Dare to Dream

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Awakening, 13 years.

It's official, we're a teenager.

Alright, alright, teens, here we go.

And some of you may be wondering why in the world does a church have a birthday party and not an anniversary?

That's a bit strange, isn't it?

Now, for two reasons.

One is we believe 13 years ago God birthed something.

He birthed a new movement, a new community that exists to awaken this generation to new life in Jesus.

Amen?

Secondly, birthdays are just way more fun than anniversaries.

I don't know about you, but I love birthdays.

I love celebration.

And celebration is actually a spiritual discipline.

It's one of our values as a church to celebrate the goodness of God.

Now, I'm a pretty sentimental person, and so as we've been leaning in and gearing up for our birthday, I've gone back through my photos and looking at the very first years of awakening.

This is actually the very first service.

It was in the theater, and uh here we have the elders of Westgate, the pastor Steve Clifford.

Uh they were commissioning Jenny and I to lead this new church, uh, ordaining us, passing on the mantle of leadership.

It was a powerful moment, really special.

My dad and mom got to be a part of that, which was super sweet.

Um these photos are out of order.

No, no, no, hang on, hang on.

Oh my goodness.

Take that off.

These photos are way out of order.

All right.

Thank you.

Oh well.

Hey, have a good day.

We'll see you later.

That's all I had.

Um we started off in the theater.

I obviously should have, it's my fault, I should have reviewed these before we got going.

In the theater, we kind of bounced back and forth between the theater and here, but we outgrew the theater, then we moved to the cafeteria.

If you find this picture with the cafeteria, and notice like how it was.

We started on the floor, we had no lights, a small little sound system, and as we grew, we actually needed to get a better sound system and create more space here together.

One of the things that I love as a church, when we started here at Del Mar, and we've been at Del Mar for 13 years by God's grace, amazing, is we said it's more than a place to meet, but a people to love.

And we started that just by simply doing serve days here on this campus.

And uh, if you can find the picture where people are scraping gum, we scraped a lot of gum in those early days.

My goodness.

Um, there should be one in there somewhere scraping gum.

Okay.

Um just trust me, there was scraping gum.

You're not gonna believe me, but there was lots of it.

Um and then we just spent these days helping serve this community.

Now, um, I was looking for a picture and I couldn't find it of a moment that happened right before uh we launched, and we went downtown and uh we went downtown to um do a prayer walk.

And it's a prayer walk is just simply what it sounds like.

You walk and you pray.

It's that simple.

And we had this uh, there was this nightclub that closed called Angels.

We thought maybe that could be the place where we're meeting, right downtown.

So about seven or eight of us went down there, we went to pray, and as we got out of the cars, about to gather them and show them um, you know, like, hey, we're gonna walk, we're gonna pray this area.

I see somebody like stumbling towards us.

I was like, what's going on with that dude?

And his eyes were like hollow, empty, and his face was pale, and then somebody else was there, and then another person was there, and then all of a sudden we found ourselves engulfed by hundreds, hundreds of zombies.

Can you go back to that?

Thank you.

This was kind of what it looked like.

I apologize for the gruesomeness, and the reveal was totally revealed so early.

Oh well, you're supposed to be shocked and aghast.

Um, yeah, thank you.

One of you, you're like, oh.

Um I thought it was so, I mean, so strange.

We were going down to pray for awakening, and we found ourselves among the walking dead.

You can take that off.

You can take that off.

Thank you.

Um, and I've never forgot that moment.

In fact, I look back on that, I just remember that because I think so often that's a picture for me when I think about the value, I think about us.

Because not many of us would say, yeah, we're zombies.

But I think a lot of us would say, yeah, I I feel dead inside.

I feel like I'm just eking my way through life.

I feel like I'm just existing, but I'm not really living.

I feel like maybe I'm just sleepwalking, I'm not fully awake.

Yeah, you're alive, yeah.

You wake up, you go through the motions, you go to campus, you go to work.

