Detour to Your Dream

I want to speak to you today on the subject of a detour to your dream.

I understand we're still in the prayer series, and that's what this message is about, but I want you to turn with me to Acts chapter 16, and I'm going to pick the story up here in just a moment in verse 16.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

But I want us to think together for a minute when we were kids, all the kinds of dreams that we had of what we wanted to do with our life.

Some of you live in your dream.

Some of you are glad you're not living that dream.

I remember when I was a kid, I grew up in the country.

We had horses, and uh, so I always dreamed of being a cowboy.

I'd watch all those old westerns, and man, one day I was watching a western and I saw the Indians, and in that western, the Indians looked cooler than the cowboys.

So I wanted to be an Indian.

I wanted to grow my hair long, run around the neighborhood without my shirt on.

And my mother detoured that dream real fast.

As I grew up, I played football, you know, like a lot of Texas boys do, and I raised motocross.

And so I love to jump my motorcycle.

So I thought, hey, I want to be the next evil Knievel, you know.

Now, for those of you 30 and under, he was the father of extreme motocross.

But anyway, broke my leg twice.

God detoured that dream in a roundabout way.

Glad I didn't go that direction.

But you know, even dreams of God can get detoured.

You'd think if you had this dream for God, it'd be like Disney World or Disneyland.

You know, the happiest place on world, uh happiest place on earth, but dreams of God can get detoured.

Even Disneyland has the Tower of Terror.

That's a different story that I don't know if I'll ever get even with my kids for that one.

They told me it was a stroll in the library.

Yes, right.

Yeah.

The will of God can get difficult at times.

Even a God-given dream, a dream can take an unforeseen turn.

And that's what began to happen with Paul and Silas in Acts chapter 16.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

They were traveling for several days on foot and by ship, and the Holy Spirit had already spoken to them not to go into Asia.

Now that's odd, but I remember one time when we were in global, when I was in the global department here, I was headed to India.

And there was an area in India, the Holy Spirit said, Don't go there.

And so we canceled our trip into that area.

And it happened to be an area called Arissa where there were several Christians being killed.

I'm glad that that dream got detoured.

But in this case, the Holy Spirit said to Paul and Silas, don't go into Asia.

And then in this dream, a man from Macedonia appeared to Paul and said, Please come and help us.

And Paul knew that was a dream from God.

So even though this was a dream of dream from God, let's pick the story up in Acts chapter 16, verse 16.

Acts 16:16

Let's look at what happens.

Now it happened as we went to prayer that a certain slave girl, possessed with a spirit of divination, met us, who brought her master as much profit by fortune telling.

The girl followed Paul and us and cried out, saying, These men are servants of the Most High God who proclaimed to us the way of salvation, and this she did for many days.

Now you have to understand the picture here.

This girl, she wasn't saying anything wrong.

What she was declaring was exactly right.

You see, if the enemy cannot, if he cannot, what's the word I'm looking for here?

Discredit, if he cannot discredit the message of God, he'll try to discredit the messenger.

So he had he attaches this girl to Paul and to Silas, and she's saying the right things, but here's the deal she was a fortune teller.

So if she continued doing this, then all the people in the city would associate this girl with Paul and Silas, and they'd think they were just as kooky as she was.

So Paul turns to her in the next verse, and it says, But Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the Spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her, and he came out of her that very hour.

But when her master saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas, they dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities, and then it says, They brought them to the magistrates, that's the judges or the lawyers of the courts of that day.

They brought them to the magistrates and said, These men being Jews exceedingly trouble our city.

I I read that, I'm thinking, I'm shocked.

I'm thinking, so she was not troubling the city, they were.

But that sounds a whole lot like today, doesn't it?

Let's go on before I get in trouble.

It says they teach customs which are not lawful for us being Romans to receive or observe.

Then the multitude rose up together against them, and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods, and when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanded the jailer to keep them securely, having received such a charge, listen to this part.

He put them into the inner prison, that solitary confinement, and he fastened their feet to the stocks.

Wow.

Here's Paul's story.

We were minding our own business, or else he really could have said, We were minding your business, Lord.

When we were falsely accused, harassed by the devil, beaten and thrown into prison, then we were taken into solitary confinement, held there, chained to the wall.

