Dream Again – God’s Dream

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.

We're excited that you're here.

If we have never met, my name is Isaiah, and I get to lead our North Lakeland location that just celebrated.

Check this out.

Wait, wait, hold on, hold up.

We just celebrated one year.

Come on, somebody.

Incredible.

And so we thank you for your love, your generosity, your prayers, and so I'm excited.

If you didn't know, Access is one church.

We meet in three locations.

And so I'm usually at another one.

And so somebody was thinking, Pastor Jason, he got a tan this week, and that's not it.

He's he's not, it's okay, you can laugh.

Uh, but he's out of time, but he'll be back.

Um, we're I'm so grateful for our pastor that that people see the influence that God's given him and the giftings and the talents, and they call him and so uh they can't have him, but but one Sunday in a while we let him go and do his thing.

Come on, if you love our pastor, come on, make some love.

Love him, love his wife and their family as well.

God has given us a great gift uh in our pastors.

We do this thing where we greet everybody because we have a whole lot of people on the other side of that camera.

So come on, can we, church family?

Can we put our hands together forever been at our locations, worshiping online?

Pumped as well that you are with us today.

Man, we're in a series entitled Dream Again, and so I'm pumped about this.

Pastor Jason kicked it off, and so I'm not even gonna waste no time.

Let's just do it this morning, let's make it happen.

Uh, he kicked us off last week, and and I love this thought.

It's this thought that that God is a dreamer, and if we are all made in God's image and in his likeness, then we are dreamers as well.

And I know many of you, you have dreams in your heart, and we all have dreams and aspirations and goals and things like that.

And so I love Pastor Jason.

He said it this week, uh, this way last week that his heart is that collectively what we would do is we would chase God's dream for our life, and therein we would change the world.

And so I hope that that we do that and we catch that this week.

So uh do me a favor, let's pray real quick, and then we'll make it happen in here.

Lord, we love you.

We thank you for this time.

Do something cool, speak to us in Jesus' name.

We all said amen.

Uh, I've been married 11 years, and and um yeah.

Okay, okay.

Uh thank you.

I appreciate that.

Uh really you should be praising my wife for putting up with me.

Anyway, I've been married 11 years, and over the course of 11 years, I learned a few things along the way about my wife, and uh, one of those things that I learned is that my wife likes puzzles.

Anybody likes uh puzzles in here?

A couple of us alright?

A couple of us, maybe on the other side of that camera and you enjoy puzzles.

Maybe that's why you're not here at church today.

Because, no, I don't know.

But but but my wife likes puzzles, and I said, Des I um I need to illustrate something for Sunday morning.

So give me a puzzle that you don't care about, that if it gets lost, it's all good.

And she gave me my Cleveland Browns puzzle, and I didn't really appreciate that.

This is a thousand-piece puzzle.

This is crazy.

I got it because if you really want to test your marriage or your relationship, do a puzzle together.

And uh I it's not that I wanted to test our relationship, I just found out you do get tested.

It's either this or IKEA furniture.

I don't know, but but I told her, give me a uh a puzzle, and and we started this a little while ago together, and like two minutes in, I was like, Yeah, I'm out.

Like this is this is crazy.

If you like puzzles, just wave your hand real quick.

Let me just see who I'm talking with.

You guys are crazy.

Sick, really.

I mean, I think.

Uh but anyway, so we did this puzzle.

So um, but I asked my wife this week, I said, Hey, what why do you like puzzles?

Like, what is it about a puzzle that intrigues you?

And she said a few things, and I'll tell you these things.

Here's what she said.

She said, Um, uh, I love seeing the process kind of come together.

You know, when you when you have a puzzle, like over the course of the process of putting it together, you see the whole picture come together.

She said, I like the mental exercise that it is, it's a good challenge.

And so I'm like, I could do some other things, but all right, cool.

You like puzzles?

Uh, but this is what's what what really hit me.