Something's missing.

And so we busy our lives, don't we?

We numb ourselves with entertainment and streaming and our phones, we keep our calendars filled so we don't have to think.

And yet there's this aching, there's this longing, there's these questions that haunt us.

Is this really all there is?

There's gotta be more.

Don't I have a purpose?

How do you live and how do you experience and embrace a God-sized dream for your life?

How do you live for something bigger, more fulfilling?

Something that's filled with meaning.

So many of us live by default, don't we?

Not by design.

We drift, we react, we settle.

But what if you didn't just have to drift through life?

What if your life could be drenched with purpose?

Every decision, every relationship, every step marked with eternal significance.

How do you live a life drenched with purpose?

Today we're kicking off a brand new series called Dreaming Wide Awake.

Over in the next seven weeks, we're gonna discover how do you move from just existing, eking our way through life to actually living fully into God's dream for you.

To do that, we're gonna follow the story of one person who on papers, the most unlikely, improbable candidate.

In fact, he was the 11th of 12 brothers from an obscure part of the ancient world.

Literally, his family put the fun in dysfunction.

We're only covering a little bit of the dysfunction today.

Circumstances stacked against him.

If it could go wrong, it did, and it often went from bad to worse.

And yet, his life didn't just impact, save his family, it actually rescued nations.

This is the life and journey of Joseph.

The sermon titled today is Dare to Dream.

Would you say that with me?

Dare to Dream.

And we're going to pick up the story of Joseph in Genesis chapter 6.

Genesis 6 · chapter mention

It's in your notes.

You can open your Bible, or Genesis chapter 37, rather.

Genesis 37 · chapter mention

It's in your notes or in your Bibles.

It's on the screen.

Beginning in verse 2, it says, This is the count of Jacob's family's line.

Joseph, a young man of 17, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the son of Bela, that's his mom, those are mothers, the son of Zilpah, his father's wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them.

Okay, so a little context about the dysfunction here, just so you're aware.

Joseph is one of twelve brothers.

He's the 11th, but these are 12 brothers from four different women.

Yeah, talk about complicated, dysfunctional, messy.

He's actually the oldest born of his mother, Rachel, but he is the second to youngest of the brothers.

And so we got this just tension already, and he he's a tattletale on his brothers.

We see this already.

Verse 3.

Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age, and he made an ornate robe for him.

Some call it a technicolor robe.

That's not in the text.

When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word for him.

So now we see favoritism bringing such great division to an already messy situation.

And because Joseph is the oldest born of Rachel, Jacob's treating him as the heir apparent.

This robe is this robe of royalty, a robe of the distinguished favored son.

Jacob has said, you know what, I may have uh ten older sons, but I prefer and I choose you to be my heir apparent.

And he every time he walked into the room with this robe, his brothers just reminded them of what a threat he was to them and why they hated him.

Verse 5, Joseph had a dream.

And when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more.

Well, they hated him, now they hate him all the more.

He said to them, Listen to this dream I had.

We're binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose up and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.

He didn't have a lot of discernment this Joe.

His brother said to him, Do you intend to reign over us?

Will you actually rule over us?

And they hated him all the more.

Wow! Animosity upon animosity because his dream and what he had said.

Now, a little note on dreams.

In the ancient Near East, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Canaan, uh, dreams weren't just brushed off as random or meaningless.

They were believed to carry significance, often understood as messages from the divine.

The Bible reflects that belief.

God actually speaks through dreams throughout the story of Scripture.

God gives Jacob a dream.

He appears to Solomon in a dream, granting wisdom.

He speaks through dreams to Daniel in exile, and even as later on in the text we'll find he speaks to Pharaoh in a dream.

So when Joseph dreams, his family doesn't think, oh, he had some bad pizza.

They take it seriously.

This could very well be God speaking.

They realize not every dream was automatically divine.

They knew that.

