Talk with you, Pray with you.

Good morning. I'm running a little late this morning and that's my fault.

I hope you're having a good day so far. I've got my coffee.

I've got my Bible. And hopefully I will have you shortly. Call this talk to you with you.

I've got the message up there. Ask questions, chat.

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And we'll we'll pray for you at the end. We don't want to air out dirty laundry. We don't want to gossip.

So just like me, even if the prayer is not for yourself, the Lord knows who it is.

You don't want to be be in the business of spreading rumors. That's not copyrighted.

See if anybody else joins us. I hope you saw the the pre message that I sent out yesterday, the post.

I like to put out the topic that I'm going to talk about. And the topic was, as a church, we should live by doctrine and not vision.

We should live by doctrine and not vision. What does that mean?

That's what I want to talk about this morning. If you like prayer, type me. Hopefully soon we will have some interaction.

I would love to have some folks ask questions, talk, chat.

Let me know how you're doing. Let me know you're there. I know it's early on Saturday morning, but I feel like eight o 'clock

Saturday morning. Most people are still home or not too busy. Maybe you can lay in bed and and turn on Facebook and see what's going on.

Stick around with me for a little bit. Good morning,

James. Hope you can stick around. Good to have you with us.

If you would like prayer, just like me. If you want to chat, ask questions. Type that in.

Hopefully this can be more interactive. But this morning I want to talk about.

The church should be led by doctrine and not vision. As I thought about it, the focus

I wanted to speak to. You pastor, you church leader and you faithful church member.

Sometimes as you go throughout your week, you hear things. And someone someone makes a statement and the way they formulate that statement.

It's how you've been thinking. It's what you've been thinking upon. But they have really formulated that statement very concisely.

And they formulated that statement, those thoughts into a sentence. And they formulated it very well.

And you're like, yeah, that's what I've been thinking. That's that's what's been on my mind. I just didn't know how to say it or or whatnot.

I actually actually heard this yesterday. So if if all my preparation, all my thoughts are not concise and organized together, that's because I just heard this yesterday.

The the. The sentence was church should be led by doctrine.

And I added the last part to not vision just because that has been on my mind for a long time.

Church, how God wants us to do church, what church should look like.

And and that part of it should be led by doctrine.

My thoughts were formulated in that sentence and and also.

As a result of those thoughts and studies, the part that I added and not by vision comes right along with it, from my understanding.

So the person that I heard the church should be led by doctrine. I don't want them to give them credit for the but not by vision part in case they don't believe that.

So that that part comes from me. And I hope some other people will join us.

If you if you want prayer, type me if you want to chat, be interactive, ask questions.

Let me know you're there. Type something. So, hey, who thinks it's going to snow next

Saturday? I keep seeing it. And then some people say no.

So, you never know. Where is the go to verse?

Where is the go to verse for church leadership?

People who who are in ministry, where is the go to verse? And there may be others.

I may be missing one. Like I said, just started formulating these thoughts yesterday after I heard that sentence.

But for me, what I've always heard in the past, the go to verse for church leadership, pastoral leadership, that go to verse is.

Proverbs, chapter 29, verse 18. And it says where there's no vision, the people are unrestrained.

This is an American standard. And it says the people are unrestrained. Other versions say the people perish where there is no vision.

The people are unrestrained. So am I not contradicting Scripture? I mean,

I just said church should be led by doctrine, not vision. And here,

Proverbs 29, verse 18, says where where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained or perish.

So what's going on? Why am I contradicting

Scripture? It depends on what you mean by vision.

And from my observation, my experience, people use this verse and say, we've got to have vision in our church.

We've got to have a vision. We've got to have something to lead us. We want our church to grow.

And evidence of God's blessings, evidence of God's moving and working in our church is that we've got lots of people coming to this church.

And we want we want the kingdom to grow. We want this church to grow. Don't you don't you want this church to grow?

