Dream Again – Here Comes the Dreamer

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason and Liz Burns in Access Church in Lakeland and Bartow, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Well, let's get to work together today.

Really excited you came to church.

We are wrapping up a series of messages on our dreams called Dream Again.

And the reason we've entitled it this is all of us, if we're not careful, will allow the pressures of life, the busyness of life, the words spoken over us, the lack of finances that we see.

We will allow things to beat the dreams that we have in our hearts out of us.

So so week one, I started with this message and I said, What do you do when the dream of your life feels like it's dead or dying?

What do you do?

Last week, Pastor Isaiah preached a brilliant message on God's dream for our lives.

Today I want to step into your dream and I want to challenge you to imagine a day when you are standing in the literal fulfillment of your dream.

Every dream has a genealogy.

Every dream has a way that when you get to the fulfillment of your dream, you can walk backwards and you can see the point or the decision or the moment when a decision you made or an act of forgiveness or an act of generosity literally set off a domino effect of things in your life that led to you standing in your dream.

This week I was having lunch with someone and I started talking through a miracle that is in process in my life.

It hasn't happened yet, but I believe it's happening.

And I started talking and I started walking backwards through my life, and I realized something.

There is a moment in my life, some 15 years ago, an act of crazy forgiveness that has led to a miracle, which led to a miracle, which led to a miracle, which in my opinion is leading to an even bigger miracle in my life.

Now, we as Christians believe this is God's handiwork in our lives.

Social scientists would call this idea what's called the butterfly effect.

Have you heard of this before?

It's a part of what social scientists call chaos theory.

The butterfly effect is the simple idea that if a butterfly in the Amazon jungle like flaps its wings, it sets off a little bit of wind, which affects a leaf, which affects something, which affects something, which affects something.

And eventually someday there's a tornado in Kansas because a butterfly flapped its wings.

Okay, are you with me on this?

This is the idea.

Now the thing is, like, I don't know if that's true about butterflies, but here's the point of the idea.

It's that you are one decision away from an entirely different life.

Like, like, let me talk to you young people, high schoolers, college students, you are one decision now away from an entirely different, bigger than you could ever hope or imagine.

You are one moment, one decision away from an entirely different life.

You ever stopped to think back about your life?

You ever thought, like, if I had done this or if I hadn't gone there, if I had just made this decision, if I had taken this risk, if I hadn't had the courage to ask her on a date, if I didn't do something, or if I did do something, how different would my life be?

So I was thinking about this this week and I thought, man, there's been some moments in my life where I'm so glad God worked it out the way He did.

When I was in high school, there was this man in my church who was possibly the smartest man I've ever met.

This dude had two earned doctoral degrees.

I have one and I have sworn that I will never go to school ever again, ever.

I get hives dropping my kids off at school.

Like I'm done with school forever.

I'm done, right?

And he had two degrees.

And this man was so brilliant that he came up with what I believe was a God idea to raise two billion dollars from philanthropists and donors, and all the money would go into one large pot, and it was going to be used to do things to change the world in areas where there's disasters or incredible need.

For example, he wanted to buy one of those huge Boeing airplanes and build it out in a way where if there was a major disaster, a tornado, an earthquake, or some sort of tsunami, they could literally fly the plane in, open the sides, and it turned into a mobile hospital to save hundreds and hundreds of lives.

He wanted to go into the most remote parts of Africa and build fish farms to teach people how to raise fish so that they wouldn't starve to death.

He had lots of ideas.

And so he came to me one day and he said, Hey, would you help me design all the stuff that I need for this?

And I found out later he was scheming against me and he had told people, when Jason does all of this and I have the money, I want to bless him, I want to pay for his whole college and give him a whole salary in college.

And when I heard that, I said, talk dirty to me.

What?

What are you talking about, right?

That's huge.

And then all of the money was to come into his bank accounts from all the different givers on September 15th, 2001.

Anybody remember what happened the week of September 15th, 2001?

There was the national tragedy with the World Trade Center.

And when that happened, the whole global economy froze up and nobody moved money at all, and it felt like the dream just never really took shape.

Sometimes wonder what might have happened with my life had that happened.

