Over the years, Faith has come a long way. We now have many successes we
can point to: the Preschool, the renovations of the facility, the Light
Service, the various support groups we encourage. We have survived the
rust belt, the rubber industry debacle, and the corporate raids. The wounds
have healed for those who were here then; they have been forgotten by many
others and not even a factor for most. My dream has kept me a part of this
church the 17 years I have been here. You have done great things. It is a
humbling thing to be chosen by God to fulfill a dream. Today, I believe
its time to focus my energies on the mission at hand.
A) To reach the unchurched with the good news of Jesus;
B) To equip them with a faith that works in real life;
C) To send them out to serve the world in the name of Christ.
To do that I believe our Values for Ministry need to be:
1) To lift high in prayer the name of Jesus Christ in all we say and do;
2) To enable all persons to experience a worshipful relationship with Jesus
Christ;
3) To nurture and empower all persons to be disciples through a small group
centered ministry that includes learning, service, fellowship and spiritual
growth;
4) To help every Christian discover their spiritual gifts for ministry;
5) To relieve suffering in the world;
I tell my story today because I believe God has likewise given each of you
a dream. In these last two weeks, I have heard from many of you who have
shared with me your dreams. Thank you for doing that. God bless you.
Remember, even though there may be detours along your way that only means
there are other ways to fulfill your dream.
I believe there is power in a dream. I believe that God can do way beyond
what you can even begin to imagine. The passage from the Bible read just a
few moments ago reads, "But those who trust in the Lord...." In the New
International Version it says, "But those who wait on the Lord shall renew
their strength..." There's another translation that reads, "But those who
hope in the Lord will renew their strength, they shall mount up as on the
wings of an eagle. They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and
not faint."
Today as we launch our focus on jump-starting your dream, I'm can remember
how my heart was jump-started when I watched the 1996 Olympics. The
opening ceremony for those Olympics was incredible. Talk about a dream for
so many athletes and others from around the world. The theme song for
those Olympics was "The Power of a Dream." I want you to listen very
carefully to a little part of that song. Let's listen and learn from
this...
Deep within each heart there lies a magic spark that lights the fire of our
imagination. And since the dawn of man, the strength of just "I can" has
brought together people of all nations. There's nothing ordinary in the
living of each day. There's a special part every one of us will play.
Feel the flame, forever burn, teaching lessons we must learn to bring us
closer to the power of the dream. As the world gives us its best stand
apart from the rest, it is the power of the dream that brings us here.
Your mind will take you far, the rest is just pure heart. You'll find your
fate in all your own creation. Every boy and girl as they come into the
world they bring the gift of hope and inspiration. Feel the flame, forever
burn, teaching lessons we must learn to bring us closer to the power of the
dream.
Let us pray: God, we want to learn about the power behind the dream. We
want to learn about the power that's available for every dreamer. As we
take some time now to listen to you and to get in touch with our God-given
dream, we thank you that you'll show us what you dreamed when you first
thought of us. God, now, we dedicate this time to you, in Christ's name we
pray. AMEN.
Today, I want to focus on three steps in jump-starting your dream: Prayer,
Dare, Share. The first step to jump-starting your dream is PRAYER. When we
pray we transfer the risk, responsibilities and the rewards to God. Prayer
puts drive-power in a dream. Prayer forces us to determine whether we are
pursuing a dream or a scheme. If the dream only benefits our selves and is
selfish and self-centered, it's a scheme. It is hard to pray for a scheme
to come true. But if the dream gives itself away and invests itself in
others--the dream is a gift from God and God will honor the dreamer. It is
easy to pray for a God-driven dream. God-driven dreamers have God powering
their dreams. Schemes are risky because, the only power driving it is the
schemer. Prayer transfers our dream to its source and in whose hands the
dream lies. And when that source is God something very remarkable happens!
Erick Lock was a wrestler, a young teenager. Thirty-three seconds into his
wrestling match, he broke his neck. All of Eric's dreams seemed to be
shattered. His parents were told as they waited in the Emergency Room that
Eric probably wouldn't live. And if he did live, Eric would never breath
on his own. So many of their dreams were dashed. Hopes were lost. And
yet Eric's parents persisted in prayer. When they got together with Eric
they began to pray with him. They said, "Eric, let's not allow this
reversal to turn into regrets. If dreams turn into regrets they can
destroy us. Let's put power into the dream and transfer the dream to the
One who gave you dreams in the first place. And we can do that if we
pray." So they prayed together. Eric lived and he ended up breathing on
his own. He is still in a wheelchair and a quadriplegic. His dream now is
one day walking out of that chair.
My friends, what was most important for Eric was not so much the dream but
how God honored the dreamer. What happens when we transfer our dream to God
is that the dream doesn't become the ultimate. Rather, it's the dreamer
that God is most concerned with. It's you and me. What's important is
what happens to us as we live out our God-given dreams. As Eric trusted
the Lord and waited upon the Lord, his strength was renewed and he lived.
Eric's strength was mounted up on the wings of the eagle. He was able to
run and not be weary, run and not be faint.