So we've got to have a vision so that we can have lots of people come to this church so that other people will come.

And so that we can we can have evidence that God is blessing,

God is moving in our church. So we've got to have a vision.

The Bible says it, Proverbs 29, 18, where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained, the people will perish.

And to continue on, what do they mean by that? Well, you'll usually hear things like going back to things that I've talked about in previous videos.

I feel like the Lord is is leading me this way. I was planning this and then the

Lord changed my mind. And we're we we rely on our creativity, on our our thoughts, our planning, our contemplation.

We rely on ourselves and our feelings and what we can come up with creatively to formulate a vision so that we can have our staff meetings.

We can meet with the church and say, this is my vision for this year, 2020.

And this is where I feel like the Lord is is leading our church. And this is how we're going to go in that direction.

And this is how I want you to be involved. So we come up with our visions.

We come up with our strategies. And I vaguely remember hearing the testimony of a very popular pastor now.

I'm not going to say his name because I'll probably mess up the testimony and I don't want to misrepresent him.

So if I do, I apologize. But it's something similar to this.

He he wanted to he felt the Lord calling whatever the language he used to to start a church in a large city.

And he and some fellow workers went to a conference and they sat in the back,

I think. And it may have been a conference on the church.

Not sure. And if I'm not mistaken, he said to one of his fellow workers that was there, he said, next year,

I'm going to be the one on that stage leading this conference. And if I'm not mistaken,

I think that came true. And now he has churches everywhere. And is that not because he has he had a vision?

He had leadership. He had charisma. He he knew where he wanted to go, where he wanted to lead the people.

Yeah, I guess so. It works. Vision strategies. If you've got the right one and if you have the right one, the right vision, the right strategy.

And I guess it can work. It can work well. I guess

I guess I do not based on based on that wisdom.

And along with me and and, you know, smaller churches in our area.

And if you're a pastor, if you're a faithful church member at a church. That you've not seen growth in years, maybe some decline.

Maybe you're like me. Maybe your your vision, your strategy is is not as good as his.

We don't have the numbers to back it up. We don't have the numbers to prove it.

So. Oh, my goodness.

Lost my train of thought. If you join us, even if you watch this later.

Send a message and say, hey, I watched. Good to see you. Ask a question.

Chat if you would like prayer during the week. Send me a private message.

Put a message on here. Type me. Let me know that you won't prayer so that I can pray for you today.

So I can pray for you throughout the week. It would be my privilege to do that.

So. So the Bible says where there's no vision, the people perish.

The people perish and your church, your church must must have no vision.

And the quality of your pastor, the quality of you pastor, the quality of me must be poor.

We must not be faithful enough. We must not have the blessing of God. We must not be creative enough because our church is in decline.

Our church has not seen growth. So therefore, we must not be called to ministry because we we cannot come up with.

Any kind of creative vision that people will grab onto and run with and and multiply our numbers.

That's that's how we feel. And that's that's that's a reality.

That's how. Pastors can feel and get discouraged when they see these mega churches, multi site churches, and they're they're booming, they're growing.

And they're just they've just got the hand of the

Lord on them. Supposedly. Because they have such a wonderful pastor who has such a great vision.

And somehow they made that connection.

They they were up here spiritually and they were right where God wanted them to be.

And they were listening to God and they heard God. And we don't.

Is that what is that what is that is that what's happening? I apologize.

Is that what is happening? We. Even though we we get stuck there, we really get stuck there.

And the reason I'm harping on this is because we get stuck there.

And we feel like that is reality. The things that I just described are where people are.

And and they get stuck there and they get depressed and they see the mega churches.

And so they they pray for that vision, they pray for that creativity, they pray for the strategy.

They contact those churches. What strategy strategy did you use? Because I can't make that connection with the

Lord. And obviously you did. And when you when you're in those meetings, when you when you're talking to folks, this is some of the language that you'll hear.

