Sermon Central
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Reclaiming Your Dreams Series
Contributed by Brad Bailey on Jul 22, 2009 (message contributor)
Summary: I’m talking about the definition of dreams that refers to “a condition or achievement that is longed for.” Many such longings… desires… dreams… are a reflection of God in us. .. a part of God’s eternal purpose.
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Reclaiming Your Dreams
June 25, 2006 – Brad Bailey
What are your dreams? What dreams did you have as a child for what you could do in the
world?
There lies in every human life a dimension of dreams (desires) that are a part of God’s
eternal plan…often they are silenced and stolen… and God wants to reclaim them.
Last week we looked at how… Jesus’ very invitation of “Come, follow me”… bears a claim
that we and all who come… can really be like him… He came to reclaim the intentions of
God for the human lives created in His image…. To restore the relationship with our Father
in heaven… the creator in whom we were meant to live and breathe and have our being.
In the story of creation… the Spirit of God is breathed into material life and human
existence is born… so it is that Jesus says that the new life he came to bring would come
after he had born the cost of sin and died our death… taken our shame and separation upon
himself… then to all who receive His risen life… He would send the Spirit to resuscitate life
once again.
> In all of this he is reclaiming God’s intentions … reign and rule… but also renewing our
part. We are being called back to claim the original intent... and this lies in our dreams…
Acts 2:17 (NIV)
" ’In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
Prophecy… visions… dreams… God empowering the present with the future… the stuff
dreams can reflect.
> He is reclaiming our God-given dreams for a better world.
In talking about our dreams this morning… I’m not referring to the phenomena of what happens in
our unconscious mind while we sleep… nor am I referring to all the fleeting fantasies of playful
pretending … like when my son Jackson leapt from the top of a slide thinking he was Spiderman
and ended up with stitches.
I’m talking about the definition of dreams that refers to “a condition or achievement that is
longed for.” Many such longings… desires… dreams… are a reflection of God in us. .. a part
of God’s eternal purpose.
Dinner with neighbor… who shared his perspective about religion… “Religion is the acts in
which we help better the world.’ > Yes… but such desires… point us to a source. Without a
source beyond us… how could we have a sense of what is good… if purely material, where would
such desires come from?
There are desires for that which we can’t yet see because there is a reality that transcends
us… there are dreams for a better world because it lies in our origin and destiny.
Such desires and dreams have a source… they begin in God.
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Even those given to crime… will usually admit they wish (dream) life were different… they
recall their expectations as a child… and still believe they were right.
This morning I believe God wants us to reclaim what may have been silenced or
stolen… the dreams in us that are a part of His purposes.. and plan.
At the very start of God beginning to reveal Himself to afresh… we find such a dream instilled
and challenged.
God comes to Abraham… says he will make him the father of many nations… and that through
his descendents ALL nations would be blessed. Now he was to leave his country and God would
lead him to a new land.
So Abraham enters the purposes of God and heads out…
Looking back on this original forefather, …
Romans 4:17-22 (NIV)
As it is written: "I have made you a father of many nations." He is our father in the sight of God,
in whom he believed--the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though
they were.
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Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as
it had been said to him, "So shall your offspring be." 19Without weakening in his faith, he faced
the fact that his body was as good as dead--since he was about a hundred years old--and that
Sarah’s womb was also dead. 20Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of
God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21being fully persuaded that God
had power to do what he had promised. 22This is why "it was credited to him as righteousness."
> Faith in God who transcends ‘what is’ by ‘what can be.’
God is the source of the future… His dream is our destiny.
How can we reclaim this in our lives?
