Vision Sunday 2025 - Matthew 6:19-33

This is ERC Sundays, the messages at Emmaus Rd.

Church in DeWitt, Iowa. ERC is a Church of people

striving to grow in Jesus and make him known to others through

our faith, words and actions. Find out more about our church

at emmausrdonline.org. Here's this week's message.

Each and everyone of you have someone in your life, be it

family, friends, coworkers, what have you.

You have one more in your life that needs to come to know

Jesus. I know that you do and that's

what we're going to be chasing. So we want to share some stories

of testimonials of of how that's happened already amongst you

all. Believe it or not pastor Kristen

Lisa were once well once the one more were were were once invited

in. They did not know Jesus and was

set on a completely different path from where their lives were

going and are now pastoring this church.

Kristen on staff here her and her husband Derek who's who's an

elder here now. They were friends with Kristen

Lisa living in sin in the early part of their lives, and they

too a lifetime ago were were the one more and so many of you I I,

I look and see the faces out here.

I'm I feel that I never was a one more.

I I I feel that I was I always knew who Jesus was.

I I grew up in a Christian Church and or a Christian family

and and I was baptized before I could remember it or be aware of

it. And and yet even in that sinful,

from the time my mother conceived me, sinful from birth,

God still saw me as the one more, the one more who needed to

come and know Jesus. And there's so many of you that

have lived that out in your life being being the one more, being

invited to church. Maybe you're here right now,

just at the behest of somebody else who invited you.

Hey, come on. I promise it's not a cult.

It's not weird like we sing some songs and we read from this

really cool book and we and we teach and grow and encourage in

love and kindness with each other.

That's what we're doing here. This is for the one more.

That's what we're aspiring to do.

So Megan and Ryan, thanks for being here a part of our

community. Thank you for taking the dive

and being the Guinea pigs on on working on this series with us.

We'll release the full length story from them very soon.

But just wanted to give you a sneak peek of that.

Praise God, he's, he's so good. He's got you guys right where he

wants you to be. And and we're grateful for that.

So. All right, I'm Pastor Matt.

Today is Vision Sunday. I don't love that title.

I I fought against calling it Vision Sunday.

But yeah, I fought with the guy who suggested that as the title

for today, but I couldn't come up with a better idea.

And the guy who suggested it was me.

So I just had to, I just had to go with it.

Off to a good start. Here at Emmaus Rd.

Church, we want to be captivated by the idea of knowing Jesus and

making him known. It's why we exist as a church,

as a people that make up this church.

We are a people on mission to know Jesus and to make him known

to others, always reaching the one more.

If you're here this morning for the first time, maybe it's

literally your first time in church, you don't know who this

Jesus guy is or why we'd call on his name or why we'd sing songs

to him. Let me catch you up really quick

just because we all have to be on the same page, jumping off

here in understanding. God created the whole earth.

Everything you see was made by the Creator Godfather God.

He made mankind, Adam and Eve. He put them in this perfect

place called the Garden of Eden, where they were supposed to just

live in perfect harmony with God.

Every need was met, everything was provided for.

They were perfect. Then they thought themselves

smarter than God, as all of us often do.

Let me take your plan God and let me just add a little special

sprinkle to it because I think it's going to make it better.

Wrong. They rebelled against God and

ate from the fruit in the tree of the garden.

That was the one thing that they were told not to do Parents

again, what if you tell your kids not to do something?

What is the very next thing that they do right?

That's that's what happened with Adam and Eve prone to sin, prone

to wander Lord, I feel it. That's called sins.

They rebelled against God. They did the one thing they

weren't supposed to do. And for the rest of Natural

History, all of mankind from that point, born sinful, made

sinful, in rebellion from God. So Jesus, God sends his Son to

earth to live a perfect life, be a perfect sacrifice, because the

wages of sin is death. If we're rebelling against God,

we deserve to die. So God, who first loved us,

reaches out, sends his Son. Jesus, casts heaven aside, comes

down to earth. Fully God, fully man.

There's a perfect life. He never sinned and the world

hated him for it. They crucified him for it.