Can you imagine?

How many of you how many of you this morning didn't have to go to prison?

Can you imagine on your way to a prayer meeting, on your way to church, and you go to jail?

I mean, that's the start of a pretty bad day.

Let me paint the picture a little bit more.

A Roman prison is not like a current prison today.

We know that, but go there with me for just a minute.

They don't get three meals a day.

They didn't have a TV room, they didn't have a workout room, they didn't have a red, you know what I'm saying?

It was more like a hole in the wall.

It was more like this: no windows, dirt floor, cold, musty, smelly, drafty, dark.

You ever felt like that spiritually?

Like you were just in this dark place?

Solitary confinement was even darker than that.

Couldn't see your hand two inches in front of your face, chained to the wall.

So you couldn't see and you were helpless to help yourself.

Ever felt like that emotionally?

I mean, think about it.

Alone, abandoned, betrayed, defeated, hopeless.

You know, when I think about my own life, I have to think sometimes it was it was my own bad decision that put me there.

I mean, get honest.

Sometimes it was someone else's decision that put you there.

They drugged you there by their choice.

Sometimes things just happen and you find yourself in a dark place.

And religious people want to say, Well, what kind of sins in your life?

You've got to have sin in your life if you're going through that.

Really?

Sometimes happen to good people and you just can't figure it out.

But you do need to ask the Lord what he's doing in the midst of it all.

No matter how you got there, now that you're there, what do you do?

Let me ask you this question.

What do you do when the lights go out on your dream?

Do you complain about the injustice?

I've done that and called it a prayer meeting.

Or do we press into God?

Sometimes we just accept the darkness and call it the norm.

Don't do that.

God wants to take us somewhere.

He wants to go deeper in our life.

I want to say something to you today that might sound a little bit strange, but I want you to track with me.

Don't waste your darkness.

If you've got bondage in your life right now, yeah, I want you free, but I want God to do in your life what He needs to do while you're chained to the walls, so to speak.

I want God to do what He needs to do while you're walking through that difficulty.

Don't start thinking about getting out too quickly because God's wanting to do something inside of us while we're there.

Do you believe that?

Don't waste your darkness.

Secondly, don't waste your pain.

When it's dark and you can't see, you're being forced to develop your sense of faith.

You're being forced to go deeper with God.

In times that you don't feel like praying, guess what?

That's the time we need to pray the most.

So during the dark times of life, we start focusing on breaking out.

I understand that.

No one likes pain, no one likes darkness, no one wants to feel out of control.

While studying for this message, I I read across this article, you know, the most famous prison breakout in American history happened in 1961.

A man by the name of Frank Morris and three other men began to plan this detailed breakout of a prison in the Bay of San Francisco called Alcatraz.

How many of you are familiar with the story?

A motion picture was made out of it.

And while I'm reading through this, the thought occurred to me: would it be possible that Frank Morris, an inmate at Alcatraz, and Robert Morris, the senior pastor of Gateway Church, just might be related.

You're not gonna believe what I uncovered.

Absolutely nothing.

I did run across this thought, though.

Frank Morris had an IQ of 135 and he was a meticulous planner.

And then I got to thinking about Pastor Robert, and I thought they just might be related.

We focused on breaking out.

We don't want to be in the darkness, understandable.

We don't want to be locked up, understandable, but we've got to ask the Lord this question.

Lord, what are you doing in the midst of this darkness?

And more specifically, what are you doing in me?

I began to ask the Lord that question.

As I began to focus on what he was saying to me and doing in me in the tough times, this is one of the things I realized he was doing.

While I was focused on breaking out, he was focused on confronting my selfishness.

You know, we're not normally going to say, you know what, I'm just a selfish person.

I think I'll deal with it.

That's not the way life works.

The Lord usually has to pin us in a corner or get us into a situation where we start asking the right questions in order to get the right outcome.

You see, most of bondage that I know about is rooted in selfishness.

I've been in ministry 35 years plus.

I've had a lot of times talking with couples in their marriage, talking with singles about their issues.

Selfishness is usually at the root of every one of them.

I know in my own bondage, trying to come through things in my own life, it all rooted back to my selfishness.

Even in my marriage.

You know, I boiled it down.

