What Is Our Vision For This Year?

WHAT SHALL WE DO? WHAT IS OUR VISION FOR THIS YEAR?

This is it... ACTS 1:8

I watched the longest baseball game in postseason history this week. The Yankees and the Red Sox battled it out for 14 innings.

The teams played back-to-back marathon games that totaled 26 innings almost 11 hours -- 5 hours, 2 minutes on Sunday

and 5 hours, 49 minutes on Monday -- the longest by time in postseason history.

"The owner Tim Wakefield said. "It took every ounce of whatever we had left to win tonight’s game and to win last night’s game."

What made the difference between being a good team and being a great team? - Desire, focus, ...

“Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. We don’t have great schools because we have good schools. We don’t have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life.” (first 63 words) – Jim Collins, Good to Great, p. 1

It seems that most Christians settle for a good life, but God has given us a great purpose in a Great Commission.

In 1994, Jim Collins and Jerry Pourous published Built to Last, which remained a national best-seller for 5 years, with more than 1 million copies in print in 13 languages. That book studied and explained how great companies like General Electric are designed from the start for long-term high performance. What the book did not explain was how mediocre firms that were not “build to last” could attain the same level of greatness. Now, after five years of intensive research, Collins has identified and studied 11 companies that have made the leap from being “just good” to being truly “great.”

SO WHAT IS OUR VISION? HOW CAN WE SAY WE HAVE DONE A GREAT JOB FOR THE LORD?

In a George Barna survey in November 2002, Americans were asked what they believe is necessary to have a successful life.

33% said the health or well-being of their family, or how they raised their children, would determine their success.

25% defined personal success in terms of tangible outcomes or accomplishments.

25% said they had no idea what would signify they had lived a successful life.

Only 7% said anything related to spirituality or faith would result in “success”

“‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:8-9, NIV).

SO WHAT IS OUR VISION? The Lord tells us what it must be in Acts 1:8

I. YOU SHALL be My Witness! 1:8

A. You shall be baptized by the HS so you can witness v4-5 salvation = baptism then anointing

1. Not to be counted as a “leader” in the kingdom v6

2. Not to know special knowledge - only for God v7

B. You shall receive His power so you can witness 8

Power (dunamin). Not the “power” about which they were concerned (political organization and equipments for empire on the order of Rome). they needed new “power” (dunamin), to enable them (from dunamai, to be able), to grapple with the spread of the gospel in the world. AT Robertson

C. You shall be MY WITNESS

In Act_1:22 an apostle has to be a “witness to the Resurrection” of Christ and in Act_10:39 to the life and work of Jesus.

Act 1:22 Beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection.

Act 10:39 And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree:

Consequently there could be no “apostles” in this way after the first generation.

But here the apostles are called “my witnesses.” “His by a direct personal relationship”

ILL>> Traveler this week -- I show my witness...That’s good but with no actual telling of the gospel - Your not a witness until you tell

ILL>> It is like a courtroom drama where the person who actually sees the crime refuses to become a witness. He is a witness but only to himself. We are commanded to go out and tell people.

Would you agree with me that we are all to be witnesses? - Show of hands?

II. YOU SHALL be My Witness, where. 1:8

The events in Acts follow this outline (Jerusalem till the end of chapter 7, with the martyrdom of Stephen, the scattering of the saints through Judea and Samaria in chapter 8, the conversion of Saul, chapter 9, the spread of the gospel to Romans in Caesarea by Peter (chapter 10), to Greeks in Antioch (chapter 11), finally