Seen pedaling around campus was a young man with a T-shirt reading "I'm going to be a doctor." A sign on the back of his bicycle proclaimed: "I'm going to be a Mercedes."
God is looking for people who will have a vision for something He wants to do in the future.
“For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.” 2 Chronicles 16:9 NASB
God is searching for people just like you who will give up their own agendas for God’s agenda.
Last week we also learned that God is looking for people who will build up the wall and stand in the gap before Him. God is looking for people who are full of Holy Passion, who are sick of the status quo. People who realize that you have all of eternity to live but you only get this short time on earth called life to make a difference.
This is how it works: You see a need and you get a dislocated heart. You spend time seeking God and the more you spend time with Him seeking His agenda you realize you have a broken spirit. You are becoming more and more dependent on Him. You have come to a place where you are ready to act. You have moved into a position of radical faith and you are ready to step up and step out for God. You are ready to make a difference. It is as though God has put something in your heart and you have to do it. You know that if God doesn’t show up you’re in big trouble because you can’t do it on your own. You are as close to God as you ever been. Right after you take that step with God calling and with clear purpose you need to deal with two questions:
A. Why is it that so many people intend to do so much, yet usually accomplish so little? You’ve been there and I have been there. You are sincere and you want to do what is right but you never seem to get it done. Honestly, not much seems to ever happen.
The Answer: Good Intentions
B. Why is it that others who carefully prepare to do even a little accomplish so much? Have you noticed that they are so meticulous? They put little steps to what they are going to do and you watch them and they just seem to get it done.
The Answer: A Strategic Plan
What must happen to our Dislocated Hearts, Broken Spirits, and Radical Faiths to turn our God-given dreams into reality? You can have the first three elements to Holy Passion but unless you have a strategic plan you will never have much to show for what you are feeling called to do.
You need to listen very carefully to these questions I am about to ask.
Would you like to see the good intentions, (some of you that are married) that you have longed for to come to pass? Those things like a deeper, richer more intimate relationship. Would you like to move them from intentions to reality? Yes or no? It will take a strategic plan.
Are there some of you that have kids and you have plans that you would like to see work out in their lives and you would like to see those good intentions move into reality? Yes or No? You’re going to have to have a plan.
Are there some of you that would really like to see something happen in an area of ministry. You have a burden, you really care. You talk about it. Every time you see or hear something about it something bubbles inside of you. Would you like to see that ministry begin to bear fruit and do something significant? If so you are going to have to move beyond the good intentions and come up with a plan.
Would you like to grow in your spiritual life? Understand His word at a whole new level and have times of recognizing His voice as you read the Bible. You would start keeping a journal and writing dates when God speaks to you and you can go back and see how His hand moved in your life in the past? Would like to see that happen in your life? Yes or no? You’ve got to have a plan. A strategic specific plan to get there.
Would you like to see a friend, relative, co-worker or neighbor come to know Christ? I mean down deep you really like this person but you realize that they have no idea who Christ is? Would you really like to see them come to Christ? If so, having a good intention about it will move you no where. You will have to come up with a strategic plan to move you from where you are to building a relationship so that that person will hear the message through you or someone else.
The Question of the day is, how do you develop a strategic plan?
There are four phases:
1. It Must Begin With a Vision:
A vision is a God-given burden to see what could be in a person, place or situation if God’s power were unleashed in it. You see a person or a situation or your marriage or a ministry and you have this burden that if God were just unleashed in it, you can see in your mind what it could be. Strategic plans always begin with a vision.
Visions always begin with a need. Vision and visionaries is not just people with big ideas who tell all of the rest of us what to do. Primarily visions that God births start with a need. IT IS NOT THE NEED IN YOU. It is not your need to have a vision. God births a vision when there is a need in someone outside yourself. That need will resonate in your heart and spirit.
Illustration of a young girl that is pregnant. She is considering an abortion. She has no one to help her through the pregnancy.
Heartbeats: 36 years ago a group of people met in a home to discuss what could be the ramifications if abortion became legal. They were several years ahead of the legislature. They started with a phone system in a basement and no budget and over the years they have rescued hundreds of children and touched thousands of lives.