There was one major issue in my marriage challenge, and it was not my wife, it was my selfishness.

Always wanted to blame someone else, but the truth of the matter is the Lord would let me get in situations where I was chained to the wall in a dark place so I would deal with my selfishness.

Had some great pastors work with me and help me break through selfishness.

But recently, the person God used to help me with selfishness was my three-year-old grandson, Duke.

Now you'd think with a grandson named Duke and a grandson named Canyon, I'd be a rancher or something.

I am a Texan.

But Duke, three years old, he loves to play with these little car figures from the movie, the Disney movie Cars.

Are you familiar with it?

How many of you, there's Cars one, there's Cars Two.

How many of you have ever seen the Disney movie Cars 25 times?

I'm gonna tell you what.

On time number 10, Revelation started coming to me.

But I love to hang out with my three-year-old grandson.

He is so smart.

When he was two and a half, he knew and could could tell you the names of over 30 of those little characters.

He'd say, This is Lightning McQueen, and this is Maider, and this is Lizzie, except he'd say, Wizzy, this is Wizzy, and that's Honey's favorite, and he'd just go down the down the line.

And then one day he reached into his pocket and he pulled out Lightning McQueen.

And he had this serious look on his face, and he looked right at me and he said, Papa, this is not yours.

This is mine.

This is not yours.

I'm like, okay, okay.

I mean, he had that look on his face, like, you touch it, I will hurt you.

Now that's okay for a three-year-old, but for a 54-year-old to say to God, God, this is my life.

It's not yours.

This is my life.

That's dangerous ground.

Yet we've all done it.

That'll surely take you into bondage worse than the prison we're describing.

We've got to get free from selfishness, folks.

God's not only confronting our selfishness, he's also challenging our shallow living.

Come on now.

In shallow living, what I'm talking about is religious living.

Shallow people are religious people.

Religion gives you theories that sound good, but they don't hold up under fire.

I know people who know a lot of scripture, but they lack a deep faith and they lack a personal walk with God.

I don't want to be that way.

I don't want you that way.

I don't want you sounding good.

Only I want you walking in a true relationship with God.

Real people find real solutions through real faith and come out on the other end real.

I want you real.

When you walk around in the neighborhood and in your businesses and in your schools, I want people to go, that guy's right there, that woman right there, they're from Gateway Church.

I love that place.

Because you're real.

I grew up around a bunch of real people.

Well, I guess you could say they were country folk, and country folk, they don't they don't do religion.

Matter of fact, you talk about Jesus, they automatically think you're talking about religion.

Oh, I don't do religion.

I'd have to stop and say, no, I'm not talking about religion.

I'm talking about a real relationship with God.

You had to get past that hurdle.

Now, a lot of these people, these country folks I grew up, they remind me a lot of those old Jeff Foxworthy stories, you know.

You know, those you might be a redneck.

Now, my family, we were not rednecks, but our neighbors were, I guarantee you.

And when Jeff Foxworthy would say things like this, he'd say, if you have six dogs under your front porch, you might be a redneck.

I could identify with that.

That was the neighbor on the left side of us.

And then he'd say, if you just mowed your yard and found your car, you might be a redneck.

That was Charlie Two Houses Down.

I get that.

I could have written half that stuff.

But since I didn't get an opportunity to write that stuff, and now I'm a pastor, I did write something similar.

It's not called you might be a redneck, it's called you might have a religious spirit.

Would you like to hear the top ten?

Good, because I'm gonna read them to you anyway.

Number one, if you're more concerned about being right than being righteous, you might have a religious spirit.

If you're more concerned about the way you look versus the condition of your heart, you might have a religious spirit.

If every sentence you speak ends with a religious phrase, hallelujah, praise the Lord, thank you, Jesus.

You might have a religious spirit.

I just saw somebody jab his her husband over there.

That's not that's not good.

Number four, if your style of worship is a rule of measure for everyone else's, you might have a religious spirit.

It's just too loud in that church.

Just kidding.

Number five, if the length of someone's hair is more important than the length of your gossiping tongue, do you hear that?

Thud?

You might have a religious spirit.

If scripture about sin does not apply to you, I love that one.

You might have a religious spirit.

If you think people don't get healed unless you lay hands on them, you might have a religious spirit.

