FusionLife

This morning at the church we’re attending I heard a message that really hit home with me. I’ve been accused of being ahead of my time and to forward thinking. So to hear some encouragement about seeing beyond the here and now. The message was based on Numbers 13 & 14 and the 12 Spies trip into Canaan and their and the people’s reaction to what lie ahead of them.

The introduction to the message was “Vision is the ability to see God’s presence, to perceive God’s power and to focus on God’s plan in spite of obstacles.” He went on from here to say that “Christians with vision are endangered species”. I completely have to agree with him to many times I see Christians and especially church leaders cannot see more than the next Sunday in front of them let alone 2 years, 5 years and 10 years ahead them.

In order to be a person with vision you must posses three things:
-Awareness, the ability to see
-Attitude, the faith to believe
-Action, the courage to do

Only a minority will see things as God does, and that vision almost always goes against the flow.
-The majority see the problem, people with vision see potential (Numbers 13:1, 17-20, 27-20)
This is what separates the people God calls to be leaders of His church and that people in our faith communities need to follow those leaders and trust they follow God.
- The majority exaggerates difficulties, people with vision magnify God (Numbers 13:31-33)
We in the church doubt I’ve always wondered where the verse “to Him who can do immeasurably more” or “nothing is impossible with God”. Why even show up on Sunday if you don’t trust God to do great things around you?
-The majority listen to critics, people with vision listen to God’s word (Numbers 14:1)
Why do we listen to critics? Why do we allow people to gossip and spread negativity around the people?
-The majority glorify the past, people with vision point to the future. (Numbers 14:2-4)
Their is a lot of good that comes from our past, and those in the past have word extremely hard to get us where we are but we forget they did what they did to help us grow in our faith and we have a commitment to do the same for future generations.
-The majority is fear based, people with vision are faith based. (Numbers 14:5-9)
It saddens me to see all the fear good church people allow to get in the way of following God where He is leading. It irritates me to see people in the church use fear as a tactic to stop the forward movement of their local church let alone the whole kingdom.
-The majority see obstacles, people with vision see God (Numbers 14:10-11)
God is visible we just have to know where to look (Matthew 25:31-40) and getting on board with the things God is already blessing or blazing trails scriptures calls to blaze is seeing God and just following.

The Difference Vision Will Make-
-With problems in my life
-Power in the church
-People in my path
-Potential in my path

Lack of vision is plaguing the American church as we’ve become more like the Israelites that wanted to go back to Egypt in stead of forging ahead to the next great adventure God is calling us to. A story that was used as an illustration this morning really fits the current state of a lot church’s and church leaders. “About 350 years ago a shipload of travelers landed on the northeast coast of America. The first year they established a town site. The next year they elected a town government. The third year the town government planned to build a road five miles westward into wilderness. In the fourth year the people tried to impeach their town government because they thought it was a waste of public funds to build a road five miles westward into a wilderness. Who needed to go there anyway? Here were people who had the vision to see three thousand miles across an ocean and overcome great hardships to get there. But in just a few years they were not able to see even five miles out of town. They had lost their pioneering vision.”

Italics above are my opinions and thoughts based on the point being made

I’m being reminded about how life is all about team work. Even the little things of life are easier when done through two or more people. All of the things I done this week (serving coffee and lattes to 2600 church planters, pulling electric cord through a twisted pice of conduit at Chris’, and putting up the corner posts on my in-law’s pole barn) have been so smooth because we worked as a team to get them done.

As I sit here and think about team work I’m reminded of the things that make team work happen.

Knowing where your team is headed
Every team has a coach, some times a player-coach, that sets the direction of where the team is headed. It is absolutely necessary to listen to the coach(s) on your team so that every player is playing their role and execute the game plan so that what ever your organization considers a win happens.

Know your role
Knowing your role only happens through communication. Through communication you find out what your expects you to do and how you are going to help with the win.

Stay inside your role
To many times we play outside of our role. Maybe we think we are better than where the coach sticks us, maybe we think we will have a big impact doing the something outside our role, or maybe we don’t clearly understand what our role is and we drift outside where we are supposed to be. Think if Shaq wanted to handle the ball and Steve Nash stood under the basket would they be a successful basketball team? Staying in your role is as important to team work as any.

But outside of the bullet points of successful teamwork lies the the most important reason for teamwork is what we were meant to live. When we are living in community and on mission we will see team work as absolutely necessary to accomplish that. How can we live on mission and try to meet needs or those around us by ourselves? A lot of the time we will try to accomplish to many things in life that would be so much easier with an extra set of hands.

So the next time you have something to do think about asking someone to come along and help. Think of people you are trying to build new friendships with, those you are discipling or mentoring or want to, or just someone you’ve not seen or talked with in a while.

I am teaching a workshop for guys tomorrow at the Florida Christian Youth Convention on 2 Samuel 23: 8-39 on David’s Mighty Men. I found this great post that breaks down this passage and breaks down the definition of mighty in Hebrew.

“As David grew into this position of leadership, we see him surrounded by MIGHTY MEN. These men are honorable, loyal men who had proved themselves and their loyalty to God, the king, and their country on the battle field. The word translated as MIGHTY MEN literally means that they were manly, strong, vigorous, brave, and mighty.”

