The Mission to Dream

Today, what we're gonna do everybody say today, today, we have week number three with a message that I am calling on mission to dream, look at your neighbor and say we are on mission. And I believe that not only are we meant to dream, but it was God's mission and plan for us to dream, because I know this, because he dreams, and we were created in His image to be like him. Okay, so just a reminder for us, Dream is a series of thoughts, images and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep or a daydream. And what I specifically want to kind of lock in on today is this version here, this Word version. I don't know why I said that. Okay, this part of it is thoughts, okay, a dream. In the in the concept of it's a thought, okay, the thoughts that God has, the things that God thinks, Okay, the Bible tells us that God has a dream or a thought. In Isaiah, 55 I love this verse. It says, my thoughts, okay, are nothing like your thoughts, says the Lord, how many of us are happy about that? And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts. We know that God dreams he thinks about things he he has things in his mind. And today I want to look at the way that God dreams, the purpose in it, the mission of it, the purpose and the calling that God dreams. And I want to look specifically at how the way that God dreams affects your dreams, and the mission that God has for his dreams and how they can affect the plan and the calling and the mission of the dreams that we have. Does that sound good? Alright, so we're going to pray, and then we're going to get rolling. Father, thank you so much for today. I thank You, Lord, that you are here, that you're with us, God. I thank you that you have created us in your image. God that your thoughts are higher than our thoughts, that your ways are higher than our ways God that we don't we are not limited by a small minded God, but we get to serve a God who is limitless and so Lord, today I just pray that You would open our hearts and our minds to think like you think. I pray that You would give us eyes to see and ears to hear, and Lord, we just thank you that every day the sun is going to shine a little bit more in Jesus name amen, alright, one of the most amazing things about God, I think, is his creativity. Okay, how many of you would say I'm a creative person? A few, okay, a few of you, okay? And I bet if we went around, each of you would be creative in a different way, like I saw Miss Linda back there, and I know that she's creative musically, like I know some of you are creative artistically, some of you maybe you're a great speaker, or you're a writer, or you are really good with your hands, or you do things differently each of us, like creativity looks different to each of us. But the thing about God is He doesn't have an attribute of creativity. He is creative. It's who he is. It's not like like a characteristic, it's who he is. In fact, it's the first thing we learn about God in Genesis, one, one, the first time we see God. The name of God there is Elohim, and it actually means Creator God, or creative God. It's who he is. When he introduces himself to us at the beginning of the Bible, he says, Hi, I'm the creator. I'm the one who's creative. The everything we see, everything we know, everything we look at and we are, is because he thought it up. Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever thought about looked around and saw how different each one of us are not just how we look, but how we're wired, how we're gifted, how we talk, how we sound, languages, everything that goes on, not to mention all the different flowers and and they all have a purpose. And the the bugs and the grass and the trees, everything is created by God with a purpose, like we think they're just annoying mosquitoes, but they actually have a purpose. Like everything that we see was all out of the mind of a very creative God. God thought it up, he dreamt it up, and then he spoke it into existence. And the coolest thing is, he gifts up. Us with creativity. And just as we've been talking about this last few weeks, I want us to think about dreams this way that God deposits his creativity in us in the form of dreams, visions and plans. That's what your dreams are. They're God's creative ideas about your life. Okay, he sees things on earth that he wants to accomplish. He sees holes and things that need to come about. And he gives us with spiritual and natural gifts to be able to do the things or think up the things that we need to accomplish this. So, everything that's created was a gift from God, everything that comes about, new inventions, new ideas, things that come to pass, they all came from God. They all come from God. He gifts us as humans, whether we know him or not, because He created us with the ability to create. How do I know that? Because he's creative, he is creative, he is creativity. It's who he is. Do we understand that? And and a lot of creativity is for a purpose, right? It's to make things better or make things different, but it's also for enjoyment. It's also just so that we can enjoy looking at things like art and music and and poetry and all those things that are creative. Like some of it's God gifted it to us just because He loves us, just because he said, Here, just enjoy this beautiful gift from