Movement | Embracing Our Mission: Purposeful Movement Towards God's Vision - Proverbs 29:18 | July 7

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serving a real God in the high country.

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Hey family, it's good to see you all again. I hope you had a great Fourth that happened.

I didn't really make the connection until later on this week,

but it's interesting that we should find ourselves here, not physically.

We are normally here, so that's not a surprise.

But here in this time, following the 4th, and after coming through all that

we talked about in Corinthians, all that we were challenged with in Corinthians,

and looking forward to where we're going to be headed in the next couple months,

it's interesting that this would be the 4th of July weekend.

I would say that it's coincidence, but I've learned that to not believe in coincidence.

So, it's not a coincidence, but it's interesting that we are here.

The 4th of July, of course, doesn't have anything to do with what we're talking

about today, except for this, I guess.

As those 56 or so guys sat in that room in Philadelphia, I think it was in Philadelphia.

I'm terrible at history, so somebody can correct me later. But on that hot summer

day with the the windows nailed shut, they set their hearts single-mindedly

to one specific mission, and that was independence. And again.

It's interesting because we are at a similar crossroads, not against tyranny,

like they were committing treason, right?

They knew they were risking the potentiality of being hanged,

that their families destroyed.

And so they gave themselves completely to that mission. We're not risking those

things per se, not yet at least.

So there's a difference, but it's interesting because we are at a similar crossroads

where we have a mission that lies before us.

We have a mission. It's not independence. In some ways, it's perhaps even greater

dependence is maybe how we could say it, but there's a mission before us nonetheless.

In the next five weeks, starting with today, we're going to be talking about our mission.

We're going to talk about that mission and what it looks like.

What are we setting our hearts to single-mindedly as this expression of the family of God?

What's our vision for the future that is motivating us, that is compelling us forward?

What's our mission? What's our focus? That's what we're going to be talking about.

Mission, put simply, is purposeful movement. That's how we're going to think about it.

A purposeful movement for that we are taking purposeful steps towards something.

We are moving with purpose.

And so, we have a mission. Proverbs 29, 18, you may be familiar with.

It says, where there is no vision, people perish, but he who keeps the law is happy. be.

And this may seem like an obvious choice of scripture for us this morning,

if you're familiar with this particular proverb, of course.

I could have gone more obvious, could have gone Matthew 28, Great Commission.

We're going to get there as well, so you won't be disappointed in that.

But this verse in Proverbs, it's an interesting verse.

It doesn't quite mean exactly what you may think it to mean,

or at least what it seems to be communicating at its most basic level.

There is a deeper truth here. There's a deeper truth to be grasped.

The King James, of course, is the one we're familiar with.

That's what it says, where there is no vision, the people perish.

Most other translations say something to the effect of this.

Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint, but blessed is the

one who heeds wisdom's instructions.

And so, it's not really talking about vision, is it? At least not in the broadest

category of any old vision.

It's talking about a very specific thing. It's talking about revelation.

The revealed Word of God is talking about a prophetic vision for God's mission

and purpose for our lives.

So, if we're going to use the word vision, then we have to add that idea,

that it's a prophetic vision for God's purpose and mission for our lives.

And where that doesn't exist, people are lost.

They're lost and they're restless and they wander wherever their minds take

them. They worship whatever their hearts desire.

And the sad truth is there's no life there. This is a picture,

this verse is a picture of the golden calf story in Exodus, where Moses goes

up to commune with the Lord, right?

And while he's gone, which apparently was a long time, but at least longer than

the people believed was reasonable, but we also know them to be very impatient.

So there's not a lot we can learn with from that. We see in Exodus that the

people of Israel begged for Egypt after like a page in the wilderness.

So they were very impatient. I don't know how long they would have waited,

but at this time, Moses was Israel's link to the revelation of God's mission and purpose.

He spoke to the people, the very words of God, right? And so when that was absent,

even for the shortest amount of time, their minds wander, or they turned to

whatever they thought of, even in the shortest absence.