And I think I may have already mentioned some of it, but, you know, the Lord, the

Lord led me this way. The Lord spoke to me and I feel like this is what he's saying. This is what the vision is he has for this church.

I was going in this direction, but the Lord changed my mind. Is that how

God works? Is that how we are to interpret? Proverbs 29 verse 18.

Is that the vision that he's talking about? Because I'm saying the church should be led by doctrine and not vision.

But yet Proverbs says where there's no vision, the people are unrestrained or the people perish.

Depends on what we mean by vision. What does the author mean by vision?

So we've got the what's the word

I'm looking for? The the common understanding.

There's a different phrase that I want to use. I can't think of it.

Good morning, Daniel. Oh, I want to think of that word so bad.

Not not common understanding knowledge.

I'll think of it later. But it's not that it's not the common knowledge or common understanding that or what

I just explained is the common understanding going on in you going on in me. When I'm calling. Going on in your churches, going on with your pastor.

That's that's why he is. That's why he's depressed sometimes. That's why he's he he's working his his brain to strategize to come up with a vision to do what he's got to do to get up here where these other pastors are.

Where those other pastors met God. They need to be there so that they can catch his word, catch his vision for for your church so that they can multiply.

They can grow because don't you want your church to grow? Aren't you interested in the kingdom? And you can get that guilt trip from people.

Don't you want your youth ministry to grow? We've got to do this. We've got to do this strategy.

We've got to have this vision so that your youth ministry can grow. You can get that manipulation from people.

It's a hard place to be. So that's that understanding of vision is in put it or imputed into Proverbs 29 verse 18.

So where there is no vision, what we just discussed is that understanding imputed here.

And when you don't have that, when you don't have a vision, when you don't have a good vision, when you don't have that creative vision, when you don't have that, when you're not on that level with God, where you're hearing him speak and he's giving you that vision for your church, for your ministry, for your youth ministry.

The people are unrestrained, the people perish. So your people are perishing because you don't have that that vision.

You're not on par with these other megachurch pastors because that's where they met

God and heard that vision or felt his calling. Wow. What a weight.

What a weight on your pastor's shoulders. What a weight he puts on himself.

It's really crazy. It's really hard. So let me let me lift.

And despite this is what I see. And this is crazy to me, too.

And unbelievable to me. That's that's the understanding of the word vision that we put on this text.

And the majority of churches out there aren't the megachurches. They're not.

You have faithful ministers working day in and day out, full time, part time, bi -vocational. And they're seeing these megachurches.

And they want what they have. And deep down, they want what they have.

They want more numbers. They want more people in their church. As a faithful minister, that may not be your motivation, but you can't deny we all want more people in our church.

And that's that's not a wrong thing to desire. But how we get there can be.

But but we want more people in our church and that's fine. And we're not doing something right.

We we don't have the vision. Like I said, they must be faithful. They must be doing it right.

Somehow they're hearing from God and I'm not. And the weight gets heavier and heavier. And they're carrying that around day after day, year after year, week after week.

And then next Sunday, their numbers go down. And what

I find unbelievable is what if that understanding of vision is wrong that we put on this verse?

And you don't have to carry that weight. Pastor. Church leader.

Faithful church member. What if you don't have to carry that weight on your shoulders?

If if that understanding of vision is wrong, then you don't have to carry that weight. You can be relieved.

You can have joy in your ministry again. But we won't do that because we think they're doing it right.

That church is booming. They've got a megachurch. They've got multi -site churches.

They're doing something right. I'm doing something wrong. Because we're not growing because we're declining.

We're doing something wrong. And we cannot let that go. We can't let it go.

We want to stay there. We don't want to be relieved. We don't want to so that we can have joy in our ministry.

But what if we did? Let me let me share with you.

If you look at the Greek word and sometimes when you look up the Greek word like in this. In this case.

There's multiple different definitions multiple ways to use multiple definitions to use for word depends on the context.