Three days later he was resurrected from the grave.

That we could have the hope of eternal life.

Because the Bible also tells us that though the wages of sin is

death, whoever confesses their sin and calls on the name of

Jesus, surely they will be saved because of the price that he has

paid. So because of that, the price

being paid, the sacrifice given Jesus is perfect life.

Your sins are forgiven, you're brought into harmony with God

and you're clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

If you've never heard any of that before today, I've that's

that's as much as I can like cram the Bible into a simple

thing. If you believe all those things,

bam, you're on team Jesus. Let's go.

You can start today. OK, Right now we're learning and

growing together in God's truth every day.

But Vision Sunday. I didn't like that because it

seems like a really like corporatey, compelling buzzword,

and it also sets the bar high where the rest I I feel like

most of the room every time I heard it this morning, like the

expectation just ratcheted up a notch of just having your socks

blown off with each and everything that Chris or I could

say this morning. And here I am.

Yet some of you so far, very unimpressed.

We've made this big deal about Vision Sunday and they're up

here talking Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus again.

We wanted to hear big things about blowing out walls and

renovating buildings and hey, there's a parking lot in there.

When are we going to? When are we going to pave that

and finish that and what and what else is happening?

That's why I didn't like Vision Sunday, because we so often

attach vision to things that we do instead of the vision being

fueled by who God is. So we're going to talk about

some dreams. We're going to talk about some

work that He's already doing that He has in store for us.

But first we're going to focus on and revel in the character of

God. So not to disappoint and and not

to again have, have any of you just kind of the air taken out

of your sails here. You're telling me they, they

fluffed this up and called this thing Vision Sunday and he's

just, they call the Vision Sunday and they're just going to

talk about Jesus and that's it. It's all it takes to be a

professional Christian. Kinda.

You can do it right now. You can do it today.

The harvest is plenty and the workers are few.

So we're captivated by this idea of knowing Jesus and making him

known because Paul tells us that in Romans 8.

We know that for those who love God, all things work together

for good, who are called according to his purpose.

I like good things. I want my life to be good.

But the clause in this is all things work together for good

for those who love God. So I loving God is a pretty big

deal if I want the things in my life to work together.

Well, just what Pastor Christian said.

The law is is for our betterment, right?

It's guardrails. It keeps us in line.

So if we know Jesus and make him known.

Carter, do we have the is the green slide?

Can you put the green slide up there?

Yeah, that one. Thank you.

This looks like a lot of information and it kind of is,

but I promise it makes sense. That's our name.

If you don't know where you are, you're out of Main Road Church.

Knowing Jesus and making him known as what we're fueled by,

we've started to use this language not even started.

We've used this language for years of the life priorities

that we should have, starting with God, then filling out to

your immediate family. We've added in some elements of,

of, of fitness and finances, which are kind of implied in

your just be an adult and get your life together.

Sort of things like that, that we just need to steward and and

well manage the things that God has tasked us with.

But we've taken some more specific language with this

lately. All this chart is, is knowing

Jesus on the left column, lived out in faith.

And of course, we're going to back that in Scripture and

faith, family fitness, finances, how we know the heart, the

character of Jesus, what those things are for our lives.

And then making him known. Well, if we have, if we know

Jesus's heart as it relates to our personal faith with him, our

family entering into a relationship with him and, and,

and being discipled by us. And then our physical and mental

emotional fitness being well cared for.

If we, if we understand what Jesus had intended for us in

that area. And if we understand how we are

supposed to manage finances, how we're supposed to manage and

steward resources on this earth, subdue the earth was was manage

and subdue care for the earth was his command to Adam and Eve.

And as Chris said before, everything was his to begin

with. He made and created everything

that we have that we see. So by knowing Jesus in these

areas and being rooted in his character in these aspects of

our life, and then being able to speak into the lives of others

because we don't want, we don't just want to talk, we want to

walk the walk too, right? If I came up here and and told

you that I was an expert on dreadlocks, are you buying that?

Do you think you believe that I have a lot of experience with

how to manage or or or or do that?