So, a golden calf, here's your God, is kind of what they said,

right? Yeah, okay, sure, why not? That was their response.

Their hearts cast off restraint and they turned and worshiped whatever seemed good to them.

But there was no life there. There's no life in those moments.

There's no life in the pursuit of just any old desire.

God has given us his written word, the Bible, which points us to his His living word, Jesus, of course.

And when we fail to read God's word, when we fail to live out God's word in

our lives, we begin to live as people without vision.

We cast off restraint to our own peril and we turn to whatever our mind seems good to us.

Conversely, when we heed God's word, when we listen, when we invest ourselves,

when we live it out in our lives, then we are blessed among all people.

And so we as humans are created in the image of God.

In that creation, we desire, we long for life.

We desire meaning and purpose. We crave it.

If you were to poll the graduating class at ASU, if you were to survey them

and ask them, what is the most important thing as you are setting off into this

new adult life that you're getting into?

Among those responses would be meaning and purpose in what they do.

We are all desiring meaning and purpose. Of course, I'm not actually quoting

any statistics that they've been done because then I would have to reference

them and cite them and prove to you that I'm not making it up and that it's

78% and not 80% or whatever the statistic is, but that's a big hassle. So, I didn't do that.

But studies have been done, right? And this is, we don't have to rely on statistics.

We all know this. We desire meaning and purpose in our lives.

We crave purpose. We crave meaning.

The reality is, is that we search for it relentlessly, which is ironic because

if we had meaning and purpose, then we wouldn't, we would be filled and we wouldn't

have to expend ourselves searching for it, desiring it, right?

In the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon sets himself to pursue meaning in all of

the ways that you could possibly hope to find it.

In everything you can invest your life in, Solomon had the means and ability

and he set his heart to it. And in the end, Solomon concludes one thing.

He concludes that life is about doing God's will, that the only meaning and

satisfaction to be found is submitting yourself to God's mission for your life.

He says, that's the whole story. Fear God and obey his commands for this is everyone's duty.

That's it. That's, you can pursue everything and it's always gonna come down to that one truth.

That meaning is found and purpose is found only in God's mission for your life.

That we are lost without God's vision or without the vision of God's mission

and purpose for our lives.

We are lost without that prophetic vision. We see it in the world. We see it in the church.

When the word of God is not understood, when it's not prioritized, we cast off this vision.

We live lost and restless souls, as Augustine says, right?

You may have heard this quote. He says that you have made us for yourself,

O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.

So, which is kind of a paraphrase of Ecclesiastes.

I don't know, not a roundabout way, almost an exact way. He's kind of plagiarizing

the Bible, which we all do. There's nothing new under the sun.

The Bible said it all, right?

We are lost without this vision.

And so we end up doing all manner of things that are good missions,

but are ultimately not God's mission.

It's his mission. And we can get lost in all of the good missions that we set

our hearts to without thinking about his mission.

We need his mission. That's what fills our tanks of meaning and purpose.

We talked about this last week very briefly, but if you view your life as having

three tanks and they're related to each other, so you can't just fill all the tanks.

If you pour yourself into one, you're gonna be robbing from another.

We in this country pour ourselves into overflowing the tank of freedom.

Even with the people that we gather together, because another tank is community, right?

Even as we gather together in community, we prioritize the people that we like

when we pull them close to us because we're filling ourselves full of freedom, even in then.

But if we fill our tanks full of meaning and purpose, which is God's meaning

and purpose, and we restrict maybe our freedom a bit, then we will experience community.

We will experience love. We will experience all of those things that our hearts are really set on.

That's what we talked about in Corinthians. That's kind of the summary of Corinthians.

But God has revealed to us in his word, a beautiful purpose for our lives, a mission.

It's what we are created for. it's why we were made. It's what we are for.

It's a purposeful movement. And when we lose sight of that purposed movement,

we are no longer functioning as the body of Christ.

