A God-Centered Vision - Proverbs 16:9, 29:18
At the start of each new year, we revisit our mission and vision here at Good Shepherd. These are statements created when we began the church to help folks understand our purpose and goals.
The mission statement outlines the purpose for which GS exists. You can find the statement on the inside cover of your WG, 2nd paragraph. GS exists, and so it is our desire, “to join God on mission by producing mature followers of Jesus Christ for His glory and our joy.”
The vision statement outlines how we fulfill the purpose of GS. This is the next sentence printed there. Based on our mission, we have a vision to be “a multi-generational congregation worshipping according to Scripture in a contemporary style, gathering as one body on Sunday mornings and in small groups throughout Florence during the week, and introducing more people to the life-giving community of the local church.”
And so today and for the next three Sundays we are going to look closely at the Biblical foundation of our mission and vision. We do this because it is essential for us to understand why God has established us and blessed us in the ways that He has and for us to clearly see how we are to obey Him and glorify Him as a church.
The Scriptures adamantly proclaim that God has a purpose and plan for His people. God plans to bring about certain results in our lives; there are things God sees for us. Put differently, God has a vision for us. He has a vision for the life of Good Shepherd, just as He has a vision for your life. So it makes sense to adopt God’s vision. If only it were so easy, because we don’t automatically do that!
What comes naturally to us are self-centered plans, man-centered visions for our lives: for our careers, our families, our homes and communities, even for our church. But God the Father sent the Son to restore a God-centered vision for those He came to save. And so it is God’s vision that we should discern, embrace, and pursue.
But what is different about those who make God’s vision their own?
For today I’ve chosen two passages from the OT book of Proverbs, a book which scholars classify as “wisdom literature.” The wisdom of God is a unifying theme of the book, and God’s wisdom is contrasted with the wisdom of people. Like all of the Bible, Proverbs presents a God-centered vision for us, and these verses reveal two characteristics of those who adopt a God-centered vision.
You can find them listed for you on page 6 in the WG. Those with a God-centered vision increasingly embrace the path determined by God and pursue the goals verbalized by God. One aim of these sermons is to show that the mission and vision of GS are deduced from a plain reading of Scripture, as they should be. So let’s look at them now.
Even though Proverbs is filled with so many statements that seem to stand alone, there are subthemes for groups of statements. Groups of verses share a common theme. And so, for that reason, the verses of Proverbs should still be read in context. They shouldn’t be completely separated from the verses around them.
This is important when interpreting Proverbs 16:9 because when you start at 16:1, you see that the theme of the section is that the heart of man and the way we naturally plan is being described negatively. It is being contrasted with the plans of God. For instance, verse 2 says, “All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the spirit.” And verse 4, “The LORD has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.”
So notice 16:9 again, “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.” This suggests that we naturally plot a course contrary to the LORD’s. We instinctively choose a path contrary to God’s path. But as things play out, the results prove that it is God who is in control.
We see a couple important things here. First of all, “LORD” in all caps tells us that God’s covenant name - Yahweh - is in use. Yahweh made the universe and all its contents; He made the first man and woman. He articulated their purpose on the planet; He created them in a moral relationship with Himself and He judged Adam when he broke the covenant. Yahweh did not utterly destroy them, but showed them mercy, and gave them the first glimpse of His covenant of grace, a covenant which became clearer with Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and finally would be completely fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Another thing we see is that any plans made apart from God’s plans are doomed to utter failure. Even though the wicked seem to succeed for the moment, Yahweh always has the final word. Even though we visualize selfish visions for ourselves and things appear to go our way for a bit, Yahweh has determined a path for each of us, and His will is undefeated. He is the only true
God who establishes the course of every person’s life. In ways that we cannot understand, human responsibility and divine sovereignty are compatible. Therefore it is useless to go against Him. We may question His decisions, but we must bend the knee. We must submit to His will; we must adopt His vision for our lives. Those with a God-centered vision increasingly embrace the path determined by God.
The sinful nature is bent on a man-centered vision. This is why, as I studied various mission statements years ago, I was captivated by this idea of “joining God on mission.” I first saw a mission statement framed this way at a PCA church where a friend of mine serves in Georgia. It reflects the truth of this statement by Tim Keller: “God does not merely send the church in mission. God already is in mission, and the church must join him.”
In our lives and in our church, this is where we must begin. We must be in God’s Word and in prayer, consulting with godly counselors, humbly seeking, begging God to show us where to join Him in what He is doing and plans to do. If we don’t approach life and church in this way, we will imagine and be swept up in all kinds of self-centered visions for the future. You will naturally do this in the year ahead. Man-centered visions come naturally. God-centered visions come supernaturally.
Do you increasingly embrace God’s determined path, or do you resist Him? It is not always easy to surrender to God. But even in your sufferings, God has a plan. The writer of Hebrews told those Christians who were suffering persecution for their faith, “It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?”
God has a vision for your holiness, and through your trials He will transform you into the likeness of Christ the Son. God has a vision for you to bring glory to Him, that your life would testify to the wonders of His grace. God has a vision for His people to be disciples of Jesus, learning more and more from Jesus, being taught God’s ways as we live in a largely sinful world.
Look now at Proverbs 29:18, “Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law.” This passage has also been translated, “Where there is no vision, the people perish” and it has been quoted to prop up many man-centered visions for churches. But the Hebrews words in this verse indicate that the kind of vision in view is one given by God Himself. If any church leader proposes a vision for the Lord Jesus’ church, he must be able to give evidence that God affirms it in His Word.
The “prophetic vision” is God’s Word for His people. Hebrews 1 states, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, [2] but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” In and through Jesus we understand God’s vision for us. And God’s vision verbalizes the goals His church must pursue.
This verse tells us why we must seek a vision from God’s Word. Without it, “the people cast off restraint.” In other words, they disobey God. They go in the wrong direction. The people must receive the Word of God and keep it. Why? Look at the rest of the passage: “blessed is he who keeps the law.”
Nowhere has God more clearly verbalized His goals for His people than in the Ten Commandments, the foundation of His moral law. Each commandment articulates a God-centered vision for you and me. God casts a vision for our worship, and our words,
and our work, and our rest, and our human relationships. He codified them, He wrote them in stone, indicating that they are unchanging and eternal.
We are to abandon every man-centered vision and to adopt God’s vision for our lives as our own. This is how to be “blessed,” literally, how to be happy, how to be at peace with God. Those with a God-centered vision increasingly pursue the goals verbalized by God, and they find a harmony that comes only from heaven. That’s why the GS vision describes God-centered goals.
We will begin to work our way through them next week. They are all clear in His prophetic Word. And as a church, we will ask God to give an increase of each of these in the year ahead: that we would as a congregation have an increasing reverence for the worship of God; and increasing commitment to the people of God, and an increasing passion for the enjoyment of God, the delight of knowing Him. That is the GS vision of this church, and it should be the vision for each of our lives.
God not only casts this vision for us; He requires it. God’s vision is not optional. His righteousness is not “take it or leave it.” It would be a hopeless cause, if there were not one Man who perfectly possessed and maintained a God-centered vision, and who did so in place of those who trust in Him.
The Lord Jesus Christ sinlessly embraced the path determined by God for Him, not only in his death, but also in his life. Luke 22 says He prayed to the Father, “Not my will, but yours, be done.” Jesus sinlessly pursued the goals verbalized by God. In John 5, Jesus states, “I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.” We produce many man-centered visions on our own, and so we must look continually to Jesus. He is our Messiah who saved us and our Lord who leads us. Have you surrendered all to Him?
Bow with me prayer.