 you know I heard this I love coffee and I heard this man who married the wife and he always had her do him coffee and one time she just got fed up with it and she says why do I have to do your coffee all the time and he says well the Bible says you're my helper and I need help you're making me coffee she says well that is wrong that is not fair and the Bible doesn't say that part of my package is helping you make you coffee he's you know and she says actually the Bible does say that you supposed to make coffee for me not me making coffee for you and he says excuse me where does it say in the Bible he says Hebrews if you were not laughing because you don't know the Bible I'm just kidding an eight-year-old woman was recently married to her fourth husband a reporter questioned the occupation of your newly acquired husband she replied he owned a funeral home so this reporter being curious he also asked her about other husbands other three husbands he says well he said the first husband was a banker the second one I was madly in love with he was a circus master the third one was a preacher puzzled by her answers you know he replied he says none of these men these four men have anything in common why did you marry them and she says it's very simple she says I married the first one for money the second one for the show the third one to get ready and the fourth one to go may the Lord spare you these troubles in Jesus name if you have your Bible let's go together to gospel to book of Acts book of Acts and let's let's take the verse and book of Acts chapter 10 verse 9 until verse 16 apologies for the small font but you read from your Bible the next day as they went on their journey and junior to the city Peter went up to the household to pray about the sixth hour then he became very hungry and wanted to eat by while they made ready he fell into a trance and saw heaven opened and an object like a great sheet bound to the four corners descending on him and let down to the earth in it were all kinds of four-footed animals of the earth wild bees creeping things the birds of the air and the voice came to him rise Peter kill and eat but Peter said not so Lord I have never eaten anything common or unclean and the voice spoke to him again the second time what God has cleansed you must not call common this was done three times and the object was taken up to heaven again this morning I want to speak to us about the vision the church vision we hear about every single service and we are going to hear about it every single service but next few weeks we want to take time to really begin to prepare us for this transition that God is preparing us for by renewing again why the church exists why we go to church and why God established the church church vision I like if you close as somebody said he says a vision is a picture of the future that produces passion in people we see the Bible says that people without vision they perish but but visions without people also perish see we need the vision and the vision needs us the greatest tragedy in life are people who have sight but no vision Helen Keller said that action without vision is only passing time vision without action is merely dreaming but vision with action can change the world Nelson Mandela said that if you are working on something exciting that you really care about you don't have to be pushed vision pulls you and the guy who was a visionary Steve Jobs late Steve Jobs who created things that most of us here have those technology things that he has developed vision is what drives companies vision is what drives individuals every successful person has a vision every successful child has a dream the difference between a child and an adult is the dream in a child has to become the vision in the adult the vision is what begins to pull your life is what begins to excite your life it's what determines the direction for your life the vision the Bible says without it we perish means without it we lose direction without it our life loses meaning and without it our life loses sense of purpose with the vision our life they it's an attraction and with the vision our life goes to another level we see with Peter is that Peter was met by Jesus he experienced this great power of God in his life he got baptized in the Holy Spirit and Peter started to lead this very interesting controversial movement called the gathering of believers in Jerusalem and this gathering started to kind of begin get traction until they filled Jerusalem with a doctrine that Jesus Christ is the Messiah he rose from the dead and that he's coming again and Peter was successful at it Peter was comfortable in it it was his people and Peter gained traction until particular time he came to this particular house and as they were getting ready to make food Peter goes because he's hungry and hungry the hunger can lead you to craziness but in this case this hunger was sanctified by God it led him to a trends and in the trends he sees a vision where a blanket comes down from heaven and on this blanket he sees all kinds of animals that for a Hebrew person they were considered unclean and actually most of these animals should be unclean to you also because they're like pork and let's not clean and that's not good for your health so he sees all of these animals you know and that's fine he sees them pulled on the blanket from the four corners and he hears the voice Peter rise kill and eat and Peter's automatic response Lord they are unclean Lord I've never eaten of anything Lord no I want you to notice