She said uh that I like puzzles because when you see a picture, uh just a puzzle piece, I'm sorry, without seeing the picture, it like kind of gives you this like, okay, I see that this is meaningful, like it means something, it goes somewhere, but without the bigger picture, like you're kind of left and you don't really have the context.

But as you put the puzzle together, you see it in its context.

And she said, Do you always have like this aha moment where you're like, oh man, like that's where this piece goes.

Let me show you a couple of her pictures that she's done.

Look at that.

Everyone say, Oh, look at that.

Man, that's easy.

I'm just no, I'm not just like all right, come on, show me a couple other.

So here are the the pictures uh that or some of the the puzzles that she's done.

But you know, I thought about this this week, church family, because I I thought about our dreams.

We're in this series entitled Dream Again.

And and really, it's great to have uh a dream, but really the dream is just the piece of the puzzle.

And what'll happen in our life is that we can chase a bunch of stuff.

Here's the danger.

The danger is like we can have our dreams, and that's that's great.

But the danger is sometimes uh we just push so fast through life that we never stop and ask the big question to God, okay, God, what's your dream?

Like our dream is it's just a puzzle.

But God has the full picture.

What'll happen in our life if we're not careful is we'll graduate and we'll do all the stuff.

We'll marry that guy or that girl, we'll have a family, we'll have the car and the money and the house and the kids and all the stuff, and we'll do it without actually consulting God and saying, God, actually, wait a minute, before my dream comes true, God, what is your dream?

So my prayer this whole week for our time together has been this that God would lift our vision.

That before we get to next week, Pastor Jason's gonna talk about the process of dreaming next week, but before we get there and we focus on our dreams, we ask the question, God, is what is your dream and how can I connect into that?

I'll say it like this: write this down in your notes.

Before we chase our dreams, we have to catch God's dream.

That before I get there to my dream, God, I have to catch what is your dream for me, what is your dream for my life?

And I think we all have them.

Again, you need to have them.

So hear me today, church family.

There's not nothing wrong with having dreams and goals and aspirations and things you want to chase after.

That's great.

But just don't do it so fast.

Just don't go so fast to where we're missing out on.

God, what is your dream for this world before I chase my dream?

And if we're honest, myself included, I've been I've been guilty of that.

Running after stuff and not consulting the person who gave us the full picture.

So here's what I want to do today.

I want to pull up and park us just in one passage of scripture.

Uh, it's in Exodus.

Everybody say Exodus.

Well, Exodus, it's the second book of your Bible written by Moses.

And today we're gonna talk about a man named Moses.

Everybody say Moses.

We're gonna talk to him, talk, uh, read and talk about him today.

And and uh, you need to know this about Moses.

Moses is a powerful, prominent figure in the Bible.

Some theologians say that he's referenced some 800 times throughout the Bible.

One theologian called him like the greatest of all time, the greatest prophet of the Old Testament.

This is a prolific man in your Bible.

Uh, in more modern days, there's a preacher I love to listen to.

He described Moses like this.

He said Moses was abandoned by his mother, but with a stick and a stutter, he became a leader like no other.

That is Mo.

I took it and just took it and gave it to you.

You know what I'm saying?

I just love it.

I love how it comes out.

Uh, D.

L.

Moody, the great evangelist, said it this way that Moses, he was 120 years old, but he spent 40 years thinking he was somebody.

40 years learning he was nobody, but the last 40, he discovered what God can do with a nobody.

And I love this, and so I just want to parenthetically pause here, and I just want to take a break from the sermon just to tell you if you struggle with self-esteem or self-doubt or self-confidence, and who am I, and will God use me, and how can he use me?

Just so you know, God is an expert person at making somebody out of nobody.

Yeah, this is what God does, and this is what God does in the life of Moses.

And so I just want to look at just a little portion of scripture where his life really takes a turn.

So let's do it.

Exodus chapter 3, it says this.

Exodus 3 · chapter mention

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law.

Now, pause here.

You need to know this.

Moses also was a murderer.

So I know we just held him as a great man, but he also put somebody to sleep for real.

All right, anyway, so when he did that, he ran away and then picked up a job.