In other words, as we transfer in prayer our dream to God, the dream-giver,
our prayer also transforms the dreamer. I think about when in our
congregation, Jim discovered he had leukemia. The doctors told him he
would probably die from the disease. This can't happen! Jim was just a
young with two teenage daughters. He was put on our prayer list. His dream
was to see his two girls graduate from college. Through prayer and
persistence Jim was able to endure a lot of chemotherapy, not just once but
three regimens over a six-year period. Each time, it was a longer road back
to recovery. But each time Jim found not only his health but also his
faith being transformed. I remember one particular afternoon when I
visited him at his home. He was in his bedroom, pretty weak. His wife and
daughters and dog Randy were with him. Now I must tell you, it has usually
been my experience that when I come into the room, I am the one expected to
pray. After all, I am the professional prayer. But that day, instead, Jim
asked us to all gather around and hold hands. And it was he who offered
the prayer for all of us. The Holy Spirit convinced me that day that my
responsibility was to help others in their prayer life rather than give
into to temptation to even unconsciously usurp that privilege for myself.
Jim as we know passed away back in 1993. But I think everyone will tell
you that Jim Jaccaud is remembered as an even more beautiful person after
having been transformed by his faith than before. That's what can happen
as God gives us a dream and we jump-start that dream. Still, for God the
dream isn't the ultimate. It's the dreamer with which God is most
concerned. In the end, it was Jim with whom God was concerned.
Also prayer transcends the dreamer. Walt Kallestad of Community Church of
Joy, Glendale, AZ when Kathy I visited there back in 1997 told the story of
Ivy Olsen. Ivy had gone through a very bitter divorce. It was
Thanksgiving and she was rather lonely. Her children were upset. All they
had for dinner were some hot dogs. So she fixed up a little picnic, went
to the nearby park and cooked the hot dogs over the grill. As she walked
back to her apartment complex, a woman from a nearby apartment complex
hollered out the window, "Hi! How are you?" They carried on a little
conversation. "Have you had Thanksgiving yet?" she asked. "Well, we had
some hotdogs." "You come up and have Thanksgiving with me." And so the
family went up and they had the most delicious Thanksgiving feast you could
possibly imagine. They were stuffed. The hostess sent home leftovers with
the family--turkey, stuffing--all the great things people have on
Thanksgiving. They loaded up and headed home.
Once home Ivy transferred the food to her own containers.
The next day she walked the empty Tupperware back to the lady with a thank
you note. She knocked on the door but there was no answer. She then went
to the Super and said, "We were celebrating Thanksgiving in this apartment
yesterday and I was just returning these things. Can you let me in to
return these things?" The apartment manager said, "Not in there lady.
There's been no one in that apartment for six months." Ivy said, "It was
an angel." Ivy said that she had Thanksgiving dinner with an angel. Well,
it transcended what they had dreamed about.
Prayer does that. Prayer transfers the dream; it transforms the dream and
it transcends the dream, beyond what we can even begin to dream about.
That's why the bible very clearly tells us, trust in the Lord, wait on the
Lord, hope in the Lord and you will renew your strength--your strength to
dream. It will give you hope and where there is hope in the present; there
is power to dream in the future.
Second step in jump-starting your dream is to DARE. Now it's scary to
dream. I have always been hesitant to start talking about dreams because
people think I'm crazy. The Monday night before last at the All Committee
Night, I shared my dream to do away with all the Committees in favor of
Ministry Teams whose ultimate focus was to win people for Christ within the
area of their responsibility and expertise. When you talk about a big
dream (in fact the bigger the dream the crazier they think you are) you
have to kind of be careful. People quickly jump-start their own
conclusions. But it's important to dare to dream. Daring helps us
jump-start the dream. It's the kind of daring that Christa McColllough had
in the Challenger when only seconds after the launch the shuttle blew up.
Christa and all the astronauts' lives were lost. But because they dared,
they didn't die with their dreams still inside. They died for the dream.
As many did in the Civil War, the World Wars. Are you willing to die for a
God-given dream in your own life? It takes a lot of courage to dare.
I think of Andy Singletary. Andy was a slow learner. Andy didn't fit in
with the rest of the students and so Andy was in special education. He had
an IG of 55. Andy's parents decided to mainstream their son. Gradually,
Andy was integrated into the full curriculum. Dedicated teachers worked
with him. At 19 he was a freshman. But Andy did go on to graduate. On
graduation day, something astonishing happened. When his name was called,
the entire 192-member class rose to their feet and gave Andy a thunderous
applause. Andy had touched lives. Andy was somebody because he dared to
dream. He dared to dream God-sized dreams.
And now, I encourage you to take the third step. The first step was
prayer, second dare, the third step is to SHARE.
In the movie Dead Poets Society, Robin Williams was playing Mr. Teede.
Robin Williams looked into the faces of his young students one day. They
were sitting there with a glaze over their eyes. They were all dead! They
weren't dreaming God-sized dreams. (God-sized dreams always come in sizes
too big so that we can grow into them.) Well, Robin saw that these
students were just sitting there--dead. So he had them stand up and come
with him. He took them to a gallery of all the former classmates from the
different classes of yesteryear. He said, "I want you to look into their
faces." You could see very stoic faces and you could see there wasn't a
lot of joy of life or vitality or spirit. Then Robin Williams in that
scene starts to whisper, "Carpe diem." Then louder and louder--you know
what it means--"Seize the day." I believe we now have the opportunity to
seize the day to pass on God-sized dreams to the next generation.
Friends, one of the greatest assignments God gives us is to teach our
children to dream. The reason they're out shooting one another, the reason
our children are lost and lonely and confused with no sense of destiny, the
reason so many people living next door to us are depressed or
self-indulgent is because they have no God-sized dream. They don't know
where they're going or what's their purpose. And that's why we Christians
are called to help shape and share with them God's dreams.
Today as we wrap up this series, my prayer for you is that we take God's
dreams and begin to live them out. And we can, too, pass them on. I
believe the world is a God-dream. And He calls us to make the best it can
possibly be.
AMEN
