Developing a Vision for Your Life
The Power of a God-given Vision for Reaching Your Maximum Potential
INTRO:
- We have an incredible imagination
- Our eyes can take in 4 million bytes of information every second.
- The moment we take it in, our imagination processes it, and forms a 3D color picture and then immediately puts it into motion.
o The imagination is very powerful
- We all think in pictures
o ILLUS: If I say, “Big Black Dog” You don’t see the words, your imagination shows you that image. We are visually oriented.
- Every one of us in our imagination has a picture of ourselves, our family and our future.
- How we see ourselves is the way that we are going to become.
- You will never rise any higher than the image you have of yourself.
o You will never accomplish anything that you first do not see yourself accomplishing.
ILLUS: Walt Disney. The most popular tourist attraction on the planet. In 1998, forty-two million people went through the turnstiles at the Disney World theme park alone. Sits on 43 square miles. Walt Disney died before it opened. In Oct. 1, 1971, Grand Opening Ceremony. Someone turned to Mrs. Walt Disney and said, “Isn’t it a shame that your husband couldn’t live to see this?” Her response, “He did see it—that’s why it’s here.”
REMEMBER: God’s Vision for Your Life is Two-Fold:
1.) God has a Vision for What He Wants You to Accomplish
2.) God has a Vision for What He Wants You to Become
PROP: I want to give you 5 goals that I hope that you will begin to develop in your life as it relates to vision.
I. DEFINE God’s Vision for Your Life
- We have to understand that the idea of vision didn’t come from some get-rich quick scheme or motivational speaker but it came from God Himself.
Proverbs 29:18: “Where there is no vision the people perish, but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.”
WORD STUDY:
- “Vision” = Chazown: it means mental sight, dream, revelation or enlightenment.
- “perish” = para: released from protective and productive restraints
- “Law” = torah: Biblical principles and precepts
- “happy” = esher: blessed, successful, and joyful
HOW WOULD YOU DEFINE VISION?:
- The ability to see in our minds God’s destination for our lives – both present and future, partial and whole, individual and corporate. (It is a mental blueprint)
- Vision is the bridge between the past and the future
- Vision is the eye of faith to see the invisible and the decisiveness to make it visible.
- Vision is adopting an action plan that will enable you to do what God has told you to do spiritually or in service to Him.
- Vision is the inward fire that enables you to communicate to others what the future could be like.
- Vision is a “sanctified dream” of the future.
- Vision is foresight with insight based on hindsight.
- Vision is the ability to sense God’s Presence, to perceive God’s Power, and to focus on God’s Plan in spite of the obstacles.
o For me, it is the capacity to allow God (through His creative powers) to create within us dreams and plans for the future that will help others and bring glory to Himself.
- Some of you are thinking, “Pastor, why should I bother listening to this message…why should I be a visionary?
I’m just an ordinary person, with and ordinary job, and an ordinary family
o I think God would disagree with you this morning.
- Your ability to dream and imagine is a God-given ability that He has given to you in order to reach your maximum potential and become a Champion for Christ.
- I believe God would have us to know this morning that vision is a character trait that can be stimulated and developed in each of our lives.
OBJECT LESSON: Puzzle Box Top. A vision is the puzzle box top…it is where we want things to end up. When you have acquired God’s vision for your life, it makes fitting together the pieces of the puzzle of life much easier. “If you have THIS (box top) with enough time and thought, you can do THIS (fit pieces)
NOTE: vision limits your decisions (simplifies)
II. DETERMINE to See Through Your Eyes of Faith
Matthew 6:22-23, “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”
- This isn’t talking about out physical eyes, but what we see through our eyes of faith.
- It’s talking about what kind of image we are keeping in front of us…it’s talking about our vision.
- God is extremely interested in what you see through your “spiritual eyes.”
o 7 x’s in Scripture God asks His people, “What do you see?”
- IN OTHER WORDS: If you are always focused on your problems…what you can’t do…always focused on your limitations…then that image of mediocrity is going to keep you right where you are.
- It’s not because God doesn’t want to increase you, it’s because you’ve developed the wrong image on the inside.
- You must start looking through your eyes of faith…As the Bible says, “We must keep our eyes filled with light.”
- OBJECT LESSON: My Eyesight and Eyeglasses…Put on the Spectacles of Faith.
- It is a spiritual principle as well as a psychological fact: We move towards what we see in our minds. (If you can’t see it, it’s not likely to come to pass in your life).
- There is a sense that what you see is what you will be.
- FACT OF LIFE: We produce what we keep in front of us.
o If you see your health / marriage / job getting worse… that’s exactly what you are going to produce.
o A lot of people want a better life (get out of rut) but you cannot give birth to something that you have not first conceived.
o You’ve got to conceive it on the inside through your eyes of faith before it can ever come to pass on the outside.
- VISION FOR OUR CHURCH: Family Life Center
”I want you to look out there and see our new Family Life Center…Paid Off…Totally Debt Free…(Some of you are thinking I’m crazy—all you see is a grass field)
Close your eyes and see it with your eyes of faith—See it full of people worshipping God.
o We have to see that FLC long before it will ever come to pass.
- When I close my eyes, do you know what I see for this church.
(I see this auditorium full of unchurched people, I see every person faithful to God and this ministry…I see all of our members actively involved in a S.S. Class….I see us reaching more youth for Christ…Radio Ministry.
- IN REALITY: When we close our eyes we should see more than when we open our eyes.
(Be a Big Dreamer…Don’t make little plans—see your whole family worshipping God…See yourself rising to new levels)
- P/T: I don’t know about you, but I don’t see myself the same person next year as I am now.
o I see myself reaching more people for Christ
o I see myself becoming more like Jesus
o I see myself being a better husband
o I see myself being more of a giver
o I see myself getting healthier
o JOKE: I see myself getting better looking!!!
- YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE I SEE?
o I see you living the abundant life that God desires for you.
o I see you developing holiness and integrity in your life.
o I can see you doing great things for the Kingdom of God.
- I can see all that just as clearly as I can see you now!
- If you can allow the seed to take root on the inside (through eyes of faith) God can allow it to happen on the outside.
III. DECIDE to Not be Bound By Restrictive Attitudes
READ Matthew 9:17, “Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out and the wineskins are ruined; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.”
- CONTEXT: Jesus is explaining the fact that you must not allow the new things that God is doing to be restricted by your old ways of thinking.
EXPLAIN: Centuries ago, wine was stored in leather wineskins rather than bottles. Animal skins were dried and cured and could be shaped into containers to hold wine. When wineskins were new, they were soft and pliable—but as they aged they lost their elasticity and they wouldn’t give anymore. They would become hardened and set, and they couldn’t expand. If a person poured new wine in an old wineskin, the container would burst and the wine would be lost.
- Jesus reminded them, “You can’t put new wine into old wineskins.”
- Jesus was saying that you couldn’t have a larger life with restricted attitudes.
- I SEE THIS PLAYED OUT TODAY: People are set in their ways, bound by their perspectives, and stuck in their old ways of thinking
- God is always trying to do a fresh work in our lives—to do something new—but unless we’re willing to change…unless we’re willing to expand and enlarge our vision, we’ll miss His opportunities for us.
- Do you know why the majority of Christians never attempt anything great in their lives? They don’t have a God-given Vision.
- ILLUS: Man wrote a Poem about 2 prisoners in a jail cell and they both turn their attention to the one little window in the cell and as the familiar saying goes: “Two prisoners stared through prison bars, one saw mud the other saw stars.”
o Why is it that 2 people living in the same environment could see life so differently?
o One sees the obvious reality of his situation and gets discouraged…The other sees the possibilities beyond the obvious and gets encouraged.
o Why are some people able to view life with hope and expectancy while others grow cynical, hopeless, and depressed?
o Really, it’s all a matter of what you look at isn’t it?
o I think this world is lacking people who are visionaries.
o There are a lot of people looking at bars these days.
o People are not willing to explore the possibilities outside their circumstances.
o Why are so many people “stuck in a rut”? Because it is so much easier to see bars than to see stars.