This is that 40 years, just trying to figure out who I am, not knowing he was right where God wanted him to be, but he was tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

There, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush.

This is crazy.

Now, we read this in our modern day, and it's kind of like we just skip over, but you gotta think this is crazy.

Imagine if you are put yourself, if you will, in the sandals of Moses.

You are there just doing your thing, and then a bush catches on fire, and he saw that it was uh on fire, but it wasn't burning up.

So this is double crazy.

What is really happening?

And so Moses thought, I'll go over and see this strange site, why this bush doesn't burn up.

Pause here.

Moses and I are very different.

We are very different because I've seen one too many horror stories, and the black guy always dies first.

So I would never be doing, I don't think, hey, something's going on that's kind of crazy.

Let me go check it out.

That's just not me.

Moses and I, I'm sorry I had to say it, but it's just real.

Like, you reread in our modern day, and we're like, man, that's okay.

He went on.

No, this is crazy.

So this is a bush that's on fire, but it's not being burnt up.

But then there's a voice that comes out of here.

God saw that he had gone over and God called him from within the bush.

He said, Moses.

That's my best God's voice.

But this is crazy, right?

Like, this is a bush, it's not burning up.

And now it's talking to me.

This is wild to him.

Moses said, Here I am.

God said, Two things.

Don't come any closer and take your sandals off for the place where you're standing is holy ground.

These two words, holy ground, this phrase, this only used twice in your Bible, one time here, and then one time in the New Testament.

And so God was saying that listen, it's not the dirt that's holy, it's my presence that's holy.

And when you come to my presence, there ought to be a reverence in my heart.

This is why when we enter God's gates with thanksgiving and praise in our heart.

This is why we sing the way we sang, and at all of our locations, you sang very um triumphantly and joyously to our God.

And we do that because where God's presence is, it's holy ground.

God said, Take off your sandal.

This is holy ground.

And then the verse goes on to say this.

He said, I'm the God of your father, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

At this, Moses hid his face.

Moses knew this was serious business.

And so not only did he take off his shoes, but he said, Man, I can't even look any further because something is holy here.

There's there's a presence of God that's that's thick, is heavy in here, and I have to hide my face.

Then the Lord said to him, Listen, I've seen the misery of my people in Egypt.

At this time, the Israelites were captive to the Egyptians, and God said, I've seen this, and I've heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I'm concerned about their suffering.

So I've come down now to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land that's flowing with milk and honey.

It's the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Emorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I've seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them.

So now go.

I'm sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people out of Egypt.

But Moses said to God, Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?

And God said this, that I will be with you.

Sometimes you just need to know that it's not about what's going to happen and the how I'm going to figure something out.

It's just about trusting his presence.

And I love the words of Jesus.

Jesus, when he left the earth, he said, Listen, I'm with you always, even to the very end of the age.

And so when we're praising and when we're worshiping the Lord, we're worshiping him because he is with us.

This is going to be a sign to you, Moses, that it's I who have sent you because when you brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God right where you stand.

Alright, so I want us to catch God's dream.

I want us to catch God's dream.

Before we chase ours, I want us to catch God's dream.

And there's three things I think today for our time together that we that we need to understand about God's dream.

And here's the first one: write this down.

God's dream comes from God's heart.

God's dream, in other words, the thing that he wants to do in and through the earth, it comes from his heart.

It's closely connected to his heart.

Let's jump back into our story.

God says this that I've seen, everybody says, seen.

I've seen the misery of my people in Egypt.

I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned.

I highlighted these words for our attention today at all of our locations because a few weeks ago I preached a message entitled God Cares, because the question of all of us, especially when we're going through tough times, is God, do you care?

This is yet another instance that we see that we have a God, we serve a God, we worship a God that actually truly does care.

It's not just about a story back then, it's about right now that God truly does care.

This is the first time in the Bible that we see God really uh truly interested in the suffering of mankind.

He said, Man, like I'm concerned about their suffering.

Their suffering and people were close to God's heart.

He says, I want to do something about it.