Sure is quiet in here.

If you're unable to keep the rules that you demand others live by, you might have a religious spirit.

If you have all the answers to the church's problems and make sure the leadership knows personally every week by email, but you do not serve as a volunteer anywhere in the church, you might have a religious spirit.

And even if you are a volunteer, watch it.

Number 10.

If none of these top ten apply to you, you might have a religious spirit.

Number 1.

Number 11.

If it bothers you that this top ten list actually has 11, you definitely have a religious spirit.

He's not only confronting our selfishness and challenging our shallow living, but he's also changing our character.

You think about it.

When you cannot get out of your situation, you start going deeper and you let God go deeper.

If you're ever going to change, he's got to change us at the foundation level, and that's our character.

Character's been defined as what we do when no one's watching.

You know, I have a better understanding about this since we did the remodel of the building in Grand Prairie.

The building was already there.

But for them to do the remodel, they had to dig down into the foundation.

They removed half the floor of the auditorium and then went back down in the dirt.

They went into some side hallways and dug down and removed old plumbing and put new plumbing in.

And when you go there now, you can't tell it, and everything looks great because they redid some of the foundation.

Some of us need some of that in our own life.

I mean, we didn't get parented well.

That's why in my 20s I needed some help.

My dad did the best he could do.

But dad didn't know everything, and I had to have some other men help me.

In my 20s, in my 30s, in my 40s, even in my 50s, I've got older, wiser men around me.

One of them sitting right down here on the front row.

If it hadn't been for Pastor Tommy Briggs, I'd be dead.

I'm telling you, you need some older, wiser people around you.

If you're 80 years old, find somebody 81.

We need God to rebuild and help us with our foundation.

Let me tell you why.

Because our character must be strong enough to carry the dream.

How many times have we known gifted, anointed people?

They look so good in public, but in private their life was in shambles.

It shouldn't be that way.

Let's help each other.

Let's watch God change our character so we can carry that dream.

While we're focused on breaking out, Jesus is focused on something else.

He's focused on breaking in.

Look back at Acts 16, verse 25.

Acts 16:25

It says, But at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God.

And the prisoners were listening to them, it says, and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken.

And immediately all the doors were open and everyone's chains were loosed.

And the keeper of the prison, it says, awakening from sleep, seeing the prison doors open, suppose the prisoners had fled.

He drew his sword.

He was about to kill himself, but Paul called out with a loud voice, saying, Do yourself no harm.

We're all here.

Listen, I want to challenge you to read this and reread this and reread this.

There's so much here that God wants to say to us while we're in this prayer series.

Because it's at midnight, the darkest time of night.

Paul and Silas, they weren't complaining.

You see, in your heart, you don't have room for both.

You don't have room to complain and be filled with faith.

You don't have room to be filled with fear and filled with faith at the same time.

You're going to have to choose which one you're going to serve, and you're going to have to press in.

And so here, they weren't, they weren't half, uh they were not double-minded.

They were pressing into God in the middle of the darkness.

Because here's what they knew.

We have to pray until we break through.

Listen, I've been through some dark things in my life.

And in that darkness, if I locked down in my grief and my sorrow, I never would have break, I never would have broken through.

Call out to God until you make a connection.

Pray through.

I remember saints of old saying, don't just pray, pray through.

Don't just pray, pray through.

My father-in-law, my mother-in-law's here today, Francis Bragg.

My father-in-law used to say, Everybody wants a million-dollar answer for a 10-cent prayer.

Come on.

Spend some time with Jesus.

He wants to hear you, but more than that, we need his presence working in us.

He's trying to break into us so we can break through.

I recently broke through.

I had a phone call with the IRS.

That'll help you.

Waited and waited, rang and rang.

Finally, someone on the other end picked up the line.

I finally had hope, only to hear.

If you'd like to talk to someone about your personal tax, press one.

I'm thinking, here we go.

If you'd like to talk to someone about corporate tax, press two.

If you'd like to talk to someone about paying your tax, press three.

If you'd like to talk to someone about disputing your tax, press four.

Now I'm telling you the truth.

I preface that because I used to be an evangelist.

You understand?

I'm a pastor now.

I'm telling you the truth.