these two words it's a typical response of a man to a vision of God no and I've never you know it's from God if your automatic responses no and if your automatic responses I've never done this and God says again eat what I've cleansed you have to receive and God said again it was a vision in that moment Peter's mind was stretched and there was a knock on the door and the Holy Spirit said Peter the vision you saw upstairs now you're gonna begin to walk toward that vision I want you to write down point number one you cannot go further than your vision Peter could not reach out to other countries outside of the Hebrew nation without first his mind being stretched by God giving him a vision before this church begun there was a vision for a church that reaches out to an English speaking community before this building was received there was a vision that the church has to have a building and not just meet in the members house on Wednesday night before you see today you know worship team and young preachers preaching there was a vision of someone who had a vision that came in the blanket and says that this is what I want you to do but the automatic responses Lord this is too hard Lord this is not possible nothing begins by miracle everything begins by vision which becomes eventually a miracle we must understand God has a vision for the church this vision is consistent when he made Adam and Eve he gave Adam a vision multiply and fill the earth God did not want little people with small amounts to run around the earth God wanted the earth to be fully populated from the beginning when men churned against God and we see that the flood came and wiped the evil man and God started again with Noah the first assignment God gave to Noah is multiply and fill the earth we see that Noah's descendants they didn't want to do that they wanted to reserve and stay in their clique and not spread themselves across the globe so God came and changed the languages to push people to spread around the earth and multiply then God chooses one man named Abraham makes a nation out of him for one thing to bless the nations of the earth not just to bless Abraham but through Abraham to bless all of the people on the earth and they failed at those assignments most of the time because when the prophets would be sent to bring the message to another country the prophets would run from God because they were only centered on themselves when Jesus came on this earth it was very interesting because Jesus had two bloodlines in him it was a Jewish and a Gentile it was the Rahab it was the Ruth it was the other people who are Gentiles and the Jews he had a passion and a vision for the whole world he established the church and send them into all four corners of the earth so that they will bring the message of Jesus but they stayed in Jerusalem until Peter gets a picture that I have to go outside of my comfort zone and reach the people that have not been reached yet I want you to see this graph in the scriptures there is 500 verses referring to God's vision for all people of the earth 500 verses is a lot God's vision is for the whole planet to worship him God does not have a square footage allotted to the devil the whole planet is the scope of his vision from the beginning he wanted us to multiply all around for his glory he did not make us for ourselves and for the devil he made us for himself and he is the rightful owner of that and he in every single book almost you see these dots where God's vision is expressed I want all people all nations every tongue every tribe every country to know me my love and to worship my name and thus find fulfillment for their life can somebody shout amen that is why when we pray for thousands locally and millions globally we are not just coming up with that because we want a big church we have a God who has a big vision for the whole globe and we want to stay with that vision when we pray for masses or we pull up the stadiums picture of the stadiums and you say why is the church your side size you know what do you guys want nothing short than what God has made clearly in 500 verses in his word can somebody shout amen come on put your hands together for Jesus Christ as of now 68 percent of all Hindus Muslims and Buddhists do not know one Christian let the sink in 60 I'm sorry 86 86 percent of all Muslims of all Buddhists and Hindus do not even know one Christian that means 86 percent of people walking on the planet earth today don't even have a contact with the person who knows Jesus Christ the statistic says that only 10% of Muslims in Asia know a Christian whereas 67% of Muslims in North America know a Christian you see when people live in a country like ours the percentage go up 67% of people they know somebody who is a believer only 13% of all Muslims worldwide personally know a Christian I want you to right now imagine as a church we're not just this comfortable little crib that we go into here a wonderful sermon we'll pray a little prayer give our donations see the church as people come and they want to come our church expands and we will begin to occupy the common area the gym will have few flows we'll build their new building and slowly but surely as people like our church and they just join in as they want to we don't have the audacity to think like that people are going to hell in a handbasket every single day the passion and the vision of Jesus Christ is for the nations that's why when he came to the temple he the only time Jesus turned things in the temple and this is why because they were