This is not Christmas time, but we can read this verse because this is it connects to why Jesus came.

Matthew 1.21 says this.

She, the angel says, She will give birth to a son, and you're to give him the name Jesus.

Because he will what?

Save his people from their sins.

God's dream for his people is that his people be free.

God's dream was and still is that his people be free.

Free from what, Pastor Isaiah?

Sin and bondage and the schemes of the enemy that would try to weigh us down.

God's uh his dream for people is that we would be free, and in that freedom we would worship him.

The apostle Paul said it this way, Galatians 5, 1.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

So God set you free so you can truly be free.

John would say it this way: that if the Son sets you free, you're free indeed.

This is God's dream.

It's close to his heart, that his people be free.

He says, Stand firm then, and don't let yourself be burdened again by the yoke of slavery.

You gotta understand this about God's dream, is that it comes from his heart.

And here's what we know about God.

He takes the dreams from his heart and he places it on the hearts of people.

He often does this.

God will take the dreams from his heart and place it on the hearts of people.

And this is what he did with Moses in this chapter of the Bible.

So then the question is like, what's at the center of God's heart?

What is at the center of God's heart?

It's people.

Everybody say people.

Like we're we're at the center of God's heart.

If you read your Bible from Genesis to Revelation, you can't ignore the fact that God's heart is about people, people from different backgrounds, people that are extroverted and introverted, people that don't look like you and don't vote like you and don't sound like you.

It's about people.

John 3.16, the most popular verse ever.

God so loved the world, so he gave.

The question is raised many times, a very common theological question.

What is what's the general will of God?

What's the general dream of God?

What is his dream?

It's that people know him, love him, become like him.

That's God's dream.

It's close to his heart.

This is this is what's on his heart.

People, people that know him.

This is our our uh this is this is this weekend worship experience.

No matter where you are, maybe you're online with us, or maybe at one of our locations, like this is we attach ourselves to God's dream for people to know him through our weekend worship services.

And so we want you to know him a little bit better having spent time together in his house.

This is what God wants.

He wants people to know him, he wants people to love him, to have a relationship with him.

He it's it's it's close to his heart.

This is God's dream that his people would be free to worship him, to know him, to love him, and then not just stay where they are, but become like him.

So God's dream is that we would ultimately become like him, that we would go through a process that would make us more like him, that we would look more like him, that we would think more like him, that we would have his dreams in our heart.

What God does is God oftentimes he places that dream on the hearts of people.

And and and you know uh where God's uh dream is for your life because often it comes out in the way, in the passions that we have, and and often it comes out in the jobs that we take and things like that.

And so, uh man, I just want to ask you this question like, what's God's dream from his heart that he's placed on yours?

Like, what is that?

I know our church is full of people that that have God's dream on their heart.

That's why some people are in education, because there's something about that that stirs the heart of God, and he's placed that on you, and now you're a teacher.

Some of us, when the going gets tough and when life's moments really hit you, like uh hit a person, like you can't help but run to the fire.

Everyone else runs away.

And so I'm thankful for our first responders because they have the heart of God there.

They're they're demonstrating great sacrifice every time they run towards a problem when everyone else runs away.

There are people that love to help other people.

Maybe you're in the medical field or something like that, and like God has placed that dream on your heart, and that's why where you get that passion.

Hear me, have the passion, have the dream, have all of it, but just know, man, it comes from somewhere, it comes from the heart of God.

So when I show up to work, this is why I work hard.

When I show up to work, this is why I give my all because I know that ultimately I'm doing, I'm taking the dream that's from God's heart that He's placed on mine, and I'm living it out.

Does this make sense to you?

Like, this is what we have to understand about God's dream, that it's close to his heart.

Here's the second thing we gotta understand that God's dream is bigger than just my life.

Now, this one hurts.

I'm not gonna lie, this one hurts.

I was writing this message, and when I said that to myself, I got a little bit of hurt.

I said, Man, God should care about my life.

And he does care about our life.

But the reality is God's dream is bigger than just my life.

