Vision Sunday

The speaker discusses the importance of understanding the "why" behind our actions. They mention that people will work for a specific goal, but they will truly commit and be dedicated to a purpose or mission. They introduce the idea of the church's mission and the importance of leading people into the transforming love of Jesus. They explain that the love and mercy of God can bring about transformation in our lives and should be the foundation for everything we do as a church. The speaker also highlights the concept of offering ourselves as living sacrifices and living a life of worship. They share a personal story of a friend who exemplifies devotion and challenges others to live out their faith wholeheartedly. He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how. I won't be quoting a lot of Nietzsche over the years, so make the most of that one. Craig Rochelle in one of his leadership podcasts said this, people will work for a what, but they'll die for a why. People will work for a what, but they'll die for a why. And Simon Sinek, who has done quite a lot of work on this idea of the power of why, says this, when we know why we do what we do, everything falls into place. Happy New Year everyone, Happy New Year. This new year means new preaching series. Thank you Linda. Whoop! Yes. And so over the next five weeks we're going to be talking about why we do the things that we do as a church. Why? Because as we can see from those quotes, our why is important. So this week we're thinking about the why of our mission as a church. Why do we lead people into the transforming love of Jesus? That should be on the screen up here, yes, very good. And then over the coming month we'll look at why do we come to church on Sundays, why do we have these worship gatherings, we'll think about why do we join connect groups, why do we have that smaller place of friendship and relationship in the life of the church, why do we serve on teams and do the community outreach things that we do as a church, like feeding people, investing in people's mental health, providing places of friendship, why do we do those things? And finally we'll be thinking about why do we give, what's the power of giving? So that's where we're heading. Are you excited? Oh, you're so obliging, you're so obliging, thank you, I'm actually, I'm really excited about it because I think there is real power in us just reflecting on, so why am I actually here? What is the point of this? So my hope in all of this is that you are help to unlock what God has put in you. It's not just for yourself, but for your friends and family, so we as a church have this incredible sense of clarity about how we can really thrive as a church and a family, and so I'm hoping we're going to grasp that over the next few weeks, and so today as we look at the mission of the church, I just wonder, do you carry a personal sense of mission? Do you know what you're doing with yourself? Do you have a sense of focus on that? Do you have a sense of mission? Jesus in Matthew 28 gives us what's known as the Great Commission, the prefix com normally means with. So when we see something called the Great Commission, this is, we're talking about the text where we see the mission Jesus leaves his disciples with, this is what we've been given to live out, and it says this, I'm hoping that some of these words are familiar to most of you, it says this, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you, and surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age. And as we've prayed about this Great Commission, as a leadership group, and you'll remember a few years ago, we spent a lot of time in dialogue about if Jesus was going to say that to us now in 21st century witness, how do we think he would say it, and this is what we came up with, leading people into the transforming love of Jesus. We have a mission as a church and as disciples, and I suppose I really believe that it doesn't come from me, or the PCC, or even the leadership group, but actually as Jesus, if Jesus was speaking to us now to give us this Great Commission, this would be it, that we are leading people into the transforming love of Jesus. And so for the next 15 minutes or so, we're just going to unpack this a little bit using Romans 12, verses 1 and 2, which was the reading that we had earlier. We've got this statement, leading people into the transforming love of Jesus. Why do you think his love is transforming? Why does Jesus' love change people? I think it's spelt out here, it says we're being urged to offer ourselves, to not conform, but be transformed, why? Because of God's mercy, because of his mercy. The starting point is the great merciful love of God. Up until now in the book of Romans, the first 11 chapters have been pretty much all theology, and a theology around how God's love and his judgment are held together. And then there's this moment in chapter 12, which is like a so what moment, we've been reflecting on who God is, and then we have this amazing so what moment. If God's mercy is real, what difference does that make to us? And specifically in this chapter, it's about how should we behave as a church? Why does God's love, why does his mercy change the human heart as we see it in Jesus? Well, in Luke 7, Jesus tells this parable about an apparently sinful woman who washes Jesus' feet with her hair. I wonder if you know the story. And she's doing it in front of a group of people who would understand themselves to be very righteous. And Jesus tells this story, it goes like this. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, this act of Jesus' feet being washed, he said to himself, if this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is, that she's a sinner. Jesus answered him, Simon, I have something to tell you. Tell me, teacher, he said. Two people owed money to a certain money lender. One owed him 500 denarii, which is like 500 days' wages, and the other 50, 50 days' wages. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more? Simon replied, I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven. You've judged correctly, Jesus said. Then he turned towards the woman and said to Simon, do you see this woman? I came into your house and you didn't give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. And then we have these poignant words. Therefore I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven, as her great love has shown. Whoever has been forgiven little, loves little. Whoever has been forgiven little, loves little. So in this story, you've got two types of people. Those who feel entitled to Jesus' presence, and those who feel like he's the greatest gift ever. And for you and I, if we think basically we're okay, that we don't need the love of God in our lives, then I'll have very little transformational power. But if your posture is, oh my goodness, I need you, Lord, and every day I realize a little bit more I need you to show me the best way to live, the best way to love. If that's our posture, our posture of humanity, then we create space for him to do something really beautiful and mesmerizing in our hearts and our lives. This is a spiritual truth, but I think it's just a logical one as well. If you don't think his love and his mercy is important, it simply won't have much of a role in your life. It'll be like a sideline thing, maybe a nice idea that you pay a bit of attention to. On the other hand, if you know God's mercy is the only place you can find unconditional acceptance and value, then it will be the fuel that changes every interaction you have. Why? Because you no longer have to gain love and value from the world around you, you can bring it because it's been given to you, you've received it as a gift. The mercy of God that forgives our... and let's face it, we're always accruing debt before God. The mercy of God that forgives our ongoing debt, that is the transformational love of God. And it's a foundational building block for all we do as a church. We gather on a Sunday because we want people to experience and meet with Jesus in worship and experience that mercy, not just in an idea, but in a personal way. The reason we have connect groups is because we believe we experience that through relationship. The reason we do community outreaches and serve our town is because we believe God's love, His mercy can be shown in practical demonstrations of His love. So why do we try and lead people into this love? That's our mission statement, to lead people into the transforming love of Jesus. Well, our passage goes on from, in view of God's mercy. It says this, to offer our bodies as living sacrifices. Now, this is not a cold, dead act of religion. In the Old Testament, the sacrificial system was, you literally had a dead sacrifice, like the animal was killed, you offer that. We're to offer ourselves as living sacrifices. This is loving behavior full of relational vitality. It says that we're called holy. Literally means set apart, different in contrast to the age that we live in. Pleasing. Often this is translated acceptable, which kind of just communicates that when you're in Jesus, God kind of tolerates you. But actually, no, He loves you. He likes you. He sees you. He doesn't just tolerate you. He thinks you're genuinely beautiful. You're attractive to Him in Christ. And it goes on and says, this is our spiritual worship. Spiritual worship not restricted to a certain time or place, but who we are. It's our whole life of worship. So I've got a mate who, on the run up to Christmas, did a 40-day fast. It's like, don't try this at home, kids. It's like, hardcore. And he's a sold-out, devoted, passionate man of God. He doesn't drink alcohol. He doesn't watch much TV. And he truly owns that Hebrews 12 thing of he's thrown off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And he's trying to run with real perseverance the race that's marked out to him. He wants to fix his eyes on Jesus with the whole of who he is. That is what he's like. When I saw him this week, he was humbly and gently calling out an area of compromise in my life. He's a challenging and empowering person to be around. But I'll be honest with you, that kind of total devotion, I find it a bit scary. Have you ever met somebody like that? They're just a bit scary. It's not because he's angry or I'm worried that he's going to kick off in some way. It's because who he is, the level of surrender and sacrifice he demonstrates to Jesus, I felt like he's going to pull me into uncharted