No, I'm glad, I'm glad. I wasn't sure if Cole is going

to be here. I don't want to embarrass him,

but I was going to call him out. Like if, if you, if you guys

don't know who Cole is, he, he has the barn fitness and I was,

I'm not going to have you come up here, but like if you were up

here versus me and you needed to get your life on track

physically and you, and you saw him up to like, it's an easy

decision that you're going to follow that guy who already has

the barn and the fitness set. Like you're, you're going to

follow him because he's walking the walk.

He's doing this thing right. So as Christians, as followers

of Christ, we need to understand what Jesus had intended so that

we can be an example and make him known to others as we live

these things out. Why?

For His glory and our good. Just that.

Just like Chris was saying, there is a best way.

It's in the Word. It's in the Bible.

We have this directive from God on how our lives are supposed to

be orchestrated, but we need to walk the walk if we're going to

show others what it's like to be in relationship with God and to

be in proper union with His design.

Now, as Chris said, are you going to be able to perfectly

execute these things all the time?

No, we're not. That the 10 commandments

perfectly done is a pipe dream. We can't do it.

Jesus Christ came to fulfill the law and and be that good and

perfect person for us in each and every one of these aspects.

But when you pursue these things for God, when you pursue his

way, it has a trickle down effect.

There's a generational inheritance here.

Look at this. I'm going to cherry, but we're

not going to go through each and every one of these passages this

morning. You're welcome to look them up.

We'll make we'll make this slide available too.

And and this will be a thing that we're going to continue to

talk about. But building on this idea of

knowing him, just starting in, in that route there, Paul writes

in Philippians 3. I count everything else as lost

because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus.

My Lord. That is the number one thing,

Your faith, knowing Christ, knowing who he is, that starts

right here. This is his word, this is his

voice. This is how you get to know Him.

Out of that, once we know Him, we go go therefore and make

disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of

the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to

observe all that I have commanded you.

Now, if you weren't at the river last week, that's that's fine.

We baptized 10 people last week, which is more people than I had

in my ministry career to that point of, of like actually

physically baptizing people. Maybe that sounds like rookie

numbers. I'm still 34.

I got some time to go, but not only were there the tent in the

water, there were 50 on the shore to witness it.

Do you know the median attendance, like the like the

middle point of attendance in Protestant churches in the US,

it's 60 people. 50% of the Protestant churches in America

have 60 or fewer people showing up on a Sunday.

We had that many out on a river when it was 60° in October in

Iowa. Tell me who's weird now?

This room, there's 225 people in this building this morning.

Over the past eight weeks, we have averaged 200 people on a

Sunday morning. There's 190 chairs in this room.

That math doesn't math. That doesn't work.

We are spilling over and the Spirit of God is moving

powerfully, not just in quantity, but in quality, in

depth. That's why we're doing the One

More series, because lives have been changed here.

And I know not all of you know each and every one of them

because we are growing and we're going to reach a point, we're

kind of already at a point where you can't possibly know every

single face that's in here. I try my darndest, but we were,

we were at a conference. Kristen and Chris and I went to

a conference at a church in Jacksonville last month.

This lead pastor, they have 28,000 people that come to their

campuses on a weekend across 14 campuses.

I don't care if you're the Flash, you don't know all of

those people on a Sunday morning.

There's just isn't time. There isn't margin.

But what we have to do is create a space not where everyone

necessarily needs to know the lead pastor, but where they are

known. And I said lead pastor, that's

just a general thing. We are partners.

We are partners in this. This isn't my vision.

This is our leadership's vision. Our elders and pastor, Chris and

Kristen included in this. This is how we move forward.

We're reaching a point where we're not small church anymore.

And that scares some of you. Some of you came here because

you wanted it to be a small church.

You liked that it was a small church.

You liked that you knew each and every face that was here.

And that's OK. But I bring up these, I bring up

these numbers, these metrics, these things because we could

use them as an out. We could say, hey, we just had

more people at a baptism than most churches have in their

building on Sunday morning. We could say, hey, God rooms

fall. We did it.

What now? We filled all the seats.

The seats in heaven aren't full yet.