And sometimes it's hard, sometimes it can be difficult to take the spotlight off of me, put it on everyone else.

But this is how God works.

The Bible says this that uh Moses, God tells him, Look, go.

Sending you to Pharaoh.

He says, Go.

This is why you're going.

This is my dream.

Moses, it's close to my heart.

Moses is bigger than just your life.

Here's the dream that I have.

I want you to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt so they could be free.

What Moses had to understand in this moment is that God was gonna use his life, but God's dream was bigger than just his life.

I want you to understand today, and we need to understand, myself included today, that the God will absolutely use our lives, but his dream is just bigger than just my life.

Are you understanding that?

Like God, God has such a bigger dream than just my existence and my world.

And oftentimes here's how it plays out.

You know, Moses, what he didn't know at the time is that God had him right where he needed to be.

But Moses didn't realize he only had certain pieces of the puzzle that he was playing with at the moment.

He had a bunch of experiences.

I told you he was a murderer.

He was exiled, he had a loss of identity, he no doubt felt some sort of failure.

He was trying to figure out who he was, and all he had was just pieces to the puzzle.

And then realized that his heavenly father had the whole picture of the puzzle.

Pastor Liz preached an incredible message just a few weeks ago.

And what she said is that God is not just one or two steps ahead of us.

God is like nine or ten steps ahead of us.

God is playing chess, and sometimes we're playing chess, sometimes we're playing Uno.

We're not even playing the standard.

I mean, we're just over here like skip, draw two, draw four, skip.

But God says, listen, if you'll let me, I'll direct your story, but it's gonna be from a different vantage point.

You may only have certain experiences.

You may have, man, I didn't see this coming.

That's in your life.

You may have loss of dreams and failure, and I didn't think this would be in my life, or man, I feel like I'm not hitting the mark.

I feel like I'm insignificant, I feel like I don't have self-confidence.

You may have all of these, but you have to realize, like Moses, God had them right where he needed.

Because God was doing something bigger.

God had the bigger story and the bigger vision laid out.

He just needed Moses to follow after him.

But he said, Listen, your life is bigger than just your life.

And I'm doing something big.

And and he said, Listen, God, like God's vision was on the people.

The Bible says that that as they lead, as they get out of the land of Egypt, just like theologians say, like one to two million people, Moses was able to lead out.

So God's vision was, and God's dream was just so much bigger than Moses's life.

And I want to tell you this way like, man, God has a dream for your life.

And it's for your family.

Like He's gonna use you as an individual, but it's really He has His eyes on your family.

I've been so encouraged, this is shameless plug, but each and every Wednesday night at 6 30 at all of our locations, Access Youth Meets for students in 6th to 12th grade.

And um, can you believe it?

This last week, they had like well over 300 kids throughout all of our locations, 300 students that gathered for access youth.

Come on, that's incredible.

And probably my favorite story is on Thursday morning.

Um, we we said, Hey, um uh, what are some wins?

Tell us some wins.

How's Access Youth going?

And and and one of our youth directors said, Hey, what was cool was last Sunday we saw a handful of new families at our Bartow location, and when they Went to guest services and they said, Hey, well, how'd you guys hear of the church?

They were like, Hey, my teenager brought me to church.

Like, that's incredible.

That's amazing.

And it's like they may have never walked through the doors of the church, but God used that teenager to bless their whole family.

So your life is just bigger than your life.

God's dream for your life is way bigger than just your life.

He may want to reach your community.

And he's going to use you to talk to your neighbor, to talk to your coworker, whatever the case may be.

He might want to use you right here in this church.

Shameless plug.

We have what we call the next steps class.

This is why it's important for you to take that.

Class one is the heart, vision, and values of our church.

Class two is all about you and how you connect to the body of church, uh body of uh of Christ.

And this is incredible.

You need to take this class because when you plug in, God's going to use you to bless other people through the church and through the community, right where you live.

There's a family in North Lakeland.

They asked me to come over to their house.

They they just built a brand new house and a new uh development.

And so we went over and just spent some time with them.

