20 essential building blocks of vision - part 1

Nehemiah 1:1-1:4
This sermon series is based on the book visioneering by Andy Stanley. Parts of
this sermon are taken directly from the material contained in his book.
Vision Part 1
Life is a journey and every journey has a destination. Everybody ends up
somewhere in life. A few people end up somewhere on purpose.
A clear vision, along with the courage to follow through, dramatically increases
your chances of coming to the end of your life, looking back with a deep
satisfaction and thinking I did it. I succeeded. I finished well. My life counted.
Without a clear vision, odds are you will come to the end of your life and wonder
what you could have done what you should have done. And like so many, you
may wonder if your life really mattered at all.
Vision gives significance to the otherwise meaningless details of our lives. Its
not always about what were doing, but rather why we are doing it.
How many of you would be excited to spend all day today filling bags with dirt?
How many of you would be excited to spend all day today filling bags with dirt to
build a dike around your city to keep it from being flooded?
Theres nothing glamorous or fulfilling about filling bags with dirt, but saving a
city is another thing altogether. Building a dike gives meaning to the chore of
filling bags with dirt.
The same is true of vision. Too many times the routines of life begin to feel like
shoveling dirt. But take those same routines, those same responsibilities, and
view them through the lens of vision and everything looks different. Vision
brings your world into focus. Vision brings order to chaos. A clear vision enables
you to see everything differently.
Granted, we have all heard or read about vision before. There are plenty of self
help books out there that tell us how to set goals and have vision. They teach
that if you can believe, you can achieve.
Read Oh the places youll go by Dr. Suess
While the average person may have the right to dream his own dreams and
develop his own picture of what his future could and should be, we as followers

of Christ have surrendered our lives to follow Christ and His plan. We gave up
our right to be in charge when we accepted Christ and agreed to follow Him.
Ephesians 2:10 For we are Gods masterpiece. He has created us anew in
Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.
God has a vision for your life. Why would you want to think up and do your own
thing? What could be more fulfilling than the plan that God has for you?
In Andy Stanleys book Visioneering, he says - Without Gods vision, you may
find yourself in the all too common position on looking back on a life that was
given to accumulating green pieces of paper with pictures of dead presidents on
them. Accumulating money or stuff is a vision of sorts. But it is the kind of vision
that leaves men and women wondering. Wondering if there was more.
Wondering what they could have done should have done with their brief stay
on this little ball of dirt.
As Christians, any vision that we can think up, will always fall short and leave us
wondering.
We serve an intensely creative God. We talk about the fact that no two
snowflakes are alike, but God has never made two of anything alike. Gods vision
for you does not include trying to fit into someone elses mold. Unless you
discover Gods unique vision for your future, your life may very well be a rerun.
Over the next several weeks, we will be looking at 20 essential building blocks
for vision. These come from the book Visioneering by Andy Stanley that I
mentioned just a moment ago.
We will also be looking at the life and vision of Nehemiah, in relation to these 20
building blocks. The one thing I find most encouraging about the story of
Nehemiah is that he was just a regular guy who caught a divine glimpse of what
could and should be. And then went after it with all his heart.
What is vision?
Where does vision come from?
A Vision is born in the soul of a man or woman who is consumed with the
tension between what is and what could be. Anyone who is frustrated, or
brokenhearted about the way things are, in light of the way they believe things
could be, is a candidate for vision.
In fact, that is how the vision for this church began. I was on staff at a good
church, but was becoming more and more frustrated with the way things were,

versus the way I believed things could be. God was giving me a vision for a new
church.
However, vision is more than simply what could be. After all, what could be is
simply an idea or a dream. Vision also carries with it a sense of conviction. Its
not only what could be done, but what should be done. Its something that must
happen. It moves you from passive concern to action. Conviction is what gives
vision a sense of urgency.
Vision always stands in contrast to the world as it is. Vision demands change.
But a vision also always requires someone to champion the cause. It takes
someone who is willing to put his or her neck on the line. Someone who has the
courage to act on an idea.
This brings us to the story of Nehemiah and the 20 building blocks that we will
be looking at today and over the next three weeks.
Around 587BC the Babylonians invaded Judah and destroyed the city of
Jerusalem, along with Solomons temple. This was the third of three campaigns
into that region. About 70 years after the first Babylonian invasion, Cyrus, King
of Persia, gave the Jews permission to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple.
Under the leadership of a man named Zerubbabel, these exiled Jews returned to
Jerusalem and rebuilt the temple. Things were looking up for while. It seemed as
if Israel was on the verge of becoming a blessed nation once again. But the
people refused to turn away from the very sins that God had judged their
ancestors for. The temple was not being maintained. Sacrifices had ceased. The
Jews continued to adopt the religious practices and culture of the surrounding
nations. By the time our story begins, the political, social, and spiritual
conditions in Jerusalem were deplorable.
Meanwhile, back in Persia, a Jewish man named Nehemiah heard about the
condition of his homeland.
Lets look at Nehemiah 1 verses 1-4.
Nehemiah was so moved by what he heard that he wept. Its not that he was
weak, or emotionally unstable, but instead that he was burdened. In fact he was
so burdened that it says in verse 4 he mourned and fasted and prayed for days.
Little did he know that these deep feelings were the initial birth pains of a vision
that people would be reading about thousands of years later. Notice that
Nehemiahs vision didnt start out as a vision. It began as a concern or a burden
for his nation and its people.
Building Block #1 A vision begins as a concern