But one of the definitions for the word vision using the Greek is an

Oracle. Prophecy. Divine communication.

That seems to line up. With our modern understanding of.

A vision. For pastor. That seems to line up.

We're waiting for that. Divine communication. From God.

We won't we want to do his will so we we wait on him to listen for him for that divine communication where he wants us to lead our church where he wants us to lead his church as a good shepherd.

So it still matches up, right? It still matches up.

I don't think so. Let me share with you why I don't think so. Because when

I hear when I've always heard this verse used. It's only half read.

And that's how we interpret so many verses. We interpret them out of context because we don't read the whole verse.

We don't read the whole chapter. We don't read the whole book. So we take it out of context. So let me read the whole verse so that we can get a true understanding of what vision means if it means

Oracle prophecy divine communication. So the whole verse is where there is no vision.

The people are unrestrained or the people perish. And here's the second half the verse.

But happy. There's your peace, your happiness, your joy in ministry.

But happy is he who keeps the law.

Happy is he who keeps the law. What is the law? An Oracle prophecy divine communication.

That's the vision. That's doctrine. So as a pastor, as a church leader, as a faithful church minister, what you want to look for is our is our church leading by doctrine?

Or are we leading by this this idea of vision? The church be led by doctrine and not vision according to the misuse verse of Proverbs 29 18 where there is no vision.

But happy is he who keeps the law. The vision, the

Oracle, the divine communication, the prophecy. Good morning, Kelly. Good morning,

Todd. If you like prayer, type me. If you have any questions, you want to chat. Please talk to me.

Let me know you're there. We're talking about the church should be led by doctrine and not vision.

At least our modern understanding of what vision is. Matthew 28.

Jesus says, go ye into all the world and make disciples, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.

Now, now we talked about vision. We need to know what doctrine is. Doctrine is sometimes a word that people don't don't know or don't understand.

So what does doctrine mean? Doctrine simply means teaching.

The teaching, the doctrines are the teachings of. So Jesus says, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

So part of our job is to teach people the doctrines of Jesus, the teachings of Jesus.

That's how our church should be led. That's how we should lead our church. That's what we should follow.

The church should follow the doctrine, the doctrines of the

Bible, the doctrines of Jesus. And I got carried away because I'm trying to hurry and because I see the time.

Time has flown by. But I'm just going to keep going because I have some time.

Why do we not want to? Why do we not want to use that definition of vision and import it into this verse?

Proverbs 28, 9, 18. If man mystically hears from God about his the vision for the church.

Proverbs 14, 12 says there's a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.

But this is this is what I feel. This is how I feel the Lord is leading me. This is what I'm hearing from God. He wants us to go in that direction.

Is that how God communicates? Or is he communicating through the law, his word, his doctrines, his teaching, this oracle, this prophecy?

Or is it through you? Which is it? Psalm 118, 8, 9. It is better to take refuge in the

Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes. Matthew 15, 14.

Let them alone, they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.

Matthew 15, 9. In vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

Second John 1, 9. Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have

God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the

Son. This is essential.

To be saved, we've got to know Jesus. We've got to know the right Jesus. If you're not describing the right

Jesus, you're not worshipping the right God. Jesus could be whoever you describe him to be.

But if he is not who the Bible says he is, then you're not worshipping the right Jesus.

You are not calling out for salvation to the right Jesus. And that is what 2 John 1, 9 is saying.

If you do not abide and have the right teaching of Jesus, then you do not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the

Father and the Son. So you've got to have the right teachings and abide in those teachings of Jesus.

To have God and have the Son. That's why leading with doctrine is so important.

That's why we must obey Matthew 28. Go into all the world, make disciples, teaching them to obey all that I command you.

So that we know who God is. So that we know that we're worshipping the right God. Not following the vision of men, but following the divine communication of God.

Which is found in Scripture. So that we know that we're worshipping the right God. There's practical application.

