“I HOPE YOU DREAM”
What God Hopes For You
January 17, 2016
Cornerstone Community Church
She was born in Alabama in 1880. At the age of just 19 months she developed a serious infection, and because of it lost both her sight and her hearing. The first seven years of her life were an incredible struggle for her and her family. Then, in March of 1887, a young lady named Anne Sullivan was hired by the family to try to teach young Helen Keller how to communicate. The breakthrough came on April 5, 1887, when Anne was able to teach Helen that the word “water” referred to the liquid she bathed in and drank. From that day on there was no stopping Helen Keller. She graduated with honors from Radcliffe in 1904. She authored five books. She was instrumental in the fight to give women the right to vote, which was finally accomplished in 1920. She spent much of her time during World War 2 visiting soldiers who had lost their sight and/or hearing. She helped establish Braille as the standard for printed communication for the blind. When she died in 1968 at the age of 88, Helen Keller was world famous, an inspiration to everyone who knew about her.
She is also the author of one of my favorite quotes, which reads like this: “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”
The second verse to the LeAnne Womack hit song “I Hope You Dance” goes like this:
Never settle for the path of least resistance
Living might mean taking chances but they’re worth taking
Loving might be a mistake but it’s worth making
Don’t let some hell bent heart leave you bitter
When you come close to selling out reconsider
Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance
And when you get the chance to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance … I hope you dance.
So what do you think? Do you think God would agree with Helen Keller that “life is either a daring adventure or nothing?” Do you think God would agree with LeAnne Womack that “living might mean taking chances but they’re worth taking?” I think he would. If we were to sit on our Heavenly Father’s lap and ask, “Father, what do you hope for me,” I think God would say, “I hope you dream. I hope you dream big!”
According to the Bible, one of the signs that it’s the last days is that God’s people will dream dreams. That prophesy, which first occurs in the Old Testament book of Joel, was fulfilled in part on what we call the Day of Pentecost, the day the church was born 2,000 years ago. When the Holy Spirit was given to the first Christians shortly after Jesus ascended into heaven, Peter told the watching and wondering crowd that what they were seeing was a fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy. Here are the words Peter quoted: “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.” (Acts 2:17) One of the things God hopes for us when his Spirit comes to live in us is that we will dream dreams.
This morning I want to talk with you about the ABC’s of dreaming. Dreaming is an art most of us have either forgotten or have never developed. It seems that both as a church and as a culture our most important value has become comfort. When we do dream, we dream of becoming more comfortable. We dream of vacations in Hawaii or the Bahamas or Tahiti. We dream of putting a pool in our back yard, or joining a club with a larger pool. We dream of living in large homes that are maintained by servants. We dream of larger TVs and more powerful sound systems that we can enjoy as we sit in plush furniture. After all, what is the name of the number one selling chair in America? Is it the “worker boy?” Is it the “achiever boy?” Of course not. The number one chair in America is the La-Z-Boy. When we dream, we dream of becoming more comfortable.
I read something recently that really challenged me. See if you agree with this: “To be a follower of Jesus you must renounce comfort as the ultimate value of your life.” Please understand, I’m not saying that being uncomfortable is some great virtue. The Bible nowhere suggests that God is going to give us brownie points for wearing burlap instead of cotton and for sleeping on plywood instead of a mattress. God isn’t against comfort. But neither is God’s greatest goal for us to be comfortable. When God says, “I hope you dream,” he wants us to dream about far more than being comfortable.
This morning I want to suggest to you three things I think God wants us to dream about – the ABC’s of dreaming. I believe God wants us to dream about what we can ask, about what we can become, and about what we can contribute. Ask, become, contribute – those are the ABC’s of dreaming. Let me explain what I mean.
