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The Need for Vision

Intro:

Last time, we look at Jesus at the Garden in Gethsemane, one of His most intimate moments with God. And we saw how Jesus remained steadfast in His determination to finish the mission God had laid out for Him. His Father had set before Him a specific mission, a purpose, that directed every action and moment of His life.

After His resurrection, Jesus gave the Church a simple mission, found in Matthew 28:18-20. It's widely known as the Great Commission and it gives a purpose and direction for the Church as a whole. It gives them an identity. READ MATTHEW 28:18-20.

Pretty simple, right? The Church is to go and make disciples, baptize them, i.e. bring them into the Church, and train them as Christ Followers. But let's look at what Paul encounters as he is pursuing this direction, this mission, this vision from God.



Part I.

Let's take a look at Acts 16 starting in verse 6 and running through verse 10. READ ACTS 16:6-10. Paul and Silas started out with a great idea. They knew the Commission that Jesus had given the Church and so they decided to take the Message to Asia. It seemed like a great plan that lined up with the vision and purpose of the church. Right idea, wrong place.

See, as they traveled over land towards Asia, the Holy Spirit told them not to go there at this time. So Paul turns towards Bithynia, but again, the Spirit of Jesus stopped them from going. Imagine Paul, traveling along, simply wanting to spread the Message, and finding that every idea he got turned out to be the wrong one. I imagine him telling Timothy, "I thought we were supposed to go to Asia but lets go to Bithynia!" And they get close and Paul says, "Wait Timothy, it's not Bithynia either. On to Troas!" And they end up in Troas, that place where we go when we have no idea where else to go.

Alot of us are in that spot right now. We thought God said go this way only to have ourselves stopped. So we go that way only to have ourselves stopped again. So we resign ourselves to going to Troas to wait and see what's going on. And where we're supposed to be heading next. We all have our Troas, this place we go when we have no where else to go. And that's where it gets interesting...



Part II.

READ ACTS 16:9. Paul is in Troas, no clue as to where to head next. And what happens? He has a vision. A dream. No we all have dreams. Imagine waking up in the middle of the night after having a dream. And you run to your parents or your spouse and tell them, "Look, I just had a dream that laid out my vision, my mission, my identity. I'm supposed to go out west, buy a farm, and become a potato farmer!" At that point, whoever you just told would probably look at you and say, "That's great. Now go back to bed and have a different dream..."

This idea of God giving Paul a vision, a dream that explains his next steps goes against every grain and fiber in our body. We want plans, outlines, step-by-step programs that lay out the next year, two years, or five years. Paul tried that. He laid out the plan for his second journey that was supposed to head to Asia. But that turned out to be the wrong plan. And he ended up in Troas for it. Waiting and watching for God.

So Paul goes to bed and God gives him this vision, this dream, of a Macedonian man saying, "Come here and help us!" And the passage wraps up with Paul telling his ministry partners of this dream and they "concluded" and "decided" to go to Macedonia at once. Now that word "decided" translates in a way that means they reasoned, they intellectually concluded. So they rationally concluded this was the plan from a very irrational starting place - the dream. How ironic is that?!



Closing

Too many of us not only here at eXodus but in the Church at large seem to be stuck in Troas with no sense of where to go from here. We keep plugging away trying to do good things but we don't know if this is what God has placed in our souls as our vision.

Like Paul, we keep taking the Message to new places that need it but it seems like God steps in and turns us in a different direction at the last moment before we reach our destination. So for the next few weeks, we're going to be look at vision, purpose, direction, identity. We saw at the beginning how the Church has one mission - go and make disciples, Christ Followers. But we fit into this bigger puzzle differently with unique purposes. Like a mosaic, we all fit in differently to the bigger image.

You have a specific vision, dream, and purpose in this life. Let's find it.

Even Jesus Craved God

Intro
Last week we talked about how our lungs crave air. Just like our lungs with air, our soul craves God—Fresh, life-giving. . . God. We ache for an encounter with Him. Tonight, we’re going to look at an intimate moment between Jesus and God, one in which Jesus shows us that He too craved God, just like we do.

