North Star: Vision

There are two necessary components to every journey: a starting point and a destination. This seems fairly obvious. The first component can be determined easily enough — bend your head forward, look down at your feet, and there is your starting point. The destination however seems to remain much more elusive. For local churches, this sort of volatility of destination is especially true.

For example, in one church, you might hear all about caring for the poor and in another you might hear about prophetic healing. One church is preparing for an Evangelism Explosion event while another is planning their next Stations of the Cross service. Some talk about Jesus the social justice leader. Some talk about Jesus the righteous Judge. Some talk about Jesus the understanding friend you have always wanted. Interestingly, each church is most likely using the same Book to guide their congregations, yet each looks remarkably different.

With so much seeming diversity of destination, what are we to make of God’s intentions for his people, his church, and his world? Does God have the same destination in mind for every person, every church, and every aspect of his world? So many local churches seem to have different destinations in mind. Does that mean, though, that the same is true of God?

What we are fundamentally addressing is God’s vision for His church. It is vital to remember that Scripture tells us “where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18). That is to say, when we don’t know where we are going, we will never get there. Every vision requires both a destination and a commitment to get there. Vision is a picture of what could be that is fueled by the conviction that it must be. Accordingly, if God has a universal destination in mind for his church, what is it?

Vision and Glory

God’s vision for His church begins with God. God is the only being in the Universe who actually must be chiefly about Himself. Because God is greater, more beautiful, more powerful, than anything in existence, He alone is the only legitimate destination. That means that we do not create a vision and dictate it to the Almighty. He has a goal in mind and we are invited to receive it from Him. God’s Word tells us that “the heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1), the “heavenly beings ascribe to the Lord glory and strength” (Psalm 29:1), men and women were “created for [God’s] glory” (Isaiah 43:7), and they are designed to “declare his glory among the nations” (1 Chronicles 16:24). Because He is greater than all that is, “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk. 2:14).

God’s vision begins with God Himself and that means His vision begins with His own glory.

Glory can be a difficult term to pin down. It is something physical in the sense that it can be seen and experienced, as seen in Moses’ encounter with God’s glory in Exodus 33:18-19. Yet it is also transformative, as seen in Moses’ shining face after experiencing God’s glory in Exodus 34:34-35. The glory of God is His unmatched greatness and, in creation, he takes that infinite value and goes public with it. In human terms, when we experience something of great value, when we are attracted to it, and when we are changed by experiencing it, we call that something beautiful. Accordingly, the destination of the church, and for that matter, all of creation is to behold, experience, and be perpetually transformed by the beauty of God’s glory.

Our first parents, and each one of us since, took this glory for granted. They had never known anything else and likely never considered the tragic impact exchanging the glory of the Creator for the glory of creation would have. As the glory of God faded from our eyes, our own beauty diminished.

Triumphant nakedness was traded for shameful hiding.

Communion was traded for exile.

Beauty was traded for ashes.

Yet there remained a promise for “all who mourn in Israel,” that God would give them “a crown of beauty for ashes” (Isaiah 61:3). Our brokenness, in experiencing God’s glory anew, would be transformed into wholeness. As we grow in this transformation process, the power, beauty, and glory of God shines forth.

Vision and Growth

Because God’s vision is all about His glory, His vision is necessarily also about our growth. Jesus came, lived, suffered, died, and was raised to show us our destination. He saw where our feet were firmly planted, came to us, put us on his shoulders, and has carried us to where we were always meant to be: the place where we experience God’s glory and are transformed by it. Now, we who “hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:12). If we back up a few verses in Ephesians, we can see that God’s vision for His glory carries a beautiful gift with it, our transformation.

We learn in Ephesians 1 that we have been united with Christ (v. 3), which makes us holy and without fault (v. 4) and results in our being adopted into God’s family (v. 5). This transfer from our sinful, broken lifestyle into the family of God results in the praise of God’s glory. It just so happens that God’s glory also transforms us. We are not naturally united with Christ. We are not by birth holy and without fault. Left to ourselves, we are not members of God’s family. Yet, because God’s plan all along was to fill the earth with His glory, God makes us something new. He throws away the old and forms us into holy and pure sons and daughters. We cannot separate this growth from the glory of God because it is the glory of God itself that transforms us. In fact, 2 Corinthians 3:18 tells us that as we behold the glory of God we actually become like Jesus.

When we become like Jesus, God is glorified and as we see that glory, our transformation continues. This is why God’s vision has always been a co-dependent one. Each aspect requires the others. In the church, there is no glory of God without the transformation of his children and there is no transformation of his children without his glory.

Vision and Great Commission

Experiencing this transformation brings with it a deep paradox, however. Experiencing the beauty of the Creator literally recreates us moment by moment. Day by day, God’s goodness makes us more alive and more human than ever before. Yet, while new life emerges within us, death is still at work all around us. Death surrounds us even as we are coming alive. While God is transforming us, those who are far from Christ suffer under minds that sin has blinded to the glory of Christ.

For as long as there remain children of God with eyes blinded to the beauty of Jesus, our Father sends those who can see to call their brothers and sisters home. This means we go and, “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that Jesus has commanded” (Matthew 28:18-20). The final aspect of God’s vision, therefore, is the Great Commission. God’s vision begins with His glory filling the earth and this requires the transformation of his children. His children will not be transformed unless someone shares the invitation with them. God began this by sending us His Son, revealing His glory and initiating our transformation. We, in turn, do the same. God’s glory requires our growth and our growth requires the Great Commission.

What is God’s vision for every church in every place throughout all of time? God’s vision is for His glory to fill the earth as men and women are transformed into the image of Christ as they gladly participate in the Great Commission.

Simply put, God’s Vision for His church is His glory, our growth, and obedience to the Great Commission. The adventure begins from this place of safety. The boundaries have been fixed, the destination is in view, and now we must go and explore what it means to believe God’s gospel, become God’s church, and be sent into God’s world.