Light Service Sermons for the Month
The Power of Dreams
DATE: January 3, 1999
TEXT: GenesisJeremiah 29:11-12
Light Service Sermons for the Month
How to Wake Up Your Dreams
The Power of Dreams
DATE: January 3, 1999
TEXT: GenesisJeremiah 29:11-12
It's a new year sisters and brothers in Christ and with it I would like to begin today a series of messages for those who like to dream about what might be this coming year and for people who don't dream. I believe you cannot live without a dream. In fact, without a dream, I believe we mentally, spiritually if not physically shrivel up and die before our time. I am convinced that what causes most of the bitterness, divisiveness, and hostility in people is their lack of a creative, redeeming dream for their lives. So as we move into this last year before the big Y2K, I want to talk about dreaming. Norman Vincent Peale when well into his 80's was quoted as saying, "To achieve anything significant, everyone needs a little imagination and a big dream." I want all of you to hear that--because it's true. I heard an interview with 82 year old Kirk Douglas. Kirk suffered a stroke this past year and was thought to never able to talk again let alone act. He not only has his voice back he is staring in a movie being filmed right now in Reno, Nevada. I believe God has planted God-sized dreams into every single person, into every one of you. So I want to encourage you this morning to this year work on your dream. Since we are going to be talking about dreams, we need to define what a dream is. My definition is: A dream is the distinct vision and hope that stirs our imagination and calls us forward into the future. I am not talking here about "wishful thinking." I am talking about that vision thing, that which calls on us to create, to grow, to expand the best that is in us human beings. But before we talk about the dreams themselves, we need to focus on what it takes to live out our God-given dreams. And that means we must talk first about commitment. No great dream happens without commitment. Commitment moves thought into action. It's like digging for gold. When we dig for gold we have to remove a lot of debris before we get to the core of the gold. For many people, however, the surface or superficial limitations provide barriers. They too often let a failure, a disappointment or setback--whatever it might be--result in the dumping of their dreams. One of the greatest tragedies in the world is when someone is buried with their dreams still in them. How can we live out our dreams? It begins with the kind of commitment that Lloyd Garrison had in 1831. Garrison published The Liberator in Boston. This newspaper had a small circulation, but it was influential and at times aroused violent public reaction. In 1832, Garrison formed the first society for the immediate abolition of slavery. In 1835, Garrison's life was endangered by a mob in Boston for his views. Can you imagine one man standing up against the experts, standing up against the government and declaring that slavery was wrong? Even the church believed at the time that slavery was instituted by God. Much of our economy was built around the concept of slavery. But Garrison's belief in equality did not stop there. His fight to give women equal rights in the American Anti-Slavery Society, formed in 1833, split the abolitionist movement. Indeed, he refused to vote and opposed the United States government because it permitted slavery. He eventually approved of Abraham Lincoln and supported his Administration during the Civil War. Lloyd Garrison had a dream that every man, woman and child should have the dignity of being free. Garrison continued to issue his Liberator until 1865, when the 13th Amendment to the Constitution ended slavery. More than any single person, he influenced the abolition of slavery. But it took a lot of commitment. It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears. It didn't just happen--a commitment had to be there. Consider also the commitment of Oscar. Oscar wanted to be an entertainer. Oscar had this dream of making people happy--entertaining them. Oscar ended up at Columbia Law School. He was doing what he was expected to do instead of pursuing his heart dream. Oscar got a side job in the entertainment industry and started to dabble somewhat in the industry. One day his dream was sparked when he met another guy. His name was Richard. Richard Rogers. They collaborated and they ended up dreaming, working and making the commitment together -- and out came OKLAHOMA (a production that ran 2012 times). Not only did they collaborate on that production but also The King and I, South Pacific and The Sound of Music in which Oscar wrote the words, "Climb every mountain, ford every stream, follow every rainbow until you find your dream." Commitment. The reason we Christians make commitments is because God has made a commitment to us. It's the commitment read for us a few moments ago in Jeremiah, " For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope." Do we honestly think that we are merely accidents of certain amino acids and protoplasm? No! We were created for a purpose and with a dream to fulfill. But it takes commitment and it takes courage. It takes a lot of courage to be a dreamer. Many people write off dreamers as unrealistic, unbalanced. And when you share a God-sized dream, they think you're crazy. As a result, many people don't talk about their dreams or act on their dreams because they know there will always be those out there who are quick to say, "I told you so." So they abandon their dreams. When he first began playing his guitar and singing, Elvis Presley's schoolmates derisively coined a term to describe its bad quality: "Elvised it." Later