selling things and why people were not allowed to come who were not Jews and this is what he said he says zeal eats me up this is a house of prayer for all nations not just for the Jews not just to sell things but for the people to pray for people to find God he says this is the house we are that house for all nations thousands locally and millions globally can somebody say amen the first people who came to Jesus and worshiped him were the scientists were the magi they were the Gentiles we see same thing everywhere the gospel of Jesus Christ is not limited to just our tribe and our clique it's possible to get stuck in our Slavic culture in our Mexican culture in our Caucasian culture and just simply say me myself and I the church of Jesus Christ has to be a colorful Hg every culture every ethnic group in our city represented to come to the kingdom of God not just a small church but a big God that reveals a big vision for the church I want us to begin to dream of that begin to see the church as triumph and we're not talking about just the largest building we're talking about a movement that draws people by thousands and millions to the kingdom of God our life will come to an end soon but while we are here on this earth we gotta maximize our vision when Jesus presents a vision to us we gotta grasp it and run with it cuz somebody shout amen I want you to write point number two is vision can go only as far as the prayer takes it the vision can go as far as prayer takes it when the vision was received by Peter Peter was praying when Cornelius to receive the vision Cornelius was praying and fasting Peter was sent to touch Cornelius Peter was praying but it's interesting because Cornelius who needed the salvation was also praying we have to understand few things people in our city are praying and no they're not praying officially at five in the morning you know when they pray before they go to sleep and they say God why does it hurt and they say Jesus where are you and that's the prayers God hears it's when people cry out not out of obligation but out of pain when in the hospitals people circle around and people join hands when the Twin Towers fell you saw the you know the first responders you saw people when they are in pain they begin to turn their heart toward God and they cry out and because God hears the cry of people who are suffering in drugs who are suffering in the sin God what he does is he sees people his people praying he comes to their prayer and begins to enlarge a blanket inside of their mind and says listen you are an answer to someone else's prayer your vision is an answer to someone else's cry there is a mother that buried all of her four children to drugs and listen I'm giving you a vision because Cornelius is praying he's asking and I cannot ignore him see the vision of God places for thousands and millions globally see we don't see those thousands we don't know they're suffering we don't know their pain we don't know their sleepless nights we don't know how many pillows are soaked in tears we don't know how much money is spent on rehab but God sees every individual and everyone is valuable to him so when he comes down when we pray God doesn't give vision to people who don't pray God only gives vision to begin to like Peter go up into the upper room and say God I seek your face and God responses as listen I'm giving you a vision not just to make you big but because I hear the cry of Cornelius every vision is an answer to someone else's cry you don't know about you and I don't even know about we heard a testimony of Jeff yesterday and one of these days he will be here a young man who started a multi-millionaire business selling drugs in Spokane who tried to take his life ten times who've done so much bad and so much crazy crazy stuff and one day how Jesus met him and changed him and today he has a rap team that goes around in Spokane area they rap and he presents his testimony and he brings people to Jesus Christ today he's a youth pastor who made millions of dollars selling drugs and heroin and cocaine the cry of these people Jesus hears and he calls us and gives us the vision when our church started in a few years into it I was asked by the pastor to become a youth leader and I was a youth leader for a few months at the time I just got my license it was about I was about 16 years of age and we were renting this American wonderful church and it was Thursday night youth service the service was really really terrible is one of the worst services that I and I there was a lot of terrible services but that one I remember and the reason why I remember that service was because people were not listening to when I was speaking we didn't have cellophones but they were still distracted and there was all my cousins it was just like six seven seven shares and I think two more people on the back so they might maybe eight or nine of us and they were not listening but that didn't make it horrible they never listened and so that was fine what made it worse was my my aunt's brother came to the service and he came a little bit tipsy came a little bit drunk and he started to make fun of me and I my English was extremely bad and I was trying to learn to preach in English in front of our little kids and he was a lot older he started to correct my English his English was even worse but he was trying to correct my English being drunk and all the kids were laughing and they and I remember Ilya's piano was there and so I finished my sermon really fast cut off last two points and I said Ilya just