Our Vision
What is the difference between a mission and a vision?
Six weeks ago I kicked off our series “We Are Cities Church” by talking all about our mission, and today I’m gonna close the series talking all about our vision — and so what’s the difference between those two words?
When we talk about mission, we’re talking about what we’re sent to do.
Vision is what it looks like if we get it done.
Mission is assignment, vision is success.
Mission is action, vision is the result of you fulfilling the action.
So, let me connect this to our passage this morning, Revelation 7, verses 9–12.
Revelation 7 Connection
The whole Book of Revelation is basically all vision (John is describing what he sees in the future, and the purpose is to encourage us). So in Revelation 7, notice what he sees, verse 9:
9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
This is a scene. John has seen this, and we’re supposed to see it with him. That’s what vision does. Vision is meant to be envisioned.
So what are we envisioning here? What do we see?
It’s a crowd of people from all over the world — every nation, all tribes and peoples and languages are altogether. And what are they doing altogether?
They’re saying with a loud voice, verse 10:
“Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
These people are saying this to the Lamb, before his throne — and the Lamb, of course, is Jesus. So see this: these people are worshipping Jesus along with the heavenly host.
Who again are these people?
They’re people from all nations worshiping Jesus. Revelation 7 is a vision of Jesus-worshipers from all nations.
Can you see it?
Back to Matthew 28
This vision is the result of some action that’s been fulfilled. But what action? What assignment must have been done in order for there to be Jesus-worshipers from all nations?
Oh, we know this one! Matthew 28:19, the Great Commission:
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”
See that’s the mission! That’s what the church is supposed to do — make disciples of all nations — and when the church is ultimately successful, when the church gets that done (which she will get done!), these disciples of Jesus from all nations will be worshipers of Jesus from all nations forever.
The disciple-making mission of Matthew 28 is what leads to the Jesus-worshiping vision of Revelation 7.
What you do — mission; what it looks like when it’s done — vision.
In the ultimate sense, Matthew 28 and Revelation 7 is our church’s mission and vision. And it’s the mission and vision of every faithful local church.
This is non-negotiable. To be a real church means to exist with the mission to make disciples of Jesus for the vision of Jesus being worshiped forever.
That’s why we’re here. And we are here.
Applied Here and Now
We live in a particular place and time — we live within a particular culture with it’s particular challenges and opportunities. The “first half of the 21st century in the Twin Cities” has its unique provisions and needs, resources and limitations, blessings and burdens.
And the question is: How do we apply that non-negotiable mission and vision to when and where we are?
Well when it comes to our mission, we’ve tried to capture that with more details in the form of a statement. What do we mean exactly when we say “make disciples”? We mean that we want to make joyful disciples of Jesus who remember his realness in all of life.
And that word “disciple” includes a four-fold calling:
These are the kind of disciples we want to be and make. This is our mission. And when it comes to our vision — that Jesus is worshiped forever — how does that look now? How does that future reality get reflected here?
That’s what I want to tell you in this sermon.
With the Book of Revelation as our ultimate vision, I want to show you five facts about our vision here. And these facts are not part of a statement — I don’t expect you to memorize these things — but I’m trying to paint a picture for you. This is what it would look like if we are effective in making joyful disciples of Jesus who remember his realness in all of life.
1. We are a healthy, vibrant church entranced by God as our all-satisfying joy.
Again, this is something you have to imagine. We’re talking about a vibe here. And the vibe is that we are a happy people. It’s something that you just feel in the air when you’re here and you’re around us. We have joy — and it’s not joy in our circumstances, because those are changing everyday — but we have joy down deep in our souls because God loves us.
And we know God loves us because he has proven it to us — it’s that when we were still sinners, dead in our sins and undeserving of anything good, Jesus Christ died for us.
Jesus took the punishment for our sins!
Jesus removed all of our guilt and shame!
And on the third day, he was raised from the dead.
Jesus has secured our eternal life and freedom in him. He has given us his Spirit as our Helper, to guide us in his truth. Jesus has drawn us into the joyous fellowship that he has had with the Father before the foundations of the world.