As we saw in Corinthians, he talks about the body of Christ.

We can't be the body of Christ unless we're moving together in coordinated movement.

We need all of our parts moving together. What we're talking about today is

the fact that we must all be headed in the same direction with purposed movement,

with purposeful movement for the mission of God.

You might hear it referenced as Missio Dei, the mission of God.

That's just Latin or whatever. So we can use English because that's what we

understand. The mission of God. What is the mission of God?

The mission of God is the answer to the question, why?

Why do we do this? Why are we here? What's it all for?

The church exists because God has a mission. It's not the other way around.

There's not a mission because we gather gather together occasionally and do

this thing and be this thing called church. Church exists because God has a mission.

According to some people, God became the first missionary shortly after creation

and initiated the beginning of salvation history to save us,

to rescue us from our sin, to rescue us from death, to redeem us from our shame

and our guilt, to transform us.

To reflect his glory as his image bearers, to transform our world,

our culture into his kingdom.

Which I do want to say before we get too far, that worship is the destination.

Worship is the goal. I don't want us to lose sight of that.

Micah 6.8 says it, Matthew 22 communicates it. It's all throughout the Bible

that the purpose of mankind is to love God passionately and to love people purposefully.

So worship is the destination, but the mission of God is the vehicle that gets us there.

And so in that regard, we see that it is very central to who God is,

the mission of God, that there's always been a doxological intent,

to use some fancy words, of the existence of mankind.

And that means that we are here for God's glory.

It's always been about God's glory. We have been brought into that glory in

some strange way that we don't quite understand.

We've been made into that glory, the Bible says.

And so he has brought us into this beautiful story that, and we express our

love and thankfulness for all he has done.

It's always been about the glory of God. Worship is the destination.

There's this famous quote, says something to the effect of the mission exists

because worship doesn't. But

the mission exists because the world is not full of the worship of God.

We don't have a clear picture of revelation where every knee is bowing,

every tongue confessing.

And so the mission, the call, is always going to be necessary until we step

into the fullness of that reality, until we step into the fullness of that picture.

And so there will be a time in the future at some point where mission,

the mission, cease to exist because it's unnecessary.

But worship will continue. you worship is the destination the mission of god

is the vehicle and so like i said.

As a result of that or because of that, God's mission is very central to his

being because God's desire is that no one should perish, that all would be saved,

that all would be with him and join him in his presence.

And we gather here today because we believe that that is the best place to be. In 2 Peter, it says.

Being slow about his promise. As some people think. He's being patient for your

sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.

This mission is at the heart of God's very being.

It's his mission. It's not our mission. We are his chosen instruments.

He carries out this mission through us, but it's his mission. It's what he's about.

And we see this from the beginning. This might be surprising to to some of you,

but the mission of God hasn't really changed very much over the years.

In the eons of human existence, God has always been about calling the heart

of his people back to him.

It's still the same call. God told Abraham, I will surely bless you and I will

surely multiply your offspring in the stars of heaven and the sand that is on

the seashore and your offspring shall,

possess the gate of his enemies and in your offspring shall all the nations

of the earth So God has called out a people for himself that the world might

know and experience him,

that the nations might see and encounter the presence of the real God.

This is what he told Abraham.

And yes, Israel failed many times, many, many times Israel failed,

but we still see glimpses of this picture throughout the Hebrew Bible.

We see it in many beautiful ways. The the beautiful picture of Ruth, just to name one.

Ruth's response, who was not an Israelite, she told her mother-in-law,

who was of the nation of Israel, wherever you go, I will go.

Wherever you live, I will live.

Your people will be my people and your God will be my God.

It's always been about the nations, not just one nation, all of them.

We see it in Egypt. Even as the people of Israel walked out of slavery,

thousands of Egyptians went with them.

Thousands of Egyptians Why? Because it's never been about one people. It's about all peoples.

God has always been concerned with the nations. The reality is that everyone needs Jesus.