The Word:
Mark 13: 32-42 – In the Garden of Gethsemane

Part I:
Luke says that it was Jesus’ custom to come here regularly. It was familiar to Jesus, a favored place to come to enjoy the fellowship of his Father. It was a place to plead with the Father for his disciples and the other riff-raff that Jesus drew to himself.
But Jesus was under a very different burden on this night. “He took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be distressed and agitated. And he said to them, “I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and keep awake” (verses 33-34).

If you have gone through the experience of losing someone close, you know that grief is a “whole body” experience. It’s your mind and emotions and body and soul experiencing the searing pain of having a piece of yourself ripped out.

Jesus’ intimacy with the Father was being torn apart at Gethsemane because the Father was laying on the Son the sins of all humanity. Jesus was taking onto himself the anger of God aimed at you and me. Every unkind thought and word and deed ever committed by humanity past, present and future was being ascribed to the Son of God as if he had done them all.


“And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. He said, ‘Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet not what I want, but what you want.’” (verses 35-36).
Notice that word 'Abba.' When we translate that into English, the closest we can get is with our word 'Daddy.' Not father or dad but daddy, a word that emphasizes the most intimate of moments between a child and their father.

So imagine that scene. Jesus desperately craving more time with His Father, knowing the intense separation that was to come, under such distress that His blood was mingling with His sweat and tears, and He cries out with everything in Him. "DADDY! ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE WITH YOU! TAKE THIS CUP FROM ME!"

But then He adds at the end of His prayer, "Yet not what I want, but what you want." Not my desires but Yours. Not my wants but Yours. Not my plan but Yours. Not my will but yours.

Even at this point in Jesus' life, His cry was still YOU WILL BE DONE.

Your Soul Craves God

Intro

Ever held your breath until you were so desperate for air that your toes twitched; your cheeks became balloons and your eyes bugged out? Overpowered by deprivation, did you sip air in all proper like, or did you swig down big gulps like a scorched vagabond at a thirst-quenching oasis?

Try it now. Close your eyes. Imagine yourself in the middle of a swimming pool. Now take a deep breathe… hold it… and submerge yourself under the water. Hold that breathe for as long as you can. Do you feel the sense of urgency as your body screams out to you that it needs air and it needs it now? Now, out of breath, you rush to the surface, break the water, and what do you do? Do you take little breaths of air or do you gulp it down and breathe in as much as possible?

Our lungs crave air. Our soul craves God—Fresh, life-giving. . . God. We ache for an encounter with Him. Do you know what it feels like to yearn for, to long for, to covet God?

The Word:

"This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life." [Ezekiel 37:5 (NIV)]

“O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water.” Psalm 63:1 (NLT)

“At night, my soul longs for you. Indeed, my spirit, the soul within me, seeks You.” Isaiah 26:9

Part I:

It’s hard to define the things inside my heart. Have you ever wondered if you’re the only one who feels what you feel and wants what you want. Am I the same as others in this mass of humanity, or am I alone in my experiences?

In a culture of entertainment, loudness, busyness and constant triggers that steal our attention, I fear that the typical person is becoming more and more distant from God. The irony is that we have more books than ever in history, more Bibles available to us in every style and translation you could ever wish for, more conferences, more seminars, more churches and more technology that one would assume it would make it easier to grow closer to Jesus.

But in the midst of this age is a drought of passion and desperation for God. Even Christ Followers are living disconnected from God aimlessly wondering around in no-man’s land and trying to figure out why the life that Jesus promised seems so distant.

King David echoes the heart of those that crave for more of God when he said in Psalm 63:1:

“O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”

Comparing his dry, arid and parched surroundings, David used that image to describe how he longs for God just as the dry and thirsty ground longs for water. Just a moment ago, we saw how our bodies crave air to merely just survive. Last week we saw how God craves us. Could our souls crave Him just as He craves us?

Part II:

We were created for God and we cannot live without Him. If your soul is disconnected from its source, it will die.

Our soul longs to be connected, to find a place to belong, to find love, to find God.

We strive to find love but it is maddening when we are running from God and yet searching for love. For God is love.

I want to finish this with a look at Jesus in one of His most intimate moments and we’ll also connect this with what we’re looking at next week. Read Luke 22:39-48.

At this moment in His life, Jesus craved for time with the Father.

God Craves You

God Craves You!