Forty-five minutes later, I finally get a live person on the other end, only to find out I reached the wrong department.

True story.

I'm thinking to myself, I am so glad heaven's not that way.

Can you imagine praying, praying, praying?

You praying through, you feel the open heaven on the other end, you finally get an answer and it goes like this.

If you'd like to speak to the Father, press one.

If you'd like to speak to the Son, press two.

If you'd like to speak to the Holy Spirit, press three.

And I'm going, one, one, I want to talk to the Father.

And then you hear, if you'd like healing, press one.

If you'd like financial assistance, press two.

No.

Aren't you glad?

Heaven's not that way.

But we've got to pray till we pray through.

But let me ask you this.

Do you know what it's like to pray and to worship from a place of defeat?

It's easy to pray when things are going well, but do you know what it's like to pray and to worship from a place of disappointment?

Do you know what it's like to pray and to worship from a place of devastation, a place of darkness?

Paul and Silas did.

They knew.

I could just hear them.

Before the doors came open, before the chains came off.

Before they knew what was going to happen.

Can't you just hear them?

Silas says to Paul, Paul, are you there?

Paul said, I'm here.

Silas says, Wow, sure it's dark in here.

Paul said, sure is.

Silas said, I was really looking forward to that prayer meeting.

Paul said, Me too.

Silas said, You thinking what I'm thinking?

Paul said, I think so.

About that time, Silas says, You're good, good father.

It's who you are.

It's who you are.

It's who you are.

Are you kidding me?

Right in the middle of the prison, they're chained to the wall, their backs wide open because they've been beaten.

And Paul said, I agree.

And he starts singing, and I'm loved by you.

It's who I am.

It's who I am.

It's who I am.

You're saying they didn't sing that song.

I understand that, but just go with me for a minute.

Don't get religious, okay?

They sang something.

And the presence of God started moving in that place.

God started touching these people's lives.

They'd never felt that before.

I'm telling you, when you're walking through the toughest time in your life and you praise God anyway, people around you notice.

They notice that.

They feel that.

They see that.

They're watching us.

They thought these guys were crazy.

Yeah, I would have thought they were crazy too.

Until about a year and a half ago when I walked through a situation with my mom, and it's where this message came from.

My mother had Alzheimer's.

And during the last stages of that disease, I grew to hate that disease.

I've never hated the enemy more than when I watched disease ravage my mother's health.

Begin to attack her brain cells.

She began to lose her memory.

She lost her motor skills.

The last months of her life, while in a nursing home, the doctors prepared us.

They said we can't keep her in the bed.

We'd go in there and she'd be on the floor.

And the doctors said, Listen, we can't keep her in the bed.

They said this is very customary with Alzheimer's patients, but we we've got a couple suggestions.

We can either confine her to the bed and we don't suggest that because she'll hurt herself.

Or we can lower her bed all the way down to the floor and put a mat down there so that when she gets out, she doesn't hurt herself.

And that's what we suggest.

And we said, okay, do it.

But I can't tell you what it made me feel like when I would walk into that nursing home.

There, there my mother would be on the floor.

I mean, is life supposed to get that messy, really?

It was hard to deal with.

I'd pick her up, she only weighed 70 pounds.

I'd put her back in the bed and I'd tuck her in and I'd kiss her on the forehead.

A few minutes later, she'd be back out on the floor.

Growing up, she was a very, very peaceful woman, but as she started going through this disease, she got violent at times, and her face was just always like a worried look on her face.

So one day I got an idea.

My mother loved gospel music.

So I put a bunch of songs on my iPhone and I went into her room, and there she was on the floor, so I just got down on the floor with her.

You know, when life gets dirty, just roll up your sleeves.

As I got down there on the floor, turned the music on, I held her in my arms, and I sang those old songs, and I just caressed her hair and I wept and I watched the presence of God come in on my mom, and I watched that worried look on her face just begin to go back to peace.

I could see those beautiful blue eyes, and I learned what I'm trying to tell you today that in the dark times of your life, you gotta worship.

You gotta worship.

I stopped singing, and mom started tapping me on the arm.

I knew exactly what she meant.

I turned it back on, sang for another hour.

Little did I know what the Lord was teaching me that day I would need again so soon.