I had another moment just a couple years later.

I was at the end of college, my last semester in college, and I got a phone call super early in the morning from the president of the university where I went, and he said, Jason, uh, this phone call could change your whole life.

And I said, Let's go, talk to me.

And he told me that there's a man who is very famous in church world.

He did these events in Africa that were called Crusades, where between half a million and one and a half to two million people from Africa would gather at these massive events and he'd preach and they'd see hundreds of thousands of people put their faith in Jesus.

And he said, That man, his longtime assistant, just resigned, and he's looking for someone young who has integrity, who can help him, and you were the only name I gave him.

But oh my goodness, this this would change my whole life.

Prayed about it, thought about it, and I made the decision that that wasn't for me.

And I think back about my life, and who knows the way my life might have gone if I had taken that job.

What I do know is I probably wouldn't have met the love of my life, the inimitable Liz Burns, best decision of my life, shout out.

Uh, she's great.

Access church probably wouldn't be a thing.

Like, who knows how different the world or my world would be?

You see, you are one decision away from an entirely different life.

And all the good that comes with that and all the negative that comes with that, you are one decision away.

Today I want to talk to you about how do you get from where you are now to see the dream actually fulfilled.

How do you make the right decisions now and trust God in the middle of the story to know that he's orchestrating and putting all the pieces together for your dream to come true?

Well, when I think of dreams, certainly the person in the Bible that comes to mind is Joseph.

It's one of the most familiar stories in the Bible.

What's funny is a lot of Christians don't know Joseph's backstory.

Here's his backstory.

As a young man, um, not Joseph, his father Jacob, his father Jacob, as a young man, had this kind of interesting upbringing.

He he schemed his brother out of a major life event, the birthright, and he goes on to live this interesting life.

But but in his young years, Jacob, Joseph's father, he falls head over heels in love with this girl named Rachel.

And scripture says about Rachel that she was beautiful and had a lovely figure.

Okay, can you imagine, ladies, that the Bible was written and for thousands of years?

Everybody who read the book of Genesis read about your lovely figure.

That would be awesome, right?

And then it says about Rachel that she had an older sister whose name was Leah.

Now, about Rachel, it says she was beautiful and had a lovely figure.

About Leah, it said that she had weak eyes.

Okay, let me try to explain this to the men in the room, all right?

Imagine a book was written, and for thousands of years people read about your younger brother, and it said about him that he had the body of a Greek god, and it said about you that you had the body of a golden corral buffet.

You know what I'm saying?

Like this is it's kind of the idea here.

So it compares them and their beauty, and Joseph falls in love with the younger sister Rachel, and he says, I'll do whatever it takes.

And he goes to her father Laban and says, I'll work for seven years for her hand in marriage.

Some of you men need to step your game up, boys.

Come on, take a girl on a date, get some courage, ask her out, right?

It's called a menu.

That means men you should pay for that date.

Like, get on it.

Okay.

I'm like, Jesus loves you, crickets.

Men you should pay.

Woo! Makes no sense.

All right, whatever.

So he works for seven years, and at the end of Genesis 29, it's interesting.

It says that those seven years felt like nothing but days to him.

He was so in love.

Aw.

Then he gets to the wedding night.

They have this beautiful wedding ceremony.

The wife comes in in a full veil, and it's this beautiful moment, and then they they have the wedding, they have the honeymoon, they consummate, and then the weirdest thing happens the next morning.

He wakes up and he sees the woman laying next to him, and then it's not Rachel, the younger sister, it is the older sister.

Now hold up.

Um, there's some stuff in the Bible that I'll be honest with you and tell you I don't understand.

Like, for example, how do you get to that moment?

Like, how many core lights do you need to be deep in this moment?

Are you on the same page on this?

He goes to the father and he's like, bro, you tricked me.

And the dad goes, Well, okay, I didn't want the older sister to not get married before the younger sister.

So I switched it up and he said, I'll work seven more years for Rachel's hand.

He does it.

And I need you to understand, he doesn't really love the older sister, but he's infatuated with the younger sister.

And through these two women, he has 12 kids.

Ten with the first wife, two with the younger wife, the one he loves.

And in antiquity, it was common that the firstborn son would get what's called the birthright.

It's kind of like the extra bit of the inheritance.

It was kind of a favor from the father.

And Jacob makes no bones about this.

He doesn't necessarily give it to the the firstborn of the oldest wife.

He gives it to the firstborn of his younger wife.

It's the son named Joseph.

Maybe you've heard the story of Joseph.

The father gives him a gift.

We call it the coat of many colors.

It was probably more like a very ornate tunic, the kind of thing you would give to royalty.

And so the brothers know that this is the favorite child.

Like parents in the room, you know this.

You are not supposed to have a favorite child.

You might have a favorite child, but you are not supposed to have a favorite child.

Jacob doesn't hide it.

He's like, this is my boy.

What's interesting is not only does he show his love, all of the names of the children that he has with the older wife, Leah, all the names are names that are given, trying to like earn his affection.

Can you imagine?

I think one of the kids' names is Pain.

Can you imagine that?

Your son, like you, come here, Kevin, Mark, Pain.

Like, can you imagine this?

And all of these names are about her heart bleeding for her husband's affection, but he doesn't care for her, he only cares for Joseph.

And Joseph is set apart, he's the favorite, he makes no bones about it.

But Joseph's also a dreamer.

And we pick up the story here in Genesis chapter 37.

Genesis 37 · chapter mention

It says, one night Joseph had a dream, and when he told his brothers about it, they hated him more than ever.

Means they'd hated him before, but now it's even worse.

Listen to this dream, Joseph said.

He says, We were out in the field tying up bundles of grain, and suddenly my bundle stood up, and your bundles all gathered around and bowed low before mine.

And his brothers responded with this Hebrew phrase that's like, huh?

Like, what do you mean?

They said, So you think you will be our king?

Do you do you actually think you will reign over us?

And again, if it wasn't clear the first time, and they hated him all the more because of his dreams and the way he talked about them.

Quick little lesson on dreams.

Not everybody in your life is equipped to handle your dream.

Like you don't need to share your dream with everybody, and in the interest of vulnerability, and every not everybody needs to know your dream because there are some people whose whole life mission is to assassinate your dream.

Well, Joseph has this dream, he shares it with his brothers, then he has another one, and he says, Mom and dad, listen, I had this dream.

In this dream, the sun, the moon, and stars, things that reign over me, they all bowed to me.

And they were like, What is wrong with you?

And then the story goes on.

One day, Joseph's brothers are out in the field doing something, and it says, When Joseph's brothers saw him coming, they recognized him in the distance, and as he approached, they made plans to kill him.

Okay, I've got three kids, and uh, they fight sometimes.

I don't think it's ever gotten to this point.

That's how bad it was for Joseph.

Listen to the language.

They said, Here comes the dreamer.

Here comes the dreamer, and note this they don't identify him by his brother, his relationship, by who he is.

They identify him by his ability, capacity to dream.

Here comes the dreamer, they said.

Come on, let's kill him and let's throw him into one of these cisterns, like a well.

If we can tell our father a wild animal has eaten him and then listen to their language, then we'll see what becomes of his dreams.

The brothers are so upset by the favor given to Joseph that they want to kill him.

Well, thankfully, one of the other brothers steps up and he goes, No, guys, we can't do this.

This will break our father's heart.

What if instead of killing him, what if we just did something to him and we we sold him into slavery, and just as this is happening, a band of gypsies comes by and they sell their brother into slavery and they go home and tell their father, Joseph's, he's dead.

We're so sorry.

And it broke his heart, but it didn't feel as bad on their conscience.

Just from those verses, when it comes to the dreams of your life, I need you to know there's three different types of people when it comes to dreaming.

The first one is those who are in the game.

This is Joseph.

This is my challenge to you.

Be a dreamer, be someone who doesn't sit on the sidelines and critique everyone else's dream.

Be so busy creating your life that others look at you and say, Man, I want what they have.

The brothers see Joseph, and here's what they say.

Here comes the dreamer.

There's something different about him, and I would say to you that if the God of the universe, who is a creator and a dreamer, created you in his image, it should be said about you when you walk into rooms.

Here comes the dreamer.

Here comes the person whose life feels like there's something bigger that is compelling them and moving them into the future.

Those are those who are in the game.

Secondly, there's people in your life who hate the game.

And listen to me, there will always be haters and critics, critics, and cynics.

There just will be.

Listen to what his brothers say.

They say, Come on, let's kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns, and then we'll see what becomes of his dreams.

There's gonna be people who hate you for your dream, and can I tell you why?

I want you to see this.

People dissatisfied with their life will try to get you to hate yours.

It's because there's people in your life who life kicked out of them the ability to dream.

There's people who gave up on the on their dreams, and so they hate you for having a dream.

There are people who, when you dream, you do nothing wrong, but it feels like salt in an open wound of their life.

And so what they want to do is assassinate your dream to make them feel better about giving up on theirs.

Are you with me?

Then here's the third type of person when it comes to the dream.

It's those who are watching the game.

Here's the brothers again.

They say, then we'll see what becomes of his dream.

Then we'll be able to see what becomes of his dream.

Now here's what I want you to understand from these three different types of people.

A dream will make you different.

A dream is gonna set you apart in a world full of people who are content to go to work, check in, check out, eke through an existence, in a world full of people who go home after work, eat the same boring dining dinner, watch the same boring TV shows, take the same boring shower, and go to bed at the same boring time, who have given up on their dreams, they see you differently because there's something about your life that feels compelling, it feels appealing, and they just look at their life and they just don't get it.

There's something different.

I want you to notice something.

I said this.

I said there's some people who are watching the game.

You ever gone to like a major sporting event?

You ever gone to a football game or an NBA game?

And you see it way up in the nosebleed section.

There's always a person there who's had a little too much to drink and they've got a little too much courage in the moment who will scream from the top row at the players or at the coaches as if they're the experts in the arena.

But you know what I've noticed?

Players don't pay any attention to those voices.

But they will listen to someone who is screaming at them.

It's the coach.

Because the coach and the critic have a very different intent.

The critic just wants his voice to be heard.

A coach wants to pull out of someone the greatness that's inside of them.

You need to be careful the voices you listen to.

There are some voices who will scream at you, but they don't want anything good for you.

But there are other voices who might challenge you, and the challenge isn't to push you, the challenge is to draw out of you something called greatness.

If you know the story of Joseph, it's one of the most beautiful stories.

I mean, movies should be written about it.

The story goes for Joseph finding himself in his father's house, the son of Favor.

His name literally means God will add from his father's house.

His brothers sell him out, he finds himself in a pit.

He's then sold into slavery, and it might seem like things have turned a little bit for the good because he gets bought into the house of a man named Potiphar.

Potiphar was believed to be one of the most powerful, maybe possibly second in command in all of Egypt.

And what I love about Joseph's life here in Potiphar's house is it says that he did his job with such excellence and integrity that all Potiphar knew was that which was in front of him.

Let me talk to anybody in the room who's an employee, okay?

If you want to excel, if you want to proceed, if you want to grow in your job, make it your mission to take anything that you can off of the plate of the person who is leading you, so that all they have to do is the most important stuff that is right in front of them.

Potiphar takes notice.

But unfortunately, so does Potiphar's wife.

And it says that there's this day when Potiphar's wife calls Joseph into a bedroom and tries to seduce him.

Joseph being a man of integrity and morality, he rejects her.

He says, I can't have anything to do with this.

And at one point she says something to him and he takes off running and she grabs whatever she can that he's wearing and she starts screaming that he assaulted her.

Okay.

Now, this is important for you to understand.

I don't know that Potiphar fully believed it.

If Potiphar actually believed that one of his hired servants or slaves had assaulted his wife, he would have had that man put to death.

But I think he knew there was something different about Joseph, so instead of killing him, he threw him into prison.

This is the big deal.

You would think that the story couldn't go any worse, couldn't go more off-road for Joseph than this, but in prison he meets two men who used to work for Pharaoh, the king.

And they they both had these dreams, and Joseph interpreted them.

One of the men, the dream interpretation, was that God was going to get him out of prison, and someday he would work again at the right hand of Pharaoh.

And Joseph said, When this dream comes true, I need you to remember me.

I'm stuck in prison and I didn't do any of this.

I didn't do anything wrong at all.

So that day comes and the dream happens.

And the man gets out of prison and he works for Pharaoh, but he forgets about Joseph until one day when Pharaoh can't sleep, and he calls everybody in and he says, Guys, I've had this dream and I can't, it's bugging me.

I don't know what it means, but I need someone who could interpret it.

And he remembered back in prison his old prison cellmate buddy Joseph.

They call Joseph up.

Pharaoh shares this dream with them and he says, Listen, I can tell you what the dream means.

It means you're gonna have seven years of abundance, seven years of plenty of food, plenty of grain, and then there's gonna be seven years of drought and famine.

So in those first seven years, you need to stock up and store as much as you can to prepare for the next seven.

Pharaoh is so pleased and moved by this moment that he elevates Joseph from prison to be second in command over the whole nation.

Now, now we hear the story and we think, well, that's an amazing story.

Isn't it wonderful?

I need you to understand a couple things.

The first thing is this from the moment that his brother sold him into slavery in the pit to getting to Pharaoh's house is 13 years.

13 years.

13 years of sleepless nights, 13 years of fighting with God, like, where are you?

Have you fallen asleep at the wheel?

Where are you?

I'll be honest, most of us we throw in the towel after like one bad week.

We throw in the towel when it's like money's a little tight and can't really see past this week.

13 years for Joseph.

The second thing I want you to see about Joseph's story is we tend to do something that I bet Joseph did.

We tend to assign words to our seasons, like good or bad.

What does it mean?

I asked her on a date and she said, Yes, it's good.

He broke up with me.

That's bad.

I got a raise.

That's good.

I lost my job, that's bad.

And we put words on seasons as if we have the highest perspective and know what God's actually doing.

Let's go back to Joseph's life for just a moment.

He's in his father's house.

We would say that this is good.

He gets thrown into the pit, we would say this is bad.

But Joseph eventually navigates all the way through his story and he gets to this moment in Pharaoh's house where he's able to be used by God to literally save a nation of people.

We say moments are bad.

God says moments are actually just moments that I'm setting up in place for you that you have no idea what's actually happening.

Okay.

Let me show you this word.

Okay.

When you read through the story of Joseph, particularly in Genesis chapter 39, there's an interesting word that seems to follow Joseph in all of his seasons.

Genesis 39 · chapter mention

It's the word success.

I think many of us might have a wrong definition of success.

We think success is like a big bank account and a nice car and a flashy watch and a nice house and a beautiful family.

That's what we think success is.

And nothing wrong with that stuff.

But success isn't material things.

According to the Bible, success equals.

Obedience.

Success is God, whatever you're doing, I trust you, and I'll do for you whatever you ask me to do.

I was talking to a person this week, I told you earlier I was sharing a dream or a miracle that's kind of in process in my life.

And I told them this, I said, I'm I don't like to talk about myself.

I don't like to brag about myself or talk about success or whatever.

I don't do that.

But if I could brag on one thing that I'm proud of in my life, it's that my whole adult life, my whole marriage to Liz, whenever we feel like God's asked us to do something, we just say yes.

Like we don't do the mental math, we don't try to make it make sense, we just say yes.

This is the story of our marriage, this is the story of our church.

We just say yes because we trust that if God's asked us to do it, he's the one putting all the pieces together for us.

Okay, back to Joseph's life for just a moment.

Joseph is now some 22 years later from the time he was thrown into the pit.

He was 17 years old when his brothers threw him in the pit.

He's now 39 years old, and there's this moment where he's working for Pharaoh, and the story picks up in chapter 42.

Now Joseph was governor of the land, the person who sold grain to all of its people.

So when Joseph's brothers arrived, they bowed down to him with their faces to the ground.

Remember the moment just a couple chapters earlier where Joseph has a dream?

Now he is literally standing, seeing with his eyes, something that years earlier he could only see with his heart.

His brothers are bowing down to him.

It goes on and it says, As soon as Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he pretended to be a stranger and he spoke harshly to them.

Where do you come from?

He asked them.

From the land of Canaan, they replied, To buy food.

Although Joseph recognized his brothers, they didn't recognize him.

Because 22 years will change a person, right?

Then it goes on and says, This it says, then he remembered his dreams about them, and he said to them, You are spies.

You have come to see where our land is unprotected.

No, no, no, no, no, my lord, they answered.

Your servants have come to buy food.

We are the sons of one man.

Your servants are honest men, we are not spies.

No, he clapped back at them.

He says, You have come to see where our land is unprotected.

And they were like, Listen, listen, I know it seems weird.

He says, Your servants, we were twelve brothers, the sons of one man who lives in the land of Canaan.

The youngest is with our father, and one is no more.

The one they're talking about is literally standing right there.

Joseph said to them, It is just as I told you, you're spies, and this is how you will be tested.

As surely as Pharaoh lives, you will not have this place unless your youngest brother comes here.

They think to themselves, like, we are never gonna convince our dad to let the only other remaining alive son in his eyes, the one of his loved wife, come back with us.

There's no way he's going to go for this.

But they they go home and they talk to the dad and they they convince him if we don't do this, we won't have food, we're gonna die.

So a couple chapters go by and eventually they all come back with the youngest brother, and then Joseph he he takes the mask off, he stops pretending.

It's like, remember the old TV show, Extreme Maker of a Home Edition?

He's like, Come on, bus driver, move that bus, let's see what's actually happening.

So then Joseph said to his brothers, Come close to me.

When they had done so, he said, Hey, surprise, I'm your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt.

Anybody, y'all remember me?

Remember that day, remember that pit?

Y'all got my jacket, my coat of many colors, you remember that?

He goes on, he says, This, and now do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here.

Here's why.

Look at the perspective.

Because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.

It's like God had a plan the whole time.

He says, for two years now, there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will be no ploughing and reaping.

And I want you to see these next two words.

My hope and prayer is that this pierces someone's heart today.

He says, But God, like you had one plan, but God was up to something different the whole time.

You thought you were selling me into slavery to get rid of me.

God was actually orchestrating the pieces of my life to get me here for this moment.

Some of you, your life feels like it's gone entirely different than you ever could have imagined.

You thought life was going to go this way and it's gone a different way.

And I just need you to hear this, but God, like when you can't see what he's doing, you can trust his character.

When it feels like God is silent, you can trust his character.

But God.

He says, but God sent me ahead of you to preserve food for you, a remnant on earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.

He says, So then it was not you who sent me here.

Again, but God.

He made me father to Pharaoh, Lord of all of his household, and ruler of all of Egypt.

You thought you were doing something, but God was actually the one calling the shots the whole way through.

Joseph stands in the fulfillment of his dream.

Some of you feel like you're a million light years away from your dream.

If you were to trace the genealogy of your dream back, you have no idea what God has been doing the whole time.

And you can never understand it until you look in the rearview mirror of your life.

You gotta live a little bit before you understand it.

Let me talk to those of you who are in the middle of your story.

Those of you who feel like your dream feels a million light years away.

Came to tell you three things.

I want you to write these down.

Two of them are in your notes.

One is bonus content.

Ready?

Number one, you have no idea how long your dream may take.

For Joseph, it was 22 years.

He was sold at 17 by his brothers into slavery, and 22 years later, he stands with them seeing the vision in his heart actually come to fruition.

22 years.

We throw in the towel, if things get hard, it's like if everything isn't sunshine and roses, we're running, ready and willing to give up on our dreams.

You have no idea how long your dream may take.

Number two is this you have no idea who is counting on your dream.

No idea.

You have no idea who needs you to dream.

You have no idea whose family your dream might support.

You have no idea the lives your dream might save.

Here's one last one.

You have no idea how God is orchestrating the pieces of your life for his glory.

I love the word orchestrating because it brings to mind a picture of an orchestra.

I don't know if you've ever been to a concert before, like a not a rock concert, but like an orchestra concert.

And it's interesting when you show up, if you show up at the right time, you will hear them warming up.

The word we might use for that's not a normal word, it's the word cacophony.

It's everybody playing their own thing, doing their own thing, and it sounds like a train wreck.

You think, why did I buy this?

This is a nightmare, right?

But then when the conductor comes out and he starts doing what he does, it goes from what's called a cacophony to a euphony, and that's when everybody starts playing their part together in unison.

And the thing that at one time was chaos is now beauty.

There are parts of your life that right now, if you're in the middle of it, probably feel like a cacophony.

If you know our story, you know that six months into marriage, eyes full of hope, heart full of dreams, our whole story, our whole world came crashing down.

Six months into marriage.

I was doing a camp in Texas, like telling children about Jesus.

And my wife flew out to see us for the weekend six months into marriage, and she got a phone call that changed her whole life.

They said, Liz, I'm so sorry that lump you found is not a bruise, it's actually cancer.

For six months, we walked through chemo.

For six months, I didn't know if I'd have a wife one year into marriage.

Seven months, eight months into marriage.

I came home one night and saw her asleep on the couch, eyes so sunken in, skin so colorless, hands over her chest, breathing so shallowly.

I thought she had died on our couch.

Arguably the darkest moment of our life.

If we were to put words to it, we would say that season was bad.

Now we're some 20 years removed from that season, and we look in the rearview mirror of our life and we say, Thank you, God.

It didn't make sense in the moment.

But if there's no cancer, there's no access church.

If there's no access church, there's no stories of life change, the hundreds and thousands of people who have made the decision to follow Jesus, the hundreds or thousands of people who have gotten baptized, the people whose lives have been changed, the witch doctor in Kenya, all of the stories that God has done happen because of a moment that we might have labeled as bad.

But when you have the courage to say, God, in the middle of my story, I trust you.

God, in the middle of the story that might make no sense at all, I trust that you are the great orchestrator and the author of my story.

And when my story doesn't make sense, I will trust your goodness and your faithfulness.

What happens when you do?

Is you get to stand someday in the goodness of God and in the fulfillment of your dream.

I want to end today by praying for you.

I want to pray over your dream.

And for those of you who maybe feel like you're in the middle and you feel lost, I'm gonna pray for supernatural courage.

For those of you who haven't yet had the courage to dream, I'm gonna pray that God arrests your heart and wakes you up to dream.

For those of you who have maybe gotten to the fulfillment of your dream, I'm gonna pray that God gives you new God-sized dreams.

Would you bow your head and close your eyes at all of our locations?

So, God, in this moment, I ask you to give us a supernatural injection of courage.

For those of us who are in the middle of a dream and we're so lost, give us courage to trust you.

For those of us who haven't had the courage yet to trust you to begin to dream.

God, would you birth in us new dreams?

Wake us up in the middle of the night, arrest our hearts to dream audacious kinds of dreams.

God, for those of us who we feel like maybe we're at the end of our story, you're not done with this yet.

Your word promises that you will give dreams and visions to young men and old men.

So we just trust you for that.

And God, here's my prayer.

May Access Church be a veritable dream factory.

May people come into this place and say, I don't know what it is about this, but I leave so supercharged with faith that the God who did things in the Old Testament and in the New Testament can and still does things in my life.

May we live our lives from your perspective and trust you.

Thank you for that, God.

Your head still bowed and eyes still closed.

Maybe you're here today at one of our locations and you don't know if you're right with God.

It's hard to dream with God if you don't know if you're right with Him.

Maybe this means you've never started following Jesus, or maybe you just feel like you've wandered away.

In either case, if this is you, I want to give you a moment to make your life right with God.

If today you need to start or restart a relationship with Jesus, would you raise your hand right now?

This is for you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

My goodness, thank you.

Thank you.

If this is you, I'm gonna ask you to pray with me.

Listen, this prayer changes your whole life when you mean this with your heart.

Would you say, Jesus, today I give you my life?

Trust you to save me, make me new.

Jesus, I believe you're the Son of God.

I believe you came into this world and gave your life for me.

Because of your sacrifice, I believe that you can change me, save me, and make my heart new.

So, Jesus, today I make this decision.

I give you my life for the rest of my life.

I choose to follow you.

I love you, and I give you my life in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Come on, church fam, everywhere.

Let's celebrate it.