Vision
by Raymond Sloan
January 9, 2026 · Cornerstone Apostolic Church
Kind: teaching
Scripture: Matthew 6:33, Ephesians 5:14-21, Proverbs 29:18

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/raymond-sloan--vision-3
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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you're you're you're actually still blessing me even if I don't have the newest, latest, greatest, or whatever. And I got to be okay with that. The words here bring this back up. Verse 33. Somebody have a Bible. Can you read that? Verse 33. Notice what now we just went through. While there, somebody's digging it out. You have dust it off. Matthew 6 verse 33. You know by heart talking about the the flowers and about the sparrows and about eating and drinking and what you wear and all that and and and he even again he mentioned the Gentiles who are concerned about this. But verse 33, somebody go there for me. Read that verse out loud. Stop. What does it say? Second word. There's an action and an that says the stuff's not the important. But if you're seeking first the kingdom, now what action is involved? Where you at, God? You in this? Where are you in this? I'm trying to find you here because in that there's an action now required from us. Now, can I be very honest with this hour? Somebody say, "Yeah." Yeah. Okay. Here's the truth. We we live in a society and a culture that wants everything now quickly. And in that environment, you can forget that many times what God is trying to do is teach you a lesson. How many knows God's a good teacher? How you know we're terrible learners? But here's the thing. We can get so upset and out of sorts with God because we pray a certain way and we even have Bible for it. You ask anything in my name, what to say? I'll do it. So, here we go. God, listen up. I got this going on and I need this going on and I got that happening and you know, hold on. And I got this one and then there's that one. I know, I know, I know in a room full of adults, you think that's foolish. But I can guarantee you some of us have done that very thing. And the reason I know that is because you ask God to do something and he doesn't do it the way you think and you stop coming to church. You stop praying. You stop believing God's a God honoring your prayers. And then we get righteously indignant and we get upset. And I've heard so many times, you know what? I used to go to church, but God didn't hear my prayer, so I quit going. How do you know God didn't hear your prayer? Even but seek first kingdom. See, in seeking, there's an action there. I know back before my my infamous uh surgery that I had, the lasacic surgery, man, it was all I could do. Every I couldn't see the alarm clock. That was that was strange. I mean, it's right there in big old red letters and I pick it up and go. Got you. Two more minutes of sleep. This is what I would seek after. The more I seek you, the more I find you. Oh, I'm good. And I came out of that doctor's office that day, Dakota, after that surgery. I This is what I was done. I said, "How'd it go?" I went, "You can hold those for me right there." That night, that night I was in Memphis I institute. That night, guess where we went? Don't be mad. We went to a baseball game. Memphis Red Birds. I said, $6 a ticket. I said, "Where you want to sit?" I said, "I want to sit in the furthest seat out." So, we did remember that. And we sat out there. I That's number nine. That's number seven. She said, "What are you saying that for?" Because I can see it. That's Gonzalez right there. That's And I'm ready. She's like, "You're You know, I said, I'm rejoicing here because I can see this. I couldn't see that for nothing right here. Here's my point. Vision changes us. If you don't have vision for your life, you're going to mindlessly walk, listen to me, mindlessly walk around hoping someone else can fill up that void and then get mad because you think they didn't understand what you were actually needing. Your children do that a lot to you when they're young. Are you hungry? Yes. Well, here's a sandwich. I don't want a sandwich. Oh, I just ruined your vision. My vision, Dad, was McDonald's. No, your vision was that sandwich. No, my vision said I needed chicken nuns. No, it didn't. Your vision said you're getting that sandwich. What has to happen then as a mom and dad try to help teach the children that the chicken the nuggets can come later? Anybody here have teenagers? Can you afford them? Isn't that crazy? Our son used to drink two gallons of milk a week and this is crazy. Why am I buying his milk? He's on a drinking. Let him go get his own cow. Here's my point of that. We That's just what it is. That's just how it goes. And all of a sudden, we get upset. You know, he he had the audacity for Dan to come to the fridge and say, "There ain't no milk." I can see milk. That's why I say where at the grocery store. Go get it. Here's my point to that. I'm using that simple explanation because so many times God is saying, "I have blessed you. I have provided for you. I have seen you through so many battles and so many miracles and stuff and yet you're going to be so shortsighted right now because it's your way or the highway. Don't you know that I'm trying to answer your prayer? You'll never know him to be a healer until He heals you. And nobody wants to be sick. But that's how you know he's a healer. You'll never know he's a provider until you have need of something. And then your testimony says, "Oh, but God came through." Notice this. Trying to keep an eye on my clock. I can't see it, so I can I got on. Ephesians chapter 5, very familiar. Ephesians chapter 5 verse14 wherefore he saith awake thou that sleepest and rise from the dead and Christ shall give thee light. Ephesians 5:14 see then that you walk circumspectfully not as fools but as wise redeeming the time because the days are evil. Wherefore the Bible says, "Be not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is." Verse 18, "And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms, and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." Notice verse 21. submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Why is this verse about vision to me? I'll tell you why. Thanks for asking. Vision lets us know that if I have something in my life that I desire, that I want, that I'm hungry for, that I want God to do, that I want a higher height, a deeper depth, a greater walk. Most of the time, I will not get there by myself. Somebody's going with me. The issue here, Ephesians says, listen, get up, begin to move. And then at the end that I read 21, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. What