What are the causes of “Near-sighted Vision”?
1. The Problem of Sin: Sin impairs and clouds your spiritual sight.
ILLUS: Johnny playing in Field. Falls down. Grass seed lodged in cornea. Begins to go blind in one eye. Grass seed began to take root in his cornea.
- The only way to see clearly is to remove unconfessed sin.
2. A lack of faith in God’s Power
- When you truly possess a God-given vision, it will appear as if some things are impossible.
- Jesus said in Matt. 19:26, “With men this is impossible, but
with God all things are possible.” (God is bigger than any
problem)
3. A lack of Trust in Your Potential
- It doesn’t matter how old you are, whether you’re physically disabled, or even if you’re not the most intelligent or most gifted - it makes no difference…God can mold and use your life in a miraculous way.
- Great things come from small beginnings when God is in them.
4. A lack courage to attempt a God-given dream
- FACT: most people are not willing to live with the risks of being a visionary
o (Visionary people fail many times before they succeed.)
o P/T: I am not willing to sit on the sidelines.
- Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is moving ahead in spite of my fear.
- It doesn’t take courage to do something I’m not afraid of.
It take courage to do something that involves risk.
- That fear of failure is what keeps us from reaching the potential that God desires for our lives.
- Vision is the God-given energy that will enable you to become a risk taker.
5. A lack of desire to get out of the rut.
- The reason why you aren’t experiencing God’s best…the reason why you are stuck in a rut is because you are not seeing what God wants you to see.
- Vision is a God-given plan that He desires to become a man-made reality.
- God makes the vision Possible…Man makes the vision Real.
6. You allow others to Cloud Your Vision.
What do I mean? You can’t soar with the eagles as long as you are pecking around with the chickens.
- Prov. 13:20, “If you walk with wise men, then you’re going to become wise.”
- If you associate with spiritually sucessful people, before long you will become spiritually sucessful.
- If you hang around people of faith, before long you’re going to be filled with faith.
- ADVICE TO YOUTH: If you show me your friends, I can show you your future.
7. You don’t take time to dream big dreams.
- You need to find some place where you can dare to dream big dreams…a place where your faith will be elevated.
8. You allow the past to determine your future.
- You will never go beyond the barriers in your own mind.
- That’s what the Bible calls a “stronghold”
ACTION POINT: Which one of these causes your vision to be “nearsighted?” ___________
IV. DEVELOP a Clear Picture of What God Can Do Through You
ILLUS: Helen Keller was asked once “What would be worse than being born blind?” to which she replied “Having sight without a vision.” What a profound statement by a girl who was born into this world deaf, dumb and blind. She could not help how she came into this world but she sure could help how she left this world. Would you say that your vision is about 20/20 today?
- The imagination is really neither good or bad—it is just a canvas.
o You can paint any kind of picture you want to through your thoughts, through your attitudes, through what you focus on.
- Let me encourage you—don’t let doubt paint on your canvas, Don’t let fear paint the picture for your life,
Don’t let impossibility thoughts paint picture on your canvas.
- Why not take out the paintbrush of faith, the paintbrush of hope, the paintbrush of expectancy—Let that paint a bright future on the canvas of your heart.
- The kind of picture that you have painted is what you are going to gravitate toward.
o That is what is going to set the limits for your life.
o Tell me your vision and I’ll tell you your future.
- If you want to change your life, you need to start by changing the picture you are painting (Allow God to change what you are seeing.)
READ Genesis 15:4-6, “Then behold, the word of the Lord came to Him saying, ‘This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir. And He took him outside and said, ‘Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, ‘So shall your descendents be.’ Then he believed the Lord; and He reckoned it to Him as righteous.”
- EXPLAIN: When God told Abraham he would have a child and be the father of many nations…He was up in years…He didn’t have any children (It was an impossible situation physically and naturally)
- But God told Abraham to do something very unusual.
He told him to go outside and look up at the stars.
