The passage that I am using for a text is one that, when you hear it, will sound familiar to you. It is like Psalm 23, John 3 or 1 Corinthians 13 ... we wonder what more can be said about it. It is a passage that, if you are not familiar with Scripture, you will assume you read it in a magazine, or that you heard some great statesman use it in a speech. Today, I am impressed to share some thoughts on it.
Some time ago, there was a comic strip in Peanuts that showed Lucy in her psychiatrist booth. She is trying to analyze Charlie Brown. She says, "Charlie Brown, life is like a deck chair." "Like what?" "Charlie, have you ever been on a ship when the passengers try to open up one of those chairs so they can sit in the sun? Some of them place their chairs facing the rear so they can see where they have been. Some of them face their chairs forward so they can see where they are going." "On the cruise ship of life, Charlie Brown, which way is your deck chair facing?"
That’s a good question. Let me ask you: On the cruise ship of life, which way is your deck chair facing? To the back to see where you’ve been? Forward to see where you are going? I have discovered in life, in our churches, so many of us are always looking back.
We see things as they were. We spend a lot of time talking about "usta." Why can’t things be like they "usta" be? Things "usta" be better.
There are some who are always looking forward ... to the future ... optimistically ... with faith. There are some of us who can identify with Charlie Brown ... when he replied: "I’ve never been able to get on of them unfolded."
Frustration.
There are some who are frustrated with life because it seems that nothing works.
But, nevertheless, it is a question worth pondering: "On the cruise ship of life, which way is your deck chair facing?"
The position for a Christian must always be forward. For we are a people of faith, hope, vision and optimism. John F. Kennedy took a statement made
by George Bernard Shaw and made it famous. "You see things as they are and you ask, ’Why?’ But I dream of things that never were, and I ask, ’Why not?’"
If our hearts and our lives ... our all ... are committed to the great God of heaven ... the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob ... the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ... who raised Jesus from the dead ... and "is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us ..." ... then there is no limitation to our horizon. We can look and dream of things that have never been and say, "By the grace of God ... why not!?"
We have to be people of vision. It is encouraged throughout Scripture. Listen: "Where there is no vision, the people perish" (Prov. 29:18). "And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my Spirit. And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth..." (Joel 2:28-30a).
This same thought is reflected in Acts 2:17. "And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams."
This tells us that people who are controlled by the Spirit of God are people with vision. It also says that young and old alike are capable of this. It is not just the young who are capable of dreaming new ideas and desiring to see them accomplished by Almighty God. Those who are in their twilight years are just as capable. But understand ... the determining factor is not age ...
it is the big IF...if they are controlled by the Spirit of God.
If they are not controlled by the Spirit of God what do they say?
"We never did it that way before." Or
"We’ve always done it this way." Or
"We don’t have the money." Or
"We usta do that but we can’t do it now."
Where there is no vision the people perish.
Today!
We Need a Vision of Our Golden Opportunities
We need a vision of our golden opportunities. What potential! What opportunities are about us. The passages I read a moment ago in Joel and Acts tell us these came from God. How great they are.
In the 1840’s two young men came to this country from Germany. The older of the two was skilled in making Sauerkraut. He immediately headed for the west coast.
He bought land ... cultivated it ... and raised cabbage for sauerkraut.
The younger brother had no skill .. no profession. He decided to go to mining school in Colorado. When he finished, he went to visit his brother. His brother was proud of his business and took him to see all that he had accomplished. As they walked, he noticed that the younger brother had stopped and was kneeling.
He ceased to pay attention to what his older brother was saying and just sat there rubbing the soil in his hands. Big brother came over and said, "You are not interested in my work. You have no interest in what I have accomplished."
The younger brother stood, shifting some rocks in his hands. "Do you know what these are? "They’re just quartz." "Yes, but these yellow flecks are gold. You are raising cabbage in a gold field." That was the beginning of the great Gold Strike in El Dorado, California in 1845.