does that mean to submit yourself one to another? Submit yourself one to another. In in in high school, in college, when you submit a paper, what do you have to do? It's easy. What's the answer? Turn it in. Tada. Submit. Turn it in. Is that right? Eighth grade. Turn it in. So, how do you submit yourself one to another? Turn yourself in. No, that's silly. I can tell you what it means. Ready? So many times we want to be one successful person, yet we forget that everybody around us is attached to our lives. For some reason, we feel like we got to the top by ourselves. But that is not at all the case. It was when we bound oursel, when we submitted oursel, we gave ourselves to someone else to say, for an example, mom and dad, that's what you are doing to your children. That's why they get the last piece of bread and you don't. You just submitted yourself to them. It's the same in the kingdom of God. We got a lot of lone rangers trying to make it on their own and you're not going to be able to. I need you. You need me. Vision says, "Lord, let me see for myself and for those around me." Listen to me. That will help me make better choices because somebody's watching. That'll help me to pray for my brother and my sister because they're submitting themselves to me. That'll help them to pray better for me because I'm submitting myself to them. See, vision says if I can see past where I am, I can move forward. But the reason that the wise guy in Proverbs said where there is no vision the people perish. He was stating very simply there vision says you will live because as you move forward the successes will come the triumphs the victories will come as you move forward. He did not say go conquer alone, but you submit yourselves to one another and say, you know what, Bo, I need you to go with me through this journey. I need you to bind together with me on this path. I I I I really do. I really need for you to to understand where I'm coming from. Again, call me oldfashioned, whatever, but most every service that that I lead or that I'm part of in the church here, I ask you, man, go grab a hold of somebody and pray with them. Why? Why? Because I feel like intentionally you could give yourself and say, "Come on, I'm going to believe for your backsliden daughter or I'm going to help you pray for your cancer that you've got or I'm g I want you to help me in this situation that I'm in." And through that unity, things happen. I'm almost done. My time's almost up. If you follow the life of Christ, what do we see at the very end of his life? He he tells his his followers, he says, "You need to go and prepare this Passover in a room. You get the bread, you get this and that. We're going to go and we're going to celebrate this together." And then he shows up there and you got all these disciples, his followers laying there, sitting there propped up and it's it's the Michelangelo, right? It's the last supper. But what does Jesus do before he sits and breaks bread and pours wine? What does he do? He what? He washed one person's feet. Why? Why? Submitting himself to each of them. Because he knew if I just simply wash one of them, their vision is going to be that far. But if I wash all of their feet, the all of their vision will rise. and they're going to look about and see Jesus did this for me. Peter was the one that opens his mouth. Don't don't just wash my feet. Wash my whole body. And Jesus goes, sh wash your feet as a servant. But I did all of yours because you all need to understand the value of connecting, submitting, seeing together. Now, this month, of course, we're talking vision. We did we did this past Sunday vision casting where we talked about the church plans and things going on. Guys, that is such a small minute part of what CAC does. And it's so hard in about 45 minutes to give all of that information. But this is what what we try to do here in leadership. We try to say, "This is our plans. This is our goals. This is where we're headed. Can you see it?" And we start moving. But Wednesday night afterwards is a whole another day. Some of you walked in here tonight tired, weary, sick, not feeling good. Your vision from Sunday is probably wiped out. Some of you are just hoping you get a good night's sleep tonight because your vision last night was terrible. You see what I'm saying? Every day is a new day. Every day is another opportunity. Sit down. You can't get up and leave my class. Oh, she got a baby to go get. Okay, you can go get my baby. Here's the thing. Where there is no vision, the people perish. Why? Because if you are so self-centered, focused on yourself, wanting for yourself only, and you're not submitting yourself to others, giving yourselves to the body, you're going to burn up, blow apart because, listen to me, and y'all probably never had to use this statement with your teenagers, but I did many times. Listen, the world does not revolve around you. Can I say it to moms and dads and grandparents in here? This world is not here because of you. It's here because Jesus loves us and he wants us to come together in the vision to say, "I see you, Lord, and I'm going that direction. I'm going to encourage my brothers and sisters. I'm going to walk this walk, Lord, upright and circumspectly. I'm going to look to things, God, that honor you and love you. I'm going to give myself to the things of God. You need the church in your life. You do. You need the family. You need all of the mess ups and all the junk that come with it. The imperfections, the wrong ideas. You need that. We learned a long time ago in ministry, our dear old brother Scott was our regional director when we were missionaries on the South America. And he used to we used to talk about, man, there's some extreme weirdos on this side and there's some extreme other weirdos on this side. You got these that don't believe nothing and they got these that believe everything. And we're on deputation visiting 200, 300 churches in a year. And brother Scott said, "Yep. Fact though remains is we need every one of those. And Michelle I said, "What's that mean?" He said, "Because you got these and you got these and without these and without these there would be no balance." And you need balance. And I said, "What's that mean, Brother Scott?" He said, "You need these weirdos over here to help you understand these that are not so weird over here. Huh? It's the same in your family. My family, my mom and dad only had one perfect one. And it wasn't me. Let's stand together. Vision. Without vision, you're not going to make it. You're not. You got to be able to see past who you are. Pray through your situation. I know you don't understand it.