In fact, they'll never be. We can always reach one more

with the love of Jesus. So we have two choices at this

point. We can stay here with our hands

out or our hands in our pockets and say, God, we did it.

What now? I'm going to go find something

else to do because all the people are here and they're

going to stay here and we're just going to, we're going to

turn into a cold and just be 1 happy family here and not, not

add to it, not not have anyone else mix in.

Or we could choose a posture. We could carry out this Great

Commission and be utterly convinced to do whatever it

takes to reach one more for Jesus, one more at a time.

That's the crossroads we're at right now.

Nothing wrong with small church and I'm not.

I don't want to scare any of you or or ruin it, but we are

reaching a point where you're not going to know everyone and

it's OK. But if we foster a community of

small groups of ministries that are active and inviting and are

bringing people into community and connection with Christ and

with the people of God so that they maybe aren't necessarily

always known by the people up front, but they're known by

someone, that's how we grow. That's how we sustain.

We don't want you to be anonymous, but if I took time on

a Sunday morning to meet and greet and chat each and everyone

of you, we're going to be here till 6 O clock tonight and I can

do that again. Professional Christian up here.

Like that's, that's what my time is for.

But I don't think you all are going to wait in line all day

and don't hear that as I don't have time for you.

I do. My job is to care for people.

My job is to shepherd sheep. I heard from one of you within

the past couple weeks just complimenting Chris and Chris

and I and how approachable we are.

Maybe you don't feel that way this this person did, but I hope

we are that way. I don't ever want you to think

when you have a crisis or a joy or something that you want to

bring to a pastor. Don't ever think the thought,

well, he's too busy for that. That's exactly why I'm here for

that to hear that from you. So is Pastor Chris.

But at the same time, I can't have a touch point with each

everyone of you on a Saturday morning.

And we're chasing something greater where that's just going

to be even more of a problem. And it's a good problem to have

that. There's too many butts in the

seats. So where does that leave us?

We can't perfectly execute all these things, but we can chase

them. We can chase knowing Jesus each

and every day. We can chase one more each and

every day. It'll be more effective if we if

we live it out, if we walk the walk instead of just talk the

talk. And this is this is the idea of

passing it on disciple. These commands, these laws that

we're going to get to that God handed down.

He had a purpose not just for you, but for others because he

knows there's a generational inheritance here.

These words that I command you today shall be on your heart.

You shall teach them diligently to your children.

Talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by

the way, and when you lie down and when you rise.

Annoy your kids with Jesus. Just do it.

There's plenty of other annoying things in the world.

Honestly, you should annoy them with Jesus.

And then when they get it and when they internalize it, at

least when they annoy you, they're annoying you back with

Jesus. For those of you that maybe

don't have kids in the house or maybe don't even have other

family, how does how does, how does this work?

Well, Jesus talks about this in Mark 3.

His mother and brothers came and standing outside, they sent him

and called to him, looking about those who sat around and Jesus

said here are my mother and brothers for whoever does the

will of God. He is my brother and sister and

mother. Family goes beyond blood.

I know there's some of you that absolutely understand that.

There's some of you that that's going to be a new thing.

That's going to be something different to consider.

If Jesus is 1st and best, the people who know him that you're

sharing eternity with, they really are closer to you than

even your blood. If your blood doesn't.

If your blood doesn't know Him, you're tied all the more

powerfully to your brothers and sisters in Christ through the

blood of Jesus than any biological blood that you have

flowing through you. That doesn't mean don't reach or

impact those that are lost in your lives that you would

otherwise. There's still family, obviously.

But be encouraged and rooted here.

Be encouraged and built up in the people who know Christ even

more so than those that you just share blood with knowing him and

making him known. Fitness.

I'm just going to touch on really quick that's we, we think

of that as as physical fitness, but the the word that's used in

the Bible. Do you not know that your body

is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?

It's the whole body. It's your mind, it's your

emotions. It's it is your physical body

that you're supposed to care for as it houses the Holy Spirit

that you have. But it's all of those things.