do the song I need to run to the bathroom I'll rent to the bathroom I did not need to be in the bathroom but I was secretly praying to God I say God make a hole bury me there and don't ever bring me back until the second coming of Jesus Christ I don't want to come out of this I don't want to see those kids I'm not called for this I'm 16 years of age I just got my license out of speaking English this is not for me so with this kind of attitude my parents came picked us up you know I was a youth pastor but my parents drove me they were my chauffeurs still praying for that dream to come back they went to a store Winkle to get some groceries and I'm planning how I'm gonna call the pastor until the pastor how terrible the service went and that I want to opt out out of this is not for me I don't want to do this parents went to get some groceries I'm sitting in the van by Winkle parking lot and this is where I had the moment where God presented a sheet in front of me and God showed me and I when I say word God I mean with every ounce of my being I felt the calling of God where God showed me this image and you can you can post the pictures I took him this morning went back today again and if you can show that just the full from the from the side and I started to see the store and in the evening there was whole parking lot full people were constantly walking in empty and they were walking out full of carts of groceries and at that moment I heard this voice inside of my spirit says if you don't quit as a 16 year old boy one day the church is gonna be just like this warehouse where people will walk in empty they will walk in depressed they will walk in sick they will walk in cursed but they will walk out carts loads of blessings they will walk out with blessings for their family they will walk out with blessings for their work and as I started to watch you know and I'm crying there because I don't want to you know do this no more but I feel this another spirit calling me and giving me this blanket vision and I started to see the front doors of the building and I heard I heard as though God said he says that one day the church is gonna be the front doors of the building that the church is gonna be like that where the front doors of the building you see how nice they are that's how the church is gonna be it's gonna be friendly it's gonna be very attractive it's gonna be very passionate and God also reminded me that there's a back doors of this building where the semi trucks come in and this is where all the groceries come through and the Lord started to put on my heart that our church is going to have a praying a powerful praying church through which the trucks angels of God's gonna be bringing the healing and deliverance that when people come on Sunday they leave back completely blessed that's one of the reasons why every morning at five church doors are open at prayer we're not doing this to show off we're not doing this to be a radical church we're doing this because the vision that Jesus gives us can only go as far as the prayer that carries it prayer doesn't create the blessings but prayer is the semi truck that carries the blessings from the warehouse of heaven into the local church services into the home groups and into the families can somebody shout amen that's why every other Friday we have 24-hour prayer right now and I challenge each one of you if you want to see the bread on the shelf in the aisle of Winkle you got to open the back door and the back door is not as clean if you can put up the picture and keep it just keep it switching until I keep talking about the Winkle you don't want the the back doors are not as attractive they're not automatic they don't have a glass and see these are the doors nobody goes into nobody most of the people don't know about these doors and some of you visiting us today I want to show you these doors in our church they're called prayer they're called fasting and they're called extravagant giving these are the prayers this is Friday at 9 o'clock when everybody's sleeping and the new movie came out in town but you pulling your semi through this door and you saying God I want to see revival when at 10 30 people are saying I gotta go because next day I have work and you saying God I'm putting some earphones on and I'm gonna stay till 12 or till 1 o'clock why let another semi truck come in let the blessing come on Sunday let the blessing come to a home group but I know where it comes from it comes through prayer it comes through fasting it comes through intercession it comes through laying your life down for the cause of the kingdom of God and somebody shout hallelujah and at the age of 16 this is the vision that was captured in my heart the moment we get older last four five years there goes not one day but I don't pray for this vision this now became so dear to me so close to my heart I believe this is why we exist as the church we don't want the church to have shelves on it of just doctrine beliefs we want these shelves to have bread of life to have healings to have miracles family restoration but guys these don't show up from heaven these come through the trucks of prayer and these trucks of prayer has to load on a certain kind of events during the week it's called morning prayers it's called evening prayers for those of you who call this church their home I ask you that this week start this week open some kind of a door on the back of this church that transports the blessings of heaven you've enjoying the atmosphere you've enjoying the services