Why are We Here, Where are We Going, and How Do You Seek God’s Plan (Hebrews 11:8-19)
Mark Pitman, January 1, 2012Part of the Seeking God's Plan series, preached at a Sunday Morning service
We always begin the New Year in asking a series of questions that keep us on track. Why? Because it is crucial for everybody on the team to have clear answers to each of those questions...
1. Why are we here? What is our essential mission? What are our core values? Why do we exist and what are we trying to produce? And what authority and source of truth do we use to make those determinations? So, why are we here?
2. Once that is understood, then where are we going? Where do we think we are now in the accomplishment of that mission? And what are the specific steps we hope to take in the coming 12 months to get as far as we can toward the overall goal? How do we best invest the resources God has given us, where are we going this year? Then...
3. How do you fit in? I hope everybody at BCC will ask this morning: is there a place for me in all of this? God has given each person gifts and abilities and talents and opportunities. Someday you will stand before Him and give an account for how you used what He had given. So are you a good and faithful steward of what God has entrusted to you? Where do you fit in?
| Earlier: | Same day: | Later: |
|---|---|---|
| « Stewardship of Resources: Priorities | None | Seeking God’s Plan for His Family » |
Hebrews 11:8–19 (Listen)
8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. 11 By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. 12 Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.
13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, 18 of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 19 He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.
(ESV)