And and uh and I love what they said because I really feel like they kept there they were catching God's dream and God's heart.

And they said, Pastor Isaiah, we're excited because we're one of the first families in this new development, but we're just so excited because as people move in, we're gonna be bringing them the access.

And before you know it, we're gonna need a whole section just for all the people.

And I thought, man, that's it.

That yes, their individual individual lives matter, but God was gonna do, they feel like God's gonna do something so much bigger than just that, right there in their community.

And I love that.

I was talking to another, uh, another, there it was three uh just a few weeks ago.

It was like three young people.

Um, I I say young, I'm I'm young too.

So, but anyway, but they're younger than me, so I was like, Yeah, yeah, definitely young.

But uh, they were they're in college, they had just um passed like this major exam, and all three of them want to be lawyers, and and and they just said, Hey, can you pray over us?

Because we just feel like God has impressed something on our heart that's for the world.

And I thought, man, they're getting it because they're realizing God's dream is not just about them, it's about the whole world.

And so God's dream is bigger than just your life.

Now, because of this, I need to put you on notice.

Here are some things uh that God's dream is gonna do.

First of all, write this down.

God's dream is gonna stretch you beyond your comfort zone.

Yeah, don't be surprised when you're chasing after God's dream.

Don't be surprised when you're going after that which God has for you, if there's a stretching, if there's a tension, if there's a pool there.

Can I say that if your life, and I say this with great love, great respect to you, uh, that if your life is just easy and comfortable, and it's like, don't worry about a thing.

Come on, sing with it.

No, no, it's singing, you don't have to sing.

But if that's your life, I want to tell you, maybe that's the blessing of God.

But just make sure you pray and make sure that it's not life is so easy because you're not chasing after what God has for you.

Because when you begin to chase God's dream, there is a stretching.

God's gonna ask you to do something that's way beyond what you can do.

Moses, we're not gonna read it today for time's sake, but Moses said, God, I I stutter, God, I stutter, I'm not good with words, so how am I gonna speak to Pharaoh?

And God said, I'm gonna use you, don't even worry about it.

But you have to realize that when you're chasing God's dream, it will stretch you.

So if you feel like you're being stretched and there's a lot going on, it's probably because you're connecting to God's dream and that's right where you need to be.

But if life is a little bit easy, just make sure you check with him that you're right where you need to be.

Here's the second thing it'll do when you're chasing God's dream, because it's bigger than just your life, it will challenge you and challenge your assumptions about what you think you're capable of.

This was in the life of Moses.

God said, I'm gonna ask you to do some stuff that you're assuming you can't do.

But you can do it.

This is what God's dream does.

I I know that I'm pursuing God's dream because it's challenging my assumptions of what I thought I was capable of.

Here's the last thing it'll do it'll require God's power.

I know that I'm chasing after God's dream because I can't do it in my own strength.

And listen to me, represented today, church online, at any of our locations, you are awesome.

You can do bad all by yourself.

You got a lot of experiences, you have a lot of accomplishments and awards and achievements and all that, and all that's good.

But ultimately, when you're chasing God's dream, you need God's power.

And you can't do it on your own.

So, just so you know, this is what comes with it.

But at the end of the day, it's just bigger than just your life.

Here's the third thing, and I'm out of here that we gotta we gotta know is that God's dream requires surrender.

Man, if you're gonna actually go after God's dream, ultimately, he is gonna ask you to surrender.

I'm not gonna read it today, you need to read it in your own time, but but Exodus chapter 4.

Exodus 4 · chapter mention

I love it.

The Bible says ultimately, as Joe uh after Moses goes through all this stuff, ultimately, the Bible says this in Exodus 4.20.

Hey, oh, all right, anyway.

Somebody will catch that on Wednesday at work, but oh, that's what he okay.

Anyway, Exodus 4.20 says this, the beginning part.

Moses took his wife, his wife's name was Zipporah.

He said, Zipporah, get the kids, get your stuff, get on the donkey.

Like, this is crazy.

I love that the Bible says this get on the donkey.

Because we're going on a trip.

