“God’s Vision: Reconciliation” Gen 45: 1-15

For the last several weeks together we have been discussing what it looks like to seek after the vision God has for us as the body of Christ, in this particular place and at this particular time. 

I think we’ve come to realize that while visioning is certainly what God calls us to in scripture, that doesn’t mean that its easy. In fact, we often enter into visioning wondering why we can’t just do things the way we have in the past - it worked before so it can work again, right? 

Perhaps. But can we first agree that the world around is changing? How things are today aren’t the way they were fifty or even ten years ago. Some of the things that we may deeply crave for our own religious experience, may not be what connects best with the people around us today. 

A few months ago I was blessed to attend a training day with a pastor who planted a church in Missouri. When he planted this particular church they had one purpose, one call - to raise up disciples. Not just folks who believe in Jesus, but folks who would follow after Jesus with abandon. Folks who were sold out for Christ and were walking with Jesus for a lifetime. But this leadership team quickly realized that even when the church was planted in 1999, folks were having a hard time connecting with worship. So they had to rethink what church means.

Now a lot has changed even since 1999. Even as close as last year, research put out by the Barna group found that spirituality is increasing for folks, but that doesn’t mean that they are coming into churches. And when people do come to churches, overwhelming folks say that they are looking for two things - to learn and grow and for community. Based on this research, and others that has come before it, Morningstar Fellowship sought to give people opportunities to learn about Jesus and grow. So much so, that their vision is of one - leaving the 99 to find the one. Going the distance to help connect one more person to the saving love of Jesus Christ, and structured their path of discipleship accordingly. 

I can hear it now - that’s all well and good, Pastor Michelle, but what is the world does God’s vision for us have to do with Genesis 45. Genesis is one of my favorite books of the Bible, because it tells the story of broken people being used by good in tremendously powerful ways. One of those broken people was Joseph. 

We often don’t talk about Joseph using that term, right? We talk about Joseph and his amazing coat of many colors. We talk about how Joesph was the most beloved son of his father, Jacob. But if you jump back to Genesis, chapter 37, where we pick up with Jospeh’s story in earnest, we find that he was a little arrogant around the edges. In fact, Joseph gathers his brothers around him one day and says, “Listen. I’ve just had this amazing dream. When we were binding stalks of grain in the field, my stalk got up and stood upright, while your stalks gathered around it and bowed down to my stalk.” And incase the brothers missed the not so subtle meaning of that particular dream, he gathers them together a second time and says “I’ve just dreamed again, and this time the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”

Oh Joseph. Not your finest moment. No wonder the brothers got mad at him. Now by no means does their anger justify what happens next, but his brothers think about killing him. But decided, ultimately, that they could make more money if they sold him into slavery, so that’s what they did. They sold Jospeh off to Egyptians, and then lied to their father, Jacob, saying that Joseph had been killed by a wild animal. 

Jospeh seemed to be fairing okay, all things considered at first in Egypt. He was taken in by Potiphar, a chief official of the Pharaoh. Until one day Potiphar’s wife tried to suduce Joseph, and when she couldn’t, she had him thrown in jail. While in prison, it became known that Jospeh could interpret dreams, only this time they weren’t about his brothers bowing down to him, but instead were about the fate of other people. After a long time in jail, one of the folks who had his dreams interpreted by Joseph, the cup bearer for the Pharaoh, told the Pharaoh all about Jospeh when he himself was having dreams that terrified him. Joseph was able to interpret those dreams to help preserve Egypt during a famine that was on the horizon. 

Which brings us to today’s story in Genesis 45. Jospeh’s brothers didn’t weather the famine as well as he did in Egypt. They traveled there to beg someone to have mercy on them and let them buy food - and who should they run into but Joseph. Only they didn’t recognize him. He finally cried out to them “It’s me! It’s Joseph” and started immediately asking about their family. 