“What marvelous love the Father has extended to us! Just look at it—we're called children of God! That's who we really are.” – 1 John 3:1 MSG


“I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.” – Romans 8:38 MSG


Intro:

They say we all lose 21 grams at the exact moment of our death… everyone. The weight of a stack of nickels, the weight of a chocolate bar, the weight of a hummingbird. At the moment of death, we grow 21 grams lighter – our life, our human spirit, our very soul leaves this mere flesh and blood.

See, beyond my flesh, beyond my mind, beyond my heart, there seems to be a place where my deepest and most powerful cravings lie. And they do not lie silently. My soul, it seems, always desires and demands, and no matter how I try to satisfy it, it always craves more. More of this God that is my Creator, my Savior, my Abba Father.

It may be hard to accept, but you are the object of God’s love. You were created out of love by him, and though you may not yet realize it, your soul longs to know this love. You are the object of His craving.


Part I

So often, we describe this love, this craving, as something so thin and without substance that pretty much anything qualifies as love. If we really know love, if we knew deep, profound, unending love, maybe we wouldn’t love chocolate. While I’m sure God appreciates all these things, after all, he is the Creator of all that is good and perfect, creation is not the object of His affection. When it comes to love, you exist in a unique category. You are unique and irreplaceable. You are the object of God’s love.

In Solomon’s sensual Song of Songs, he describes a lover pursuing the one who has won her heart. He captures the hopelessness that one feels on this desperate search for love.

“Restless in bed and sleepless through the night, I longed for my lover.
I wanted him desperately. His absence was painful.
So I got up, went out and roved the city,
hunting through streets and down alleys.
I wanted my lover in the worst way!
I looked high and low, and didn't find him.
And then the night watchmen found me
as they patrolled the darkened city.
so I asked them, “Have you seen my dear lost love?”

– Song of Songs 3:1-3 MSG

Solomon is describing the desperation that comes when we seem unable to capture the heart of the one we love. I wonder it ever occurs to us that God feels like this. But if God’s love is immeasurable and unending, as the Hebrews describe Him, how deep and profound must be His sense of sorrow and rejection. If anyone knows the pain of a love unreturned, it must be God.

Part II

We talk so much about how God showed this awesome craving for us through His sending His Son for us. But lets look at it in a different light.

A friend of mine met a girl and he fell in love. This innate craving began to form in him for this girl. So he pursued her with his love and pursued her with his love until he felt that his love had finally captured her heart. So he asked her to be his wife and she said no. He was unrelenting and asked her again, and again, and continued to outpour his love for her until she said yes. See, he didn’t send his brother, nor a friend, or anyone else to go for him. For in issues of love, of desire, of craving, you must go yourself.

This is the story of God: He pursues you with His love and pursues you with His love, and you have perhaps not said yes. And even if you reject His love, He pursues you ever still. It was not enough to send an angel or a prophet or any other, for in issues of love, you must go yourself. And so God has come to us. This is the story of Jesus, that God has walked among us and He pursued us with His love. He is very familiar with rejection but is undeterred. And He is here even now, still pursuing you with His love.

God desires us. He thirsts for us as we do for Him. The closer we get, that thirst will fade, because we are supplied with what we need. God doesn't need us, He wants us. He desires our company, our fellowship, our trust, our love, our safety in Him. He wants, He desires, He longs for, He yearns, He CRAVES. He gave us a calling. He wants us to fulfill it. He doesn't need us. He doesn't need anything. He can have it all with just a thought. But, He chose us. He craves us. I'm wanted by the King of Kings

He wants us to want Him as much as He wants us. He wants us to seek Him. He wants us to find, to spread, and bring more to Him to want Him like He wants us. We are His. He is ours. An honor above all honors. To be craved by the King of Kings.


(notes and ideas taken from author as well as Kat Cherry and Soul Cravings by Erwin McManus)

What do you crave?

" This thing that haunts you, that never seems satisfied, the cravings in your soul that you are unable to satiate through all the success that the world can bring - this is your soul screaming for God." - Erwin McManus

Crave - verb: to long for, desire earnestly // to require or need

Crave is a relative worship experience that focuses on what each one of us possess: an innate, natural craving that screams out for God. And we want to express that craving in as many ways as we can from song to poetry to drama to prayer.

So if you need to satisfy this craving, join us this Tuesday for a Crave Worship Experience at eXodus!

Every Tuesday at 7PM.