Giving People a Map of the Christian Life

In a memorable scene from The Chosen TV series (see video below this article), Jesus has been preparing the Sermon on the Mount while Matthew serves as His note-taker. Jesus comes to Matthew and tells him that He has found the purpose for the sermon’s opening: “a map, directions where people should look to find me.”  He begins with the Beatitudes — the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers (Matthew 5:1–12).

Matthew wonders how this is a map. In the show’s portrayal, Jesus explains that if people want to find Him, these are the kinds of people among whom they should look. From there, He continues into what would become the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7).

The scene captures something important about what Jesus actually does in the sermon. He does not simply give His disciples a collection of commands. He gives them a vision of life under the reign of God — a picture of the kind of people they are becoming. Their thinking, desires, motives, relationships, and actions are increasingly reordered around God and His ways. In that sense, the Sermon on the Mount really does function as a kind of map.

And that raises an important question for every church:

• Do our people have a map of the Christian life?

• Do they have a clear, biblically faithful, and compelling vision of what God is forming in them?

• Can they see how Scripture, spiritual practices, relationships, ministry, mission, and everyday obedience fit together?

• Or are they carrying fifty disconnected Christian ideas?

A compelling vision gives people a clear and memorable map of the Christian life — helping them see who God is forming them to become and how the different parts fit together.

We Need to See the Whole

We cannot assume people understand spiritual formation simply because they attend church, hear sermons, join groups, or serve in ministry. A person can participate in many good Christian activities without understanding what those activities are meant to form. Someone may read Scripture faithfully without recognizing that God is renewing how they see reality. Someone may join a small group without understanding that Jesus forms us through relationships and that we need others in order to mature. Someone can even serve sacrificially while being driven by approval, ambition, or guilt. Others may serve from a deep need to feel important or needed. This is why a compelling vision matters. 

A compelling vison helps people understand what God is forming, why it matters, and how each part contributes to becoming like Jesus.

It answers three basic questions:

1. What is God forming?

2. Why does this matter?

3. How does this contribute to becoming like Jesus?

The Sermon on the Mount gives us a powerful example. Jesus helps His disciples see not only what to do, but the kind of people they are becoming and the larger life under God’s reign into which His teachings fit.

When the vision is clear, Christian practices stop feeling like disconnected activities and begin to make sense as parts of one larger journey of becoming like Jesus. If Jesus gave His disciples and the crowds such a compelling vision in the Sermon on the Mount, then we too have a responsibility to help people see the Christian life with similar clarity and coherence.

The Vision Must Be Big Enough

But clarity is not enough. The vision itself must be big enough to describe what God is actually doing. The Christian life cannot be reduced to attending church, knowing more Scripture, or improving our behavior. Nor can it be reduced to finding a ministry in which to serve. These all have an important place, but none of them is the whole.

God is doing something far greater: He is restoring humanity in Jesus Christ. Jesus reveals who God is and shows us what true humanity under the loving reign of God looks like. Through the Spirit, God is forming a people increasingly conformed to the likeness of Jesus and learning to live every part of life under His reign.

This is why the larger gospel story matters. In Finding Your Place in the Story of Jesus (and in a more in-depth version), I describe that story through five movements:

Design (Creation) → Distortion (Sin) → Demonstration (Jesus Christ) → Discipleship (Following Jesus) → Destination (Restoration)

God created humanity with purpose. Sin distorted what He intended. Jesus came as the revelation of God, the demonstration of true humanity, and the One who gave His life to deal with our sin and reconcile us to God. He calls us to follow Him and be formed into His likeness. And the story moves toward the restoration of all things under His reign. 

The grand story gives discipleship its meaning: God is forming a new humanity in Christ, and within that larger vision the pieces begin to fit.

A Map for Whole-Person Formation

A good map does not contain every detail of the territory. It gives enough of the whole to understand where we are, where we are going, and how the different parts relate. A compelling discipleship vision should do the same. And because Jesus forms the whole person, the map must reach deeper than behavior.

Through the Holy Spirit, Christ is:

• renewing the mind

• reordering the loves of the heart

• purifying our motives

• leading us toward faithful action

We are learning to see and love differently. As our desires are transformed, we increasingly learn to live differently.

This is one reason clarity safeguards discipleship from becoming mere religious activity. People do not simply participate more when they understand the vision. They can participate for better reasons:

• Without clarity: “I go to small group because Christians are supposed to.” 

With clarity: “I enter shared life because Jesus forms His people relationally, and I need others if I am going to become like Him.”

• Without clarity: “I serve because the church needs volunteers.”

With clarity: “I serve because Jesus is forming me into someone who gives myself away in love and participates in His mission.”

The outward action may be the same. But the understanding is different. The love is different. The motive is different.

Clear vision gives Christian practices their meaning, moving participation from mere compliance toward conviction.

Leaders Must Make the Vision Visible

This places a significant responsibility upon leaders. Leaders are not merely responsible for having a vision. They are responsible for making the vision visible. And that means leaders must first understand it themselves.