you've enjoying the messages but I want to tell you something these things do not come because we're gifted these things do not come because we've been to the best seminary these things come because our knees have touched the floor more than we can count because tears so roll down these eyes more than times than we can count because we woke up earlier before the sun rose up and came and said God we want to see the shelves be completely full with your blessing let's put our hands together for Jesus Christ I want you to write down the third point is that we see the vision for the nations we see prayer is what causes that vision to go and the third point is vision for the nations but the method is home groups method is home groups for Cornelius we see that in Acts chapter 10 verse 24 it says the following day they entered this particular city now Cornelius was waiting for them and he called together his relatives and close friends Cornelius was the first Gentile home group leader you know what home group is it's when you call together your relatives and your close friends Cornelius wasn't even saved he was a religious person he was very generous Cornelius actually was a prayerful person Cornelius fasted Cornelius had a very great influence in his community but Cornelius wasn't even born again now we are hoping that all of our home group leaders are born again we're hoping to go a little bit upgrade on this story but this is the first home group that is started who was the preacher there Peter Peter came and Peter preached Cornelius organized the home group and Peter preached how we do our home groups is this we create a lesson where we put Peter in the lesson we put some men of God or some minister to share the word of God with us and on the home group we watch some of those material we listen to some of those speeches we have scriptures to we break down and the home group leader is like a Cornelius he gathers people around the house for one hour a week to break the word to pray for needs of the people and to keep the group accountable and focused on the vision of multiplication for the glory of God and somebody shout amen the first church was built in 230 AD Saints Saint George's believed to be the oldest proper church in the world and they found out that the church sheltered 70 disciples of Jesus Christ according to experts 70 disciples fled from Jerusalem during persecution of Christians to the first church building was built in a 230 AD but the buildings were actually only started to get built 300 years after Jesus's resurrection for 300 years the only thing that church was it was not a building it was a house people met in houses like they do in China today underground and that's how the church thrived for 300 years it endured the greatest persecution at the church could endure the church was so weak but it thrived through people meeting in houses when an emperor Constantine he rose up and he made Christianity popular it brought some problems with that church no longer needed miraculous power of God to sustain itself church now had government funding to build cathedrals which still last till this day and no longer church was discipling one another and every believer was involved in bringing people to Jesus now religion was popular cathedrals were beautiful and you no longer was involved in what Jesus called you to do in Matthew 28 19 go into the world and disciple nations and that's where the dark ages kicked in and that's what people started to charge for forgiveness of sins that's where the Bibles were taken from the laymen and only the priests could tell you what was right in the book in the Bible but a few hundred years ago God started to bring a reformation a change what we all have the opportunity to read our Bibles what we now see the baptism of the Holy Spirit we see the miraculous of God and one of the big things that God is restoring is the groups in the churches as the church is getting bigger and Sunday it has to get smaller during the week it is our belief every person who is a part of goodness church or hungry generation who attends on Sundays you have to make being in the group as a priority for you during the week as we are going into the church membership we do not want this just to be an official thing we want to carry the vision of being in the groups you may say Vlad but I don't know which group to go to I'm gonna give you a solution for that you will see that these are most of our beautiful group leaders I left room on the top and over here for you on this website groups dot planning center online dot com you will see where they meet you will see the map where they meet every week what you're gonna do today is after you finish browsing online you're gonna go on that and check out a group that you like guys with guys girls with girls preferably and you're gonna click join that group and you're gonna get an email of reminder to come and go to a group if you go to a group you don't like what it doesn't suit you go check out another group if you go for a few weeks or for a few months and you say you know what I want to have my own group kudos to you in few months you're gonna have your own group we believe every single person has to be discipled in a group and has to be aiming to have their own group for the glory of God home groups is what everything is about in our church amen and so this is the vision of our church to see nations come to Jesus this is the vision of our church to see prayer to carry that vision and that vision is broken down through home groups