What's God's dream for your marriage? What's God's dream for your ministry? What's God's dream for you as a single person living where you are today? If you'd like some help in taking those big dreams and getting them down to a bite-sized practical level, then I think today might be a great day for you.
Stay with me. Thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Chip's our Bible teacher for this international teaching and discipleship ministry focused on helping Christians live like Christians.
Today, we're picking up in our insightful series, Good to Great in God's Eyes. Last time, Chip talked about the practice of dreaming great dreams and why God chooses to inspire us this way. In this program, he'll explain how we can act on those dreams God's given us. So go in your Bible to Ephesians chapter three as Chip begins by reminding us how God planted dreams in his people throughout scripture and what we can apply to our lives today. Well, let's dive in.
This isn't a pie in the sky self-help, get everybody fired up. Hey, let's dream a great dream. I want to tell you the process that really happens. It starts with Abraham.
You get out of your comfort zone. Then it moves to Joseph. He bursts a dream. And then third, we move on to Moses. He allows us to fail in our attempts to accomplish his dreams in our own power. Moses got a dream from God.
He got the right dream, didn't he? He wanted to deliver his people, but he's 40 years old and he sees a couple guys fight and he goes, Hey, you know, you are hurting one of these Israelites. So he kills this man. The next day he goes out and sees two other people fighting.
But this time, instead of a harsh Egyptian hurting a Hebrew, it's two Hebrews. Hey, he says, guys, stop, stop. And they turn to him and say, well, who made you ruler or deliver over us?
What are you going to kill us like the guy you did yesterday? And he goes, Oh, I don't think that little burial in the sand trick is going to work. And he runs for his life. He did. Did he have the wrong dream or did he have the wrong method?
See, God will move you out of your comfort zone. He'll begin to plant the dream. And did you notice how, did Joseph understand all the dream? You know, hey, it's this and this and it doesn't make any sense, but I'll bet in prison and I'll bet when he was wrongly accused by Potiphar, I bet those visions and those dreams will come back to him and think, it sure doesn't look like I'm going to have this position and my brothers and sisters are going to bow down to me.
But Lord, I just trust you. And Moses had the right dream, but had the wrong method. And I'm going to encourage you that as God burst something in your life, you will often go about doing exactly the right thing in exactly the wrong way. And he'll let you fail. He'll let you do it in the energy of your flesh.
It's not like you were trying to do it that way. You know, you're just you and I'm just me and you're saying, hey, I want to do something good and you do it and he will allow you to experience tremendous pain and failure. It's part of the dream becoming a reality. Because you see, God is always more interested in developing the person than he is accomplishing the dream. See, if he does the right thing and the person allows him to do it, the dream will become a reality. But the dream or the success or the accomplishment, if the things don't happen in the person's heart, then God doesn't get the credit. Through David, we learn that he teaches us through adversity to love the dream giver more than the dreams.
And you say, well Chip, where do you get that? Think about David. He's young. You know, he's made his mark. Goliath is dead.
He's gotten a little notoriety. And Saul has now turned away from the Lord out of his own self-sufficiency and pride. And David is anointed as king. And so we think, the dream is here. You are going to be the king. You've passed these little tests and you would think, good, put the robe on, put the crown on.
God, I'm going to be your man. Is that what happens in David's life? David is anointed as king and he spends about the next 10 to 12 years dodging spears and hiding in caves. And having a group of rabble rousers that he became his little itinerant army, when he had a bad day, turn on him and try to kill him.
He ended up hiding with the enemy and fainting that he was insane, drooling over his beard. See, there was a season of time anointed as king. There's a dream you're going to lead.
This is my role for your life. And now a season of adversity and pain where I want to wean you from the prestige and the pride and the issues that come with the dream so that you learn always to love the dream giver more than you get intoxicated with the success of the dream. And that's why in Psalm 73, David would write, whom have I in heaven but thee? And besides thee, I desire nothing on earth. My heart and my flesh may fail, but you are the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Did you hear what he's saying? All I really want, you're my portion. You're the strength of my, what could I want in heaven except you?
What is there on earth? Is it a kingdom? Is it success? Is it fame? Is it money? Is it?
No. And then he would go on to say in verse 28 of Psalm 73, for I have made the Lord God my refuge that I may tell of all they works. As for me, the nearness of God is my good.
Is that your testimony? The nearness of God is your good. And so David teaches us that hey, it's falling in love with the dream giver, not just the dream. From Paul, we learn that he clarifies our calling in times of crisis and often uses our worst failures as the platform for his future fulfillment. He clarifies our calling in times of crisis. Paul has this incredible intellect.
Paul is on this journey and what happens? He is a murderer. He's zealous.
