all things; it is the final victory won when we find ourselves in the fullness of glory and where every knee bows and every tongue confesses Jesus Christ as Lord. The race is the journey we take from our first encounter with Jesus until that prize is won. This is a journey of an ever expanding vision.
When we first come to Christ we are sometimes excited about everything, we see the wonder of God in every place. Sometimes we just wonder what everybody else is excited about. And as we journey on, this vision can change. Sometimes it expands and matures, and sometimes it just gets stuck in the mundane. In Proverbs 29:18 (KJV) we read that “where there is no vision, the people perish” and I believe that it is a primary leadership task to keep the vision alive. It is the preacher’s role to keep the congregation on the journey, not just to warn about prowling enemies but to keep the passion burning bright.
Over the next couple of weeks I am going to be focused on this idea. All three sermons derive from notes I made at the Global Leadership Summit last year with Bill Hybels and John Ortberg. I am passionate about leadership in the local church and believe sincerely that it is the leadership which makes or breaks the effective Christian witness of the local church.
So this week I will begin to examine essential source of our vision – it starts with “Holy Discontent”. When we are satisfied with what we have, we have no where to go. The Bible is full of instances where people found themselves at a place where they could feel that God would not be happy with a situation. We will examine some of these today in Merredin and at Bruce Rock next week and at Muka and Southern Cross the week after. (I am going to try to get the same message out to each congregation).
Next week, I will focus on building a vision for which we are prepared to die. We need to “own” the vision. In John 10, Jesus draws a parallel between the hired hands and the owner of the sheep. There is a big difference in their approach. The hired hand abandons the sheep and runs away when the wolf comes, the owner (Jesus) lays down his life for the sheep. And we are called to follow the example of Jesus (Phil 2:5, John 13:15).
And the following week we turn to the problem of “Shadow vision” – when we follow the shadow instead of the reality, when we are prepared to settle for anything less than the fullness of what God wants.
All of this is a preparation for a time of vision and strategy formulation which I want us to do later in the year. I am just so excited about what I see the Lord wanting to do in the Eastern Wheatbelt, that I am, in a sense, struggling to contain myself. I know that I am often impulsive and “get out of the boat” without thinking too much ahead, but I sense the Lord saying that we must take it slowly, establish the foundation, build on the Rock, or else He will not be in it.
Peace to you in Christ Jesus,
David
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