A God ordained vision will begin as a concern. You will hear or see something
that gets your attention. Something will bother you about the way things are or
the way things are headed.
Unlike many passing concerns, this will stick with you.
You will find yourself thinking about them in your free time.
You may lose sleep over them.
You wont be able to let them go because they wont let you go.
Nehemiahs concern over the condition of Jerusalem consumed him. It broke his
heart. Thoughts of what was, as opposed to what could be brought tears to his
eyes. This was not just a casual concernit was a vision in the making.
So what did he do?
He didnt steal away across the desert in the night. He didnt fabricate a reason
to leave Persia. He didnt even share his burden with other concerned Jews.
But he also didnt allow his daily responsibilities to distract him from the burden
that had gripped his heart.
No, Nehemiah chose the third and most difficult option. He chose to wait.
Nehemiah knew what so many of us have a hard time remembering.
What could be and should be cant be until God is ready for it to be. So he
waited.
Habakkuk 2:2-3: Then the Lord said to me, write my answer in large, clear
letters, on a tablet, so that a runner can read it and tell everyone else. But these
things wont happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches
when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, wait patiently, for it will surely
take place. It will not be delayed.
This brings us to the second building block.
Building Block #2 A vision does not necessarily require immediate action.
A lot of people have good ideas. Many times God may be in the process of
birthing a vision in their hearts. But most of the time, they want to start NOW!
But the story of Nehemiah, along with numerous other Biblical accounts,
illustrates the truth that a clear vision does not necessarily indicate a green light
to begin. Too often when a person with an idea that seems to be a God ordained
vision charges out of the gates too early, the result is failure, discouragement
and disillusionment.

A vision rarely requires immediate action. But it always requires patience.

Many people ask, why wait? After all, there are people to rescue. Why not just
plunge ahead?
Because developing and discovering a vision is a process. Sometimes its painful
and agonizing. But it is always worth every bit of the agony along the way.
Waiting often seems like a waste of time. The assumption is, since we arent
moving ahead, nothings going on. But that is not the case at all. Some
important things are taking place while we wait.
While not every good idea is vision material, every vision begins as an idea.
Not all burdens are vision material, but every vision begins as a burden.
Waiting gives us a chance to examine our emotions and sort out minor concerns
from major ones. If what concerned you yesterday is of little concern today,
odds are that it was not vision material.
Just as you cannot rush the development of a child in the womb, you cannot
rush the development of a vision. God determines the schedule for both.
Acting too quickly on a vision is like delivering a baby prematurely.
They are always weak. And in some cases a preemie cannot survive the rigors of
life outside the womb.
So it is with vision. Immature visions are weak. They rarely make it in the real
world.
As we wait, not only does the vision mature, but we also mature and become
ready for the vision.
Many times the tendency is to assume that since I know what I am to do, Im
ready to do it. But God has to grow us into our vision. Just as a vision must be
God ordained, it must also be done according to Gods timetable.
Philippians 2:13-14 says For God is working in you, giving you the desire to
obey him and the power to do what pleases him. In everything you do, stay
away from complaining and arguing.
Everything you do, includes waiting. Yet, we often complain about waiting, and
argue with God that our timing is better.
Have you ever met someone who had a good idea but bad timing?

Remember Moses? He had the right idea, but his timing and methods were
terrible. His vision was to free his people from Egyptian slavery. And that was a
God thing if there ever was one. So what did he do? He went to work and killed
an Egyptian. If Moses had sat down and calculated how long it would take him to
kill all of the Egyptians, he would have realized that it would take several
lifetimes. So, what did God do? He sent Moses to the University of Sinai to study
in their wilderness program for 40 years. It took Moses 40 years to grow into the
vision that God has designed for him.
Nehemiah, on the other hand, had it pretty easy by comparison. He only had to
wait four months before the wheels started turning. But working for the King of
Persia was still somewhat of a desert experience for him. Nehemiah was a man
with immense leadership ability who awoke every day to do a job that tapped
little or none of those skills.
Can you relate? Do you wake up every day to circumstances that seem to have
nothing to do with the vision you sense God is developing in you?

Then you are in good company.

Joseph reviewed his vision from an Egyptian dungeon.
Moses spent years following sheep.
David, the teenage king, spent years hiding in caves.
And Nehemiah was the cupbearer to the king whose ancestors had destroyed the
very city he longed to rebuild. Be encouraged. God has you where He has you
for a reason.
Not only does the vision need to mature, and we need to mature to be prepared
for the vision, but God is also working behind the scenes to prepare the way.
This is why it is so important to wait on his timing.
Remember that the vision God has for our life is only a small piece of the entire
puzzle. Gods vision for your life is much bigger than you. Apart from his
intervention and preparation, you and I are incapable of pulling off even our
small part of the operation.
Time of Reflection?
One of the most difficult things related to vision, is distinguishing between good
ideas and God ideas. We all have good ideas. Everybody is concerned or
burdened about something, but how do you know which ideas to act on?
1. If it is God who is giving you a vision of what could and should be, over time
you will begin to sense that not to follow through with it would be an act of

disobedience. As the burden in your heart grows, you feel compelled to take
action. Your only alternative to following through is to say No! I refuse to move
in that direction!
2. A God ordained vision will be in line with what God is up to in the world. There
will always be a correlation between what God has put in an individuals heart to
do and what He is up to in the world at large. As a believer and follower of
Christ, there is a larger, more encompassing context for everything you do. After
all, it wasnt the condition of the walls that broke Nehemiahs heart, it was the
spiritual condition of his people. If the idea you are mulling over is from God, it
will become apparent how the thing you feel compelled to do connects with what
God is up to in this generation.
Next week, among other things we will take a look at what Nehemiah did while
he was waiting.