But culturally, dreams carried weight, and this is why Joseph's brothers hated him all the more.

So when he shares his dream, it's not just him sharing his imagination, which would be annoying.

But if it's from God, it's threatening.

Goes on.

He says, uh, then he had another dream, confirming the first dream.

And he told it to his brothers.

Why does he keep doing this?

Joe, stop.

Joe, come on.

Listen, he said, I had another dream.

And this time the sun and moon and 11 stars were bowing down to me.

When he told his fathers as well as his brothers, he couldn't keep silent about this.

Apparently, his father rebuked him and said, What is this dream you had?

Will you and uh will your mother and I actually come and bow down to the ground before you?

And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept this matter in mind.

How do you embrace a God-sized vision, a God-sized dream for your life?

A life drenched with purpose, filled with meaning, and is fulfilling.

There are three core convictions.

Three truths we must embrace in order to live dreaming wide awake.

The first truth, the first conviction is simply this.

God has a dream for your life.

God has a dream for your life.

You are not an accident, and you are not accidentally here wherever you are.

You were created for a purpose, and you are here on purpose.

So many of us don't believe this.

That maybe God has dreams for other people, he has dreams for them, but how could the God of the universe have a dream for me?

Psalms 139 says that you are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Jeremiah 29, 11 says, For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord.

Not to harm you, but to give you a future and a hope.

And you're like, well, Ryan, that's the Old Testament, and that was actually for Israel, not for me.

Fantastic, Ephesians 2.10.

For you are God's workmanship, you're his handiwork, you're his masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which he prepared in advance for you to do.

God created you on purpose and for a purpose.

God has a dream for your life.

We must embrace this.

It's not for special people, perfect people, the right people.

Your past, your trauma, your family dysfunction do not disqualify you from God's dream for your life.

You're not too young and you're not too old to embrace a God-sized vision or dream for your life.

Joseph was 17.

Can I hear my teenagers?

No.

By the way, teens, college students, when God wants to do something significant in history, he often chooses and uses teens to accomplish that purpose.

He chose Joseph.

Amen.

Yeah, we can clap for that.

Amen.

David was a teenager tending the flocks.

Unlikely, least in his family, anointed to be king.

Overlooked.

Esther, a teenager, who saved the entire Jewish people from genocide and rose to queen of Persia.

I mean, you can just go through history and look at it.

The disciples, by the way, were in their teens or twenties.

Mary, who carried the son of God, was a teenager.

God often chooses and uses teens.

And by the way, if you're not dead, so if you're over 17, God's not done with you either.

God has a dream for your life.

Can you say that with me?

God has a dream for your life.

And so, God is the source of dreaming wide awake.

Don't we look to so many places, so many things, to be the source that will fulfill, that will bring purpose, that will bring life.

We spend our lives chasing, don't we?

And at the end of it, all we do is we find ourselves out of breath.

These counterfeit sources.

Find meaning in your success, your money, or how many followers or influencers.

Silicon Valley says build something, disrupt something, prove you're a somebody.

If I can just find the right relationship, land the dream job, get into the right school, then I'll be fulfilled.

But here's the deal.

If the source of your dream is wrong, it will not support your life, the weight of your life.

If the support, the source of your dream is off, it will not support the weight of your life.

It will ultimately leave you wanting.

In fact, Saint Augustine, he was a North African uh church father.

He is famous for many things, but one that he wrote the very first autobiography that we have recorded in history.

It's called The Confessions.

In it, he talks about his journey for purpose.

And that he tried everything: sex, pleasure, experiences, traveled the world, did it all, and found it wanting.

And he came to this conclusion.

He said, Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.

God is the source of dreaming wide awake.

Three convictions for us to live dreaming wide awake, to live out our God-given purpose.

First, you have to embrace, you have to know God has a dream for your life, and then here's this: this is even better.

God's dream is better than your dream.

We don't believe that.

Let's be real.

Why is it that we think we know better than God?