somebody who can paint. Like, I can't paint. I try to do it. Paint by numbers. I didn't get past one. Like, I'm terrible. They're like, so small, like, I couldn't do it, you know, I couldn't do it. But some people it's amazing. Like, if you go to a museum, it's like, who did who thought this up? God put a dream in someone's mind to think up these amazing pictures and then gave them the ability to create them. That's the kind of creative God that we serve. And it's amazing that each one of us has these different gifts and creativity and dreams, and so we what we need to think about is that the dream for our lives are unique and different based on the gifts that God's given us, and they're all different. So we can't compare, we can't contrast, right? They're based on how you were created in the mind of the One who created you. So some people are really good at certain things, and other people are really bad at certain things. Yesterday, I spent most of the day wrapping Christmas presents. I'm bad. Okay, I will say I only had one present where the wrapping paper didn't completely cover. So sorry, Carson, because I, you know, my son sent me a video of, like, how to do it so that it will cover but I didn't have time for that, so I just found a scrap, and I scotch taped it on there, but it's on the bottom, so it's totally fine, right? Like, it's just not my gift, okay? Like, who in here is, like, I'm an excellent gift wrapper. Yeah, there's a few of you, if you would like to come to my house. I still have a couple more. My mom is an amazing gift wrapper. Like, if you go to her house, like, everything has a bow and they all match, and there's like, a theme of color. And, I mean, the kids don't notice. They rip into those presents, like it's going out of style, you know? But like, my mom spends so much time making all these gifts beautiful and and I'm like, we don't need bows, we don't need tags. I get a Sharpie. It's wrapped. I'm like to Cooper from mom, like, That's it, you know, it's not my gift. But some people have that gift, and they have the ability, so you have the creative ideas, and then you have the gift to make it happen, right? Other people have different gifts. God's created us each uniquely to do different things. He wired us different. That's how he made us. And imagine that each of us different, each of us unique. But the gifts that God gave you go with the dream that he has for you. Think of the organization that's needed to think about each and every person the purpose that God had. I'm going to create this person to do this thing, and when I create them to do this thing, they're going to need this, and they're going to need this, and they're going to need this, and I'm going to equip them The Bible says, with everything they need for life and godliness. And then you come and you're like, Okay, what is my purpose? What's my dream? I don't know. And you search and you search and you search. But I wonder if we began to think about I wonder who might know what the dream that I'm supposed to have this I wonder if we start to think. I wonder if the One who created me creatively could let me in on the creativity that he has for my life. He can show you the dream that he has for you. God, had a dream, a creative plan about you. Isn't that a. You. Each one of you look at your neighbor and say, you. And that's everybody in every room, in every space. God saw you. God created you, and he has a plan and a purpose for you. He loves you. In fact, the entire Bible, the point of it is you.The whole point it's you. I'm going to show you that today, and I'm really excited about it. It was not an accident. It was all according to the plan. Everything that happens in Scripture, it looks like sometimes you're like, we're getting off the rails here. It was all according to the plan. And the plan was you. The plan individually was you. Every dream that God had and has is for connection and reconnection to his creation. He did all of it to get to you, all of it he did to get to you. And today, I want us to be confident that God can be trusted, not only to keep his promises, but to help us walk out the dreams that he has for us. You don't have to do it on your own. You don't have to control it. You don't have to manhandle it to make it happen. God is faithful to see his word come through even dreams that you've forgotten about. He hasn't forgotten about those dreams, even dreams that you thought would never come to pass. He hasn't forgotten about those things. He has been faithful to us. We have seen him come through for people time and time again. We are still standing and believing for some people, but over the last 10 years that we've been pastoring and leading this church, we've seen people start businesses. We've seen fam we've met so many people. They were single when we met them. Now they're married now. They have kids. They bought a house that they started their families. That was the dream. We've seen people graduate from college. We've seen people get healed. We've seen people start jobs, like the dream that God placed in their heart. Like we've seen those things we're believing with people for their adoptions. We haven't seen it come to pass yet, but we know God's faithful. Like we're in the middle of some people's dreams, we are at the end of some people's dreams, and