You will never meet a person in this life or the life to come that doesn't need

Jesus. We all need Jesus.

If you'll permit me the potential risk of a misinterpretation.

I see this, the beginning of this mission, even in the garden,

that God created mankind on

the first pages of the Bible, in the first chapter, and he created us why?

To be fruitful and to multiply, to fill the earth and to subdue it.

That God created us in his image that we might multiply ourselves.

From the the very beginning, God's command has always been for humanity to create,

be creating a family, to be fruitful and make more of yourselves.

That's the call from the beginning. So it's interesting.

We see Jesus and John 15 tell his disciples, by this, my father is glorified and you bear much fruit.

And so prove to be my disciples.

And you'll see quite a large number of well-known pastors teach from this verse

as a call, as a rallying call to make disciples, to go and make disciples.

And I've always wondered, because when I read this, I see it much more of a

statement of let the fruit of God's spirit increase in your life.

So, I always wondered where were they getting this connection?

Where were they making this connection for this verse to be about replicating

yourselves, about evangelism, about discipleship?

Here in Genesis is where we make that connection. Be fruitful and multiply.

Make more of yourselves.

You've often heard me teach. Now I want you to tell these same things to followers

who can be trusted to tell others, says in Timothy.

Teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others.

Be fruitful, go forth, multiply, fill the earth with my glory.

This is an invitation from God to be with him, to rule with him.

He says, let's do it together.

I'm with you. I'm with you. This is my purpose. This is my mission. Join me in it.

It's an invitation from God. So there are people, maybe you're one of them,

who are trying to figure out God's will for your life.

You're trying to figure out God's will for your life, but you're not first considering

what is God's purpose in this world.

God's purpose for the church is for us to multiply ourselves,

to expand, to fill the earth with his glory.

Jesus said, therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations,

baptizing them in the name of and the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Teach these new disciples to obey all commands I have given you.

And be sure of this, I am with you always, even to the ends of the age.

Make disciples. That's God's purpose in the world. That's his mission. Make disciples.

This is such a great verse. I don't know if you think it's a great verse because

now you have to do something that you may not want to do or maybe something

that you feel like you don't know how to do. But you know why it's a great verse?

There's only one command here. There's only one verb. Make disciples.

That's it. That's the mission of God. Make disciples.

Everything else, everything else is answering the question, how?

In your going, make disciples.

In your neighborhoods, down your streets, in the grocery store, while you work.

Whatever you do, wherever you're doing it, whatever you're doing,

make disciples while you're doing it.

Baptizing them, teaching them. What should we teach them, Jesus?

Teach them everything as it pertains to me and life and holiness,

right? Teach them everything about me.

Help bring their hearts back to me. And you're going, and you're baptizing,

and you're teaching, make disciples.

How do we make disciples? I realize that that doesn't necessarily,

even though it's answering the question, how do we do that?

It doesn't necessarily clear it up for us that much.

How do we make disciples? To be a disciple who makes disciples,

that's what we're after.

We're after being disciples who makes disciples.

Here's what it means at its simplest.

To be a disciple means to do what you do, to do it well for the glory of God,

God and to do it somewhere strategically for the mission of God.

That your ability and God's ambition for his lost people, his lost children

would line up to do what you do, to do it well for the glory of God and to do

it somewhere strategic for the mission of God.

So local churches like ours are signposts pointing the way to Christ's kingdom,

embassies of heaven on earthly soil.

As we gather for worship, as we gather for teaching, as we table together,

as we scatter the goal of mission is the worship of God and worship necessarily

drives us to establish faithful churches, a disciple making disciples among all people.

That's the, that's the mission of the church as followers of Christ.

It's just to be a disciple who makes disciples.

That's what we are called to. I know that, that many of you,

maybe most of you did not end up here in the high country because of the mission of God, but,

that you did not move here or take a job here because it was somewhere strategic.

Unfortunately, it's too rare that we are confronted with this mission in most

of our time in our churches, but this is what we're setting our hearts to.

So my heart for you, my heart for us is that the gospel would multiply deep

in your life and then spread out wide through your neighborhoods,

that it would multiply deep in our lives and spread out through the high country in the world.

So whether you came here because it was a strategic place for you to join in

the mission of God, whether God was calling you to be here or not,

or whether it was just a coincidence, which by now I hope you have realized

because I said it already, I don't believe in coincidences,

but I pray that the gospel would take root deep down in your hearts and change

us in such a way that it spreads out wide throughout boon and blowing rock into the ends of the earth.

That's my heart for us because we have a mission. Whether you like it or not, we are on mission.

We are on a mission. Jesus came proclaiming the universal reign of God.

He came telling that the kingdom is here. The kingdom is now.

Jesus came to seek and save the

lost. Jesus came for the lost prodigal son that he would be welcomed in.

And he came for the older brother that he would rejoice in his inheritance.

He came for you. You're gonna fall into one of those categories. Jesus came for you.

And Jesus tells us, as the father has sent me, even so I am sending you.

That's the mission of God. The sending of God, some people would translate it.

Purposeful movement forward.

We are trying to respond to what God is doing in this world.

We're trying to respond. That's what we're setting our hearts to.

And this is what God is doing. It's his mission. So we're just asking the question,

what do you want to do in me?

What do you want to do through me?

And so the elders got together a few weeks back now, and we've been asking that question.

We've been asking those questions. We've been praying, Lord,

what do you want from Mount Sinai? here's what we feel God calling us to.

We want to be a place where heaven meets earth by proclaiming the universal

reign of God, embodying Jesus to our communities and inviting our neighbors

to join us in becoming real people who are part of a real family and worship the real God.

That's what we're setting our hearts to, that what we want to proclaim Jesus

with our words and demonstrate Jesus with our actions in such a way that what

we speak and how we love are in agreement with one another.

It doesn't cause confusion as we invite our neighbors to join us in this family.

And so doing, we're creating communities, places in the community where the

space between heaven and earth is thin, which is a weird way to say about it.

So if you want to know what that means, you have to come back next week.

The next four following weeks, we're going to be unpacking this statement and

really getting into it. And I'm really excited about next week.

It's a beautiful picture that we are given throughout the Bible.

We want to be a place where heaven meets earth of proclaiming the universal

reign of God, embodying Jesus to our communities and inviting our neighbors

to join us in becoming real people who are part of real family and worship the real God.

So why not make the mission statement? We want to make disciples,

a whole bunch of them, as many as we can. Why not that?

Well, this is that. Again, the problem with the phrase making disciples is the

all too familiar question, okay, what does that mean? How do we do that?

How do we disciple? And because of that, that disconnect that we are naturally

drawn to, like, what does that mean?

We might end up losing our fervor that our mission as Christians is something

that is incredibly, incredibly beautiful. It's an incredible mission.

It's a mission that calls us to live our lives, to live our faith in every aspect of our life.

It's a mission that calls us to share the love of Christ with every step that we take.

And it's a mission that is for each and every one of us.

It's not just reserved for a few people. It's about being agents of change.

People often didn't look at the world and realize it's broken and say something needs to change.

It's about being agents of change. It's about embodying grace,

being in living embodiments of grace.

It's about illuminating the darkest corners of the world.

All of this is part of our incredible mission that we have.

Unfortunately, for all of us who have probably grown up in church,

we've lost sight of this vision in most of our churches and our culture. We have lost our vision.

And there's kind of two ways that this happens.

And so you might be in one of these camps if you've been part of the church for very long.

There's two ways that we lose sight of this prophetic vision,

this mission that God has for us.

We, I guess to use the terms, we can tend towards being a bit too myopic or

hyper-optic where we're nearsighted or farsighted, right?

Those are the two ways we tend to veer off. We lose the vision of God's mission

for our lives when we get too focused on the details, on the maintenance,

on even maybe the religiosity of it.

When we get too focused on that, we lose sight of the focus,

the direction, the heading, the mission.

We become maybe real good at being spiritual as Paul wrote to the Corinthians,

but we kind of end up being really bad at following Jesus.

We get too focused on the details.

The other problem is that we can zoom too far out and that can result in two

different things. we can either.

Make every good mission our mission rather than ultimately God's mission,

what his ultimate mission is.

So we take on a lot of other good missions that are not God's mission,

or we become paralyzed in action and we ultimately think, well,

that's not my gifting. That's for somebody else.

I'm really good at this. I'm gonna keep doing this thing, but that's for somebody

else. And so we can get wrapped up.

We can get wrapped up in things like social justice, which are good things.

It's a good mission and arguably it has a part to play, but it's not,

it alone is not God's mission.

By itself is not God's mission. In fact, the Bible repeatedly says that justice

ultimately is God's thing. That's his thing.

Like we are supposed to seek the good of all peoples. We are supposed to live

and seek justice. We are supposed to live and seek reconciliation.

But in the end, God is going to ultimately take care of that.

That there's a vision in the future where all things, justice will be had in all ways for all people.

So, we can do our part, but that's not God's ultimate mission.

Similarly, I practice that word so I can say it.

We can get so focused that there is a mission. Even if it's God's mission,

we can get so focused that there is a mission that we end up losing our vision

for what our role to play in is in it.

We lose sight of our role in it. We may think even, that's why we pay you for, Zach.

That's your mission, or you're our role in God's mission, right?

After all, I'm paid to be good, as Roy would say, and you're all good for nothing.

So, we can lose sight of our role in it, and maybe we just need to preach that

to ourselves, that this is my job. This is my job until it sinks down deep.

It's his mission, but it's my job, and you just need to teach that to yourself

over and over again until it takes hold in your heart.

This is a job for every one of us. I want to drive this point home a little

bit, so I do want to have a quick activity, if you're up for it.

I know that these things sort of usually begin sermons rather than come towards

the end, but I think it'll work for us.

I've seen it work before, and so I have high hopes.

We're going to do it anyway, and if it doesn't work, we'll just go with it.

But I do need four volunteers for this.

So, okay, Isaac, but no more kids. Michelle.

Two more. I need two more. Eric, okay. Eric reluctantly raised his hand.

We already have one kid, so we just need one kid. Somebody else?

Anel, come up, join us. All right,

so what we need to do now is collectively suspend our disbelief and imagine

that these four people are firefighters and that what we have here before us

collectively is a fire engine that they are going to be sitting on, standing on, okay?

We have to suspend our disbelief. Now, I'm going to give you each your assignments,

your writing assignments, which are your roles and responsibilities, okay?

As we put out a fire, this is your job.

So, you have to remember it. I'm going to ask you what it is,

okay? So, Isaac, why don't you stand here? We're going to face this way,

all right? So, you're in the A seat.

People can see you. You're in the A seat, right?

You're the captain of the truck. You're in charge. Can you do that?

When you get to the fire, you're going to be telling everybody what to do, okay? You're in charge.

Got it? All right. So, you're going to make sure that everybody else is doing their job, okay?

Michelle, how about you stand behind Isaac?

You're going to be, I should have reversed this because there's a really good

joke coming up, but you're what they call the iron's man or the iron's woman,

not iron man. You're in charge.

The iron's man. And so, So, your job when you get onto the fire is assessing

point of entry. You're breaking down doors.

You're getting our people in to contain and control. You're getting everybody

else out. So, you're in charge of that. Got it?

Okay. You're going to be next to her.

Yeah. So, you're the C-seat. A, B, yeah, C-seat. So, you're the hook and can man.

So, you're going to be assisting Michelle. You're going to be assistant to the

regional manager. Okay? You got that?

You're assisting Michelle. show. You are going to be coming in after her,

making sure that everything's contained and controlled.

You're going to have a hose or like a pressurized water can,

making sure the remnants of the fire are dealt with and that people are getting out safely.

