If what you expect to receive and what someone wants to
give you are not the same thing, you are doomed to
disappointment. If you want a particular thing, but the person
you are dealing with is determined that you shall have
something else, it is going to be tough. The other day our
secretary said to me, “Dr. Smith, there is a package for you
in my desk drawer.” I eagerly opened her drawer; “package”
suggested something wonderful. “Package” suggested that
maybe a gift had come for me. I went looking for something
in a box, or something brightly wrapped and with a gift tag on
it. I was eager to find my package. But I found no package.
She said, “Yes, there’s a package for you, right there, in my
desk drawer.” All I could see were some envelopes, and
said so. And she said, “That’s what I mean. A package for
you, right there. All right, an envelope.” We had been
talking right past each other. What I expected to receive and
what she wanted to give me were not the same thing, and so
there was disappointment.
Have you ever had this experience in shopping? You go into
the store, with your mind made up, that the item that was on
sale, with a great price, is what you want. But when you get
there, first of all, they can’t find it, and then the clerk says,
“We have something much better. You don’t want that flimsy
little nothing. You want this – it’s much better. And just a
little more expensive.” So you can either insist on having the
cheapie you came for; or you can listen to the sales clerk,
who you know is trying to make a sale, but who really might
have a point about how much better his thing is than what
you thought you came for. You can insist on having your
way, flimsy though it might be; or you can accept what is
being offered, and pay the price to get something really
good.
Our spiritual lives are like that. What God wants to give us is
not always what we think we want from God. And so we are
doomed to disappointment. What God wants to give us and
what we suppose we want from God are often not the same
thing. For God wants to give us meaning, direction, and
purpose in life. God wants to use us for the Kingdom. But
what we want is self-centered. We want satisfaction,
excitement, thrills. And if we are looking for a spiritual rush
or for a buzz, but what the Lord wants to give us is an
assignment, well, we’ll be talking right past each other, won’t
we? And we’ll be disappointed.
The young prophet Isaiah went to the Temple one day,
looking for something. Looking for assurance that in a time
of upheaval, everything would be all right. Looking for a
word of hope that, as the old king had died and there was
uncertainty on the horizon, his precious Lord would hold his
hand, lead him on, and let him stand. If you are tired and
weak and worn, that may be what you think you need. But
Isaiah got a lot more than that. Isaiah got a life assignment
out of his visit to the Temple.
And, more than that, Isaiah’s life assignment was to do
something impossible. To take on something that could not
be done. Isaiah was to accept a guarantee of failure. He
was to preach to a people who would not listen and teach a
people who would not see. Isaiah was to dream an
impossible dream and to keep right on dreaming it until the
very end.
“I said, ‘Here am I: send me.’ And he said, ‘Go and say to this
people: “Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but
do not understand.” Make the mind of this people dull, and stop
their ears, and shut their eyes”
That’s pretty dismal business, isn’t it? To know that you are
going to give yourself to something impossible. Isaiah, go
preach to people who will not listen, teach people who will
not learn. Push that rock up the hill only to have it roll down
again. Fill that pond only to have everything leak out. Tilt
against a windmill that will only keep on turning, as it has for
centuries. Isaiah had to face it. God’s people didn’t want
what He wanted to give them, but wanted something else.
But Isaiah accepted that assignment and thus became
available to God. He became available for impossible
dreams.
I want to share my heart with you today. I want to be a bit
personal and speak with you about the impossible dream
that is embodied in this church. I want to think with you
about whether some of us are talking past one another, and
may not want what the Lord wants to give us. I am doing
this, not only as the culmination of a series of sermons, but
also because this is the last preaching Sunday I have in my
17th year as your pastor. It is time to reflect on all that has
been, and time to say “Yes” to all that needs to be. It is time
to test whether we have been talking past one another, and
whether we as a people really want what the Lord wants to
give us. Or are we those whose minds are dull and ears are
stopped and eyes are shut? Are we available for impossible
dreams?
I
Now when Isaiah went to worship, it changed him. He went
with an honest heart, looking for something that would serve
his needs, and he found it. When Isaiah went to worship,
there he heard and saw the presence of God, surrounded by
cherubim and seraphim, falling down before Him, perfect in
power and in majesty. It was awesome. And it changed the
young prophet forever. True worship will do that.