Dream About What You Can Ask
When you read through the Gospels you’ll notice that Jesus never taught his disciples how to preach. Jesus never taught his disciples how to do miracles. But Jesus did teach his disciples how to pray. You will likely remember these words from the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus said, “Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8)
Now most of us who follow Jesus are in the habit of praying to one degree or another. But if we are honest with ourselves, we will have to admit that our prayers are pretty tame. We say thank you to God for our food, as we should; thanksgiving should be a large part of our prayers. But while much of prayer should be given over to praising God and thanking God, and while prayer to a large extent is just talking to God about anything and everything, God also told us to ask and to seek and to knock. So what do we ask God for? We ask God to “bless” us. Have you ever asked yourself when you have prayed that prayer how you would know whether or not God answered it? The skeptic hears us pray that prayer and thinks it’s basically a cop out. After all, with a prayer as general as “God bless me,” we can claim that anything that happens is an answer to our prayer. If the sun shines, we can say God is blessing us with sun. If it rains, we can say God is blessing us with rain. When we pray so generally, the skeptic asks, how do we know God is answering us?
But that’s not an issue when we pray big prayers. And God wants us to pray big prayers. I seriously doubt that God has ever heard a prayer and said, “Wow, that’s too much! I can’t do that!” Listen to this promise Jesus gave his followers shortly before his death. It’s recorded in the Gospel of John: “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” (John 14:12-14) Jesus commanded his followers to ask, and to ask big! He commanded us to ask for anything in his name. He challenged us to do greater things than he did, and he promised that we could do them if we asked!
John Hyde grew up in a pastor’s home in Carthage, Illinois. He often heard his father talk about prayer, and he often heard his father talk about the need for missionaries to go overseas to tell the world about Jesus. After going to seminary, John Hyde committed himself to becoming a missionary, and he eventually went to Bombay for that purpose. Hyde initially struggled to learn the language and to adapt to the climate, but once he became acclimated he began to travel from village to village to tell people about Jesus Christ. But only a handful of people responded to Hyde. Most just turned away.
Hyde grew more and more discouraged, until he was near the point of quitting. But then Hyde came across these verses in the Old Testament book of Isaiah: “You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth.” (Isaiah 62:6-7) Hyde took those verses as a challenge to pray more persistently and passionately. He determined that he would give God no rest until God answered his prayers. Hyde began to skip meals to pray. He began to spend entire days and entire nights in prayer. And things began to happen.
At the beginning of 1908, Hyde decided it was time to pray some big prayers, to ask God for some big things. He began to pray that God would enable him to convert one person to Jesus every day for the entire year. By December 31, God had more than answered his prayers. In 1908, after years of seeing only a handful of converts, Hyde led over 400 people to faith in Christ. Hyde decided he wasn’t dreaming big enough. So in 1909, John Hyde asked God to enable him to convert two people to Jesus every day for the entire year. God answered his prayers. Hyde decided he still wasn’t dreaming big enough. In 1910 Hyde asked God to enable him to convert four people to Jesus every day for the entire year. And God answered his prayers.
So what are you praying for? Let me suggest that if you aren’t asking God to do something that is beyond what you could possibly do yourself, then you are entirely missing out on the purpose and power of prayer. God didn’t say, “Ask me to do the things that you can do for yourself.” How do you respond when your son or daughter ask you to do something for them that they can do themselves? Suppose your 16-year-old son came into your room one morning and said, “Dad, can you tie my shoes for me?” You would say, “Tie them yourself.” And what if he said to you, “But then I’d have to bend over, and besides, you do it neater than I do.” You might just be a little bit put off, I suspect. I don’t think God feels particularly honored when we ask him to do things that we can do ourselves. When we sit in our La-Z-Boy and pray, “God, help me get in shape,” I suspect God’s response is, “Get out of the chair and get yourself in shape, my precious but lazy child.”
But what honors God is when we come to him and ask him to do what we could never do on our own. It honors God when we say, “God, I know I can’t do this myself. I know you are the only one who is powerful enough to accomplish this. So God, I am going to ask you to do this. I am going to stretch my imagination and ask you to do something that right now strikes me as impossible.” I think that kind of prayer excites God! I think God is just waiting for us to pray like that.
So what is the big prayer you are praying right now? What great thing are you asking God to do? If there is no such prayer, then let me challenge you to dream a little about what you can ask. Take some time to get alone and to dream some dreams. Dream about the big things you’d like God to do in your family. Dream about the big things you’d like God to do in your career. Dream about the big things you’d like God to do in your neighborhood. Write them down. Start a prayer journal. And keep track of God’s answers.