I don’t know what it will be for you but there is something, some need that grips your heart and soul and you know that someone needs to be doing something about it. Don’t wait for someone else to tell you what that need is. If you see it and you’re convinced that God is in it, doors will begin to open if you walk through them.
Visions are always birthed by a need in someone else.
Nehemiah: It has been 70 years since the gates were burned and the walls came down. Something about that need grips him until he can’t get away from it. He was in his comfort zone and something about that need drew him out.
He birthed it in prayer. You don’t see a need and just go out and do it on your own. That is called doing it in your flesh. It’s all about you and your ability. I can’t not emphasize this enough, pray, pray, pray and pray. Nehemiah prayed, God begins to answer and promises him that He will be with him.
You know why the Eastside ministry is critical? God says that in as much as you did it to the least of these you did it to me. In our city, many would look down on those who live in that neighborhood or even some of the people who live in your neighborhood as being the “least of these,” and God has a deep interest in seeing them reached.
This is about a vision that you can’t shake. Strategic plans begin with vision and must be about a need in someone else. It is about a need that you see that you can’t get away from and that when it is met you have joy and fulfillment because you are doing what God intended for you to do.
Now let me show you how this works:
2. Where God’s Agenda is Championed, God’s Resources Are Channeled
Often ideas die when people have the first meeting about a starting a ministry. You start counting the cost and it all of the sudden it looks bigger than you are. Most of the visions that God births die early on because someone starts counting the cost of time, talent and treasure and they feel overwhelmed. Too often we ask what can I do with what I have in the way of resources instead of asking what could God do with the resources He has to use through me.
If God cares about something don’t you think He would channel his resources to meet that need?
“and I answered the king, "If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it." 6 Then the king, with the queen sitting beside him, asked me, "How long will your journey take, and when will you get back?" It pleased the king to send me; so I set a time.
This strongly suggests that he already as a plan developed. In the words of Stephen Covey, he has, “begun with the end in mind.”
7 I also said to him, "If it pleases the king, may I have letters to the governors of Trans-Euphrates, so that they will provide me safe-conduct until I arrive in Judah? 8 And may I have a letter to Asaph, keeper of the king's forest, so he will give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel by the temple and for the city wall and for the residence I will occupy?" And because the gracious hand of my God was upon me, the king granted my requests. 9 So I went to the governors of Trans-Euphrates and gave them the king's letters. The king had also sent army officers and cavalry with me. Nehemiah 2:5-9
Bible Study: Radical step of faith: “let him send me,” Vision: “I can rebuild it,” Strategic plan: “so I set a time.” Resources provided: “timber, safe conduct.”
When you want to get beyond yourself in fulfilling your ministry vision, ask the King for resources. God cares about unwed mothers, He cares about business men and women who don’t know Christ, He cares about kids who come home to houses that are empty or full of abuse, He cares about kids that go hungry, He cares about people all over the world that have never heard, He cares about teens in our culture. What need out there draws you like a magnet?
We are trying to purchase a building as part of our ministry in staying here. I stand in that building and think about all kind of needs that could be met in that facility but my dreams are limited. If some of you start listening to God and obeying His call in your heart this entire neighborhood would be touched for Him. The neighborhood around the Eastside church would be touched for Him.
If you will champion God’s agenda, resources will flow. Great God movements are not stopped because of a lack of resources they are stopped because of a lack of vision.
Z3. Your Strategic Plan Must Be “Birthed” in Private
Now the scripture text moves forward to another scene:
11 I went to Jerusalem, and after staying there three days 12 I set out during the night with a few men. I had not told anyone what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem. There were no mounts with me except the one I was riding on. 13 By night I went out through the Valley Gate toward the Jackal [a] Well and the Dung Gate, examining the walls of Jerusalem, which had been broken down, and its gates, which had been destroyed by fire. 14 Then I moved on toward the Fountain Gate and the King's Pool, but there was not enough room for my mount to get through; 15 so I went up the valley by night, examining the wall. Finally, I turned back and reentered through the Valley Gate. 16 The officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing, because as yet I had said nothing to the Jews or the priests or nobles or officials or any others who would be doing the work. Nehemiah 2:11-16
What your strategic plan? Do you have a strategic plan for your marriage, your kids, your neighborhood, the need that God is burdening in your heart?