There is something almost obscene about our announcing
that we will worship God every Sunday morning at 10:30
a.m., and then we expect God to show up on our timetable.
convenient for us. The truth is that some of us have given
up on God’s arriving in power. We have long since written
off the idea that He will show Himself in our services. What
do I mean? Well, some of us treat worship in such a
haphazard manner that it is obvious we don’t think much will
happen. We come when we feel like it, and don’t come
when there is the least inconvenience. When we come, we
may arrive late and then leave early. And while we are here,
we do our best not to sing, we use the prayer times for
mentally writing our shopping lists, and when the preacher
gets up, we look at our watches and hope he will not be long-
winded today! Got to get to Adellis before the Methodists
do! We don’t really expect God to show up, not really.
But then in some churches they act as though we could
MAKE God come. Some churches whip up the troops to a
frenzy, sing “Kum ba yah” fifty-leven times, “amen”
everything somebody says, in a frantic effort to stir
excitement. And that too says, “I don’t expect God to show
up. I’ll need to get the juices flowing myself.”
Oh, brothers and sisters, what God wants to give us is a
glimpse of Himself. What God wants to give us is a sense of
His power and love and mercy. What God wants us to have
is that breathtaking insight that makes us suck in our breath
and cry out spontaneously, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of
hosts. Heaven and earth are full of His glory.” What God
wants to give us is a driving energy way down deep inside.
But we have settled either for dull mumbling and half-hearted
lounging around the sanctuary, or for manufactured
excitement and cheerleader-induced energy. Neither of
which is worship. We have missed what God wants to give
us. We’ve gone right past God. And we are disappointed.
But Isaiah worshiped. Truly worshiped. And become
available for impossible dreams.
II
Now notice that at the end of the worship experience, when
Isaiah became available, God assigned him by sending him
out. By moving him out of his comfort zone. Isaiah heard
the Lord say, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”
And what was Isaiah’s response? “Here I am, but I want to
do it at home.” How about, “Here I am, but let me pick and
choose what I like to do?” Or maybe, “Here I am, send me,
but send me only to nice people who already think like I do.”
Not on your life. Isaiah cried out, with total openness, “Here I
am. Send me.” Send me wherever you want me to go.
Send me to whatever you want me to do. Send me, O Lord.
I am available.
I said I wanted to share my heart with you today. I am afraid
for us, because we are not very strong on being sent. We
are not very keen on going outside our boundaries. We are
not very open to new directions. We think about church in
much too narrow boundaries, and it’s about us and our
comfort and our satisfactions. We don’t know what to do
with being sent out.
A friend of mine likes to tell the story about preaching in a
little country church, and one of the ushers went to sleep
during the sermon. When my friend finished preaching and
they sang the invitation hymn, the sleeping usher woke up
and thought it was the doxology, so he grabbed up an
offering plate and marched down the aisle. When the
invitation hymn closed, there he was, with the pastor,
standing at the front of the church. The pastor was a bit
puzzled, and asked the usher, “Sir, what is your decision?
Why have you come forward?” The old boy thought a
moment and then said, “Well, I’ve already joined the church,
I’m too old to go as a missionary, so I guess I’ll just have to
rededicate my life to Christ.”
But isn’t that the index of our problem? We don’t know what
to do with ourselves when we encounter the Lord and His
claims. We’ve been asleep, and we’ve awakened to the fact
that we ought to be doing something for the Kingdom. But
we haven’t turned loose our imaginations. We haven’t been
available for impossible dreams. We’ve kept our dreams
small and have never let ourselves imagine all that the Lord
might want to give us or do with us.
Isaiah found out. As soon as Isaiah told the Lord he was
available, the Lord said He would send out this eager young
man, but that he would send him to speak to a people who
would not hear and to lead a people who would not see.
How’s that for job satisfaction?!
About six years ago, we saw that we were holding ourselves
back with too much legalistic machinery. We seldom did
anything new because it was so cumbersome to push things
through committees and wait for overloaded people to
respond and then get a vote and so on and so on. And so
we freed ourselves. Our deacons agreed to let people
declare their passions and start new ministries, with a
minimum of supervision and without worrying about a lot of
rules. If the Lord is calling you, we said, let’s do it. And we
did. We started several new ministries.
But, in all candor, it feels to me as though some of us have
gone to sleep and have quit sending and being sent. It feels
as though we are falling back into the pattern of expecting
church to thrill us, to give us what we want, and we are
talking right past the Lord and what He wants to give us and
where He wants to send us. It feels as though the vision is
not being heard or seen any more.
In fact, one of our burning issues is that the energy we could
be spending on Kingdom business some of us are spending
on sniping at one another. The time and the effort we could
be spending on reaching others for Christ or building
programs of ministry we spend on looking down on one
another. If there is one thing I would cry out to you today it
would be: love one another. By this shall all men know that
you are my disciples, if you love one another. A church
where people are busy with ministry and missions is one in
which they are too busy to get crossways of each other. And
a church where people bicker is one which needs to be
pushed out on mission.
