Vision Sunday 2023

Follow Along with the Message

“If our memories exceed your dreams, the end is near.” – Andy Stanley 

• We are not supposed to live in the past, we are supposed to learn from the past.

Ecclesiastes 7:10 (NLT)- Don’t long for “the good old days.” This is not wise. 

1. What are the "good old days" for you?
2. What does this mean for us as a church?
3. What does this mean for you?

Vision

Proverbs 29:18 (KJV) - “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” 

Acts 2:17 (NLT)- ‘In the last days,’ God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams. 

Proverbs 29:18 (MSG)- If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; But when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed. 

Everyone ends up . Few people end up somewhere on .

“Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at something that really doesn’t matter.” - D.L. Moody 

Jeremiah 17:5–6 (NLT) “This is what the Lord says: “Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans, who rely on human strength and turn their hearts away from the Lord. They are like stunted shrubs in the desert, with no hope for the future. They will live in the barren wilderness, in an uninhabited salty land.”  

Jeremiah 17:7–8 (NLT)- “But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.” 

But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence.

Know God

1.  to Jesus

“One can know a great deal about God without much knowledge of Him.”- J.I. Packer

They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water.

Find Freedom

2.  to Jesus.  

Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought.

Discover Purpose

3.  like Jesus.

Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.

Make A Difference

4.  for Jesus.

“Neuroimaging has shown that as we age, the center of cognitive gravity tends to shift from the imaginative right brain to the logical left brain. And this neurological tendency presents a grave danger. At some point, most of us stop living out of the imagination and start living out of memory. Instead of creating the future, we start repeating the past. Instead of living by faith, we live by logic. Instead of going after our dreams, we stop circling Jericho.” - Mark Batterson 

Our Sticky Vision:

“Get lost people saved, saved people discipled, discipled people sent.”

“It has been often said that there are but two steps to Heaven—and that those two are but one—out of self and into Christ.” - Charles Spurgeon