We are now “in on” the divine smile that is behind everything.
And do you know what that means? It means that we can smile here.
Hey, it’s gonna be okay. We are the richest people in the world! Did you know that even the hard things in your life are being used by God for your ultimate good? Look, there’s not a hair that falls from your head without the will of your Father in heaven, in fact, all things must work together for your salvation!
God sees you and knows you and loves you, and he wants you to know that he loves you. Because the more you are assured of his love for you (and how much you don’t deserve it), then the more you’re gonna be humbled and filled with joy, and then the more you’re gonna be poured out in love, and this all amounts to magnifying the glory of God. And that’s the point!
The purpose behind it all is that God’s glory be magnified in our being satisfied in all that he is for us in Jesus.
We’re a happy people because we have God — “Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy!” (Psalm 43:4)
Can you see it? We are a healthy, vibrant church entranced by God as our all-satisfying joy.
Also …
2. We are deepening our knowledge of God for a life of faithful discipleship and gospel advance.
We’re a people happy in God, and we’re a people who seek him.
“4 Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
teach me your paths.
5 Lead me in your truth and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation … (Psalm 25:4–5).
We want to know God and the ways of God, because our faith is according to knowledge. The more we know about God, the more we can trust him. This is why Jesus says that making disciples means that we teach one another all that he has commanded us. We’re supposed to learn together how to follow Jesus.
So get this: we don’t learn to get fat heads. The end-goal is not what you know, but it’s who you are becoming, shaped by who you know. Christ clear for Christlikeness.
We will be a well-taught church, able to discern truth from error, not tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of human doctrine, but we’re gonna speak the truth in love and we are gonna be transformed (see Ephesians 4:14–16).
We are a truth-telling outpost that serves as a refuge from the world of lies that surrounds us, but even more than that, we are a church that lives in the wonder of who God is. Yes, we will defend God’s truth, but first we are amazed by God’s truth! This is what The Cities Institute is trying to do.
It’s a recovery project to bring back the primacy of teaching in the local church, because that is the church’s history. In the earliest days of the church, people were coming to Christ from all kinds of different religious backgrounds. That’s what mission to the Gentile world meant. You had all the pagans who were getting saved and they had no Bible background. And so the church realized: if we don’t teach these people sound theology, they’re gonna mix some stuff up and eventually it’s going to ruin our witness, so the early church had a “teach or die” mindset.
They were just listening to Jesus, because Jesus said to teach. That’s part of what discipleship is. So that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to seek to know God, to be amazed by him and transformed by him, to faithfully follow Jesus and be his witnesses.
Do you see it? We are deepening our knowledge of God for a life of faithful discipleship and gospel advance.
3. We are actively organizing our lives to share our joy in Jesus with others.
One of the great things about church planting is that sharing the gospel is on the front-burner of how you live. Every encounter with other people could turn into a spiritual conversation. You know God ordains divine appointments, and so you’re just looking for them.
I remember when we first moved into our current neighborhood. It was 12 years ago — Elizabeth was five. Melissa and I taught her that the reason we lived where we did was to tell our neighbors about God. I remember Elizabeth actually told our neighbors that. Not kidding. People would be out walking their dog out in front of our house and Elizabeth would be like “Hey, we’re here to tell you about God.” And it was true! And all of us thought that way.
But here’s the thing: we’re all just so busy now. There’s so much going on, and over time, sharing Jesus is not on the front-burner, but it gets moved to the back, over to the side, and before you know it, you’re just running through the motions like every other lost person in these cities.
I’m not saying don’t be involved in stuff — be involved, plug in, be active, but do it as a Christian. Everywhere we go we are a welcoming witness to Jesus Christ. We are opening wide our arms to make Jesus known, which means we want to double our joy.
I remember a story years ago that Pastor John Piper told about his dad. His dad was a passionate evangelist who had been in ministry for decades, and one day, toward the end of his life, Pastor John asked him, “What the key to your joy?” How have you remained so happy for so long?
And his dad said: “soul winning.” Leading other people to Jesus.