And I promise it's all in here. If you're rooted in this, cast

all your cares. Cast all your anxieties upon him

because he cares for you. Do not be anxious.

There's answers and there's truth and there's peace in the

words of Jesus. For our whole body is a temple,

and thereby when we live that out, when we have sanity, when

things don't make sense, when we have peace, when there is chaos

in our lives, when our hope is in the Lord, our strength, our

physical strength, our mind strength, our emotional strength

is all renewed. We will run, we will move, we

will think and not grow weary. We will move and not be faint.

It all starts right here. And knowing his heart and his

design, finally Chris cracked the door open a little bit.

That everything is God's. It all started with Him.

It's established that he as His, it all belongs to Him.

Paul reflects the heart of Jesus as it relates to earthly

finances in this, in everything I did, this is the words of

Paul. I showed you that by this kind

of hard work we must help the weak.

Remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said.

It is more blessed to give than to receive.

That doesn't make sense. A wholeheartedly acknowledge

that that doesn't make sense. We like stuff.

We like receiving stuff. Some of you.

Yeah. Your love language is gift

giving. I get that.

But like, it's still still nice to have stuff when we understand

Jesus's heart of generosity, that he gave it all because his

life belonged to the Father. He was obedient to the Father's

will. We can talk numbers.

We can debate on the theological accuracies of is it 3%?

Is it 10%? What is a tithe?

What is a gift? What is charity?

Yadi. We can go all the way down the

list. What if Jesus gave 3% on that

cross? What if we only gave 10%?

There's a lot of us in this room that are left out.

He gave it all because it all belong to God to begin with.

And that's not a guilt trip. That's not open your pocketbook.

It's pocketbooks. No one has pocketbooks anymore.

Maybe you do. I definitely don't.

That's not to say you got to open the floodgates and give it

all, but there's a, there's a story of a widow's might or her,

her 2 pennies, her her littlest gift.

It was everything that she had and she gave it all because she

trusted that that came from God to begin with.

And there would be more where that came from and it would be

enough. So in Paul's words, each one

must give us. He has decided in his heart, not

reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

God doesn't want your money. He doesn't need your money.

It's technically not even your money.

It's his, but he doesn't need it.

He wants your heart. He wants the cheerful, joyful,

expectant trust of what's going to happen when you bring back to

him what's already his. Josh is on drums this morning.

But if I, if I gave him my guitar to borrow for the week to

practice on, to play, maybe he just wants to try.

So, yeah, he's excited about it. Yeah.

If he comes back to practice on Wednesday, he's all excited.

Big granted. Matt, I got something for you.

You're going to be really excited.

And he gives me back my guitar. OK?

It's my guitar. Am I, am I supposed to be

impressed by this gift that you brought back to me?

It's not our money. It's already gods.

He's not impressed by our generosity.

He's not impressed by the money we can lay at his feet.

He wants your heart. He wants the childlike trust

where you're wholly reliant on him and nothing's going to

unfold in your life without his provision.

That's what he wants. So now to the fun stuff.

That was the fun stuff. And some of you are going to.

This isn't the end because some of you would be leaving.

All right, Vision Sunday really wound up being about money,

surprise, surprise. I'm shocked.

It is, and it isn't because God wants your heart.

I'm going to hold to that when we give to him, just like with

Cain and Abel, the first story, the first murder in the Old

Testament, Cain brought God a reluctant gift.

He didn't bring God his first fruits.

He didn't give him his best. He certainly didn't give him

most Abel, the first things that he harvested, the first things

that God provided to him in his life, he gave right back to God.

And that was his sacrifice. That was his act of trust, that

God, I know you gave this to me. I know it belongs to you, and I

know that you'll bring it back to me again.

So it's yours anyway. 1st and best was the model that we see

in Abel in Genesis. That's going to take some doing,

if that's not already your mode of operation.

The average middle class American is living on 107% of

their household income. Once again, that math doesn't

math, especially if you're here and you're and you're hearing

the law side of this, that you're supposed to live on 90%

or less. After that 10% goes to God,

right? Excuse me, Sorry.

It's not about guilting you into it.