As many stars as he could see, that would be the number of children he would have.
o Now why did God tell him to go out and look up?
He had already promised him that he would be the father of many nations.
o God knew that it wasn’t enough just to hear it. God wanted him to have a visual image—a picture of it to see in his imagination.
- So every night as Abraham looked up, that reminded him of what God had promised. It reinforced it on the inside.
o He kept seeing it and seeing it.
- And even though it didn’t come to pass for 20 years—Abraham saw his future though his eyes of faith.
- What we set our eyes on determines our future
o Your Focus is your Future
o See nothing – be nothing
o See wrong and sin – fall into wrong and sin
o See what God desires – Be what God desires.
- The reason why many of you aren’t experiencing God’s best
The reason why you are stuck in a rut…
Is because you are not seeing what God wants you to see!
o You have to stop seeing yourself for what you are now but for what God wants you to become.
- You may have many plans for your life, but God has had a vision for your life before you were even born.
- VERSE: Workmanship
- God wants His children to accomplish not their plans for their lives but His vision for their lives.
- Have you ever asked God to show you what He might have planned to do through your life some day?
*Keep in mind that God’s vision for your life is not for your self-acclamation, but for His glory.
V. DEEPEN Your Vision with a High Level of Expectancy
Abraham and nephew Lot – Lot had chosen to inhabit the land that Abraham had worked so hard to get.
Genesis 13:14-15, “The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, ‘Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are…for all the land which you see, I will give it to your descendents forever.”
- God told Abram to lift up his eyes and look from the place that he was…
o You may not be in a very good place today…you may have had some setbacks.
o God wants you to know—Don’t let your vision be limited by your present circumstances.
o God said to Abraham, “Everything you see, I will give it to you!” What do you see? What’s your vision?
- The great missionary, William Carey, is quoted as saying that all believers need to “Attempt great things for God and to Expect great things from God.”
- Most people don’t dare to dream big dreams because they don’t want to “Get their hopes up.”
o NEWS FOR YOU: God wants you to get your hopes up!
o Bible says in Hebrews 11:1, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for…”
o One definition of that sort of hope is “confident expectancy.”
o We should get up in the morning, confidently expecting the favor of God.
o Start expecting doors of opportunity to open up for you…start expecting God to empower you to rise above life’s challenges.
- One thing I’ve noticed in Christian Life: God usually meets us at our level of expectancy.
- Our expectations set the boundaries for our lives.
- Jesus said, “According to your faith…be it unto you.”
In other words, “Have what your faith expects.”
*Every day of your life ought to be spent finding that vision, following that vision, and focusing on God to make that vision become a reality.
- Have you ever thought about this? - The plans that you have for your life and ministry may in fact be small in comparison to what God has in store for you.
- Vision is the God-given ability for you to catch just a glimpse of what God might do through your life.
o By following our own thoughts and plans we are literally limiting ourselves to what God desires to do in and through us in the ministry.
INVITATION: Are you willing to say, “God, if you have some significant things planned for my life, count me in!”
o God loves to use ordinary people in extraordinary ways.
o Your life is earmarked for significance but you will never discover it if all you see is bars instead of the stars.
o Allow Christ to accomplish great things within you for His glory!
POEM: “A Vision, That’s What I Need.” -- Dimension, Winter 1986
I need a truer vision, Lord
A vision filled with Thee
To see the needy world again
With eyes willing to see.
A world that’s ready and waiting
To hear what You would say.
I need a wider vision, Lord,
A vision filled with Thee.
To see that lonely woman
Down the street from me.
The teenager who’s all mixed up,
The child who’s been abused,
The day-to-day cares in my neighborhood.
Lord, I want to be used.
Give me a new vision, Lord.
A vision filled with Thee,
To see the world and my neighborhood
As Your eyes would see.
Help me use my gifts, dear Lord,
In ways that glorify You,
To act with loving kindness
Toward those with a different view.
A truer, wider, new vision, Lord.
That’s what I need
To carry our Your commands
In word, and thought, and deed.