If the vision exists only as scattered convictions in the minds of leaders, people will probably experience church life in much the same way — as scattered parts. One ministry emphasizes mission. Another emphasizes prayer. A sermon emphasizes holiness. A group emphasizes relationships. A class teaches theology. All may be valuable. But who is continually helping people understand how they belong together?

Healthy formative leadership continually connects the parts to the whole. This is why a compelling vision must be communicated repeatedly — not as a slogan but as a governing framework:

• “This is why we practice this.”

• “This is how this contributes to becoming like Jesus.”

• “This is where this fits within the gospel story.”

• “This is what the Spirit is forming in us through this.”

The vision should appear in preaching, group life, and ministry training. It should also shape spiritual practices, mission, and the way leaders explain why the church does what it does.

When leaders continually connect the parts of church life to the compelling vision, people begin to see the whole for themselves — and vision becomes culture.

Vision and Process Belong Together

But vision alone is not enough. People also need a pathway. Vision tells us what God is forming. Process helps us understand how He forms it.

1. Vision without process may inspire us while leaving us uncertain about how to move forward.

2. Process without vision can become mechanical. We keep doing things without remembering why they matter.

Together they become transformational.

This is part of the purpose of the Through the Lens of Jesus Christ Series. Some articles help us see the large biblical vision of reality, humanity, and life under the reign of Jesus. Others explore the processes and relationships through which Christlike formation takes place. Still others examine the practices and environments that support that formation.

Vision awakens desire. Process gives direction. Together they create a pathway for transformation.

Believers Must Own the Vision

Yet responsibility does not rest with leaders alone. A healthy discipleship culture does not ask believers to accept a leader’s vision unquestioningly. It invites them to examine it. Search the Scriptures. Look closely at Jesus. Ask whether what is being taught actually reflects His character and teaching. Ask whether it reflects His purposes and way.

A compelling vision should be biblically faithful enough to test. The goal is not for someone eventually to say: “My pastor says this is what discipleship is.”  The goal is: “I can see this for myself.”  Believers have a responsibility to track with the vision and test it through Scripture. They must increasingly understand it for themselves and live accordingly. Leaders carry a serious responsibility to form and communicate a faithful vision, but disciples retain real agency and accountability before God.

We will each give an account for how we responded to what God has revealed through Christ and Scripture. Poor leadership may hinder our formation, but it cannot become our final excuse for failing to seek truth, discern faithfully, and follow Jesus. No leader can pursue God, discern what is true, or faithfully follow Jesus for us.

Leaders make the pathway visible, but believers must test it, own it, and faithfully walk it for themselves.

More Than Repeating What We Were Taught

But there is an even greater goal. We do not simply want disciples who can repeat the framework they were given. We want people who increasingly think like Jesus for themselves. A mature disciple should be able to encounter a situation the church has never specifically addressed and ask:

• How does this fit within the larger vision of life in Christ?

• What does Scripture help me see?

• What does the character and way of Jesus reveal here?

• What might the Holy Spirit be forming in us?

They can move in either direction — deductively or inductively. They can begin with the larger vision and ask, “What would faithfulness to Jesus look like here?”  Or they can begin with something happening in their ministry, relationships, or workplace and ask, “How does this connect to the larger reality revealed in Christ?”  The same process can help them make sense of what is happening in their family and community. 

This is more than replication. It is Christlike discernment. The goal is not dependence upon the leader’s explanations. It is the formation of believers whose perception has been increasingly shaped by Jesus. They can recognize biblical principles and make meaningful connections. They can also discern distortions and respond faithfully even when no one has previously told them exactly what to do.

A compelling vision gives believers an architecture for Christlike thinking, helping them increasingly see and discern through the lens of Jesus for themselves. It should not make people dependent on leaders to think for them. Instead, it should equip them to think increasingly like Christ, guided by Scripture, so they can discern faithfully and help others do the same. 

Give People the Map

Imagine a church where ordinary believers increasingly understand what God is doing in their lives:

• They know the story they are living in.

• They know the kind of people Jesus is forming.

• They understand why Scripture, prayer, and shared life matter. 

• They can also see how ministry, mission, and everyday faithfulness fit within the same vision.

• They can recognize where their minds need renewal and their loves need reordering. 

• They can also see where their motives need purification and their actions need greater alignment with Jesus.

• They have examined the vision in Scripture.

• They have begun to own it.

• They can think through new situations through the lens of Jesus.

• And increasingly, they can help someone else do the same.

That is why a compelling vision matters so much for a reproducing ministry of disciples and disciple-makers. If the vision remains only in the minds of leaders, multiplication will always bottleneck around leaders. But when ordinary believers can see the architecture and understand its biblical foundations, something changes. They can carry that vision with them and increasingly discern through it. 

Then something begins to multiply. The disciple no longer merely knows what the church does. The disciple understands what Jesus is doing. And eventually that disciple can turn to another person and say: “Come. Let me help you learn to follow Him.”  That is more than a ministry strategy. It is a people who can see. A people who can walk the path. And a people increasingly capable of helping others find their way with Jesus.

Give people the map, then help them learn to read it until they can walk the path with Jesus for themselves and help others find their way with Him.

A scene from The Chosen in which Jesus presents the Beatitudes as a kind of map, showing where people can look to recognize the life and character of His kingdom: