God-Sized Dreams

Amen.

So I want to ask a question just for you to think back on experiences you've had in life as we start into our message today.

And it's simply this have you ever made a mistake?

Could have been big, could have been small.

There's something that you regretted, and it was a mistake that was born out of you underestimating someone or something.

You underestimated something and you paid for it.

Years ago, I had a friend that invited me to go to lunch with him, and he asked me if I had ever eaten Indian food.

And I told him, no, I hadn't.

But I'm open to new things.

And so he said, Well, man, there's this restaurant I want to take you to.

It's amazing food.

If you've never had Indian food, it's incredible.

And he said, I'm just gonna meet you there and I'll order for you.

Because if you've never had it before, you're gonna look at the menu, you're not gonna know what to do.

Just will you trust me?

And I said, Absolutely, I'll trust you.

And so I actually was running a little late.

I got there, and there were already appetizers on the table.

He had already ordered our main course.

And as we hung out, as we ate together, I fell in love with Indian food that day.

It's my favorite food.

I literally was like, This is this is incredible.

How have I gone my whole life?

And I've never I've never eaten this.

I've never I've never known anyone who has, I've never been invited anywhere to a place like this, and I was blown away.

Especially by the main dish, something called chicken tikka masala.

Anyone ever had chicken tika masala in the room?

See, those of you are applauding.

Like who applauds for food?

People who have had chicken tikka masala.

That's who applauds for food.

I mean, it was it was good, it was like creamy and it was amazing.

There were spices I'd never tasted before, and it had heat to it.

I like spicy food.

It had heat.

And so I got home and I told my wife, honey, there's this there's this food.

You have to try it.

You will love this.

It's called chicken tikka masala.

We've got to go.

And so just a few days later, I took her to the restaurant, and the same waiter that waited on us, my friend and I came and he asked us for our order.

And see, I realized at that moment I hadn't I hadn't seen my friend order.

He had already ordered when I got there.

And so all I knew was to order the same things that he ordered, which I did.

But when I got to Chicken Tika Masala, the waiter asked me, What spice level would you like that at?

And I was like, Oh, well, I don't know.

What are the spice levels?

He said, Oh, it's one to ten.

And I was thinking back to myself, well, when we had it, it had some heat to it.

I mean, it made me sweat a little bit.

I really like heat.

And I said, Okay, well then give us a seven.

And he just kind of looked at me.

He said, Why don't we do a three?

And see, I get kind of offended at this moment because I like spicy food.

I mean, when I order queso, I get jalapenos in it.

I live on that edge of life, okay?

So I'm sitting there looking at this guy going, hey man, you don't know who you're talking to.

I like spicy food.

I mean, I really felt good about seven.

Megan looked at me, she said, Can we please just trust the man who works here?

Can we please just lay your ego aside and order a three?

And I said, You know what?

Let's do it.

We'll do a four.

Let's do a four.

Now, I don't know what spice level my friend ordered when I had lunch with him, because it felt pretty spicy, but after having the four, I'm pretty sure my friend ordered a one.

I'm almost a hundred percent sure of that, because the level of intensity of the spiciness of this dish was something that I had never encountered before.

I mean, it was really good, but but it was kind of it was like a spiciness that no amount of water on earth could help.

I remember after my fifth or sixth bite when I was actually having to fight to contain myself.

I mean, it was that it was that intense.

I remember thinking to myself, how does this go to 10?

How in the world are there six more levels after this?

This makes no sense.

I mean, it was in, it was it was intense.

I grossly underestimated how spicy Indian food can be.

And so today, if you don't have plans for lunch or dinner, I highly encourage you to find a good Indian place and go and get the chicken tikka masala, but mild.

Go mild.

Like their version of medium, their hot makes no sense.

Okay?

Satan would only understand that level of hot.

He's the only one that would get it.

So just go mild, save yourself the trouble.

I grossly underestimated how spicy that was.

We have a tendency in life to underestimate things.

We really do.

It gets us in trouble from time to time.

And if you've been here for the last few months, we've been talking about happiness.

We want to have something that the Bible describes as the joy of the Lord.

Nehemiah 8.10 says, Do not be dejected or sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

So you are meant by God to have a happiness that is so complete, it is the same as strength for you.

For the last month, we've been specifically looking at different obstacles that we face on our path to the joy of the Lord.

We talked about having a customer mentality.

We've got to lay aside our customer mentalities and have the mentality of a contributor if we want to experience the joy of the Lord.

We talked about living out of season, being able to just accept the season we're in and enjoy the season that we have, knowing that seasons change.

And we may never have that season of life again.

We've got to enjoy the season.

Even if it's one we'd rather be out of.

Last week we talked about unavoiding unhappiness.

Not being people who avoid unhappiness.

That seems like the right strategy to real happiness, but it's not, because real happiness happens when unhappiness is conquered, not avoided.

Today I want us to look at, I want us to look at one more obstacle.

Next week we're gonna wrap up the whole series.

We'll be done with happiness forever after that.

We'll be finished with happiness, don't worry, no more happiness as a church.

But but today I want to look at one more obstacle before we wrap this all up.

And it's what I call the pursuit of man-sized dreams.

The pursuit of man-sized dreams.

See, when it comes to the dreams that we have for our lives, what we hope to be, what we hope to become, what we hope to accomplish, what we hope to be part of, what we hope to do, we have a tendency to grossly underestimate what God is capable of and what we are capable of.

If we want to be people who live with God-sized joy, we cannot live pursuing man-sized dreams.

Because man-sized dreams will only lead you to man-sized joy.

And we've all experienced that.

We call it disappointment.

God-sized joy happens when our lives are lived in pursuit of God-sized dreams.

Where we stop underestimating ourselves, thinking less of ourselves than God thinks of us, because he thinks very, very highly of us.

He thinks very, very highly of you.

You need to believe that.

Because God says that.

Where we stop underestimating our God and that he will actually show up and he will actually do the things that he's promised to do and become people who have the courage to dream God-sized dreams.

Because there are very few things as closely tied to our joy than our dreams.

Right?

It's our dreams that keep us going, it's our dreams that push us through, that power us through the challenging seasons of life.

So if we want to have God-sized joy, and I certainly do, I hope you do as well, we need to have God-sized dreams to live for.

It's our tendency to settle.

In 1991, or actually 1999, Monster.com was a pretty new website.

You've probably heard of Monster.com, many of you have.

It's a job placement website.

In 1999, it was pretty popular, it was fairly new, but they averaged about 600 job searches a minute.

600 people every single minute wanted a different job and used their site to find it.

But their popularity skyrocketed in 99 when they had one of the most successful Super Bowl commercials in history.

And you might be able to remember this specific commercial if you've been watching Super Bowls for long because it really resonated with people.

It was this commercial of these young children, it was all in black and white.

And these young kids are looking at the camera and they're saying things like, When I grow up, I want to eke my way up to middle management.

There's this little boy who says, When I grow up, I want to be a yes man.

One little boy says, I want to have a brown nose.

There's this little girl, and this one gets me because I have a daughter, and she says, I want to be paid less money to do the same job when I grow up.

Immediately after that commercial aired, the number of job searches per minute went from 600 to 2,900.

Because that commercial resonated with people, it struck a nerve.

All of a sudden the people watching that started to realize, man, when I was a kid, what did I dream about?

Because kids don't have little dreams.

When you were young, you had big dreams.

You absolutely did.

There were huge things in life that very few people ever achieved, but in your mind they were options.

They were going to happen.

Like when I was six years old, the same age my son is now, my oldest.

It was not a question in my mind whether or not I would play professional sports.

It's just which sport was I gonna play?

I mean, I'm sitting there going, Am I gonna be a professional basketball player, a professional baseball player, or am I gonna be both?

Am I gonna am I gonna do both?

I mean, surely I can do both.

There's no question, I mean, no six-year-old ever dreams about playing minor league baseball.

There's no young child that says, one day I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the vice president of the United States of America.

That's what I'm gonna be.

One day, right?

One day I'm gonna play on the JV.

That's what's gonna happen in my life.

That's where I'm gonna peek.

No, children are audacious in their dreams.

Children dream big.

It's as we get older that we start to set those dreams aside.

And look, some of those dreams do need to be set aside because they're not the right dreams for us.

I'm glad I'm still not pursuing professional sports.

You know, my dad's 5'7, my mom's like 5'4.

And so the fact that I turned out 5'9, I'm happy with that.

I'm pleased with that, but if I was still trying to pursue a career in professional basketball or professional baseball, my life would be very, very different, very disappointing.

It's okay for our dreams to change as we get older, but there's a very big difference between changing your dreams and diminishing your dreams.

See, life hits us hard.

Life throws haymakers.

And when we get hit, oftentimes what happens is we start to look to lower our expectations, to start believing that we're capable of less.

And less and less, and our dreams begin to reflect that.

All of a sudden, our dreams are not God-sized dreams, they're they're man-sized dreams.

They're dreams that are within grasp, they're dreams that we can accomplish in our own lifetime without much faith.

And if you can accomplish any dream in your life without faith, it is not a God-sized dream.

If you can accomplish any dream in your life without God, it is not a God-sized dream.

Because God-sized dreams are impossible.

That's kind of the point of them.

In fact, if you look at the Bible, there's there's so many times where God will give someone a God-sized dream for their life, and their response is no way.

That's not possible.

And I think God looks at those people and says, exactly, exactly, it is not possible for you.

But it is if I'm with you, and I'm gonna be with you.

We see God in Scripture elevating the dreams of so many people.

There was a man named Abraham.

This is early in the Old Testament.

Very few pages in.

Abraham is is he getting up there in the years?

He's he's he's not had children yet.

That's a big deal in his culture, by the way, because when you passed away, if you didn't have a son, all of your inheritance, all of all of your wealth, everything you had accumulated would go to the highest-ranking servant in your household.

And that was a very shameful thing to happen in a family.

So, so Abraham, whose name was Abraham at that time, God changed it later.

Abraham is praying, and he wants God to give him a son.

That's his man-sized dream.

I want to have a son, I want to have a child, I want to be the father of one boy.

That is the dream that Abraham lives for.

And then God shows up and God speaks to him, and God gives him a slightly bigger dream.

God says, Abraham, I will make you the father of many nations.

He has no children.

He would be so excited for God just to say, Hey, I'm gonna give you a son.

You're gonna be the father of one kid, one person.

And God shows up and says, No, no, I'm not just gonna make you the father of one, I'm gonna make you the father of many nations.

That is a God-sized dream.

And it was a dream that was so powerful to Abraham that he left everything he had and he followed God to have that.

Because God said, Look, step one, you think step one would be have a child, but no, step one was go find land so this nation can live on.

And Abraham left everything because when you when you get a glimpse of a God-sized dream for your life, you will abandon anything and everything that would keep you from it.

That's how Abraham lived his life.

Jesus gave his disciples a God-sized dream for their lives.

In Matthew chapter 28, Jesus is about to sign out, he's done his thing, he's about to go back to heaven, the Holy Spirit's about to come, but Jesus has a few words he shares with his followers.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

He says, This I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.

Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I've given you, and be sure of this I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

He's got this handful of followers that, for the most part, haven't really been more than 50 or so miles from where they were born, from their home region.

They're well traveled in their home region, but they haven't really been far out of it.

They don't speak the languages of the other nations that Rome has conquered, that are part of the Roman Empire, which was which is what was running most of the world at that time.

And Jesus says, Here's what I want you to do.

I want you not simply to make disciples of all Jerusalem, which is where they were, not just all of Galilee, the region that they they lived in, think the state of a country, not just all of Israel, not all of the Roman Empire.

He says, No, I want you to make disciples of all the nations in the entire world.

Jesus gives them a global vision before they even understand that the earth is a sphere.

There were no globes because they thought it was flat, and Jesus gives them this whole global vision.

I mean, it's it's crazy.

If you had started a business at that point in history, and someone asks you, hey, what are you thinking about your audience?

Like how how big you want this to be?

Um, whole whole world.

People are gonna what?

That's what are you talking about, the whole world?

That's not that's not possible.

It's literally not possible at this point in history to take anything to the ends of the earth.

Because they haven't even discovered how much of the earth there is.

It's gonna be almost 1,500 more years before they realize, oh, there's a Western Hemisphere.

We thought we were getting a lot closer.

Now there's all this.

What are we gonna do?

See that that dream that Jesus shared with them, it was a dream they could not accomplish in their lifetime.

It was a dream that was so big they'd have to hand it off to another generation, and then that generation would have to hand it off to another, and here we are 2,000 years later, and we're not even that close to accomplishing this dream.

Not as close as we might think.

There's an organization called the Joshua Project.

Very cool organization.

They they kind of keep track of the penetration of the gospel in the world.

And so doing some research, I read this, and really incredible to think about.

It's estimated that 7.1 billion people are alive in the world today.

2.91 billion of them live in unreached people groups with little or no access to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And that's for various reasons.

Some it's geographical, the gospel hasn't really gotten there yet.

Some it's because the government won't let the gospel through.

There's all kinds of difficulties there.

It says there are approximately 16,500 unique people groups in the world, with about 6,900 of them considered unreached.

So here we are 2,000 years later, and there's 2.91 billion people that have yet to hear the message of Jesus Christ.

So when Jesus said 2,000 years ago, take my message, take the good news of my love for people, that I have come, that I have forgiven people of all their mistakes, of all their sins, that I have offered them eternal life with God the Father, a relationship with God, a restored relationship with their Creator.

I want you to take this message everywhere, to every nation, to every person.

It was a dream that couldn't even be accomplished in 2,000 years.

God-sized dreams are impossible for anyone but God to accomplish.

Which is why it brings us so much joy and happiness to pursue them because they're bigger than us.

See, I firmly believe that we will never be happy.

Not one of us will ever be happy unless we live out our true purpose.

And see, God created every single one of us to be part of something bigger than us.

That's why man-sized dreams never fulfill us, because a man-sized dream is never bigger than one man or one woman.

It's just it's a dream about your life.

And look, there's nothing wrong with having those kind of dreams, by the way.

There's nothing wrong with wanting, you know, the spouse or the house or the car or the job or the title or the salary.

Like, all that stuff's fine.

It's totally fine to want those things.

But if those are the pinnacle of your dreams, you are selling yourself really short.

Because you were created by God for so much more than that.

And if that's the pinnacle of what you dream of, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment because one day you're gonna have that and it's not gonna satisfy.

Because millions of people have what you want and they're not happy.

Because they're living in pursuit of puny dreams.

That's how I've lived most of my life.

Passionately pursuing things that I wanted for myself.

When I graduated college, I got a job at a small marketing company in Kansas City, Missouri.

And uh I wanted to be successful.

That's all I wanted.

I just wanted to be successful.

I wanted to be a success.

And so I worked so hard at that company.

I wanted to separate myself, I wanted to get noticed, I wanted to be appreciated, I wanted to be rewarded, I wanted to be successful.

And about a year in, I got a promotion, not a raise, a promotion.

I learned that day that those two things are not always the same.

I assumed, wow, there's probably a lot more money coming.

No, okay, well, but there's a title on a business card.

And I'll be honest, that meant more to me at that time than money.

I was promoted to vice president of marketing at a three-person company.

Okay.

So just temper your your oohs and oas.

It was kind of a joke, actually.

But I'll never forget the day that business card arrived.

This box of a thousand business cards.

With my name and this title, Vice President of Marketing.

And I would look at that business card and I would just be like, yes.

Look at this.

Look at this.

I'm gonna hand this out to so many people.

They're gonna go like, wow, you you you're already a vice president?

It's a three-person company, but we won't go there.

Now, the the length of time that feeling of joy and satisfaction from having that title lasted is pretty brief.

Because I remember at a certain point in time, in fact, I remember the moment.

I was driving in my car, I couldn't remember where I was in Kansas City.

It's not a place that any of you would know, but but I remember exactly where I was, the street I was on, where I was going.

Because all of a sudden, this deep disappointment welled up within me.

And this question just started running through my mind.

Is that it?

Is that it?

Is this success?

A title on a business card?

Is this success?

Is this what I've been working for?

Is this is this what I'm gonna keep working for?

Am I just gonna go to a bigger company and try to get the title there and then a bigger company and get the title there?

Is that is that what the next 50 years of my life are going to be?

And there's nothing wrong with being successful in business.

But I just wanted to be successful in business because it made me feel successful.

I was living in pursuit of a puny, tiny dream.

And I was not happy.

Because man-sized dreams will never bring you anything more than man-sized joy.

It wasn't until I realized that God had a God-sized dream for my life, just like he has for every single one of us, that I began to understand the kind of happiness and joy that I could have in my life.

It wasn't until I kind of became like Abraham and started to say, wow, I need to set aside the things that are keeping me from the God-sized dreams of my life and start pursuing those with everything I have that I started to just get a taste of how happy life can be when you live pursuing something bigger than yourself.

Puny dreams lead to puny joy.

The Bible is full of reminders, kind of like Matt talked about during Lord's Supper.

Reminders of not only who God is and what God's done, but but who we are and what is possible in our lives.

Ephesians chapter 3, verse 20 says this.

Ephesians 3:20

Now, all glory to God, who is able, through his power, his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.

I mean, just sit there and look at those words for a second.

God's mighty power.

Mighty power at work within you, able to accomplish more, and not just a little bit more, but infinitely more than you could ever imagine, than you could ever ask or even think about.

I love the way the message version puts it this.

It says this way God can do anything you know, far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams.

He does it not by pushing us around, but by working within us, his spirit deeply and gently within us.

The Bible says that you are the temple of the living God.

Because the living God needs a living temple.

That the Spirit of God, the same Spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead, lives in you.

See, Jesus, he did nothing by his own power.

He set his power aside when he became a person.

The Bible tells us that in Philippians chapter 2.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

And so everything that Jesus did, every miracle, every bit of wisdom and teaching, every powerful thing in Jesus' life, he did by the power of the Holy Spirit, the same Holy Spirit that every single one of us has access to.

At every moment of our days.

That's why Jesus said this in John chapter 14, verse 12.

John 14:12

I tell you the truth.

Anyone, and you have to ask yourself, are you anyone?

You are.

You sure are someone.

Anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father.

You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it.

So that the Son of Man or Son of God can bring glory to the Father.

Yes, ask me for anything in my name and I will do it.

Those are the verses that no one believes, by the way.

Like no one believes those things for the most part.

People who've been Christians their whole life read that and go, yeah, that's no.

We might believe it in a theological sense, like, yeah, yes, I believe it's in the Bible.

I very much agree with that.

Yes, we can do even more than Jesus.

Whatever.

Right?

When's the last time you looked at a sick person and were like, you're not sick?

That's the stuff Jesus did.

The Bible says we will do more than Jesus.

It's not the Bible that says it.

Jesus said that.

Jesus said that we would do more than him.

That we have that capacity in us.

And that's crazy.

I mean, who really believes that?

But what would happen if the people who claim to be followers of Jesus actually believed what Jesus says?

Honestly, what would the church in America or in the world look like if the church in America actually bought in to the message of Jesus and believed that the same power that was in the life of Jesus is in us?

What would happen?

I just think it's time for us to take Jesus in his word and stop selling ourselves so short.

And stop living life.

Believing that we're only capable of this much when Jesus Himself, God Himself, the one who invented us, says, No, you can do even more than me.

We need to believe that.

It is impossible, yes.

But we have a God that does impossible things every single day.

I mean, God's always doing something big.

It's just a question of whether or not we want to be part of it.

I was praying in the prayer room two weeks ago, three weeks ago.

Not that you have to pray in the prayer room.

It's not like if you pray in the prayer room, it's it's God listens to those more.

It's just a good place to pray.

And so I was praying.

And as one thing I was thinking about, and I was like, God, help me just understand if this is something you want to do or if it's just a big thing I want to do, and God cut me off, and he does that so often, very rude, God is.

And uh he just knows he's gotta cut me off at some point in time.

And so he literally spoke so clear, he just said, Justin, I always want to do big things.

And if you never have the experience of God speaking to you, ask him for that, by the way.

That's for everybody.

When God speaks to you, it's it's interesting.

He might say one small thing, but it opens up your eyes to all this other stuff.

And I very much understood in that moment that what God was saying is that he always wants to do something big.

It's just that what we think is big isn't always big to God, and what we think might be small and inconsequential is actually really big to God.

But he reminded me, Justin, you think you're the one that wants to do big things?

You think you're the one that has these big plans and these big dreams?

Your dreams are tiny.

So stop, stop trying to accomplish your dreams, Justin, and just listen to mine.

Because God's dreams are impossible.

People, God says this in the Bible, he says this about his own dreams, that he wills, he dreams that no person would perish, but that every single person ever would have eternal life.

That every single person in this world would know him and experience his love and his grace and his mercy and his passion for who they are.

That's his dream.

Every single person, and sometimes we we get these dreams in the church world, like, oh, what if 10,000 people?

That'd be amazing, right?

No, 10,000 people.

God say, no, all of them, every one of them.

That's my dream.

That's what God says.

And I just I was so humbled in that moment to realize that what I think is big is nothing to God.

And if I live my life in pursuit of what I think is big in place of what actually is, I'm just setting myself up for major disappointment because man-sized dreams do nothing but but lead to man-sized joy.

And so I want to ask you a question this morning.

Very simple question.

Do you have a dream for your life that is bigger than you?

I know that's a very challenging question.

And my intention is not to make you feel guilty at all.

That is the opposite of what I want to happen.

I want you to understand that the God of this universe loves you so much, wants your life to be full of joy.

He just knows better, and he knows that unless we have something bigger than us to live for, we will never be happy.

Do you have a dream for your life that is bigger than you?

And look, it doesn't have to be epic.

It doesn't have to be fancy or sound big.

I know a guy whose God-sized dream, and it is a God-sized dream for his life, is to be the first man in his family in many generations to not have an affair.

That's his God-sized dream.

He wants to be the first man in several generations, as many generations as he knows, that's faithful to his wife.

Because he recognizes what that would mean for his son.

Because all his life, his father's last name and his last name, all the men in his family have been associated with selfishness, unfaithfulness.

It's like that with his brother and his uncle and his grandfather.

And he wants his son to have a totally different legacy to live up to.

He wants his son to know that his last name means complete and total faithfulness.

Keeping promises.

So what would happen if this person accomplished that God-sized dream?

How many generations down the line would it affect?

How many marriages would be saved?

That's a God-sized dream.

In fact, I heard a pastor say it this way.

I'll never forget it.

If your dream can be accomplished in your lifetime, it's not big enough.

It's like that dream Jesus gave the disciples.

By the way, it's going to take several thousand years.

Get to work.

If your dream can be accomplished in your lifetime, you need to dream bigger.

That's what Jesus is telling us.

Dream, dream bigger, think bigger.

Recognize that what you do has the ability to echo long beyond your life on this earth.

I was talking to my parents a few weeks ago.

My mom specifically, and my mom was just having one of those mom moments.

I don't know what was coming over.

I think all parents feel guilt sometimes because they wish they could have done more for their kids.

Like we all want to give our kids everything.

Every single one of us wants to be able to pay for our children's house.

Which is complete here.

It's yours, easy life, because that'll make life a lot better for our kids if they never have to work for anything and strive and struggle and pray, right?

It's just all handed to them.

That's good.

The Bible says that an inheritance early in life is not a blessing, which I agree with.

But all parents want that.

And so my mom just, I don't know where it was coming from.

She's like, Justin, I'm so sorry we couldn't do more for you.

We couldn't give you more.

I'm sitting there going, Mom, what are you talking about?

My mom's from Seymour, Missouri.

Ever heard of it?

No, you haven't.

Because people that live five miles away from Seymour don't know it exists.

It's like.

My dad's from Sparta, Missouri.

Ever heard of it?

What?

Hey, what's up, Brett?

How you doing?

You that's, yeah, because your parents moved there.

Weird, right?

So weird.

I'm glad you're here this morning.

Okay, so that's actually a funny thing because Brett moved here and he's like, oh, my parents moved to Sparta Missouri.

I'm like, my parents, there's like 400 people that live there.

It's probably grown a little bit.

These two tiny towns, towns that literally no one has big dreams.

No one leaves those towns.

I love my family.

I go visit my family.

They're great.

But these are not places that inspire you.

You don't grow up in these places and go, you know what, I'm going to make something of myself.

People don't go to college.

People just don't leave.

And my parents did.

And they worked really hard and they sent us to school.

My brother and I, they sent us to college.

And so where we're starting is so different than where they started.

And where our kids are going to start is so much different than where they began.

And I looked at my mom and I said, What are you talking about?

Look at what you've done.

You've changed generations for our family.

Because you had the courage to go bigger than anyone in your family did.

You've changed generations.

You've changed my children's lives.

You've changed their lives.

That's what God-sized dreams do.

Do you have one?

Do you want one?

Does anyone anyone want one?

Stacey Walls wants one.

And she sits on the front row, so she's gonna get it.

Okay?

That's how it goes.

All you back row people.

See you.

You guys probably get the parking spots that are out the back, too, so you can just get out of here.

I'm just cheesing you.

I love y'all.

Um if I wasn't here, I'd totally be a back row person.

That's the beauty of the church.

Because if you do want a God-sized dream, God's given you one.

It's called the church.

Not his hands church.

We're a church.

I'm talking about the church.

I happen to like our church.

That's the beauty of it.

I mean, God loves us so much that he gave us a God-sized dream to pursue, and it's it's building his church, it's building his kingdom.

Because this church alone is so much bigger than any one of us.

The church is so much bigger than any of us.

And we have the ability and the capacity to do so much more than we could ever hope to do on our own.

The dreams that we have as a family of people, as a church, they're so much bigger than any one of us could ever hope to accomplish.

One day we're gonna get to leave this church to another generation, and they're gonna be able to start so much, so much stronger than we did.

Because they're not gonna have to unlearn all the crap we had to unlearn to connect with God.

A lot of us understand what I'm talking about.

I spent my first seven, eight years here just unlearning.

Not really learning, unlearning.

Oh, that's okay, I was wrong about God there.

Oh, he doesn't, he's not mad at me all the time.

Are you sure?

I just said crap at church.

Is he gonna kill me?

Is that gonna happen?

Someone will probably email me and tell me he will, but he hasn't yet.

And I've said crap like five times this year alone.

So I don't know.

I'm not testing him, I'm just saying.

I've had to unlearn so much, but you know what?

Right now we have two-year-olds worshiping and being taught about the love of Jesus.

And being taught about the Holy Spirit and that they can know God.

What's gonna happen when those kids aren't kids anymore?

What's gonna happen when they're in their 20s and 30s and they're running this?

Oh, hopefully we shouldn't have 20-year-olds and 30-year-olds running it one day.

We should have at least a few older people than that, but whatever.

They're doing a lot.

But they're not having to unlearn all that we had to unlearn.

What's gonna happen?

It's gonna be amazing.

I'll tell you that.

It's gonna be incredible to see what they'll do with what we hand them, but we've just got to hand it to them.

I mean, that's why as a church, we we have to make sure, and I know I'm I'm I'm going a little long, but y'all are so patient as two people walk away, but it's okay.

I know you guys are, it's not that.

It was just the weird timing of it.

It's always bad if you have to use the restroom right when the I know I'm running along.

You're like, well, we're we're gone.

Um we have to be very careful to make sure that as a church, we don't settle for man-sized dreams instead of God-sized dreams.

We have to be very careful about that.

That's what I love about this church.

Because I'll be honest with you guys, for years, for years, I my dreams for this place were just man-sized dreams.

I still fight that from time to time.

Because it's so easy to get like that.

Oh, what if what if X number of thousand people came to this church?

That is a puny dream.

That's that's nothing.

What if what if 20,000 people went here?

We need a bigger parking lot.

Lowe's needs to go out of business, so does BJ's.

Just to accommodate that.

That's puny.

And it's puny because that's not God's dream.

See, that's a puny dream because you can accomplish something like that without God.

You can accomplish things like that with marketing and branding and a big push with billboards and bumper stickers.

But see, things like that, things like marketing, branding, that kind of stuff, self-promotion, those are man-made strategies to accomplish man-sized dreams.

God wants to create a movement.

God wants to change people's lives.

You notice that Jesus didn't say, get people to go to church.

That's not what he said.

He said, Hey, here's what I want you to do: build churches, make them cool, and then get people to go.

Get people to like church.

That's not what he said.

Teach people to follow me, Jesus.

In other words, give them an encounter with me.

What would happen if every single person in our community had an actual encounter with the love of God?

Not that every single person in our community got invited to church, because that's not the same thing.

What if every single person in our community had an actual encounter with the love that God has for them?

Every single person.

Think about that.

And when I say community, what does that mean?

Well, okay, Woodstock.

We live in Woodstock.

How many of you don't live in Woodstock, by the way?

Okay?

Cobb County.

Let me see Cobb County.

Where are you all at?

Half of Cobb County's out because they're on break.

Anyone live in Waleska?

Any Waleska people?

Yeah.

That's like half of Waleska right there.

Awesome.

The other half was in the first service.

That's great.

Right?

Okay, how many of us have family in other states?

That's more people than live in Waleska that just raised their hand.

That's amazing.

We got Willuska covered.

Okay.

Just sitting in this room, how many thousands upon thousands of people we're all going to interact with this week?

Just this week alone.

How many phone conversations we're going to have?

How many times we're going to be standing next to someone at Starbucks or in a drive-thru line or at a restaurant, going grocery shopping, picking our kids up from school?

I mean, think about the sphere of influence that exists just sitting here right now.

Every single one of us has the capacity to bring someone the love of God.

That's why our mission is to love people to Jesus.

We all have the love of Jesus in us.

We can bring the love of Jesus to everyone we come in contact with.

What would happen if every single person in our community, in our, in our sphere of influence, had an encounter with God because we made it our God-sized dream to be the person that brings them the love of God.

Seriously.

It's impossible with just us, but it's so possible with God.

We're about to celebrate 10 years as a church.

So excited about that.

And we've just started, and we've just scratched the surface.

I can't wait to see what happens in the next 40.

But we have this opportunity to be part of something bigger than us.

To be part of the mission of Jesus in our lives.

That God thinks so highly of you that He's recruited you to be a part of His mission.

That's amazing.

You should feel so honored.

You should feel very important.

Because God wants you.

We're going to wrap up with one more, one more song.

It's what we do.

And I just I just want to end by saying this.

I know I said earlier, I love you guys so much.

I love this church.

I mean, to the point where.

And you know, I just want to say one thing.

I just want to say this is like totally off the cuff, didn't plan it.

Shocker.

Um the uh you you want to you want to I'll give you a starting point.

Because sometimes I'm not, I'm I'll be honest, I'm not that great at being practical.

Sometimes I'm like really good at like, let's do it! Everyone like walks out and they're like, what are we doing?

Something big.

Okay.

You want to start helping people have an encounter with Jesus.

I'm gonna give you one one way to live life this week.

Be an interruptible person.

Be interruptible.

I I heard a uh a pastor say once that if you there's a it's a huge church, so like massive in scale.

They're like, hey, we're just never gonna have lunch.

It's just not gonna happen.

And it made total sense, like practically speaking.

I mean, how in the world is this guy gonna have time to, you know, grab lunch?

Just the idea being, like, I'm so busy, I've got so many people to invest in, I can't, it's not, it's just not possible.

And I get that, totally get that, except for the fact that Jesus was the most interruptible person I've ever seen.

I mean, Jesus was on this mission to save the entire world, right?

He's got these people he's gotta invest in.

He's got like three years to invest in his disciples, and then it's up to them, and they're not, they're not doing well.

Like, they need remedial classes.

And yet, any person that walks up to Jesus, even the lowest of the low, the people that everyone else would say, shoo, like get away.

Jesus is busy.

Jesus would stop and say, hey, what do you what do you need?

Be interruptible.

And by all means, interrupt me whenever you want.

Interrupt anyone here at our church because we love you.

You are loved.

You are cared about.

Take our time.

Seriously, take it.

But live that way this week.

Don't get mad when someone interrupts you.

You've got plans, I'm trying to get this done, get this done, and then all of a sudden it's your kid or it's it's some random person that calls, and you're just like, ah, just go, oh, wait, hold on.

This is a chance for me to love someone to Jesus.

This is a God-sized dream moment.

This is a chance for me to do something bigger than me.

Be interruptible.

Live like Jesus, love like Jesus, and see what happens.

Let's pray, let's go out this week as people with God-sized dreams.

Because we have a God-sized God.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for loving us the way you do.

Thank you, Jesus, for all you've done for us.

Lord, you're just, you're incredible.

Help us be people with the courage to dream dreams bigger than us, to dream dreams bigger than our lifetime.

God, help us trade in every man-sized dream that we've been living for in exchange for the God-sized dream that you've given us, to love people to Jesus, to build the kingdom that you started and that you will finish.

Give us love for each other this week, Lord.

Give us love for every person in this room.

Give us love for every person in our community.

Make us interruptible.

People willing to drop whatever we're doing for an opportunity to show love.

And we love you so much, Jesus, and we ask for all this in your name.

Amen.

Love you guys.