Moses said this, like ultimately, God's called me to surrender.

And ultimately, as I'm choosing God's dream, before I get to my dream, if I'm trying to chase after God's dream and catch what he wants to do, he said ultimately I'm gonna have to surrender.

Now I'm gonna be honest with you.

Um, you know, I think that uh if we're honest, a lot of us, this is how we view our life right here, right?

Like, like it's like a contract, and it's like all the stuff we fill in here.

We're like telling God, like, okay, God, this is my dream, and here's who I want to marry, and here's what I want to do, and here's how much money I want in the bank account, and here's the car I want to drive, and God, here's the life I want to live, and we start to plan out line by line, and we keep going, and then we say at the end, okay, cool, I'm gonna sign up for this type of life.

But you know what I found out, church family?

Life with God chasing his dream, not just my own, looks a little bit more like this.

That God is saying, check this, sign here, I'll fill in the rest.

You gotta catch that this morning.

That you just sign, and God is saying, I'll fill in the rest, I'll tell you who to marry, I'll tell you where to go, I'll tell you what to do, I'll give you everything that you need, but you just sign here.

Oh, church family, I wonder, I just wonder if there's two or three people in here.

If you take honest inventory of your life, you said, you know what?

God, I'm not really chasing my dream.

I'm not chasing your dream, I'm chasing mine.

Man, God, I've treated my walk with you more like I'm telling you what to do instead of just signing on the line.

I think if we're not careful, that's the life that we'll live.

But ultimately, God's dream requires surrender.

No move of God ever happened with somebody saying no.

Every move of God happened because somebody said yes.

Everything that God has ever done that's significant happened because one person said, Here I am, and I'll go.

What God wants to do in your community, in your life, in your family, in your church, and all of those things happens because somebody will say yes.

The misconception around church is this that God will never put more on you than you can bear.

And I've been in those services where people say stuff like that, and I think they mean well, and it sounds good that God will never put more on you than you can bear.

Can I hear an amen?

And I love that.

It sounds good, but the reality is I'm here to tell you, they lied to you.

Straight up, they lied to you.

Somebody text your pastor, tell them, hey, hey, when I was 12 years old, you lied to me.

This was not true.

I learned in church today that that's not true.

Here's the reason why it's not true: because God will absolutely allow things in your life that you cannot handle to be in your life.

But he doesn't because he knows you're not gonna bear it alone.

Because I am with you.

God will never put more on you than you can bear.

Wrong.

He will.

There'll be times where you will feel the weight of life on you, but he knows that he's bearing it right there next to you.

There will be times where you feel like, man, I don't know what to do, and I never saw this coming from my life, but you need to realize that's okay because he is there with you.

There will be times where you feel like, man, my strength is running out, but his strength never does.

I love what David said in Psalm 73, 26.

He said, This, my flesh and my heart, they may fail, but God is the strength of my life, of my heart, and my portion forever.

Are you catching this today, church?

Here's what I want you to see.

I want to ask you this question.

Chasing God's dream.

Does God have your yes?

Show that to me.

Does God have my yes?

There it is.

Does he?

Honest take on your life.

Inventory your own self.

Does God truly have your yes?

He had to have Moses' yes, and he asked Moses to surrender, and Moses did.

But does he have your yes?

I get asked all the time.

Uh Pastor Isaiah, can I can I trust God?

Can I trust God and in my relationships and in my finances and with my future and with the stuff I can't make sense of?

Can I trust God?

And the answer is 100% yes.

God is faithful and true and good and kind and merciful and compassionate and all of these things.

But I would submit to us church family.

The question is not, can I trust God?

The question is, can God trust you?

If he gives you the dream that's on his heart, can he trust you with it?

That's really the question of the day.

But when we accept, when we surrender, God is able to do so much more than we can ever imagine.

Here's how I want to wrap up.

I want to give you this one last, uh, this one last uh scripture.

I love this from Exodus 14.

When when Moses gave his ordinary life to God, God did something extraordinary.

Here's what the Bible says happened.