Think about this.

The God of the universe, this is amazing, has a dream for your life.

The God who's all-wise, all-knowing, all-loving, all good, who designed you, who created you, who knit you together in your mother's womb, who said, I have a plan, I understand how you're designed, and I've placed you in a particular place and time, and I want to use your life in significant ways.

And we go, Yeah, that's fine, that's fine.

I I think I got it from here.

Don't we do that?

I've done that many times.

See, the first thing we have to embrace is God has a dream for your life.

The second is that God's dream is actually way, way, way better than your dream.

Let me ask you, what's your dream for your life?

What do you chase after?

I've talked to a lot of people that say, you know what, making a lot of money, being financially free, being wealthy.

I've had people just look me in the eye and just go, Ryan, I just want to be rich.

Okay.

To be able to experience all this world has to offer.

Experience is my dream.

I want to travel.

I want to just taste, touch, feel, pleasure.

I want to be a somebody.

I want to have influence.

I want to make my mark.

I want to leave a legacy.

I want to have a family.

I want to own a home.

I want to retire young.

I want to enjoy life.

What's your dream for your life?

And what if the dream you're chasing is too small?

What if it's not a bad dream?

What if it's just not a big enough dream?

Think about Joseph, and just obviously he gets this dream, uh, and the way he understands it in this moment as a 17-year-old kid, as I would understand it as well, as the entire family understood it, is that he's going to rule over his family, right?

He's like, hey, that's pretty good.

Number 11, moving up to number one, here we go.

All right.

My brothers were jerks to me.

I can't wait until I'm in charge, baby.

Here we go.

God said that's a little bit of it, but that's not the full picture.

So you have a dream for your life, but God's dream is to rescue a nation and his family.

Like I'm gonna place you in a position of influence, not for yourself, not for your sake, not so you can lord it over.

I'm gonna place you in a position of influence so that you can be a rescuer and a redeemer, so that you can use the gifts and skills that I've given you to save a nation and your family from certain death.

Ooh, that's a dream.

What if God's dream is way, way bigger than?

Than your dream.

See, here's what happens.

When we place, when we place our dreams in the hands of God, we begin dreaming wide awake.

When we take our dreams, the dreams that we have, those things, and when I ask, what is your dream for your life?

What I'm asking you to do is not just say, like, I don't ever want that to happen.

What I'm saying is surrender and place it in the hands of God.

Because I'm going to trust that your dream is bigger, better than whatever I could dream.

I've had a few people ask me this question, Awakenings 13.

Are we where you thought we would be at 13 years of age?

And my answer is kind of like yes and no.

I thought we'd be in a like a long-term location that we didn't have to set up and tear down.

I'm really grateful we have Del Mar for 13 years.

Here's the funny part.

So in my 20s, and really we planted this church when I was 31, so you can do the math, I'm 44.

But I'm so old.

Wow.

Wow.

Wow.

And it's true.

But here's what's fascinating.

I had some nevers.

And maybe you have some nevers too.

I never wanted to lead a church.

And I never wanted to plan a church.

Ever.

And here's the fun part.

My wife didn't want me to ever lead a church or plant a church either.

In fact, the very first time we were asked to plant awakening as a church, we said no.

It took a little over a year process of God working on our hearts to get us to the point to saying yes to planting awakening as a church.

And here's the thing.

I am so grateful that he did, because I never would have wanted to miss this.

I never would have wanted to miss this.

I mean, when we planted 13 years ago, literally our prayer is just like, God, if one person comes to know Jesus, it's worth it.

Like honestly.

And I we get back to that, God, just one person.

Over 13 years, we've had well over a thousand people come to know Christ here.

We've had hundreds of baptisms.

We're going to celebrate baptisms today.

I'm so excited.

We do it every birthday.

It's the greatest picture of our vision of awakening this generation to new life in Jesus, where you're died to Christ and you're buried in Him, going under the water, and you're raised to new life in Him.