I am going to talk about being the men/ guys that God has called us to be based on being MANLY, STRONG (and self-controled), VIGOROUS, BRAVE and MIGHTY. What great attributes for a Christian guy start working toward.

Brian Houston - Preparing Future Generations (my title for his message) Ps 45:16- “Instead of Your fathers shall be Your sons, Whom You shall make princes in all the earth.”

A prophesy of Jesus to the Israelites: you won’t always look to your fathers (Abraham, Moses, Elijah, David) but that you will one day honor the Son (Jesus) and make Him prince of all the earth (Ben Boles interpretation of this verse). But Brian used as a way of looking to honor future generations of the church to make sure we are preparing future leaders and reaching the lost in future generations.

Fathers= Proven and Predictable (not in a bad way) Sons= Unproven and Unpredictable (in a way that worries older leaders who want to go down proven and predictable paths for the church)

In the church we want to fall back on proven, tried and tested successes. But we Jesus who to the Jewish leaders was unpredictable and was leading the people in new ways that they didn’t approve. In John 4 we Jesus doing things that Jewish men didn’t do (1) talk to a woman who wasn’t their wife or relative (2) talk to a Samaritan.

Predictable in loyalty, reliability, what we believe, in our word, commitment is our friend. But predictability is an enemy to creativity, innovation and influence (of future generations).

So much of the church is not yet seen (in ways we haven’t done things and in people groups we haven’t had to adapt to reach (1 Cor (:19-22))

We as leaders cannot just read we have to think. He told a story about a guy putting together a piece of furniture and was having a hard time and a guy walked by and asked if he could help and after a few minutes began to arrange all the pieces and started putting it together. After he was finish the first man asked how did you get that from the directions and the guy answered I cannot read I just had to think about it.

You can only be experienced in the proven and predictable but leading into the future is going to take chances in the unproven and unpredictable.

Culture is our servant not our master. Keep the main thing the main thing.

We’ve got to step into what God has for the future of the church.

Better to be a history maker than a historian.

Saturday Night - Paul Andrew - When God Takes Over The Services

2 Chron. 5: 13-14- “Indeed it came to pass, when the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord, and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and praised the Lord, saying: “For He is good, For His mercy endures forever,” that the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God.”

It came to pass…
1) Be As One- Do we understand meaning of unity? Jesus prayed that we one (Jh 17:21), He says that the world would believe that God sent Jesus because of our unity. At the heart of community is a true sense of unity: standing for the people around you.

2) Make one sound- end of vs. 13 they lifted up their voice (singular) not their voice(s) which happens when a group of singers and musicians get together normally you hear their differences in this vs. they were as one.

3) Lift Up One Voice- Ps 133- “A Song of Ascents. Of David. Behold, how good and how pleasant it is For brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious oil upon the head, Running down on the beard, The beard of Aaron, Running down on the edge of his garments. It is like the dew of Hermon, Descending upon the mountains of Zion; For there the Lord commanded the blessing— Life forevermore.”

When we actually are as one (unified) the spirit of God will take over and His presence be such a cloud of witness that we won’t be able to do anything but stand in awe of Him.

What are you doing to contribute to being one voice in the body of Christ?

I wanted to share the things that were said at the conference that stuck out to me and really nailed home what they were talking about. We bought the CD’s of all the sessions and workshops so if you would like to barrow them let me know.

Friday Night - Phil Dooley - There’s A Breakthrough Coming In Your Life

Phil 3:12- “forgetting the past and pressing forward toward the goal” Eph 3:20- “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us.”

Being obedient to God prepares you for the breakthrough He has planned for you.

1 Sam 17:17-21- “And Jesse said to David his son, Take for your brothers an ephah of this parched grain, and these ten loaves, and carry them quickly to the camp to your brothers. Also take these ten cheeses to the commander of their thousand. See if your brothers are well, and bring some token from them. Now Saul and they and all the men of Israel were in the Valley of Elah, fighting with the Philistines. And David rose early in the morning and left the sheep with a keeper and took the provisions and went, as Jesse had commanded him. And he came to the encampment as the host was going out to the battle line, shouting the war cry.”

David the “little cheese boy” as Phil referred to him as was being obedient and diligent in his work, vs. 20 David rose early to do the work asked of him.

Breakthrough happens when in your heart you realize somethings not right and you want to do something about it. David heard the insults to God that Goliath and was tired of waiting for the Israelite army that had been on the battle line for 40 days and did something about. God used the culmination of all the experiences David had being obedient taking care of his father’s sheep to slay the giant. But it wasn’t about David.

Breakthrough is never really about you.

1 Chron. 20:4-8- ” And after this there arose war with the Philistines at Gezer. Then Sibbecai the Hushathite struck down Sippai, who was one of the descendants of the giants, and the Philistines were subdued. And there was again war with the Philistines, and Elhanan the son of Jair struck down Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam. And there was again war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in number, and he also was descended from the giants. And when he taunted Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea, David’s brother, struck him down. These were descended from the giants in Gath, and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants.”

Breakthrough is about glorifying God and when breakthrough happens in your life others step up and come along and do the same.

So my question is are you being obedient to God or are you solely looking for a moment where you do something great?

Tags: Hillsong United Conference, Phil Dooley