Dream About What You Can Become
Second, dream about what you can become. Here’s another quote I want you to consider this morning: “You were made for something more than merely avoiding failure.” That quote convicted me. There are too many times in my life when my primary goal is simply to not fail. As long as I don’t fall on my face, that’s good enough. As long as I don’t get hurt, I will have succeeded.
But that’s no way to live. God made you for more than merely avoiding failure. In fact, God made you to become someone great. God’s goal for you and his design for you is that you become like Jesus. If you don’t believe me let me show you from the Bible. It’s in Romans 8; let me show it to you in two different versions. One version says it this way: “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” (Romans 8:29, NIV) Here’s how the Good News Bible says it: “Those whom God had already chosen he also set apart to become like his Son, so that the Son would be the first among many brothers.”
What does God hope for you? God hopes that you become like his Son Jesus, that your character and your heart become like the character and heart of Jesus. Too often we content ourselves to say, “At least I’m better than my neighbor,” or “At least I’m better than my sister.” “Sure,” we say, “I’m no Mother Teresa, but I’m not a criminal either. I do my job, I pay the bills, I give a little to charity, and I even coach my kid’s baseball team. I’m not a bad guy.” But God’s dream for us is that we become much more than just “not a bad guy.” God’s dream for us is that we become more than Mother Teresa. God’s dream for us is that we become like Jesus.
A prominent rabbi once said, “A man’s dreams are an index to his greatness.” There’s a story in the Gospels where two of Jesus’ disciples were engaged in an argument about who was the greatest. The other disciples heard about the argument and were offended by it, so they went and tattled to Jesus. I have always been intrigued by Jesus’ response. Jesus did not go to those two disciples and say, “How dare you want to be great! How egotistical to aspire to greatness!” No, instead Jesus said, “Look, guys, if you want to be great, let me tell you how to do it. Whoever wants to be great in the kingdom of God must be the servant of all.” And Jesus went on to say, “That’s why I came to earth. I came not to be served, but to serve, and to give my life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:24-28)
That’s what God hopes for you. God hopes you become great. God designed you for greatness. And the way to become great is to become like Jesus, to become a servant. So dream. Dream of becoming great. Don’t settle for avoiding failure. Don’t be content to be not as bad as the guy next door. Dream God’s dream for you; dream of becoming like Jesus. Dream of becoming a person of irresistible compassion and impeccable character and irrepressible joy. You were made for more than simply avoiding failure. You were designed for greatness.
Dream About What You Can Contribute
Here’s a third thing to dream about – dream of what you can ask, dream of what you can become, and dream of what you can contribute.
John F. Kennedy wasn’t the first one to say it, but it is his voice we best remember uttering these words: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Perhaps John F. Kennedy’s greatest virtue was his ability to inspire us as Americans to dream. He inspired us to dream about landing a man on the moon, and just eight years later, in 1969, that’s exactly what we did. And he inspired us to dream about more than what we could get from our government. He inspired us to dream about what we could contribute.
Many years ago I went to one of those meetings where a person offered to help me get started in a business that would help me realize my dreams. As part of the sales pitch he drew some circles on a board and asked me to fill in those circles with some of the things I dreamed about. So I made my list. I identified my dreams. Do you know what they were? They were dreams of things I wanted to consume. I dreamt about TVs and cars and houses and vacations. I dreamt about things that would make me comfortable.
But I am discovering what many people before me discovered long ago. The secret to fulfillment and meaning in life is not how much we consume but how much we contribute. It’s a hard lesson to learn, I will admit. So much of what we hear and see tells us just the opposite. If I watch TV or look at a Google ad I am told that the secret to satisfaction is to consume – to consume more beer, more French fries, more and costlier clothes, and bigger and faster cars. Our philosophy is threatening to become, “I consume, therefore I exist.”
And God says, “Oh, I hope for so much more for you than that. I hope you do more than consume. I hope you contribute. I have gifted you and designed you to contribute in significant ways to your family and to your school and to your church and to your community. You have so much to give. I hope you dream about more than consuming. I hope you dream about what you can contribute.”