waters in my faith. He's going to draw me out of the safe place and beyond my comfort zone into a deeper journey with Jesus. This kind of life, it contrasts with and it confronts the world in which we live in. And so Paul brings this challenge. He says, don't conform any longer to the patterns of this age. It's like, stop conforming. That's his word to the church. Stop it. You are. Now stop conforming. Break away from that way of being. Break away from that way of being. Change your patterns, your habits, your practices. And that requires, it requires real intent to do that. Ultimately it requires leadership, self-leadership and the ability to lead others and to be led by others. And that's why our mission statement has this, it's a slightly divisive word, isn't it? Leading. I wonder what you think of when you hear the word leading. Do you think of the guy with the collar up the front? For me, obviously, it's a pseudo-collar. It's like I'm not wearing it today, but like, I wonder what you think of when you think of leadership. When we talk about it here, what we mean is people who are discovering more and more love for Jesus and giving more and more of themselves to Him and entrusting themselves in a deeper way to Him with their time, their money, their effort. Not just for themselves, but for the sake of others. So I think of some of the saints in this church. And Linda will help me, I hate me mentioning her. Forgive me, Linda. But Linda's devotion to the scriptures inspires me. Like, she's got a scripture on her lips. She's inspired to read the word of God because of her passion for the scripture. I think of some of the people in our church who show us incredible courage standing up for biblical truths in a culture and context that is so aggressively against some of those things. Think of the members of our community who've demonstrated incredible peace in the face of sickness and death. I think of those in our community who've demonstrated steadfast, persevering love with the kinds of people it's incredibly hard to love well. As you guys have loved Jesus by loving others in this way, it inspires us, it leads us forward. But I hope you see that in that, leading is not a personality thing. I don't like to be extrovert evangelist. But it's about intent and discipline. Why? Why does it require those things? Because change is hard. First Sunday of the new year, it's the obligatory moment for who's made a new year's resolution. Does anybody know how many new year's resolutions fail by January, by February? Percentage, anyone know? It's 80%, Donna, you read that too. Just a guesstimate, a guesstimate. Very good. Yeah, 80% fail by February. Why? I've got a few reasons for you. I think desire, like ultimately, we're a little bit, do we really want to make that change? So is the hope of the new future, the change, was it strong enough? Am I actually comfortable enough where I am to make those changes? That's one of them. Obstacles, we don't count the cost. So desire, obstacles like, actually I wanted to make these changes but I wasn't prepared to actually stop any of the things that I'm currently doing. So that's another one. Unmanageable goals. January the 1st, great idea about the person I'm going to be this time next year, but don't actually break it down into bite-sized manageable steps. You know, Desmond Tutu's thing of how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. And then the fourth thing, and I think this is the big one, is that often we just lack accountability. We haven't drawn others in to the journey, people who can say, well how's that going? Who can cheer us on when it's a struggle, who can celebrate the victories. Have you ever tried to make a change and been unable to see it through? And as you hear this today, where do you know you've conformed to the pattern of this world? Where do you long to see a change? How do we respond to this sort of longing? Well, Paul spells it out here. He says, you can be transformed by the renewing of your mind. What does this mean? I think often in church circles, we sort of reduce this to the personal reading of the Bible more. So it's like, quit Netflix, just read the Bible. Honestly, I think for a lot of us that would do an awful lot of good. So I'm not dismissive of that as your next step. I think biblical literacy and witness could make a couple of steps forward. But I also think that as a people of God, we need to own His Word on a totally different level. It says in Hebrews that the Word of God is living and active, sharper than a double-edged sword. It cuts to the core of who we are. It contains this genuine truth for all humanity. And as the people of God, we only know, we only know Jesus, who He is, what is life, death, resurrection and ascension, what it means for us today. We only know it through the scriptures. No, we need to own the scriptures, but we need to own them on an entirely different level. Because they are to be weighed and ultimately the scripture is to be obeyed. And how do we bring our lives into alignment with what the Word of God says? What makes it turbocharged, what fills it with dynamite, what makes it rocket-fueled is reading the scriptures together in community. Doing it as a family. And that's the point of our connect