See, when you’re happy in Jesus, you wanna share that happiness with others, and when you do, your happiness doubles and deepens. It’s like a fountain that just keeps overflowing.
We say to God, Psalm 4:7,
“You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound!”
And that’s never gonna satisfy them, I want them to have this joy that I have in you!
That’s the prayer we take everywhere we go. That’s what we’re looking to do … in our neighborhoods, and in our work relationships, and at those school events, and through all those youth sports — we want to share Jesus. We want more people to be happy in God. And they will be.
Through our witness, more and more people will trust in Jesus and be baptized. Because baptism is that symbol. Jesus gave us baptism as the way to declare that we are alive in him. And right now we have baptisms three or four times a year, but what if we had baptisms 12 times a year? What if so many people start coming to Christ through our witness that we start having “Baptism Sundays” every month!
Can you see it? — we are actively organizing our lives to share our joy in Jesus with others.
Also…
4. We are deliberate to invest in the faith of future generations.
We believe children matter. All children matter: pre-born children, little children, growing children. Children matter and families matter. And we all believe this whether we’re unmarried or married, have a house full of kids or no kids at all, whether we’re empty-nesters or newly-weds — we all share this conviction because of the Bible.
And when we think about where we’re headed as a church, I don’t know if there’s anything more important to remember than this: At some point, we’re going to be handing the torch to our children. And we need to be preparing for that hand-off now.
This is a new way of thinking for us compared to how we thought ten years ago when we first planted this church. When you’re planting a church, you’re just trying to get off the ground. You’re starting something brand-new and that takes a lot of attention, and so we poured a lot into that, and we also had kids so we did ask: “Hey, what do we do with the kids?”
But see, that’s not the question we’re asking anymore. In those early years, we were trying to build something, and we thought What about our children? — but now we’re trying to build something for our children.
Does that make sense?
We’re better now at thinking more long-term. And that’s certainly the case with this steeple project. What we’ve done here is no “flash in the pan” restoration, but we’ve done it the way we have for our children’s children. That’s the way we’re thinking now. We’re building something for future generations. We’re investing in the faith of those who will come after us.
And this is something that comes naturally to women as cultivators and nurturers, but now this is something our men must think more about as builders. I just had a conversation last week with a few of our men in their thirties; they’re all business leaders who’ve been transformed by Jesus; and they want to use their skills and expertise to start companies and create jobs and to build a legacy of generosity. See, it’s thinking big picture. Long-term.
I heard a story years ago about the Reformer Martin Luther, and I can’t actually verify that this conversation really happened, but supposedly, somewhere at some point, Luther was out walking with some of his students one day, it was a beautiful fall day like today, and little Hans spoke up and said, “Herr Doktor, if you knew that the world would go to pieces tomorrow, what would you do today?”
And Luther looked at him with a smile and said, “I would plant an apple tree.”
His point was that he would do something most of which would not immediately, directly benefit himself — he wouldn’t sit under the shade of that tree and he wouldn’t eat any of its apples — but those who come after him would. And that’s how we’re thinking now.
Can you see it? — we are deliberate to invest in the faith of future generations.
And speaking of planting, fifth and final:
5. We are a healthy, vibrant church with a high priority and capacity to multiply more churches in the Twin Cities who are entranced by God as our all-satisfying joy.
In other words, we are a church who plants more churches like ours here.
Since the very beginning, this has been the way we talk about vision. We want to multiply people, multiply Community Groups, multiply churches.
And overall, to date, we’ve sent out six church planting couples to start new work, and countless couples to support new work. And I miss these people. Our budget misses these people. But we believe in Spirit-led sending — it’s a value of ours — and we want to do more of it. Wherever you wanna go in the name of Jesus, we’re gonna get behind you!
And when it comes to our vision for here and now, it’s to plant more churches in the Twin Cities metro, and there are a few reasons why:
1. Growth leads to spreading.
We learn this from nature. As an oak tree grows and matures and is healthy, it produces more oak trees. There comes a point when that oak tree itself is not going to get any higher and wider — it’s solid and full and maxed — but it’s got these acorns, and that’s what will make the one tree become two and three and four — this is where forests come from.