The Bible says then Moses he stretched out his hand.

He had delivered the people.

The people were on his back.

He's walking up to the Red Sea.

He when when he stretched out his hand, and all that night, here's what God did.

He drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land.

The waters were divided, and the Israelites went across on dry land.

Theologians say a million, two million people followed Moses.

This happened because Moses said, Yes.

God, whatever your dream is, the answer is yes.

And God did something extraordinary.

So here's what I want to do.

I want to close by this, give you just a couple practical things that you can take home.

This week, here's what I want you to do between now and next week.

Every day, maybe start with with two minutes of what I call open hands, open heart.

God, this week I'm gonna chase your dream.

I want to chase your dream.

And so my hands are open for to do what it is you're asking me to do.

I'm not gonna hold on tightly to my dream.

I'm gonna let go, and whatever you place in my hands, that's what I'll work with.

Man, maybe this week you it's open hands, but it's also open heart.

God, yeah, I have dreams.

Again, next week we'll talk more about our personal dreams and the process of dreaming and all that's great, but God, before all of that, give me your dream.

God, what's your dream for my family?

What's your dream for my workplace?

What's your how do you want to use me in the church?

How do you want to use me to change the world?

Open hands, open heart.

Maybe for some of us in the room this week, every day, you need to start your day praying and saying, Hey God, realign me.

God, if I'm honest, I might have gone off the rails, but hey, would you realize redirect me, refocus me, recenter me?

Saying it today.

God be the center of my life.

Maybe that's you.

Maybe you need to do that.

Maybe God's been asking you to give, serve, to go, step out.

And this week, you need to do that.

You need to step up to the plate and say, God, if this is your dream, it's close to your heart, then it's close to mine, and I'm going to do it.

I don't know how many Sundays are left between now and the end of the year, but maybe one of these Sundays you need to step out, and somebody who is far from God needs to be sitting right next to you because you invited them and you brought them, and God's been telling you to step out and you're gonna do it.

Whatever that looks like for you, you have to do that.

Because his dream ultimately is more important than ours.

All over the room, let's pray.

Hope you feel this this morning.

Hope you catch this this morning.

I believe that this is God's word for us, it's God's word for me.

If nobody else, it is for me.

God, we thank you for your presence.

God, we thank you for your power.

We thank you for your perspective.

God, I think today you really did.

You lifted our vision.

Now we see from your point of view.

Lord, let us catch your drip, your your dream.

Before we chase ours, let us catch yours.

What might it be, God, that you're placing on the heart of somebody?

Let them know that it's connected to your heart.

How might you use us in a way that's bigger than just our life?

God, we ask you to show us.

Ultimately, Lord, we all need to surrender.

Help us to do that this week, to surrender, to give you our yes.

We will sign, you fill in the terms.

We thank you for it.

With every head bowed, every eye closed, maybe you've heard me talk about this God that loves his people, this God that has at the center of his heart his people, but you don't yet know God in that way.

You you saw me talk about it, knowing God and loving God and becoming like him.

And maybe you say today, man, I'm not even there.

I'm I'm just not.

I'm just not even there.

But today I want to start that.

Today I'd like to start or restart a relationship with him.

Nobody's looking around, but if that's you, I just want to pray for you.

Would you lift your hand right where you are?

I just want to pray for you if you're like, you know what?

I want to know God.

See some hands.

I see those hands.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I want to love him.

I want to become like him.

I want to start today.

If that's you, maybe you're online with us.

I don't see you, but God does.

Just repeat this in your own heart, in your own way, in your own words.

Jesus, thank you so much for coming to earth.

Thank you so much for dying for my sins.

Thank you so much for wanting a relationship with me.

Today I meet you there.

I'm saying I want a relationship with you.

Come into my life, change me forever.

I want to follow your dream for my life.

I lay down my dream, I pick up your dream today.

I'm saying this that I'll never be the same.

I love you in Jesus' name.

Come on, we all said amen.

Look up at me.

We have people raise their hands.

Come on, that's worth celebrating.

Absolutely.