groups. If you're not in a connect group, that's why we have them. It's so we can read the Word and apply it in our lives. Thank you. In my group alone, and I'm not saying this because I think mine is the best group, it's relatively new. We're just being a group of people that's getting to know each other. We've been going for a few months. It has been so exciting to hear each week how the application of the Word has allowed people to grow depth in prayer, to take on new practices in things like fasting, silence, solitude, imaginative prayer. It's been beautiful to see that. But what's been even better, and that is amazing, what's been even better is to see how people who have struggled with flying off the handle have seen and can testify to little breakthroughs in patience and forgiveness. The point of being transformed by the renewing of our minds and where we really see it is in the difference it makes with our relationships with each other. It's when love overcomes hate, when generosity overcomes greed, when encouragement overcomes gossip and envy. When we live like this, we get to see again that God's love When you live like this, when you have your mind renewed like this, as you build your life on the foundational mercy of God, as you lead yourself and others into the transforming love of Jesus, then you'll be able to test and approve His good, pleasing, and perfect will for your life. And that's what we're going to do today. We're going to talk about how to transform your relationship with God. We're going to talk about how to transform and approve His good, pleasing, and perfect will for your life. Base level, I just think that Jesus, Alpha and Omega, the end and the beginning, that He knows much better how I can live than I do. Base level. His good, pleasing, and perfect will for my life and for your life is much better than my small-minded, unforgiving, insecure will for my life. These are the two options, right? His will or my will. And every now and then, I get a little glimpse of the difference Jesus makes. A little while back, a guy rang me up and just said, Oh, can we go out for a drink? There's a few things I'd like to talk to you about. His wife had been coming to this church and had quite a sort of dynamic conversion moment at the hands of Jesus. And as she's been part of the life of the church, we go into connect groups, her husband's saying, like, she's just different. She's just, like, she's just, she seems to be changing all the time. And I've got to the point, so he's saying to me, I've got to the point where I just want a bit of what she's got. Can you help? I'm like, yeah! Yes, we can help. This is, like, this is what we're about. Our mission as a church is to lead each other and those not part of this community into the transforming love of Jesus. What we feel, and those around us, can see the difference Jesus is making, just like that married couple. And I personally, and we as a team, we long for you to thrive and flourish in the life of this church, no matter where you are at on this journey. So over the next few weeks, we're going to be working through why we do what we do, so you have the opportunity to step into the next level in your faith, to know Jesus better, to hopefully be led deeper into his transforming love. I've just got one thing that I'd like you to do between now and next week, is to pray about this church mission, to pray about this idea that we, we as a church are leading people into the transforming love of Jesus. I've just got a couple of questions for you. How much do you want that? How much do you want to be part of something like that? If you had to mark yourself out of 10 for desire in that, what would you give yourself? Are you a four heading in the right direction, or a six but you think you're on the decline? Or maybe a seven and still going up. How hungry are you to be part of this kind of mission? And is there something that you could do? Is there something that you could do that, I don't mean like a come to church more thing to do, but is there something that you can do that would shift your desire and make you more hungry for this? A moment of quiet just as we reflect on these questions. A moment of quiet. Lord Jesus, we declare in our hearts that you are our why. You're the reason. You're sacrificial love. You're incredible mercy. That's the reason we're here. And I pray, Lord Jesus, you would show us again how willing you were to embrace the cross so we can see that we're loved and valuable. Show us again that you say that we're the joy set before you as you endure. As you endure the cross and as you endure separation from the Father so we can know acceptance and love. And we pray, Lord, that it would rub off on us. That you'd set a fire in our hearts. You'd give us a passion to experience your love and to lead others into it. And pray that even now that you would bring to mind the areas, the moments where we've experienced your transforming love. That we'd be able to celebrate the victories you've already won. And they would give us courage to contend for new victories this year. Stir us, Lord. We pray that you would make us passionate for you. You give us intent, leadership. As you continue to bring renewal in our lives and our town. Amen.