Now if anyone had a right to be angry at his brothers, Joseph did. In fact, I’m sure during those countless years in jail he thought about them from time to time with anger and disdain. Only when the time came, he didn’t seek their harm, but forgave them and sought their prosperity - inviting them to move to Egypt and be part of what God was doing in and through his life. Jospeh showed so much love and charity as he told his brothers - “Now, don’t be upset and don’t be angry with yourselves that you sold me here. Actually, God sent me before you to save lives.” In other translations it says “What you intended for harm, God intended for good”. Joseph was brought to tears by the reunion with his brothers. 

Here’s the thing about God’s vision, brothers and sisters. Sometimes we screw up. Sometimes we don’t get it right. Sometimes we don’t have the right attitude wondering why we should change for “those people” - the people who are not yet here amongst us. We begin to have doubts and can get so caught up in ourselves, that we can be like Joesph’s brothers, missing what is right in front of us. 

Other times, we miss out on God’s vision, because we are so caught up in our own emotions - guilt, anger, shame, that we can’t take a risk to join in what God is doing for the Kingdom. Joseph could have spent a lot of time, friends, thinking about how things should have been or once where, instead of living into the circumstances he found himself in. Then what? An entire generation would have wasted away in starvation. We need to look to God’s vision, not of how we want things to be based on the past, but firmly rooted in who God is calling us to be today for the future. 

God’s vision for the Church involves reconciliation. But, body of Christ, reconciliation and forgiveness, along with acts of compassion and mercy - guess what, that isn’t the starting place for discipleship - thats the fruit of growing discipleship. 

So Church, I ask us today, what do we need to let go of in order to be reconciled to the vision God is giving us? What do we need to focus on in order to be the church for the next generation? What inklings do we have of God’s movement amongst us? Who are we being called to be for such a time as this? Amen. 

“God’s Vision: Going Places” Genesis 28: 10-22

Jacob has always been a character in the Hebrew Scriptures that I’m not quite sure what to do with. On one hand, he is the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. On the other hand, he did some really awful things. In fact, he was perhaps one of the best known tricksters in scripture. 

Jacob, the one who stole the blessing of his dying father from his brother who was off doing what he was told. Jacob, the one who had to flee from his furious brother. Sent off to live his his mother’s brother, his Uncle Laban, in a distant country until his bother no longer wanted to kill him. Jacob, the one who even though he deceived his family, is still given caring advice from his father before he is sent away with another blessing. And yet, it is this same Jacob who received the powerful message from God, conveyed in a vision, that we hear about today. Hence why we aren’t quite sure what to do with Jacob in particular. 

Last week, we talked about the covenant that God made with Abraham to give him more decedents then he would know what to do with. More people claiming him in their lineage then stars in the sky. But the truth is, Abraham only ended up with two sons - Ishmael and Issac. And we are told that Issac had two sons - Jacob and Esau. It is hard to imagine that this slowly growing family would be equivalent to the nations that God had promised. 

But then God carried on the vision through Jacob. Through Jacob the trickster. Through Jacob that we aren’t quite sure what to do with. God came to Jacob, yes that Jacob, and said: I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.Your descendants will become like the dust of the earth; you will spread out to the west, east, north, and south. Every family of earth will be blessed because of you and your descendants. Why Jacob? Why now? Why will he become the one to carry on the promise given to Abraham?

I sometimes wonder if we have some of those same questions about ourselves. Who are we to be the one through whom God is going to reach out to this community? Who are we for God to call us to be partners in spreading the Gospel message? Why us? Why now? Especially in all of our flaws and brokenness and sin?

But then we look at people in scripture like Jacob and realize that if God can use them, then God can use us. God came to Jacob and gave him a vision that was so much bigger than anything he could imagine on his own and essentially said - I’m going to use you in this way. I know that its so big.  But trust and believe that I am going to be with you every where that you will go. 

Friends, are those the type of visions that we are praying for in this place? Visions of revival? Visions that are so big that we know that they have to from God? Because that’s what I see when I look at Biblical visions like this - they are so large that they challenge even the most fearful among us and call for us to trust God. 