they're getting new dreams. Like we have seen God be faithful. There's no small dream, you know, there's no there's there's dreams on the steps and on the path to new dreams. That's why, when we got here, Pastor Matt and I decided that we're going to call our serve teams the Dream Team. Like, that's cutesy, whatever. Everybody you know you're like, Oh yeah, the Dream Team, whatever. Why do we do that? We believe that it should be a dream to serve in the house of God. We believe that when you're serving in God's house, it should be fulfilling something on the inside of you, that it should take your gifts and partner with God's house so that you can walk out the dream that God's placed in your life. You might be like, Well, I just, I'm a good listener. It's just, it's not really a big deal. No, it is a big deal. And God's gifted you that way, and maybe God's gifted you that way so that you can be on the prayer team and you can pray for people, or maybe he's calling you to be a city group leader. You're like, well, I just love P I love hosting people in my home. It's my favorite thing. That's not, not everybody loves that you might think they do. They don't. Not everybody's a good listener. Some people are good talkers. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? Like, those are gifts like you when you're when you have the gifts. I think you think they're you downplay your gifts. You think it's no big deal, but really, God's given you those gifts so that they can benefit the body. How do we do that? We do that by serving in his house. It's a dream to serve, and that might just be the next step that God wants you to take in order to see the bigger dream. What does God have for you? What is going on. That might be the thing that God wants you to see, so that you can walk out the dream that God has for you. God's dream for you, God's dream for us are on purpose. And so what I want to do today is I want to give us the purpose or the mission for God's dreams. Okay, number one, God's dream was always intimacy and relationship. God's dream was always intimacy and relationship. That is why He created us, originally in the garden. So at the very beginning of the Bible, in Genesis, God walked with Adam and Eve. He spent time with Adam and Eve. He He gave them everything they needed, they wanted for nothing. He sat with them and talked with them face to face. That was the goal, that was the purpose, that was the original intent of creation. That was it in the garden. God provided everything. It was intimacy, it was relationship, it was connection. So here's the deal. If you're wondering if the dream that you're pursuing or the dream that's in your heart is from God, there's one way to know God's plan, His purpose, His will and His dream for you will always draw you into a more intimate relationship with Him, because that's his dream for you. It will never be. Something that pushes you away or keeps you from his presence. I know that, because that's his dream, is always intimacy and relationship, your dream from him, will connect you to his dreams for you, if your dream job, if your dream relationship, whatever it is, doesn't draw you closer to God, it might not be his dream for you. Let's backtrack a little bit. My single friends, my dating friends, my engaged friends, if that relationship pushes you away from God, it might not be God's dream relationship for you. Well, we always encourage people, when they get in a dating relationship with it, does it make you better? Does it draw you closer in relationship with Jesus? If it doesn't, you might want to hit that pause button and reevaluate if this is what God has for you. God's original dream was this intimacy that we see in the garden. Unfortunately, what happened is sin came in and it destroyed the connection. We could talk about that with relationships too, but I don't have time just going to leave that right there, and you can think about it and think I wonder what she meant, and ask the Lord. But here's the truth, Sin separates us from connection to the Father, and that's what we see happen in the Garden of Eden, don't we? Sin separates us. Adam and Eve were ashamed, and they hid from God. Sin causes shame, and it keeps us from the presence of God. It makes us hide from him. But God knew from that very first moment where there was a disconnection from that intimacy that he would need to provide a covering for our sin. I actually love it. In Genesis, you actually see he provides clothing for them. It's the first place where we see bloodshed as a covering, a way to redeem us back to a place of intimacy, a way to redeem us back to relation. All he wanted was relationship. So he said, Here, take this covering so that we can be back in relationship with Me, a way to bring us back to the original intent, Genesis, 315, this is actually a prophetic vision of Jesus. God says to to Adam and Eve, He says, I will cause hostility between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. And this is actually talking about Jesus. It says he will strike your head, talking to the enemy. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel. The enemy's plan was to separate us from and this is still his plan. It was his plan then, and it's his plan now, is to separate us from intimacy with God. Anything he can do to come in and say, No, you don't need to do that. You don't need to get that close. You don't need to go there. You don't need to spend that time in prayer. Let me distract you. You ever notice when you try to pray all of a sudden, you can think of all the other things all of a sudden, all those to do lists come to your mind, all the distractions coming. Why? Because the enemy's plan from the very beginning was to keep you from being intimate with the Father. That's it, just to cause you to be distracted, to separate you from intimacy with God. But God's plan is always that place of intimacy, and he knew Jesus was the answer. The dream was a relationship with us, to be together and to connect with his creation. I love what John 114 we see that this is what happens in in John chapter one, we're going to read a little bit more later, but it says so the word became human and made his home among us. This is talking about Jesus. See this capital W. This is talking about Jesus. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness, and we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father's one and only Son. God knew that Jesus was the way. This was the only way that you, you could be reconciled back to God. He knew from Genesis  to get you back into intimate relationship with him, he was going to have to send Jesus. It was about you. It was about relationship with you. From the very beginning, that's what God had in mind. That was his thought about you. He had a higher thought, a different thought, right? Okay, the second thing God's dream was to connect Heaven to Earth. God's dream was to connect Heaven to Earth. And we're going to look at a specific dream that God had given a guy named Jacob in the Old Testament. And I know that you might have come in today wanting to talk about Jesus in the manger, but I want to tell you this scripture, this part in Genesis, that we're going to. Is actually about Christmas. It's about the Messiah. It's about the Savior that's coming. Okay, so this is actually a Christmas verse, just not typical. Okay, so don't go home. Be like they didn't even talk about Christmas. Okay? It is this is Christmas. Okay. Is that alright with everybody? Okay, so we're going to be in Genesis 28 and I'm going to kind of tell you what's going on so that you know what we have happening here. Okay, so we're going to be meeting up with a guy named Jacob. Jacob is the son of Isaac, who is the son of Abraham. So we've got Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Many of you are probably familiar with them, but in case you're not, these are the guys. We call them, like the father of faith. Okay, so all the Israelite people, these are all descendants of Abraham Isaac and Jacob. These were God's chosen people. God visited Abraham, and he said, I'm going to establish an everlasting covenant with you, and I'm going to be with you. You're going to be my people. I'm going to be your God, and I'm going to give you this land, and it's going to be amazing. And then for the next books of the Old Testament, it's like, you're my people. STOP SINNING, come back. And it's just the whole thing. Okay, so that's kind of what's going on here. Is that clear? Everybody? Good, okay. That was my version. Cliff Notes. Okay, so this was an everlasting covenant, that God had established, an oath or a promise that God made. It meant that he was bound to it okay? He made it with Abraham. He made it with Jacob that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through their descendants. This was God's plan for all of us to be brought back to him. That's what this covenant was. That's why it was significant, because it's all part of the plan to get you back into relationship with him. Okay, so we find Abraham his or we find his grandson, Jacob, here in a tough spot. He just tricked his brother out of a birthright. He was running from him. He was scared, and he's about to have a dream. Okay, so we're going to be in Genesis, 28 verse 11, it says this, at sundown, he arrived at a good place to set up camp, and stopped there for the night. Jacob found a stone to rest his head against, and lay down to sleep. As he slept, he dreamed of a stairway that reached from the earth up to heaven, and he saw the angels of God going up and down the stairway. At the top of the stairway stood the Lord, and he said, I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather, Abraham, the God of your father, Isaac. The ground you're laying on belongs to you. I'm giving it to you and your descendants. Your descendants will be as numerous as the dust of the earth. They will spread out in all directions, to the west and the west and the east, to the north and the south, and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants. This is that covenant promise. What's more, I'm with you, and I will protect you wherever you go. One day, I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have finished giving you everything I have promised you. Then Jacob awoke from his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I wasn't even aware of it, but he said he was also afraid. And said, What an awesome place this is. It is none other than the house of God, the very gateway to heaven. So what's going on in this dream is a few things. God is establishing a covenant with Jacob, like I said, but he's doing it