(All messages posted here are rough sketches of the message given)
I can relate to the movie Field of Dreams. My life changed when I heard the voice. Because of hearing that voice, I have been places and done things I would not have ever chosen for myself.Think back for a moment. Did you ever play-act? What did you pretend to be most often? Did any of you become what you wanted to be?
I wanted to be one of two things – an astronaut or a fireman. I did live out my other fantasy – I was a fireman. I loved it too. But I never tried to become the astronaut. Why? It may have been that I lost desire, but really, when I got older, I became embarrassed about telling people that I wanted to be something so fantastic. Most people would just laugh when I mentioned my lofty ambitions. So I left it back as a childhood fantasy.
This past week, I was kind of reminded of it as I was out on the beach. While out there one day I was watching these really cute girls – they were children – playing in the sand. They were building a sandcastle. It wasn’t the largest or most elaborate one that I’ve seen, but it didn’t matter – it was perfect for them. I could almost see them being a part of the act they were creating with their imaginations. It was fascinating! I could see that there was no limit to their imagination.
That’s the way children are though. But as people grow up, they lose much of their imagination and their vision.
The Bible tells us in Proverbs 29:18,
“If people can't see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; But when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed.”
In other words, when we fail to grasp God’s vision, we become stagnant, and we begin to die. How many people can you think of where this is the case? They go to work each day, but they just exist. Life is just a dull routine, without purpose, without passion.
Look with me at a good example of how to passionately live out God’s vision. It is Acts 2, verses 17 and 18. Peter is speaking these words right after God has poured out his Holy Spirit on those gathered together at Pentecost. While everybody is confused, he says,
"In the Last Days," God says, "I will pour out my Spirit on every kind of people: Your sons will prophesy, also your daughters; Your young men will see visions, your old men dream dreams. When the time comes, I'll pour out my Spirit On those who serve me, men and women both, and they'll prophesy.”
Now though we celebrated Pentecost several weeks ago, we still need to revisit it often to remember what happened and the significance to us here today. Pentecost is about dreaming God’s dreams – the ability to think God’s thoughts, to hear God’s thoughts, for the purpose of living God’s future.
I. Dream God’s Dream
When the Holy Spirit showed up in that Upper Room on Pentecost, those gathered together were just as bewildered as Kevin Costner’s character. They weren’t expecting something like this. They hadn’t planned for God to show up.
But on this day, God decided to show up and do a new thing. He gives them Spirit! They can now think God’s thoughts because God is with them – in them. This is confirmed in Hebrews 8:10 as it says:
This new plan I'm making with Israel isn't going to be written on paper, isn't going to be chiseled in stone; This time I'm writing out the plan in them, carving it on the lining of their hearts. I'll be their God, they'll be my people.
Can you imagine – God giving us a clear way to read his thoughts? Not just the ones that we have written in stone and on paper, but the very thoughts that he is thinking today! This is just awesome! And it a shame that most Christians don’t realize this! They want to relegate it away as fanciful dreams or wishful thinking, not dreams of reality – God’s vision!
But we can’t be too harsh on those who struggle with catching glimpses of God’s vision. We are all human and human vision is itself flawed. It is flawed because we tend to focus on ourselves. It comes down to what makes me happy, what I can get, and what puts me at the center. And the self-centered focus is further supported by consumerism and marketing. It feeds our egos to be more self-reliant and more independent. Think about all of the SUV commercials – in four-wheel drive, climbing steep muddy terrain – living life on the edge. That’s the vision they want you to catch, but I don’t know too many people that will sink $30,000 in a SUV and then take it out where it will get messed up. But you are promised with that sense of adventure and freedom. But all it really does is get us more in debt, more of living beyond our means.
But we’re not here today to talk about how to catch the vision for personal financial success – we’re here today to begin to grasp a glimpse of God’s future, here at Sunrise, and how your life is a part of that future. This doesn’t mean that we are going to bring Jesus into our dreams – it means that we are surrendering our dreams to grasp his. Dreaming God’s dreams.
The biggest obstacle that we will run into is that we are going to feel like we are limited. We are going to try to make God’s infinite dreams to fit into our finite understanding. But we’re going to have to stretch our imaginations on this one.
Here’s an exercise that will demonstrate just what I am talking about. On the reverse side of the insert in your bulletin, there is a graphic of nine dots.
What I want you to do is to connect all nine dots with only four straight lines and without picking up your pencil. Go ahead, try that.
When I first tried this, I failed miserably. I thought I could do it, thought I had done it before, but I couldn’t this time.
The problem I had was that I was constraining myself to some perceived boundaries. But, here is the solution and so you’ll see what I mean
You see, when you stop limiting yourself to these imaginary boundaries, it works!
The same goes with dreaming God’s dreams. We have to think beyond the boundaries of natural reason. We have to think big, really big! No not the jumbo, or the super-sized, or the mega-sized big, but
GOD-SIZED BIG! If you think back to what you have learned and been told about God, God never does anything small, or in an ordinary or expected way. It is always, what…big.
II. Articulate God’s Dream
Dream visioning. It is making your life count for God’s purpose. Not only do you need to dream God’s dream, you need to articulate God’s dream.
Habakkuk 2:1-3
1 I will climb up into my watchtower now and wait to see what the LORD will say to me and how he will answer my complaint. 2 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. 3 But these things I plan won't 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.
Does anyone know what the original Guttenberg Bible is? It is the first book that was ever printed, rather than copied by hand. It represents the dawn of the age of communication. This copy is very ornate and beautiful to look at, under glass. It is protected in a case enclosure so that nothing or no one can disturb it or damage it. But if we were needing to know its content, rather than its historical significance, this book is useless.
The same goes with God’s vision. What good is a vision if no one knows what it is? God vision is for all the people to see and rally behind. God never works in secret. The plan is out there for all to see and, for some, to scrutinize. But the one thing it is not, it’s not up for debate, no matter how outlandish it may appear.
III. Act on God’s Dream
Dream God’s vision! Articulate God’s vision! Act on God’s vision! Despite what others may think! Listen - God shares his vision and dream with people who passionately want to do God’s will. Did you hear what I just said? God shares his vision and dream with people who passionately want to do God’s will.
Isaiah, the prophet, was in the temple of God as we are today. Isaiah didn’t waste time when he was in the temple of God. Isaiah dream-visioned. So, in the midst of the singing and the preaching and everything that was going on in the temple, here’s what Isaiah heard:
"I heard the voice of the Lord. God said, "Whom will I send, and who will go for me?" Did you know that’s what God says when we come together in the temple of the Lord? "Whom will I send? Who will go for me?" God shares his vision and dream with people who passionately want to do God’s will. What did Isaiah say? Why do we call him the prophet Isaiah? "Here I am, God! Send me." Whatever it takes, whatever it costs, I don’t care. I just want to be used for your purpose.
Over the next few weeks, I will begin conveying the vision that God has been opening my eyes to for Sunrise. You will have the opportunity to have some input in how the vision is carried out. One of the ways is that I would like to get a Vision Retreat scheduled for early Fall in which, along with the Leadership Team, anyone can come and participate.
Let’s start Dreaming God-sized Dreams, Articulating those dreams, and then Act on those Dreams. Friends, God is dreaming of you and me, of how we can change not only ourselves, but the world. Dream on!
*Portions of this message were derived from a message by Mike Slaughter at Ginghamsburg Church
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