It's not even about achieving a number.

It's about your heart. It's about cheerfully joining in

to the work that God is doing. So what can we do?

Sorry JT, if you would just mute me for a SEC.

I need great. What are we going to do

practically? What does this look like?

Well, all these things, the knowing Jesus part that's worked

out with fear and trembling in your own personal life.

Yes, we're here to facilitate and encourage and build

community in these in these things, but it's what we're

going to chase so that together we can make him known and we can

reach one more at a time for Jesus.

Now in order to do that in the way that Pastor Chris were

talking about that, yeah, we want to come to a relatively

clean, a relatively, I don't know, not packed out sanctuary.

We want it's it's a chicken or the egg thing because if we make

a bigger room and then we fill it up again and then we got to

do that. Like the goal is to fill it up

again, but we never want it full because then we can't fit more

people in. And we just got to roll.

We just got to roll as as God's moving the momentum, right?

We need to care for some things first.

And I didn't, I don't have plans, pictures, things to show

you because I don't want your hope to be in a building.

I want your hope to be in the character of God that's in this

book, OK. Because if we see this thing

through and this thing that we're chasing, we could double

the size of this room. We could make 400 seats and we

can put two services in it. And when there's 800 people here

on a Sunday, we're going to be right back here wondering what

do we do? Guess who didn't change?

God didn't change. So that's what our hope is in

not this building or what it holds, but we're still called to

do. We're still called to act when

he brings momentum, when he brings His spirit.

So we got to expand bathrooms. I know that doesn't sound

awesome, but you got to start with the little things.

We got a parking lot Outback. I don't know that that parking

lot is going to bring anyone to Jesus directly.

I just I I know rock water came out of it and fed the Israel and

satisfied the Israelites thirst. But like I I don't know, but you

know what it's going to do? It's going to make room for one

more to come to Jesus in this place.

So that's why we did that. We got to have bathrooms.

We got to expand the bathrooms, to expand the bathrooms out

here, we got to move the kitchen way over there, and we got to do

all those things so that we can fit more people in this room

because we're going to have to blow that wall out at some

point. We're starting with two services

next week because there's 190 people in this room and there's

190 seats. We literally don't have space

for one more and I'm not ready to stop and give up.

It's not done and over. We still have more work to do,

Jesus wrote. And This is why the knowing

Jesus and making him known is really important, that we are to

seek first the Kingdom of God and all these worries, all these

things that we like to spend time and resource on, that we

like to pay attention to. If we rightly order our lives

seeking the Jesus way, seeking his character first, all that

other stuff is going to be taken care of in his benevolent grace.

Look at the sparrows lacking for nothing.

Look at the lilies of the field clothed in splendor.

Do you not think that your heavenly Father cares for you

more than these? And it sounds really poetic and

beautiful and nice. And then we walked out of the

church doors and we're like, yeah, but I need a new

KitchenAid mixer. I want a new pair of shoes.

I need a new car. There's always more things.

Jesus told us not to store up our treasures on earth, where

moth and rust destroy, but lay them up in heaven.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

You want to see that in real time.

Where's where's your heart? Where's your treasure?

There's a young lady who has been an instrumental part of the

worship team for many, many years up here, and she just

graduated high school this past year.

Natalie. She went up to UW Platteville

for college. And I don't know if any of you

noticed, I noticed her mom, Lindsay, who's up here on base

often, has had a pretty regular wardrobe change since her

daughter's been at school. She's rocking the pioneer blue

and orange. And it's today.

I, I know I didn't even tell you to do that.

I just, you know why? Because that's where your

treasure is. Your treasure moved, moved not

forever, didn't go away. But where your treasure is,

there your heart is also. That's how it works with us in

money. Show me your checking account.

I'll show you where your heart is.

No one can serve 2 masters. You'll either hate one and love

the other. Who would be devoted to 1 to

despise the other? You cannot serve God in money.

We need money. Money is a resource, a tool, a

leverage. It absolutely is.

But what's the end, What's the goal?

What's the out? We're not immune to it.

We, we made a budget here last week.

We had a budget meeting before, before baptism.

We're trying to be godly stewards of resources that are

here. I think probably for the first

time ever, the budget is over $400,000 on an annual basis.

Wayne, you can vet that. You've been here serving as

elder longer than I've been alive.

So I'm going to and that wasn't OK.

You guys took that the wrong way.

That was, maybe I said it wrong. That was a compliment to the

testament of God's faithfulness in this place.

Whether you've been here for 40 years or 40 minutes, it's clear

to see that God is moving amongst us.

The time is now, we are working on plans.

We will have plans, we will have specific things that we're doing

to this building, but I promise it all starts here first and

that's never going to change. This is what we're going to

compel you towards because I still believe as much as we need

our your God's money to do this thing.

First and foremost, He wants your heart.

So if I'm going to chase after His heart, that's the first

thing I want to. I want your heart to love Jesus

more than anything else in this world.

The end of this passage. Though there's warnings, there's

also promises. Therefore, I tell you, do not be

anxious about your life, what you will eat or drink, nor about

your body, what you will put on. Life is more than clothing.

Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap, yet

your heavenly Father feeds them. You're of more value than they

are by being anxious. Which of you can add a single

hour to your life? Consider the lilies, how they

grow. They neither toil nor spin, but

yet they are arrayed in glory. And if God closed the grass of

the field which is alive, and tomorrow is thrown into the

oven, how much more will He clothe you of you of little

faith? Do not be anxious for the

Gentiles, the world, whenever you see that word in the Bible,

the world, those that are wrapped up in the things of the

world, the Gentiles seek after all these things, all this toil,

all this money, all this effort, and your heavenly Father knows.

He sees that you need them all. He understands.

He's not going to let you out to dry.

He understands. So seek first the Kingdom of God

and His righteousness, which is found in that guy Jesus that

we're going to keep talking about.

And yeah, that's what Vision Sunday was about.

Because it still just comes back to Jesus.

And all these things that we're so wrapped up and concerned with

will be added unto you. It has to be Jesus first.

Seek the Kingdom first. This is the how.

This chart is the how. It's it's, it's how we can get

there. But this is the goal, this is

the scoreboard halftime interviews of of coaches at

football games that they're they're down in points coach

what what what went wrong? And the, and the coach will

usually go on about how defense wasn't good enough for the

quarterback missed some passes. You know what it was?

You know what went wrong? You didn't score as many points

as the other team. That's the point of the game,

right? I don't care the quarterback's

completion percentages. I don't care about the guy.

You didn't score more points than the other team.

These are the points. This is the scoreboard that

matters. Are you seeking first the

Kingdom of God? This is the how I think it's

pretty solid. I really do.

So if you need guidance on on on where it is, we're going to

start here and we're going to be harping on these things.

We're going to do a four week series on these four things at

the start of the year to help with finances.

We're going to start financial peace again in January.

We're going to start a small group centered on Financial

Peace University to help with that.

J TS2 thumbs up champion for that back there all along the

way. If we align these things with

the character of Christ, how can we not reach the One More?

God is first, so we will seek the Kingdom first, all for the

sake of reaching the One More. There will be asks.

There will be plans. Yes, there will be phases and

and capital campaigns and there will there will be asks for

money. Not today, but I know there

will. There will be.

We're going to prepare and be ready in these things for that

day. We're going to start trusting

that the Lord will provide now starts today.

We're going to sing one more song together to really get that

idea in there band can come on back up the church.

This is where it starts, when we have our heart aligned pursuing,

seeking the Kingdom 1st and the things of Jesus.

We're going to fill this room twice over. 2 services, that's

going to fill up. We're going to have to figure

out what to do after that. Do we grow the room again?

Do we plant a church somewhere? I don't know.

I'm supposed to be the one who knows.

So that's not super confident. I am confident because I know

the one who holds tomorrow, I know the one who knows the

plans. And if we follow him earnestly,

we're going to end up exactly where he wants us to be.

Thanks for listening to ERC Sundays.

To support the work God is doing at Emmaus Rd.

Church, visit emmausrdonline.org/giving.