We practice something at awakening called spontaneous baptisms because for some, for some, you're in a place you've never been baptized.

And today's the day where you say yes to Jesus and you step into the waters of baptism.

We have extra shirts and extra towels for you.

You can come forward at the end of the sermon and talk to me.

But here's the deal: God has a dream for your life, and God's dream is way, way bigger and way better than your dream.

And then finally.

And this is the reason we kind of opt out on God's dream for our life.

This is where we struggle.

God's not in a hurry and his timing's perfect.

God is not in a hurry, and his timing is perfect.

Now here's the thing.

We rush everywhere.

We live in an instant culture, and so we think our formation should be instant.

God is a God of formation, and so he is not in a hurry.

He moves at the pace of our soul, and so he shapes us slowly over time because he's far more concerned with your character than your accomplishments.

God is not in a hurry with you.

Some of us are rushing and wondering, God, catch up to me.

And God's saying, No, slow down to me.

Slow down to my rhythms of grace.

Slow down to my pace.

And the frustrating part is God is never early.

He isn't.

He's never late.

But he's never early.

Sometimes it feels like he's almost late.

But his timing's perfect.

Let me give you the arc of Joseph's life.

The arc of Joseph's life, we remember it, it began with his family dysfunction, right?

His first 17 years, favoritism spoiled, his dad's passive, jealous brothers.

It's like, okay, that's not a good start.

And then he moves into a period what I call formation detour.

You have a dream, he placed a dream on Joseph, and then it's not like, oh, let me step into this.

There's a detour.

It's a formation detour from 17 years of age to 30 years of age.

Now his older brothers who hated him wanted to kill them.

There is one brother that spoke some, you know, census in them.

And so instead of killing Joseph, they sold him into slavery.

He ended up in Potiphar's home where he was a slave.

He was unjustly, wrongly accused, and eventually imprisoned.

Does that sound like the ground, like the foundation of a God-sized dream?

Thirteen years.

Here's the interesting part.

When we're in the family dysfunction stage, we tend to think God can't use me.

Look at my past, look at who I am, look at what I've gone through, look at what's been done to me.

When you're in the detour stage, what we tend to think is God has forgotten me.

What we'll find, and next week we're going to talk about the death of a dream.

But what we'll find is in that stage we see this repeated line for those 13 years.

Joseph sold into slavery.

Joseph, a slave, unjustly, wrongly accused, imprisoned.

This line.

And God was with Joseph.

See, some of you are in the family dysfunction stage, and you need to know that God has a dream for your life.

And some of you are in this formation detour, and you've been wrestling, and you're wondering if God has forgotten you.

Not only has he not forgotten you, he is with you and he is forming you right now.

And then at age 30, fulfilled destiny.

30, and he lived a good long life, by the way.

To 110, Pharaoh's dream.

Pharaoh has a dream.

Joseph interprets it, he becomes second command, he saves his nation and family.

And when you step into your destiny, you realize, and this is the only thing you can like really realize only with hindsight.

God was with me the whole time.

God was with me the whole time.

And as you look back on your life and you look back during those formation detours, you'll say something along this line.

Though I'd never want to go through it again, I wouldn't change it because what it produced in me.

I wouldn't change it for the world because of what God did in me and where I'm at today.

I wouldn't wish it upon anybody else, but I'm so grateful looking back at how God formed me in this season.

How do you live dreaming wide awake?

God has a dream for your life.

His dream's better than yours.

So here's what I want to ask you.

Would you dare to dream with God?

Would you dare to dream with God?

Did you walk in dead inside?

Did you walk in just feeling like, yes, I'm sleepwalking through life?

And you've been running after so many other things.

And would you turn today to Jesus, the sources, source of life, and go, get Jesus, you actually have a dream for my life.

In fact, you are life itself.

And today He wants to fill you with meaning and purpose right now.

Not like later one day.

Your yes to Jesus, your yes to life.