And that’s the way we see it here. We’re gonna use every square inch of this building for our church — and we do have some room, and we will make some room — but we want to see God work in the lives of more people than we can fit in here. So we’re gonna multiply this and do it more places than just here. We’ve been planted, rooted, and now we’re branching out.
2. Spreading (or multiplication) makes a bigger impact than centralization.
One strategy might be to move this whole thing to a third-ring suburb, get a smoke machine, and try to triple our size. See, this is the thinking: let’s just make this bigger, whatever it takes (it’s centralization).
But that’s not the long-term thinking. Multiplication, not centralization, makes a bigger impact for a longer period of time. We want Jesus to be impossible to ignore in the Twin Cities. If you come to these cities, we want it to be Jesus in your face. And you may not believe him — like our state government right now you may reject him — but you will not be able to ignore him, and you will recognize that these cities are saturated with churches of men and women and boys and girls who believe and live like Jesus is real. Multiplication.
3. Planting reminds us that this whole thing is so much bigger than us.
This vision to plant more churches in the Twin Cities is both impossible and possible at different levels. At the level of impossibility, it’s just us. I don’t know about you, but every morning I wake up I’m just happy to be here for another day. I made it for another one!
That’s a lot of us, right? We’re just trying to survive — I’m just trying to get my kids to school on time and not forget that they have to be picked up — and here I am talking about starting a multiplying church planting movement that aims to make more people happy in Jesus forever — it feels impossible, at one level.
But then at another level, we remember God, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence things that do no exist, and he is often pleased to bring his people to places where he must be who he says he is. …
It is possible with God that he put it in the heart of a man and his wife to lead a new church plant, and then that he’d put it in the hearts of others who would plant with them. It is possible that they could build a team of 20-30 people who would want to branch out and be a new church. God could do that — God could do it once, twice, six times, fifty times — north, south, east, west — and before you know it, there is a movement of churches everywhere you look in these cities entranced by God as our all-satisfying joy. Can you see it?
Impossible, and possible — and certainly way bigger than us. That’s where I want to live. Don’t you? If we’re going to multiply, we need God to be God!
That’s our vision, church — but remember it’s our vision here and now, until Jesus comes back. We can’t forget the ultimate vision.
Longing for New Jerusalem
There may be just a few of you in here who were there on December 14, 2014. We were less than a month away from officially becoming a church, right at the starting line, and we had a meeting in the cafeteria at Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis. And I gave a short message about our vision and I want to read to you what I said. Here are the exact words from December 14, 2014:
Church plants can be high-adrenaline work. Many of us have been meeting since August, others since March, and some have been dreaming of this thing for five years, and we are getting close. I mean, this event right now [in the cafeteria] is a testimony to God’s faithfulness to us, to his blessing on this vision and this church and what we want to do in the Twin Cities for his name.
And with all this waiting and anticipation, with Cities Church just about to get off the ground, let me remind us (me!), that we have not arrived. That is the temptation, you know. As God blesses this thing, and we pray he does, there is going to be this subtle thing that happens where we want to start patting our ourselves on the back. We’re going to feel like we’ve made it! Here we are! This is the dream! But no, it’s not. Because, you see, our goal — our ultimate goal — is not a new church plant, but a new Jerusalem.
Amen to that ten years later. And may we say that ten more years from now, and ten more years from then — and if Jesus hasn’t come back yet, may our children’s children say that! Because what we most want to see
…a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
Jesus-worshipers from all nations. That is where we’re headed, Cities Church. That is what we want. And that’s what brings us to the Table.
The Table
Here at this Table we remember the death of Jesus for us, and we give him thanks. We come to this table to rest in him and to worship him together.
And because of what this table means, it’s only for those who trust in Jesus. If you’re a Christian, we invite you eat and drink with us. But if you’ve not yet trusted in Jesus, let the elements pass, but look: you can become a Christian this morning, if you just put your faith in Jesus. Right now, turn from your sin, and ask Jesus to save you.