What I fear is that in most of our churches we are content to raise cabbage in a gold field! We’ve lost sight of our great opportunity ... our potential.
We Must Not Settle For Mediocrity
We must not settle for mediocrity. We avoid that my not settling for ignorance or tradition. We are living in some of the most exciting times in history.
Some years ago, a book was written by John Nesbit entitled Megatrends. He tried to look into the future and predict trends that will occur by the year 2000. He listed 10. Almost everyone of them has an application in the church. I want to mention just a few.
1) We shall shift from an industrial society to an information society. The emphasis will not be on manufacturing and distribution of goods. It will be on distribution of information.
I looked at that and thought where have you been all this time. The church was commissioned almost 2000 years ago to distribute information. "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 14:15). "And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations" (Luke 24:47). "For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures" (1 Cor. 15:3). "He hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation" (2 Cor. 5;18b). "According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing shall I be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Phil. 1:20-21).
You see the church has been distributing information of the highest quality and caliber. Information that makes a man or woman free. Information that offers mankind forgiveness, new life, joy, peace, purpose, and hope.
2) We shall see a great need for establishing personal relationships. There will be a parallel between high tech and high touch. Machines will do the work. There will be a need for personal relationships because everything will be reduced to numbers.
Have you noticed how many numbers are involved in life? You have a driver’s license number, a social security number, loan numbers, a proliferation phone numbers ... pager numbers ... cell phone numbers ... and on and on.
In this society there is little emphasis put on the personal relationship. The customer is not always right anymore. We are more interested in going by the numbers (or by the book) than we are satisfying the customer.
The church is not supposed to be like that. And yet the church is one institution that is resisting change ... fighting almost to its death ...
which may well be the result ... if we don’t stop fighting for our traditions and start fighting for the lost. The church is a group of believers fitly joined together, members one of another. You should expect to come to church and find love, acceptance, and encouragement. Each member thinking more highly of the other than themselves. The church, in this capacity, must reach out to a lost and dying world and community In many churches that is only offered if you manage to stick it out long enough and if they finally find some reason to deem you worthy of acceptance.
3) There will be a global conscience ... not just concerned with what is going on in my neighborhood, but around the world.
4) There will be a shift in the population from rural to urban.
5) We will become a multiple option society.
We live in an age of 31 flavors. If I were to ask some of you what your choices were in ice cream when you were growing up you would have to admit that you had a choice of 3 flavors ... vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. Today we have flavors with such exotic and provocative names that I dare not mention them for fear of being accused of improper language from the pulpit.
In America today, when you buy to buy a new car, there are over 750 different models to choose from, notwithstanding a variety of colors in each model class.
There is a store in New York City that boasts of having over 2500 different types of light bulbs. You can turn on your television and with cable or satellite hook-ups you can receive upwards of a hundred different channels.
One preacher said the next generation will have eyes as big as saucers and brains the size of split peas.
Folks, we must not be caught sitting on our hands. This is not a multiple choice society when it comes to Jesus Christ. Jesus is the only way. He is the "way, the truth and the life. "There is no other name given under heaven ... by which we must be saved." "That at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord."
We must not raise cabbage in a gold field. We must see and seize our golden opportunity.
We Must See Our Great Responsibilities
We must see our great responsibilities. The Bible says, "Unto whom much is given, much is required" (Luke 12:48).
The problem is we are confused and frustrated. We can’t face the deck chair, much less get it open. We are still fiddling with it when we should have been finished and on to another project.
An English preacher named Watkinson was out on a beach with his little grandson.
An elderly man came along. They spoke and the elderly man began to lash out at the preacher ... using terrible language. It frightened the little boy. Another man came along behind the disgruntled older man and said, "Please don’t be alarmed by him. He is suffering from a sun stroke." The little boy later said to his granddad, "Granddad. I hope you don’t ever suffer from a sunset."