Back in September, our family walked through one of the most difficult times of our life.

Our middle daughter Chris was seven months pregnant with two months to go.

Chris and Carrie were pregnant at the same time.

Can you imagine their joy?

Sisters pregnant at the same time, two babies coming, another grandson, another our first granddaughter.

We were excited.

Our daughter Chris called her baby, her lady baby.

How sweet.

Our granddaughter, James Ivey, was stillborn at seven months.

It's not supposed to be that hard.

How do you say hello and goodbye to a little three-pound baby girl on the same day?

How do you walk through stuff like that?

I tell you how.

You walk through it by the presence of God.

When you walk through those dark hours of your life, you've got to have the presence of God.

Christianity's not a religion, it's a relationship with God that's real.

And in times like that, you worship, in times like that you pray, in times like that you hang on to the God you know still good.

And you're able to sing, you're perfect in all of your ways, even though you feel like life's falling apart.

You're able to finish the song, you're perfect in all of your ways.

And the presence of God becomes comes down upon you.

Because when you pray, he comes.

When you worship, he comes.

And times when you came out of see, he comes.

When you worship, he comes.

In times when you cannot help yourself, you worship.

In times when the enemy says it's over and you've done, you worship.

And the dark is coming in your life, you pray and you worship.

Listen to me.

Sometimes before you ever get a break out, you've got to take a praise break.

Right in the middle of the darkness.

Some of you in the middle of darkness right now, I give you permission to just praise God right here, right now.

If you're at the campus right there, I give you permission to praise God right there, right now.

Right in the middle of it all.

Sometimes that's what we have to do.

Come on, praise me.

Because during the difficult times of life, we've got to pray till we get a breakthrough, or we've got to worship until he breaks in.

Listen, when he breaks in, everything changes.

They didn't worship because everything was going great.

They worshiped because they knew if they could just connect with Jesus, everything would change.

Because when Jesus breaks in, everything changes.

That day that Jesus broke in, it all happened at one time.

He broke in, they broke free.

Earthquake, noise, chains slapping the wall, doors flying open.

No wonder that jailer woke up.

He woke up in the middle of a move of God.

And God wants to move like that in your life.

But the strangest thing happened that day.

The doors opened and no one ran.

Why?

Let me tell you why.

Because there's something better than breaking out.

It's called breaking free.

They didn't run because they found life.

They didn't know it was Jesus that they were looking for until they spent the night with them in prison.

But he brought them life.

Where are they gonna run?

Where are you gonna run?

You're gonna run back to what put you in jail in the first place?

I like what Peter said.

Where would we go?

Only you, Lord, have the words of life.

They found life and they found freedom.

Freedom can never be defined by the removing of chains and the opening of doors.

Freedom can only be defined by this, the Spirit of God.

2 Corinthians 3.17 says, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there's freedom.

I want you to know that freedom.

You say, Let me get out of this mess, and I'll worship God.

God says, Worship me in this mess, and I'll meet you there.

Would you bow your heads with me?

Father, I thank you for your presence.

Lord, I ask you to come.

During this time, Lord, help us wherever we're walking, whatever we're going through, meet with us today.

Can I ask you this question?

Has your dream been detoured?

If you're breathing, I want to tell you, God's not finished with you.

No matter what you're walking through today, there's hope.

You feel like you're cut off from God?

Maybe you are.

Maybe your sin is separating you from Him, but there's grace.

God wants to forgive you and cleanse you.

He wants you to have a relationship with Him.

If you'll just call on Him and ask Him to save you.

Don't settle for shallow religion.

Some of you need to come back to God.

You've been away from God for a while.

Some of you are in a dark place.

The Lord wants to change that.

God's ready to break into your situation the very second you call His name.

We want to help you today.

Listen to me.

I'm going to pray a short prayer.

At the end, we're going to sing a song like we do every week.

But the second I say amen, I'm going to ask you to leave your seat.

Come forward.

Don't stay where you are.

Let somebody pray for you today.

Don't be embarrassed to ask for prayer.

We believe that every time we pray, heaven touches earth, and God wants to touch you specifically today.

So when I say amen, make up your mind now, you're going to break free.

Father, in Jesus' name, I pray that you'd meet us right where we are and that your presence would break in so we can break free.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.