Isaiah worshiped God. And then Isaiah made himself
available to God, to be sent to do impossible things. Isaiah
dreamed the impossible dream. And so can you. So can I.
So can this church.
III
What are my impossible dreams. Just a few:
A
I dream of a church which has facilities that work for
Kingdom purposes. I dream of a church whose building is
not crumbling, which is child-friendly, handicapped-friendly,
which is. I dream of a church building which is an instrument
for outreach, and not one so fragile we have to protect it all
the time. We learned again during day camp what we
already knew – that this place just does not work as well as
it should. Part of it is poor design, part is wear and tear, and
part is a new vision for what churches can do. I dream a
dream – is it an impossible dream? – of church facilities that
work effectively for Kingdom purposes.
B
I dream of an overall physical layout, on all of the properties
we own, that would support Kingdom business. I cannot find
anywhere in my theology anything to suggest that we are
doing Kingdom work by renting houses and making money. I
dream of using all our properties for Kingdom enterprise. It
could be group homes or a teen center or ministry offices or
a mission congregation or housing for missionaries or
whatever. I only know that I dream of the day when we can
walk down Piney Branch Road and know that every square
foot of property that we own is being used for Christ. Is that
an impossible dream? They tell me the neighborhood will
never accept it and that the zoning board will never approve
it. Well, have we prayed that out? Have we brought that
before the Lord who moves mountains for His people? This
property ought to be available for impossible dreams.
C
I dream of our being a church which contributes to family life
in this community. I dream of our having programs for
children that go beyond what we now have, as good as these
things are. Sunday School and Scouts and choir and
Saturday Club and Children’s Worship and After-School --
they’re all fine, but too small. Too limited. I dream of day
care. I dream of doing more with the arts. I dream of
recreation. Can we dream a dream for children?
D
And while you are dreaming about children, dream also
about youth. Oh, if we can get connected with the middle
schools and the high schools; if we can get connected with
the colleges close by; if we can connect with police officers
and juvenile authorities and do something for troubled youth.
If we did nothing more than open up our computer lab as a
safe haven for study, that would be something. But the
needs of youth in our community are immense. Will
somebody dream of this church as a place that takes on at-
risk and the homes they come from? An impossible dream?
I hope not. I pray not.
E
I dream about this church building and properties; I dream
about families and children and youth; and I also dream
about reaching people for Christ. That fundamental thing we
are all about. Men and women, why do we not have people
walking this aisle, every Sunday, professing Christ and
joining this church? Why is it that growth is not occurring
week by week? Is it that we have nothing to offer people?
No, I will tell you why we are not experiencing steady growth.
It is because most of us know that winning somebody else to
Christ is very difficult, and, like Isaiah was told about the
people of Judah, their minds are dull, their ears stopped, and
their eyes shut. So we don’t want to face that kind of failure.
So we invite no one, we speak to no one, we press the case
for Christ with no one; we don’t like the discomfort of
impossible dreams.
But Thomas Edison tried hundreds of materials before he
found one that would power his light bulb. George
Washington Carver experimented with scores of failed ideas
for using peanuts. William Carey labored in India for seven
long years before he won his first convert to Christ. Mother
Teresa waded into the slums of Calcutta to serve the poorest
of the poor, who would never give her success. We are not
called to be successful; we are called to be faithful. We are
not sent to easy tasks, but to impossible ones. We are to be
available for impossible dreams.
The old usher may have been right. “Already joined the
church, too old to go as a missionary, I guess I’ll just have to
rededicate my life to Christ.” As I begin my 18th year as your
pastor, I have vowed to rededicate my energies to dreaming
impossible dreams. I have only one question to pose: “Are
you available for impossible dreams? Have you so
worshiped the living God that He has changed you from the
inside out? Have you understood that you are to be sent out,
sent forward, to something new? Are you available for
impossible dreams”?
Oh, to dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable
foe, to bear with unbearable sorrow, to run where the brave
dare not go. Though the goal be forever too far, to try,
though you’re wayworn and weary, to reach the unreachable
star, though you know it’s impossibly high. To live with your
heart striving upward, to a far, unattainable sky. Let this be
your quest, to follow that star, no matter how hopeless, no
matter how far, to fight for the right, without question or
pause, to be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause.
If it works for the man of La Mancha; if it works for a sleepy
usher; if it works for Isaiah, it ought to work for us. Are you
available for impossible dreams?