the teenage Presley repeatedly drove a company truck past the Memphis recording Service before scrounging the courage to record a song he had written for his mother. Eighteen years elapsed from the Columbus conceived of his voyage of discover and fulfilled it by weighing anchor in Palos Bay. Eighteen years of poverty, ridicule and disappointment. Elena Bonner typed and edited as her husband, Andrei Sakharov, wrote his memoirs, which they smuggled from the Soviet Union. As he wrote, the KGB often stole the writing. It would simply vanish. On one occasion, when he learned of a particularly severe loss, Sakharov "had the expression of a man who has just learned of the death of someone close to him," Elana wrote. After a few days, however, he sat at his desk and rewrote the material. Why do we Christians refuse our faith just because it makes demands on our time, talent, and treasure? Or refuse a new challenge because "we have never done that before"? Or get discouraged because we sang or taught badly, or it seems we are no closer to our dreams than we were last year? Do we not have Jesus Christ as our savior? Rita took courage when in the middle of the night smoke saturated and permeated the air space in her home. To save her and her son's life she ran to his room grabbed him up in her arms and on the way out was able to grab her pet cat as well. There she stood, a single mother, watching as everything she owned in the world, everything she had worked a lifetime for--all her possessions, her jewelry, her clothes, everything--it was gone! But Rita stood there with courage and she said, "I still have my dreams." Nothing can destroy a God-given dream because God always fights for the dream and the dreamer. The Bible tells us in Mark 6:20, "Take courage." Courage is not something we have to conjure up--it's courage that God gives to the dreamer. Take it! If your dream is the right one, God will give the courage to live your dream. By the way, the best way to recover a loss of courage is to quickly reengage what brought the loss, whether it was a problem we cannot solve, a temptation we cannot overcome, or a virtue we cannot acquire. Whatever causes our loss of courage and brings our surrender, we must confront it again and work to master it. Otherwise, we will be gored on the horns of fear and failure that snagged us. Admitting our fear but refusing to flee from it, choosing instead to run directly at it, builds up our third necessary component for realizing our dreams--confidence. Dan Fouts quarterbacked the San Diego Chargers for 18 years. In that time they rewrote the meaning of offensive football in the NFL, a legacy still impacting pro football in the 1990s. His leadership in the huddle and in executing plays was unassailable. Quarterbacking demands someone confident of his abilities, to be willing to take risks. Fouts' confidence, however, came from prior years of trial and error. His confidence came through his willingness to fail 50 percent of the time, but a confidence that included picking up and trying again. I believe we in the church need to take a lesson from the National Football League. Courage to do what God has called us to do means we must being willing to fail 50% of the time but then pick ourselves up and try again. However, is not the church most often intimidated by those who want the results guaranteed before an effort is launched? It that were true in the NFL, what would happen to Monday Night Football, or any game for that matter? Isn't part of the reason Ohio State so often loses to Michigan is the confidence Michigan has to defeat Ohio State? And if that is true, doesn't' our confidence as Christians rest on knowing that with God all things are possible for those who believe in Him and his mission to win disciples? In 1914 the French never contemplated defeat at the hands of Germany. The essence of optimism over Germany's eventual defeat is revealed in an apocryphal report to General Joseph Joffre from General Ferdinand Foch: My center is broken, my right retreats, the situation is excellent: I attack." That optimism brought Allied victory in 1918. The first generation of church leaders expressed a similar buoyancy. They baptized every adversity, creating a grace from disgrace. They gladly accepted and gratefully endured all setbacks and attacks. Their uncontrollable merriment fills the New Testament. Paul is in jail but not the Word. Peter is on the run but the Word still conquers human hearts. Christians lose their possessions, jobs, and lives, but others fill in the emptiness, unable to resist the sway of Christ who uses even suffering to proclaim his conquest of sin. We Christians of the 20th century need to recapture that primal optimism. After all, we have Jesus. Our confidence comes from our relationship with God. Our confidence starts within us, providing a solid basis for relating to others. For Christians, God's presence within is sufficient to build that confidence. Our importance is based on what God has done for us in Jesus! We are God's children. However unsure of ourselves we might become, we can always rely our relationship with Christ. That awareness should make us master of all we face--and it eliminates the need to look to others, to sexual conquests, to riches, to fame or to any other source for self-esteem. I share with you in closing these words from the Bible, II Samuel 22:31, "As for God, his way is perfect." We can rely on God for confidence because God's way is perfect. Today I invite you to allow God to take the dreams that were planted when you were first born--and wake them up! As you are live out your life, don't dump the dreams! Don't abandon those God-given dreams. Let God wake up your dreams today this year!
AMEN