1 Corinthians 1, 10 -13. There was division in the church.

And he says, some of you say I follow Paul. Some of you say I follow Apollo. Some of you say I follow

Cephas. There was division. And when there's not a leading by doctrine in the church, you're going to have division in the church.

Division that you don't even know of because we don't talk about doctrine. We don't talk about the teachings of Jesus in the

Bible. Our churches sometimes are so shallow in our understanding of Scripture, we don't talk about Scripture.

We don't know the doctrines of Jesus and we're not teaching them.

And there's divisions in the church that we don't even know of. And Paul says, I appeal to you brothers by the name of our

Lord Jesus Christ that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you. So we're looking for that unity in doctrine, unity in teaching.

Not unity in this pastor who has this vision. Not following Paul.

Not following Cephas. Not following Apollo. But following Christ and his teaching.

We don't need to come up with some vision each year. We don't need to feel depressed when we don't feel creative enough.

When our church is not booming and our seats are not being filled like that church because they must have it all together and they must have that right relationship with God because they heard the right strategy from God.

Our vision is God's law. Our vision is God's doctrines.

The teachings of Jesus. So we want unity in the church.

We need to be teaching from the pulpit, from our Sunday school classes, from our other classes, from our communication, our fellowship, our talk amongst each other.

Wherever we meet together, whether it's simple communication, conversation, or whether it's from the pulpit, the

Sunday school class, wherever it is, we want to be talking about doctrine. The teachings of Jesus.

Who he is. Who God is. And that's where we find unity around that.

Are we going to have disagreements? Yeah. But we study the scriptures to get to an agreement.

Because God doesn't change. God is not schizophrenic. There's not this understanding of who

God is that's right and this understanding of who God is that's right. God teaches us who he is.

And he's not schizophrenic. He doesn't have two personalities. He is this way according to scripture.

We've got to be humble enough to say that I've got it wrong or he's got it wrong.

I've got it right or he's got it wrong. Let's talk about it. Scripture calls us to that unity.

There's also a verse, and it just hit me, but I can't think of the reference. It says they went out from us because they weren't among us.

They were never among us. And why did they go out from us? Because we were teaching

Christ. We were trying to follow the word of God.

And they weren't interested in that. And I need to look up that reference so that I get my explanation right.

So I apologize. So we'll leave that verse. What's another practical reason why we need to stick to our vision being the law of God?

Understanding it that way in Proverbs 29, 18. That's where you want your pastor to be.

A lot of times we hire pastors because of they sound good in the interview.

They sound good behind the pulpit. And also, worldly wisdom,

I think, is possibly the word phrase

I was thinking of earlier, but they have the wisdom of today, contemporary wisdom that says this is how you grow a church.

This is how you build a church. I was an associate pastor at this megachurch, and I know how to grow a church.

I've been in communication with this megachurch. I know how to grow a church. So you like what they have to say.

They speak very well in the pulpit. They say all the right things.

They have a good strategy for the church. They have a good vision for the church. So there's so many reasons why.

We wanted Pamela. There's so many reasons why we hire pastors. But I think we look at the wrong things because we've not been trained.

We've left doctrine in the church. And so now we rely on ourselves to know what we want in a pastor.

We want in a pastor someone that can lead us to look like this other church.

Instead of, excuse me, pastor, what do you believe about this?

What do you believe about this? Because this is extremely important.

This is extremely important. And I wish everyone knew this, would remember this.

Even with my dear friends who I grew with that preach expositionally, that go verse by verse, that explain the text, even with those type of pastors, when they preach a text, they are going to teach that text based on their beliefs about other doctrines, about other teachings.

Their understanding of that text is going to come from their understanding of other doctrines, other teachings.

So this verse that they're reading from, that they're preaching from, may not have anything to do with this subject over here, but his subject over here is going to influence how he understands this verse.

And then he's going to present it that way to his congregation. How will you know what he's presenting to you unless you know what your pastor believes?

