20/20 Vison
Isaiah 55:6-11
6 Seek the Lord while you can find him.
Call on him now while he is near.
7 Let the wicked change their ways
and banish the very thought of doing wrong.
Let them turn to the Lord that he may have mercy on them.
Yes, turn to our God, for he will forgive generously.
8 "My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts," says the Lord.
"And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways
and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
10 "The rain and snow come down from the heavens
and stay on the ground to water the earth.
They cause the grain to grow,
producing seed for the farmer
and bread for the hungry.
11 It is the same with my word.
I send it out, and it always produces fruit.
It will accomplish all I want it to,
and it will prosper everywhere I send it.
~ New Living Translation
20/20 Vision
(Is. 55:6-11)
Intro:
A. In January I was took my dad to see his ophthalmologist for his check-up. When we got into the exam room I looked on the wall and smiled. There, in a frame was the eye chart done in the Greek alphabet.
B. The first Sunday of this year churches around the country had a similar title for their sermon. It had to do with 20/20 vision. It was a great time to do it as this year is 2020. There were illustrations that used glasses, some stages where the pulpit was looked like going to an optometrist. Church leaders worked hard in December to get their new vision statement ready to go out as 2020 rolled around.
C. Many church leaders, preachers, and members had spent time in prayer thinking about the vision for 2020 and how to see it clearly. Many of our committees met in the fall of last year to plan our 2020 and for each committee to have its own vision for how they want to see their committee function.
D. I began to plan out the year for what I wanted to preach on knowing my schedule for 2020. January was going to center around the passage in Philippians and encourage us as a church to “Think on These Things.” I wanted us to see the positive, the good, the things that help us focus where God wanted us to focus. In February I set up my sermons around the topic of Love. I was going to one short series a month. March came and I began to reflect upon 2 Timothy and the last words of Paul, but before March was done our world changed in a way that no one seemed to see clearly when January began. All the 20/20 vision sermons preached and we all missed it.
E. I planned to leave next Sunday to spend 3 week in Malawi, Africa teaching preachers and bring together all the graduates for a training workshop. I had spent months raising money, asking churches and people to help sponsor me, but everything that I saw for 2020 was not happening. My vision for this church and my vision for the preaching school in Malawi changed and there was nothing I could about it.
I. Tomorrow’s Plans
A. The words of James crept slowing into my mind (READ James 4:13-14). I have pondered this passage for weeks now. I have read it many times. I have asked God in prayer, why? My trip to Africa is only done once every 3 to 4 years. My brother and I wrote a college curriculum, put together a preacher’s retreat, I was supposed to leave next Sunday. Teaching preachers is not a worldly or fleshly action, but a godly spiritual action.
B I had planned out key words for 2020 to help this church focus on topics in the Bible. Yes that was different than my normal preach verse by verse through a book, but you as a church were ready for a change and Revelation was a difficult book that most of you were ready for me to end. But God, why this? Why did you have to close the doors to this house of worship?
C. I kept reading (READ James 4:15-17). I know the context of the passage. I know Jams is not speaking about mission trips and sermon schedules. I understand James is telling Christina people that living in the Lord’s will is when we focus on His will, not ours.
D. I needed to calm down, stay in prayer, and as James says a few verse earlier in chapter 4, submit and draw near to God. I needed to make sure I was seeking God instead of focusing on my 2020 schedule. If God wanted to get my attention, He did it spectacularly. You, this congregation, are a part of my life and all I wanted to help us. But the more I sat with this passage, the more it help me to see, that I was wanting God to bless my work and what I needed was to be a servant in His work. The focus really was too much on the good I was trying to and on the God of the good I was doing. So God used a virus as thorn in the flesh, a messenger from Satan to harass me and keep me from becoming conceited.
II. Whose Ways?
A. I needed to seek God, sit in grace, and know a truth deeper than I had let come into me in the past. A truth found in the words of Isaiah 55:6-7. Just walk through this with me for a moment. “Seek the Lord…call upon him…” This isn’t just about repentance, this is about seeking and calling out God who wants to show compassion because God wants to be in relationship with us.
B. This very chapter starts out with a call from God. Listen to the beginning verses (READ Is. 55:1-3). This is God stopping me in my tracks and asking me why? Why do I spend my money and labor for that which doesn’t really give me what I want or need? Why do go looking for something else when God freely gives to me what will make my soul live? God wants to be in relationship with me, that’s why he says in verse 6 “seek the Lord” and “Call upon him.” God wants me to have the right vision. It’s not that my plans were bad or the work that church had set out was wicked. God has stopped everything and wants us to call upon him. And with this gift he makes clear a truth I need to accept. A truth given to us in verses 8-9.
C. If there was ever a time for us sit back and seek God to show us how he wants this church to function, to cry out to God for direction, it is right now when buildings are closed up and hearts are opened up.
D. What God says in these verses is that He doesn’t think like us, and we cannot think like exactly like him. My vision for this church pales in comparison to what God already knows. I find myself with one action call – Seek the Lord. Jesus made it clear in the Sermon on the Mount, “Seek first kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.”
III. God Gets His Vision Accomplished
A. Before we close, I think it’s important to hear from God what the future looks like. READ Is. 55:10-11. The farmer plants his seed in the ground with a belief that the rain will come and water the seed. As it does, that seed begins to grow and over the course of the summer it begins to bring forth its fruit. God says, that’s me at work in nature. But God uses that to illustrate what he see at work in the spiritual life of people. When God’s word, his message of compassion and pardon, goes forth into a world that knows it’s not perfect, it doesn’t return to God empty, but it accomplishes exactly what he purposed it to do.
B. Let me say that 2020 is not over yet. So, some of the plans I had didn’t turn out the way I thought they would, but God’s plan is turning out exactly has he knew it would. God’s desire is for me to be in relationship with Him. He offers me everything.
Conclusion:
A. I think about God’s vision for us in 2020. I think about God’s plan for me and my ministry in 2020. I think about God’s work all around the world where people gather in His name. I had plans for this year, not sinful, but plans that I believed were good. I still think they are. But God’s vision, God’s ways are not mine.
B. We as a church want to do the best we can to walk in the ways of the Lord. We as a church desire to lift His name on high. We sing praises to him, lift our petitions and thanksgiving to him, we feast upon the body and blood of Jesus knowing that He is what sustains us.
C. This time of not gathering as a church family has been difficult for me. I hunger for our collective singing. I desire to hear the prayers of the church family. I look forward to activities like our family retreat, our fellowship meals, and our picnics at people’s home or the park. God is still at work in this church and in my life. His word will not return to him empty or void.
D. I challenge you to read Isiah 55 in a modern translation or paraphrase and listen to it alongside the translation you normally use to study the Bible. I believe that in Isaiah 55 you and I will find God will for us, so we can have 20/20 vision.
E. God’s ways are not yours, mine or even the vision of the leadership of this church. God’s thoughts are not like ours. And by the way, I am glad to rest in that fact because I can make a mess out of things. God’s got this, and I can rest in that assurance.