Some today are suffering from a sunset. They no longer see the new day and welcome it with joy in their hearts. They want things to remain as they were. They no longer see new opportunities, new potential. When something new surfaces, they don’t want to be involved and often will actively work to assure its failure. Why? Because they are so tied to tradition that the thought that God might work in a new way is simply beyond their comprehension. They remember the old days when they came together, doing whatever it took to insure that the church would grow. They remember the old days when people were made to feel that they could be a part of what was happening and were given ownership in the church. Now they are afraid of losing control. When the church treasury begins to diminish, they panic. Why? Because they may be asked to give sacrificially and they just don’t want to make the sacrifice. They’ve made sacrifices in the past, and they no longer have the resources to make the sacrifice and they cannot imagine God raising up a new generation who wants to be a part of what God is doing. Everything is doom and gloom. God save us from the sunset of life!!!!!
We Need a New Vision of Our God
What is the problem? What is missing?
A preacher friend of mine was conducting a Bible conference in East Texas.
The pastor of the church kept talking about the "Fellowship Forum."
Finally, Herman asked, "What is this ’Fellowship Forum’?" The local pastor said, "On Thursday we are going to have a time of refreshments. At that time we are going to open up a discussion where our people can ask you questions on anything you have said so far this week."
Man, that will give you pause for reflection.
The first question he was asked was, "What do you think is the greatest need in the church today?" His answer: We need a new vision of our God.
If we had a proper vision of our God we would no longer have any financial burdens. There would no longer be a problem finding teachers and leaders to work in the church. There would no longer be people seeking to control the church but everyone would be looking to Jesus as the head of church. There would no longer be people who sit around and look for things for everyone else to do. Instead they would say, "I see the need. I will do everything in my power to fulfill the need myself."
We need the vision that comes from Genesis 18. "Is anything too difficult for the Lord."
Do you know the stair step from Ephesians 3:20? "Now to Him who is able ... "Now to Him who is able to do exceeding ... "Now to Him who is able to exceeding abundantly beyond ... "Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Jesus Christ to all generations forever and ever, Amen."
We need to be captured today by God. We need to be captured by a longing to experience God.
Henry Blackaby in the Bible study that he developed out of his experience in churches in Canada shows from the life of Moses the seven realities of how we experience God.
• God is always at work in our world.
• God pursues a continuing love relationship with us that is real and personal.
• God invites us to become involved with Him in His work.
• God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances and the church to reveal Himself, His purposes and His ways.
• God invitation for you to work with Him always leads you to a crisis of belief that requires faith and action.
• You must make major adjustments in your life to join God in what He is doing.
• You come to know God by experience as you obey Him and He accomplishes His work through you.
I long for the day when the Budget and Finance Committee comes before the church and says, "Based on the God-sized vision of our church, we believe God is leading us to double or triple our budget for the new year. We don’t know where the money is coming from other than it will come from sources from which God directs."
I long for the day when people come and say, "Preacher, I don’t feel qualified to teach or serve, but I believe God is calling me to serve in some capacity and I will do everything in my power to develop myself, both spiritually and personally to meet the challenge God has set before me."
I long for the day when our young people are streaming the aisles on Sunday morning saying, "I believe God may be calling me into vocational Christian service. I can’t say that I have heard an audible voice from God, but I have heard God through His word and through prayer and through my circumstances of having served among my peers, and I am willing to step out in faith and follow this through by getting the education and knowledge along with the practical service to follow God’s call for my life."
You see if you have your deck chair facing the proper direction you will see that our God is personal present and power.
Isn’t it time you moved your deck chair so that you can get a correct and proper view? A Christian view?
This morning I want to ask those of you who are members of this church that God would do three things in the life of our church in the new year.
1. That God would give us a vision that will take us into the twenty-first century.
2. That God would remove from you any reluctance on your part to a willingness to change to meet God’s vision.
3. That God would reveal to us a plan to follow to accomplish that vision.
If you are not a member of this church, I want to ask you to consider this morning if you want to be a part of a church that is looking for a fresh touch from God.