We want to know what our pastors believe. We want to know what we believe so that we know that we're being led in the right direction, so that we know that there's unity.

Morning, Trent. So instead of looking for a pastor that has an association with a church that looks like it's got it all together and is doing things right, when you're looking for a pastor, find out what he believes because what he believes is going to influence how he teaches the

Bible, how he's going to look at every verse. So we want to, our churches want to be led by doctrine and not vision from Proverbs 29 verse 8 because it's from Scripture, a right understanding of that verse.

And then there's practical application, unity in the church, unity in the teaching of the pastor and what he's teaching us.

And then it helps us when we're filled with God, who he is, and when we're in our communications outside of the church, outside of the four walls of the church, we know what to say.

We know how to present our God, who Jesus is and what he teaches.

And we don't have to shy away from that communication, from that evangelism because we know who

Jesus is from his teachings, from his doctrine. There's so much more that I could say about this, but I've gone longer than I normally go.

If you have any corrections, if you have any comments, if you have any questions, I hope that you will message me, talk to me.

Pastor, church leader, faithful church member, relieve yourself of the stress and the depression of not, that we put on ourselves, that's not real because we're not doing church like they do it and we're not booming like they are and we're not filling our pews like they do because they must be more spiritual than I am.

They must be smarter than I am. I'm not as qualified as a pastor as he is because look at our two different churches.

Relieve yourself of that. Look at Proverbs 29 verse 18.

The vision that God wants us to have for his church is his law, his oracle, his prophecy, his divine communication, which is his word.

Lead your church by his word and you will be faithful and you'll find joy in your ministry and you'll be teaching people the right

Jesus. You'll be teaching them the right way. You'll be leading them to God the way God wants you to.

No matter what happens, we will be obeying God and being faithful to him and if you do not know the

Lord, if today is the day of salvation, scripture says, do not turn him away.

He calls us to repent of our sins and to trust in him. Jesus Christ came to this earth to live a life that we couldn't live, to live a sinless life that we couldn't live.

He obeyed all the laws, all the commands because we couldn't. We are unable. Scripture says we are dead in our trespasses and sin, unable to do it.

Yet he came to rescue us. He went to the cross.

He took the beatings for us in our place that we deserve.

He took upon himself the wrath of God that we deserve. He died.

Three days later, he rose from the grave. He came, saw his disciples, met the guys on the road to Emmaus, taught them from the scripture about himself and then he ascended into heaven and today sits at the right hand of God interceding for us, us who have repented of our sins and trusted in him to save us.

And if you've not done that, please consider that today. Give your life to Christ today through repenting, turning from your sins and trusting in him.

We've had folks to join us. We've had folks to leave us. If you would like prayer, type me.

I'm going to go ahead and pray. And if you would like prayer during the week, if you would,

I need to be corrected. If you want to chat about anything, message me during the week.

Hopefully one day we can be interactive on here and folks can type and chat and ask questions.

Anybody that's still watching, if you would like prayer, type me. I'm going to pray for you and pray for us.

Let me go ahead and do that. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for this freedom that we have that has never been in any point in time in history where I can sit here and communicate with whoever's willing to watch and talk about your word and talk about Jesus.

Father, thank you for this time that you allowed me and us to live in. Father, without naming each one,

I pray for each name that has popped up on my screen that you would help them today.

Bless them. Draw them to yourself. And Father, help us to relieve ourselves of the burdens that we put on ourselves because of worldly wisdom, because of contemporary wisdom.

We think we should do things one way and your word teaches us to do them another.

And Father, help us to do things that your way so that we can find rest and joy in our ministry, in our work.

Father, I thank you for who you are. Thank you for Jesus. And I pray that that if there's one person that has been listening that needs to repent and trust in Jesus that you would draw them to yourself today.

Father, will you grant them repentance and faith. Cause them to be your child.

Cause them to be born again. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Appreciate you joining me.

Sorry it went so long. Hope you have a great day.