Mandates and Means - Vision and Strategy [Sermon]

Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia

October 2023

I. The Mandate

A What is vision/mandate/call/ministry?

Eph 1:10

As a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

Luke 9:51 When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.

Proverbs 29:18

"Where there is no prophetic vision, the people cast off restraint,

but blessed is he who keeps the law.

B. Mandate for the church

1. ________________________

1 Timothy 2:4

who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

2. ________________________

3. Formation of a _________________

Eph 2:14-16

14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

II. Means to the Mandate

A. Importance of planning/preparation

Luke 14:28

For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?

B. Variations in the Journey

Proverbs 19:21

"Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails."

C. Live in the Path to the Mandate.

Philippians 3:13-14

Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

D. Distractions

E. Managing Resources