personally, like Jacob already knew about the covenant because his dad had told him, and his grandfather had told him, but God wanted to personally, intimately relationally meet with Jacob and tell him himself. He didn't need to do that, but he knew that he wanted to establish that intimate connection. So we see that happening with God, and we're going to pop back up to verse 12. This is so cool. I'm just really excited about this. Okay, it's really cool. Verse 12 says, as he slept, he dreamed of a stairway that reached from earth to heaven, and he saw the angels of God going up and down the stairway. This dream was revealing to Jacob that there was a way for heaven and earth to connect. There was a way to get Heaven to Earth. And God's desire, or his dream, was to establish a connection point between the heavens and earth. It wasn't just God living up in heaven, establishing things and being distant from his creation, but he wanted a way for them to connect. Jacob calls it the house of God, the place where God is. I love this so much because this was before the church. This was before the tabernacle. God had the church in his heart, in Genesis. This is I just the Lord just spoke this. Sorry. How cool is that the church, God's Church. He loves His church so much. It was in his heart, in Genesis, the house of God, the place where he could meet with us. It's not powerful like Genesis. And he said, This is where heaven and earth. To connect. I don't know that's awesome, but this is even cooler. Okay, you guys ready? Okay, we see this fulfilled in the New Testament. Then, because we get to John, and Jesus is just showing up on the scene, okay? And he's like, gathering some people, and he's, he's meeting with these Jewish guys, and he's like, Hey, come and follow Me. And they're like, Who are you and and Jesus is kind of just getting started in his ministry, okay? And he's speaking with these first disciples, and He begins to reveal who he is, but he is also revealing that he was there from the very beginning, and that he is the dream that God had in mind to bring connection to earth. So I want you to keep in mind he's speaking to Jewish guys, people who've heard about the covenant, who have read Genesis, who know about Jacob, who know about this dream. Okay? And in John 151 this is Jesus. He says, I tell you the truth, you will see all of heaven open and the angels of God going up and down on the Son of Man, the one who is the stairway between heaven and earth. All the sudden, all the pieces come together. And these guys. Have you ever wondered, why did these 12 guys follow him right here. They knew in this moment, this is the Messiah that we've been waiting for. This is the one who was prophesied when Jacob laid his head down and he had a dream. This is the way that God's planning to connect Heaven to Earth, where no longer do we have a tabernacle and a tent to meet with God, but now Jesus is the way through where now the house of God becomes internal, where the house of God, where the church becomes his people. How does that happen? He is the stairway between heaven and earth. God's plan all along was to send Jesus to connect us with Him, to give us an opportunity for connection. We started today with the understanding that God's thoughts are higher than ours, that His ways are higher than ours, and it feels like sometimes that his dreams for us are hard to find, doesn't it? That's why we Google things like, what's my purpose? That's why we question things like, I don't know why I'm here. I don't know what to do next. I don't know why I'm I'm called. I don't know why I'm gifted with this things. But we know that if his dreams for us are hard to find, but because he established a connection through Jesus, look what First Corinthians says. Who can know the Lord's thoughts? Who knows enough to teach him? But we, everybody say we, that's us, but we understand these things. Why? Because we have the mind of Christ. Why does that matter? Because Christ is the stairway, the gateway that brings Heaven's info, or the blueprint that God has for our life, and he drops it down and hands it to us so we can know the thoughts that God thinks of us. Isn't that amazing? Can you believe that you have access to know God's thoughts about you? That opens a whole world of possibilities about your life? Doesn't it? God? Who am I meant to marry? Well, let me think. Let me pray about it. Let me think on that in a way where I'm asking God, God, what do I need to do for a job? What do I need to do for college? How do I need to pray about this? What do I need to do about my kids? Lord, how do I need to handle this situation? All of a sudden I realize I have access to the thoughts of God, God who created all of it, who has the blueprint for everything. This says that I can know the Lord's thoughts.We can know God's dreams for us because we have direct connection to his thoughts through Christ, God's dream for you will be revealed to you. You can stop googling. That's good news. I will not ask you to raise your hand if you've googled that, but I do know this, we've wondered it, we've wondered it, haven't we? There's got to be more than this. Feel like I'm wasting my life. I don't have any purpose. I don't have any I'm not fulfilled in this. Feel like I'm wasting time. I thought I'd be further than this.