He says, in this moment, I want to fill you with purpose and peace and life and hope.

And some of you have never trusted Jesus.

And today is your day.

Say yes.

Some of us are just in that formation detour, aren't we?

And there are some dreams that God put on your heart.

And you've honestly lost sight, maybe in the chase, in the valley, in the pursuit, maybe just through tired.

You know, I've heard people say, like, I don't want to get excited.

I don't want to dream, Ryan, because I don't want to be disappointed.

I get that.

I mean, life's hard.

Things come at us fast.

Biblically, hope is not wishful thinking.

The word hope literally means to have a confident expectation that a better tomorrow awaits.

As followers of Jesus, we don't have empty hope.

Hope the economy, you know, is great.

I hope my job works out.

I hope my marriage, we don't have empty hope.

We have a risen, resurrected Savior who conquered the grave, so there is no more fear of death.

And who promised, I am going to return and restore and make all things right.

And so we lean into the future because we have a Savior who has called us and who is already there, calling us forward.

Ten years ago, one of our dear friends, Judy, who's a prayer warrior.

This church wouldn't exist without Andre and Judy, their prayers and their encouragement and their support all these years.

She would write these three by five cards.

They would be prayers, they would be encouragements, little prophetic words.

I kept them.

Sermon title comes from a three by five card she wrote to me a decade ago.

On the top it says, dare to dream.

I want to invite you.

I want to speak this over you.

Would you dare to dream?

Would you dare to trust God with your life?

Would you dare to simply ask him if you don't know that he's real?

Would you dare to say, God, if you're real, reveal yourself to me?

Would you dare to feel like you're walking through, eating through life?

Say, God, I believe you have a dream, or I want to believe you have a dream for my life.

Would you show me your dream for my life?

Would you pause long enough?

Pursue his heart because when you pursue his heart, he puts a dream on yours.

She writes this.

Your dreams are not too big.

They're not unrealistic.

They're God-given.

He's given you dreams even bigger than you realize, much bigger.

You cannot imagine.

Your mind cannot contain all the things he has for you.

He's anointed you for great things as David was chosen out of a line and anointed for great things.

People may question it or scoff at the dreams, but that doesn't touch the reality or truth of God's truth.

Doesn't change the reality of the dreams he has given you, what he has for you, what he is doing, and what he will do for you.

Be blessed.

Walk in him and with him in the confidence of his great love for you.

He has confidence in you.

He chose you because he made you for this.

Your role and anointing have been planned and set into motion at the beginning of eternity.

What God has done, no one, no one will undo.

I just want to invite you to dare to dream with God.

We have these prayer journals for everyone in a group.

You can grab them on the way out.

We have some guiding discussion questions for our groups.

But would you pause?

We're gonna worship in a minute, but would you just pause?

Remind yourself.

God has a dream.

It's better than my dream.

He's not in a hurry, he's actively working right now.

And then would you ask?

Simply ask.

I dare you.

Remember as a kid on the playground?

I dare you.

What comes after I dare you?

I double dare you.

What comes after double dare?

I triple dog dare you.

I dare you to take God up on his word.

I dare you to take God up on his promises.

I dare you.

I double, triple, dog dare you.

If you don't believe God is real, call out to him right now.

Call out, and he will reveal himself to you.

In fact, my story, I almost walked away from the faith.

I was studying to be a pastor and went through a deep night of the soul, a dark night of the soul.

And it was at my last wit in.

I showed up into a coffee shop and I said, God, if you're real, I need you to show up, and if not, I'm done with this.

And I opened my Bible and he showed up.

He'll show up for you.

I dare you to dream with God.

Oh God, would you make us a church?

Make us a church that believes our best days are not behind us but before us.

Make us a church that takes you at your word and claims your promises as ours.

May we dare to dream with you.

Would you fill each person with your dream for their life?

And may we live it out so that this world might know you.

In Jesus' name.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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