He's just on the wrong team going the wrong direction and bang, he has this crisis. He comes to Christ three days. He's agonizing, wondering what's happened. The Lord has spoken to him. He gives him the vision from day one of conversion. Paul, I am going to send you to the Gentiles.
You will be my messenger to the Gentiles. And for three days, no food, no water, Ananias comes, lays hands on him, prays for him. The scales drop. He sees. He does a little bit of preaching and teaching just there. Then he goes in Arabia and gets a little education from the Lord for a good period of time. And God uses our worst failures as the platform for future fulfillment. How much bigger of a failure could you be than murdering the church?
See, some of us think a great dream is impossible because of what's in your past. I mean, could God not have chosen anyone in scripture? I mean, you know, pull this one out. Thirteen books of the New Testament were written by a what? Murderer turned missionary. Why do you think God chose Paul? I think he chose him for a variety of reasons, but one for us has got to be if Paul qualifies, so do you.
So do I. There's nothing that is in your past that is not forgivable, that God can't transform and actually use. Often your ministries grow out of your failures as you reach back and help people who are failing and struggling and in pain where you have been. From Jesus, we get the final way that God develops in birth streams. The dream will cost us our life and appear to others as the height of folly just before God accomplishes the impossible through us. Now think of that. See when we get on the front end and I started talking about dream a great dream and, you know, your heart start to beat and what could God impossibly do through me and we're all the way over here going, yes.
And then as you go from Abraham and to Joseph and to Moses and to David and then to Paul, have you noticed how the price is going up? But the greatest fulfillment of a dream was Jesus. And I want you to know on the front end, the dream will cost you your life. The dream will always lead you and lead me to the cross. There is no smooth path.
There is no easy way. There is no lack of suffering agenda. We try all kind of ways to save our life and we end up losing it. Jesus says on the front end, the dream that I will birth in your heart will cost you your life.
And just before I fulfill it, it often looks like the height of folly. Think of what was occurring both in the invisible world and the visible world. Jesus comes and he talks about this dream, if you will, a kingdom that's coming, a God, salvation, freedom, fulfillment, Messiah, a new heaven, a new earth, what he's called here to do. And he authenticates it by miracles and raising people from the dead. And you became a follower and you believe him and you want to believe him and there's something about his words and there's something about his look and you believe he's the savior of the world and you want to jump on the dream bandwagon of God visiting the planet. And then it's Friday afternoon and you're looking up at the king and the king has been beaten to a pulp and it says right above where he's hanging, the king of the Jews. Except you can hardly make out his face because it's been so beaten and there's blood dripping and he's half naked and he's hanging on a cross and let's see, criminal number one, criminal number two, is he just criminal number three?
It looks like the height of folly. I mean everything I've believed in, what happened? I thought he was the one. I thought he was going to bring in the kingdom. I thought we were going to get rid of these Romans. I thought there was going to be salvation. I thought there was going to be deliverance. I believed in him and nothing.
And if you're the invisible world, what are the demons doing? Right? We've won. He's dying. There is no resurrection till there's death.
You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. We'll get back to our series Good to Great in God's Eyes in just a minute. But quickly, I want to remind you that we're in the middle of our year-end match. Thanks to a few close ministry friends, every gift we receive until December 31st will be matched dollar for dollar.
For more information about how to partner with us, go to livingontheedge.org or call us at 888-333-6003. Thanks for doing whatever God leads you to do. Well, let's rejoin Chip now for the remainder of his message.
There's no resurrection life until there's death, death of your dreams and your agenda, death of your fears and your security, death of your trying to get significance through what you have, how you look, what you do, what you own, where your houses are, what people think, death to thinking that, you know, what you can accomplish and who you can oppress. And I don't say this harshly. I mean, this is, you're human, right? Do I have all this? We're all in that. We're on this big boat together.
We all struggle with those things, but there's a process where we surrender and die to and say, okay, Lord. And you know what? One of the early ones is? It is. One of the early ones is, God, this is your money.
It's not my money. God, this is your brain and talent, not mine. God, this is your family.
I would like them all to live like right around the street and right around the corner and, you know, the grandchildren like 150 yards away, but at one mile or two would be okay. And God, I would like no one to ever get sick and everything to be wonderful and every Thanksgiving, you know, we could just sing Kumbaya around the table. But it's not how it works. You gotta die. And you demonstrate that you're dead by saying, Lord, here, risk. Here's my money. Here's my future. Lord, here's my family. Lord, I'm spiritually, I'm naked before you.
I bring nothing to the table. If you will tell me what to do, if you will show me how to do it, if you will direct me, I want you to know that my entire life is like a blank check and I have signed the bottom of the check and I tell you, Almighty God, because of who you are and how great and how powerful and how you've demonstrated your love, I want you to know that you can fill in the top of the check. You can do whatever you want with my business. You can do whatever you want with my geography.