I thought my life would matter more. I know we thought that. I wonder if I made a mistake. I wonder if I missed it.I know we've thought that God's dream for you will be revealed to you, and when it is, you can walk on purpose, and you can walk with purpose if you don't know God's dream for you today, here's what you can know, you're called to be intimate with the Father. First and foremost, you're called to have intimate connection with the Father, and that connection happens through Jesus. And you can know that your unique dream is based on the gifts that God created you and crafted you and wired you with,
and he did it on purpose. None of it was done by accident. None of it was done like nobody was created with leftover stuff. God uniquely formed and fashioned you exactly how he wanted you  because he knew there was a purpose that he needed you to fulfill. Isn't that amazing you, each and every one of you, there is no exceptions to this. There is no hear my voice. There is no exceptions whether your parents wanted you or not,
whether you are an accident or a product of abuse, no matter how you got here. God created you. God designed you. God planned on you. There is a connection point through Christ for an abundant life. Doesn't mean it's easy. It doesn't mean an easy life,  but it does mean that you can walk on purpose. It does mean that you can walk in a confident way that knows I'm doing what I'm called to do. And it matters for eternity. It matters for people's lives. And as we head into the next two weeks, I really believe that we have a few options, and this has been something on pastor Matt and I's heart so so strong that we could continue to be busy. We can continue to rush around. We can do what the world does. We can take a Christmas break. But can I tell you we are adults, and we don't get a Christmas break. We can take a deep breath, and we can slow down, and we can ask, God, what's the blueprint for my life? What's the blueprint for my year? What do you want to do in me? Maybe, maybe you have never, maybe you haven't even thought about doing this devotional with us. You're like, Yeah, I'm not doing that. Can I challenge you? What if God's asking you to what if doing that book could change your whole year? Would you be willing to do it? Then? What if you just slow down and ask God to reveal the blueprint, reveal the purpose, reveal the mind, the thoughts, the dream that God has for your life. It was in his mind long ago when he saw a need and He made you to fill it. I believe God wants to deposit some new dreams in us, and I believe he wants to awaken some old dreams in us both. I think it's both. I think some of us we don't know what the dream is, and some of us have let those dreams die because we felt unworthy, we felt disappointed. But either way, God wants to slow down and meet with us. Would you stand on your feet with me today? I really wonder if some of us could get a view of what next year could look like, and we could ask, God, what are the dreams that you have for me? And maybe it's maybe asking him what the dreams he has for the next year feels too big. But what if you could ask him for the next month, for the next moments, or the next steps, because I really believe that God's heart is to connect us to a more intimate relationship with him. First and foremost, some of us need to assess our dreams. They're pushing us away from God. We need to ask him to give us his dreams. We need the different we need to pick up his dreams for our life and and some of us, we just we don't have any dreams, we don't know what they are, and we just need to invite him to speak to us, to give us his thoughts for our lives and His purpose for our lives. And so I just want to pray for us. I want to pray that we are able to slow down Amen. Because I know that that doesn't just happen. I know that that's a supernatural thing that we need to happen. So I   just want you to close your eyes, and I want you to take a deep breath. God, I pray that in this room we would be able to slow down, to slow down in your presence, to slow down with your word, to slow down with your Holy Spirit, to invite you in in a new way, to invite your word in God, just to ask you to reveal your truth to us in a new way. God, I pray that you would awaken old dreams and that you would reveal new dreams.
But God, more than anything in our rooms, I pray that you would confirm in us that you love us so much, that you have a dream for each one of us, that we were created on purpose, that we were designed on purpose, that none of us is here by accident, but God, that you see us today, and you love us so much. And I pray that you would remove every lie that would try to tell us that we aren't important enough, we don't matter enough to have a dream. And God, I pray that you would replace that with your truth of love and value and purpose in Jesus. Name, Amen.