A few years ago I was part of the Young Pastors Network, led by Adam Hamilton and Mike Slaughter. What I deeply appreciated about both of these pastors is that God gave them both a vision. Not just any vision, but a huge, God-sized vision. For Rev. Hamilton, he saw God calling him to start a faith community for those folks who didn’t quite know what to do with religion. Those who were nominally involved or were non-religious. But what some folks don’t realize about the story about Church of the Resurrection was that Rev. Hamilton was an associate pastor at the time he had that vision - and folks higher up kept trying to push him off, time after time and year after year. They didn’t see the vision at first that he had in his heart. 

Rev. Slaughter was a pastor of a church smaller than us gathered here today when he first got to Ginghamsburg. And then he preached the word of God so convictingly that they got smaller, not bigger. Folks that were there to make the church about them, left. But as the congregation was shrinking God was placing a vision in Mike’s heart that thousands would come and worship here and be led to the Lord. What some people don’t realize about Ginhamsburg is that it is in a small town. Yet, out of that small town mission and ministry has come that has changed the world. 

Church, do we have a vision of who God is calling us to be? Not just any vision, but a God-sized vision? A vision that we could never do on our own. One that we can only even begin to entertain because we trust that our God is able?

Sometimes, we dream to small church. We want to do things that make sense to us and that we know that we can do. And that is well and good and has a time and a purpose. But are we limiting ourselves by what we think we can do instead of dreaming of what God wants to do through us?

Jacob knew when he woke up that he was standing on holy ground. And that thought terrified him. He was struck by the fact that he was in the awesome presence of the Lord Almighty. So he made a monument, a sign of worship, and made a promise that the Lord would be his God. 

Church, now is the time for us to vision together. Now is the time for us to trust and believe in the Lord our God. How do we seek a vision that is God-sized? First, we pray to the God of vision. We pray that God open up our hearts to be stirring with the Holy Spirit. We pray that God start to give us glimpses of vision in our hearts. 

Second, we need be out in the community that God has planted us in. I have said many times before, that I don’t have problems with having multiple denominations or milmultiple churches in a given place, so long as they are seeking to make disciples of Jesus Christ, because different people may come to know Jesus at different places. However, I also believe that in order for those different churches to be effective, they need to have a Kingdom mind-set, otherwise, they can quickly become just a gathering place instead of a mission-outpost. In order to have a Kingdom mindset, we need to pray that God give us a vision for the people here, the people we are planted to serve. 

One of my favorite things to do is go to public places and just listen. To listen to the hum of people around me. Sometimes to overhear snippets of conversations that reveal the needs people have and the concerns on people’s hearts. Do we know the needs of people around us church? Does our heart break for this community? Do we want people to come to know Jesus and what are we willing to do about it? If we don’t have a vision that connects with the people we are being called to reach, then we have missed the point. 

So I ask you again, people of God. Are we praying for revival? Are we praying for a God-sized vision? Are we praying for this community? Are we seeking the face of God? Amen.

God's Vision: Covenant

08/05/2018 “God’s Vision: Covenant” Gen. 17: 1-16

Proverbs 29:18 states, that where there is no vision, the people parish. Yet, its not just where there is no vision that we perish, but when we don’t have God’s vision, don’t live into who God wants us to be, then we end up in serious trouble.

We are now entering a four week sermon series about seeking God’s vision for this church. Not our vision, God’s vision. In other work who God calls us to be as a congregation. What defines who we are. What value and mission and ministry we have in the community in which we are planted. 

The Bible is filled with stories of people who seek the will of God, and people who go their own way. One person who certainly did a little bit of both was Abraham. Abraham We find the story of Abraham in the book of Genesis. Where God comes to him and tells him that he will make him a great nation, with offspring more numerous than the stars. But God also asks something great of Abraham, for him to leave his land and his family and his father’s house in order to go to the land that God would show to him. 

In the midst of this call and response, God makes a covenant with Abraham, who is known as Abram at this point. Covenant isn’t a word that we use very often in our conversation today, but it means a formal agreement to do or not do something very specific. In other words its a promise for Abram to have a people and a place. 

