James: God Dreams

What do I believe God wants them to know? Dream God dreams

Why? It for His glory and our joy

What do I believe God wants them do? Dream God Dreams

Why? It is for His glory and our joy

ME/WE

In about 50 days a majority of our world and specifically country our is going to participate in a huge event.

An event where 145 million American adults, not including kids, there are tens of millions of kids who do participate in this event.

And it is a event that for many of us that has been hard for the past couple of years.

it has been an event that has been hard to live into, challenging to live into, many of you have expressed this numerous times…I have expressed this.

What event am I talking about?

New Years Resolutions....

It is bigger than the Super Bowl…twice as many people participate in New Year’s Resolutions than watch the Super Bowl.

How many of us have or had or are going to make New Year’s Resolutions?

What do these resolutions revolve around?

I am going to lose weight

I am going to get out of debt

I am going to spend more time with family

I am going to stop a bad habit such as smoking

I am going to spend time with God daily

What we are doing is DREAMING OF A PREFERRED FUTRE....we are here and we are dreaming about what could be....what it would look like and feel like to lose 20lbs to spend more time with our family....

THE BIG QUESTION IS THIS A GOD THING OR BAD THING TO DREAM, TO SET GOALS

The answer is yes (go full force) and no (hold up)

Why??? How it yes or no

Let’s first understand

Dreams are neutral like money it what you do with it....money is not good or bad in and of it’s self....it’s netural…it is what you do with money....scripture says is a root of all kinds of evil AND IT can be something that leads to blessing for you and others

It blessing you by providing food for you table

It blessings others when you give it away to provide for a need.

DREAMS are similar.

Pause…we are wired to dream

WE ARE WIRED TO DREAM....Covid has been a dream stealer and killer season

..if you are human you are wired to dream and to set goals.....

Ephesians 3:20 ESV

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,

We are in a relationship with a God who parts the red sea, WHO SAVES SHADRACH, MESSAZE AND ABINDIGO FROM THE LIONS DEN, THE GOD WHO HAD DAVID LAND A PERFECT KE SHOT TO TAKE DOWN GOLIATH, THE GOD WHO RAISES JESUS FROM THE DEAD.

THE REASON WE ARE HERE IS BECAUSE OF A CALL AND DREAM PAUL HAD TO SEE THE WHOLE AT THAT TIME WESTERN WORLD KNOW JESUS

HE IS THE GOD WHO BROUGHT AN END TO SLAVERY

How did slavery end here? We a God dreamer named Martin Luther King Jr.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”

GOD IS THE GOD OF THE IMPOSSIBLE

Do we realize it?

DREAM GOD DREAMS FOR YOUR LIFE

When we live into the dream God gets the glory and we get the joy

BUT DREAMS CAN BECOME NIGHTMARES

How do this become nightmares?

LEAVE GOD OUT

When we say, “I want to do this great thing with my life....I want to do this great thing”

so often this is the tendency....what do you want to do this year?

What are my dreams? The focus and wants are on our desires, not his and they can overlap sometimes.

We see this in the CHURCH WORLD too WHAT IS YOUR DREAM FOR THE CHURCH

YOU, YOU, YOU, YOU, WE, WE, WE

What I have witnessed over and over is HUMAN DREAMS have become NIGHTMARES....why? because they were human/fleshly dreams.

I have witness numerous people achieve finiancil freedom or blessing and walk away from God

A good friend of mine his wife has achieved the “perfect body” but the perfect body has become her God.

I have witnessed over and over people going after things and watching their FAMILIES fall apart, FAITH fall apart, and FUTURE fall apart.....

We thought it was just one dream about money and wealth…it was just one dream about health but it became and idol

BIG MINISTRY

mega church pastors who have fallen

What was there DREAM became their nightmare

This is what James wants to lean into....he wants to say DREAM, DREAM GOD DREAMS

The reason for this is God DREAMS give GLORY to GOD and JOY to you

GOD

James 4:13 ESV

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—

Hey, hey, hey

What’s going on here, hello!

Listen

What he is witnessing is this group of believers, who now have been saved, rescued, and redeemed all of sudden are starting to live for themselves and be about bigger and better and more and more money....

very goal oriented

They are dreaming but with DREAMS focused on themselves

We can a similar thing....God rescued, redeemed me, saved me....delivered me from Covid

God delivered me, not I can focus on me.

How can we do that???

Besides that James says

James 4:14 ESV

yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

James says reality check....one phone call, one email, one report can change everything.....

Luke 12:13–21 ESV

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” ’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

His goals became on himself

Even if your life is not cut short....if you live to 100 like Wilbur it is still a vapor

On top of that what your VAPOR of a life will be known for is not what you did BUT WHO YOU ARE…

Not only that what you are going to be remember more for is your character than your positions and accomplishments.....

It is going to be a paragraph, a sentance.

Amanda was a kind and compassionate woman

Ryan was an angry man, always angry

The Dash Poem (By Linda Ellis)

I read of a man who stood to speak At the funeral of a friend He referred to the dates on the tombstone From the beginning...to the end He noted that first came the date of birth And spoke the following date with tears, But he said what mattered most of all Was the dash between those years For that dash represents all the time That they spent alive on earth. And now only those who loved them Know what that little line is worth For it matters not, how much we own, The cars...the house...the cash. What matters is how we live and love And how we spend our dash. So, think about this long and hard. Are there things you'd like to change? For you never know how much time is left That can still be rearranged. If we could just slow down enough To consider what's true and real And always try to understand The way other people feel. And be less quick to anger And show appreciation more And love the people in our lives Like we've never loved before. If we treat each other with respect And more often wear a smile, Remembering this special dash Might only last a little while So, when your eulogy is being read With your life's actions to rehash... Would you be proud of the things they say About how you spent YOUR dash?

James says you only this vapor of a life to live and what do you want people to say about you, what does would God want others to say about you?

James continues

James 4:15 ESV

Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

God your will be done…God what is your will for you life.

if you will me

What do you want me to do???

How do we know? there two big things

How do we know what the Lord wants or wills

Two big things

1. Heaven to come to earth....thy will be done

Dream about how do you bring heaven to earth at your workplace or neighborhood or family?

“If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. . . . It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this” C.S. Lewis

2. Then dream about how you can do live out the greatest commandments are love God and love others....so often our can be dreams focused on me

How do I create an enviroment

God has only one true earthly treasure....people....love God, love otheres.

How do we create and live into an enviornment where God and people are loved more?

James 4:16–17 ESV

As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

Look at us, look at what we have done!

I love what James says....if yo know the right thing to do and don’t do it…that’s a sin…yes it is not in the Bible, but you know you are not supposed to do it.

you know that is not what God is calling you to do....yes there is no scripture verse but you know....it is going to lead to a nightmare.

But dream a God Dream will lead to GLORY and your JOY

How does God want you to dream?

James is saying church

Ephesians 3:19 ESV

and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Then we come to the table and it is a celebrating a Dream God had to bring reconcilation to the whole world through Jesus

Colossians 1:15–23 ESV

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.