So, that's your job, assisting and entry. All right. And Anel,

why don't you come up next to Isaac. This is Isaac. Isaac, this is Anel.

You're in the D seat, which means you're the driver. So, when we get on the

fire, you're in charge of everything outside of the fire building.

So, you're going to be moving in ladders. You're going to be making sure everybody's

got their hoses correct, turning on the water. You're in charge of everything

outside of the building. Got that?

All right. So, you think you remember everybody what your assignment is?

Isaac, what are you doing?

You're in charge. He's got that. He's got it down. Michelle,

what are you doing? Breaking down doors. Perfect.

Assisting Michelle. No. What

are you doing now? Where did that cool accent come from all of a second?

Okay. That makes sense. So I was just like expecting a normal,

like I'm the driver. That was beautiful.

Thank you very much. It's really spiced up this metaphor. Okay.

You're in charge. You're breaking down doors. You're assisting her.

You're the driver. You're in charge of everything outside the building.

What's your job? Put out the fire.

That's your job. Your job is to put out the fire. or the church,

you could go ahead and sit down. He works pretty well.

The church has one mission. There is a one mission that the church has.

We can't get distracted from this, that those who have never been told of him

will see and those who have never heard will understand.

We can't get distracted. We can't veer off into a thousand other good missions

that aren't ultimately God's missions.

Those good missions can serve God's mission, but the point, the focus is that we have a mission.

So making the mission of the church central to who you are means encouraging

and preparing every member to be able to share the gospel, to be able to live

out and demonstrate the gospel in their lives and every aspect of their life.

So the mission of the church is not just the work of faraway missionaries.

It's not just the work of pastors.

It's the work of every member of the body. We're all moving in one purposeful

movement. So we're really excited about what God doing.

We see all the opportunities. We see the way that he has blessed us.

There are so many ways in which this work can be slow, tedious, painful.

It can seem to go unnoticed by people, even ourselves sometimes.

But we see what God is doing and how he's blessed us.

And God has put us here. God has put you here. God has put you here in this

place at this time for a purpose.

We understand that purpose. We understand his purpose in the world.

He's given us a vision for the future.

Where we're headed, to expand our reach from the high country to the world.

He's revealing that plan in more and more detail to us as we go.

It reminds me of a verse in Isaiah chapter 30. It says, Your own ears will hear him right behind you.

Isaiah 30 · chapter mention

A voice will say, This is the way you should go. Walk in it,

whether to the right or to the left.

He is revealing to us more and more this vision, this mission,

this for us. and we want to be a place where heaven meets earth by proclaiming

the universal reign of God.

By embodying Jesus to our communities and by inviting our neighbors in to join

us, becoming real people, part of real family and worship the real God.

Why is this important? Why now? This seems to be something that is more suited

for like January, like a resolution type of season.

Like, why are we talking about it now? Like half of our people aren't even here to hear it.

And so they're going to have to listen to something else because,

you know, they're on vacation somewhere or just leaving on it.

Half of them are the Dearborns.

So why are we doing this? Why is it important now?

In just another month, because summer's almost over. Yes, I know.

It's terrible to think about.

When you get older, time apparently speeds up. But summer's almost over.

And it also just started, so that's weird. But in just another month,

there will be 18,000 to 20,000 people who enter into our tiny mountain town,

nearly doubling our population.

20,000 people who find themselves in very critical decision points in their life.

20,000 people who desperately need Jesus.

And so the time is now. The time is now for our neighbors who are here year round.

The time is now for the transient young professionals who come and go, the Boonerangs.

The time is now for these college students who are gonna be entering our town.

The time is now for us to step into our role, and to the mission of God for

us in our lives to be true disciples of Jesus who make disciples.

Thank you for listening to Mountainside Church's podcast. We hope you found

inspiration and encouragement in today's teaching.

To learn more about our church, stay connected or partner with us, visit mcboone.com.

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