3 Keys to “Birthing” Your Strategic Plan:
1. Silence – To listen: Take time to listen to what God is saying. Take time to listen to others. He doesn’t assume he has all the answers.
2. Secrecy – To assess: Do the homework. Figure out what the real problems are.
3. Solitude – To strategize: He developed a team to come up with a strategic plan to fix the need. Develop the means and time to meet the needs.
Look around at any effective ministry and you will see this whole idea played out.
4. Your Strategic Plan Must Be Launched In Public
“ 17 Then I said to them, "You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace." 18 I also told them about the gracious hand of my God upon me and what the king had said to me. They replied, "Let us start rebuilding." So they began this good work.” Nehemiah 2:17-18
7 Steps to Launching A Strategic Plan:
I want you to watch a video. It is footage shot in 1963 in the middle of the civil rights battle. I can’t begin to tell you how this resonated within me as I watched this on PBS this week. You’re going to see two white folk singers, one who was accused of being a communist and one who would become a pop culture icon. They are out of the spotlight, in a field in Mississippi, championing the cause of a race of people who were not yet treated with equality in this “godly,” country. (Waverly in the 60’s)
Notice the joy and spirit in the faces and body language of the people in this short video and then listen to the motivation behind what you see in this glimpse of history. Pete Seeger is leading them in a song that he wrote.
If I had a hammer
I'd hammer in the morning
I'd hammer in the evening
All over this land
I'd hammer out danger
I'd hammer out a warning
I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land
If I had a bell
I'd ring it in the morning
I'd ring it in the evening
All over this land
I'd ring out danger
I'd ring out a warning
I'd ring out love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land
If I had a song
I'd sing it in the morning
I'd sing it in the evening
All over this land
I'd sing out danger
I'd sing out a warning
I'd sing out love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land
Well I've got a hammer
And I've got a bell
And I've got a song to sing
All over this land
It's the hammer of justice
It's the bell of freedom
It's the song about love between my brothers and my sisters
All over this land
©1958, 1962 (renewed), 1986 (renewed)
TRO-Ludlow Music, Inc. (BMI)
Can I speak frankly with you this morning? Do you know what really moved be while watching this part of the documentary? I have one question that haunts me and will probably always haunt me. Where was the church? Where were the evangelicals? You know what I think? I think they were too busy to care. I think we were too busy with our agenda’s that we didn’t give a care about the plight of a people who were being abused by a majority white society. You know what else; I think that is the most charitable explanation I could find. In reality, many church people in the sixties were too busy being prejudiced and judgmental and indulging in racial humor and I think it was one of the darkest days for the church.
You know what I don’t want to be guilty of? There are people today with serious needs, right here in our community and there are people with serious needs around the world and the question is, what are Christians going to do about it? What are you going to do about it? What am I going to do about it?
Are you going to leave the caring to someone else? Listen, we claim to have the life changing, transformational message of Jesus Christ but unless we find a way to connect to the needs of those in God cares about the message is useless.
Kroger’s, Kiwanis, Camp O’bannon. Why didn’t the church ever start something like that?
In 1999, Apple stock was one of the hottest in the computer industry. Buried in the past of this unique company is an interesting story about vision, or more appropriately, the lack thereof. Ronald Wayne is an unknown name to most people even though he was in the original group who helped launch the novel Apple computer. During those early days, Wayne got cold feet and sold his 10 percent interest in Apple for $800. With a little more vision and foresight he might have seen the wisdom in taking a greater risk with that $800 investment because he could have sold it in 1999 for more than $300 million. Vision, in any field, looks beyond the initial investment and focuses on the long-term dividends. Houston Chronicle, July 23, 1999, p. 5F
Don’t miss out. Don’t sell out for a cheap vision that doesn’t cost you anything. God’s vision and pursuing it His way will lead you to do more than you ever think or imagine.