But here’s the thing, even though Abram has this amazing promise from God - he keeps trying to go his own way. First, he essentially says to God, you haven’t given me any children, so I’m just planning on making the head of my household, my servant, Eliezer, my heir. Maybe this promise you are talking about will come to pass through him. 

But God said that wasn’t the vision. 

God expands the promise - taking Abram to look at the stars and saying that he would have more decedents then even these. That God was the one who led Abram out of the land of Ur and was preparing a place, a land for him to be his own. 

But even with this amazing promise being made - Abram still got impatient. His wife, Sarai came to him, essentially saying that she wasn’t getting any younger, but the law of the land said that if her servant would give birth then that child would be Sarai’s - so maybe that was the way this promise was going to come to pass. So Abram did as Sarai suggested and he slept with Hagar - but that didn’t end up bringing Sarai the joy she expected, so she treated Hagar so harshly that she ran away and thought she was going to die in the dessert. She eventually returned, after having an encounter with God, and gave birth to Ishmael. 

But this wasn’t God’s plan either. 

Which brings us to today’s text. Abram is getting up there in years and God returns to remind him of the covenant - that he would be given many, many dependents by God. But God took the covenant one step further - saying it was time to change Abram and Sarai’s name, to show that they are marked by God. They will now be Abraham and Sarah. 

And God revealed even more of what is to come. 

 I will make you very fertile. I will produce nations from you, and kings will come from you. I will set up my covenant with you and your descendants after you in every generation as an enduring covenant. I will be your God and your descendants’ God after you. I will give you and your descendants the land in which you are immigrants, the whole land of Canaan, as an enduring possession. And I will be their God.

But for the first time, there is now something that Abraham had to do. Up to this point, the covenant squarely fell on God’s shoulders, but now Abraham is being asked to take a step of faith. As a sign of the covenant he is to circumcise all males. 

And after Abraham heard all of this, he laughed. 

I think sometime we respond like Abraham - we laugh at God’s plans for us. At God’s vision for our church. We say in our hearts, not here, God, not us. And give our list of excuses. We don’t have enough people. We don’t have enough money. We are an aging congregation. But I think what it all boils down to, if we are honest, is that we don’t want to. We don’t buy into the vision. We are fine with how things are. 

And yet, God’s vision keeps persisting. God’s plans will not give up.

For the next several weeks, I want us to try to not have the reaction of Abraham. I want  us to try to seek the will of God together in community. In other words, I want us to discern where we sense God is leading us, so that we can wholeheartedly follow after God. 

But I’m also aware that discernment can be so hard because it requires deep trust in God. It requires us to be in prayer - not telling God where we want to God, but instead asking God where God wants us to go. Discernment is also often hard because often God will only show us one part of the next step. Notice that each time God spoke with Abram, that even more of God’s plan for him and his descendants is revealed. Not all at once, but piece by piece, because the vision is so large and so life-changing that it is hard to grasp all at once. 

I wish I could say that after the laughter Abraham got on board and he whole heartedly followed God and lived into the covenant and never strayed again. But of course that wasn’t the case. He had to keep being reminded of God’s vision in order to keep following, step by step where God lead. The covenantal promise became Abraham’s guiding light. When he focused on it, even if he couldn’t understand it, his purpose was clear. When he turned his eyes away, he often acted in ways that were outside of the will of God. 

What about us, Church? What is our guiding light? What is our purpose from God? And are we willing to follow wherever God may lead us in order to live into who God says we are to be?

Here’s the thing about God’s visions - they are often too big for us to express in our limited words. But Thomas Bandy in his book Moving Off the Mountain Top, puts it this way - “what is it about my experience with Jesus that this community cannot live without?” In other words, why was this church put right here, in this particular place, in this community. Another way that I have asked this question before is, if we ceased to be here tomorrow, what would the community miss about us? How is God using us, to not just renew our community, but to transform it for the sake of the Kingdom of God?

One closing note, Bandy writes, “We cannot create vision but we can create the climate that is receptive to vision”. Friends, are we creating that climate where we seek after the heart of God? May we join together in praying that God’s vision be revealed to us and that we have the heart to follow. Amen.