You can do whatever you want with my kids. You can do whatever you want with anything in my life and although I'm fearful, I choose not to be because you will not withhold any good thing from those who walk uprightly because you are a good God and you love me and I know that it's safe to do this even though you may take me places that make me much afraid. That's death. And the people God does supernatural, radical, impossible things through are people who die because until you're dead, you can't get resurrected.
And what we know is that those people standing at the foot of the cross would see him later in a resurrected body. Thomas, come here. Go ahead. Put your fingers, put your fingers right here. Thomas, here, put them in my side. I'm real.
It's true. And you will experience a resurrection. And I think God really longs to make the stories we talked about of the Dawson Trotman and Hudson Taylors and I think he just wants that to be the normal Christian life. But I think as you go through those different people, you could almost say, am I at the David stage or the Paul stage or the Joseph stage? I just don't think God has a lot of people waving their hands saying, Lord, I'd like you to do an impossible thing through an improbable person like me.
There's just not a lot of hands in the air. I believe the God of the universe is just looking on this day for people in this room to lift their hand and say, I'd like you to birth that kind of dream in me. I trust you that much. Well, that sounds like a very, very big thing. So let's talk about very specifically how you break that into bite-sized steps to get there.
Some of you are way down the road on all of this, but what I found is that gets so gargantuanized and it can feel so overwhelming and for some of us so fearful. How do I take little steps toward this dream being birthed? And I'm going to suggest is the way you do it is by bite-sized dreams in specific areas where you come up with some desires.
Remember? What's the promise? Delight yourself in the Lord. He'll give you the desires of your heart. What if you came up with some desires that would begin to allow God to burst some things in your life that would prepare you to really dream a dream that would honor him?
And I put a little list here. I mean, the list could go on, but desires for your life, your marriage, your children, your career, your ministry. And so what I did, I started this in 1986 and these cards are from 1986 and I began to say, if God will give me the desires of my heart, if I could begin to ask him and want the things that he desires, he's promised he'll give them to me. And if I could keep them in front of me and pray about them and pursue them, if then the little desires of my heart became a reality, then maybe over time God would do in me and through me why he put me on this planet. So I'll just give you a couple examples and then you can make up your own. You know, three by five cards will be on sale in the back.
I'm teasing. But for me, like for my life, this was a desire. My goal is to walk with God in the integrity of my heart until the day I die. And on the back of it, I wrote out Psalm 101 and I memorized it and where he says, I will walk in my house with a blameless life of integrity. I will set before my eyes no vile things. The deeds of faithless men I'll hate.
And he goes on just to say what it looks like. And I just thought, God, you know me, you know how hard it is to tell the truth, how hard it is to not shade things, how hard it is not to just image cast. My prayer, my desire, I want to walk in integrity before you until the day I die. In fact, I've prayed, Lord, if I would do something that would embarrass you or embarrass your work, and if I die of a heart attack, don't take this too literally, but I said, I would be honored for you to take me out before I did that.
You know, I would just, if you would see that in some weak moment I was going to do really something dumb, could you just like, boom, take me out? Because I'd much rather lose 10 or 15 years and end up pure before you and not embarrass your church. And so that was a desire for my life. Another desire I had is I just thought, I look at circumstances, and I'd like to become habitually thankful as a matter of unconscious response to all life's relationships and circumstances in light of the goodness and the sovereignty of God. I just know that that relationship between filled with the Holy Spirit and gratitude, Lord, my desire is someday, no matter what happens and in what relationship, my first response would be, thank you. I may not like it, but thank you.
Since you are good and since you are sovereign, I choose to thank you. With my wife, I came up with a couple desires that I think my goal is to love Teresa sacrificially and in ways that make sense to her every day. And I just, I've been reading that over for, you know, a couple, three times a week for 20 some years. And you know what, when you just read it over, it's a desire. I think that's a desire that God wants for me. I want to love her in a sacrificial way that makes sense to her. Another one I have is my goal is to get away alone with Teresa three times a year. Have I always done that?
No. But that's a desire. I want to make sure that relationship is special and strong and good and so, you know, it's a goal and I'm working at it and a lot of years I have. Then I went to my kids and I thought, maybe I could burst some little dreams for my kids. So one I wrote down in 86, my goal is to help my children discover their spiritual gifts and the will of God specifically and function in that capacity.
In other words, what does God want them to do? I just, I just read that over and I watched their lives and I prayed and said, you know, I think that's a bite sized dream. Another one I had for my kids was I long to see my kids discover their strengths and talents or interests in their lives and I want to help them develop their full potential. And then I had just a little line where I have each kid's name there in 1986 and what area I thought they needed to develop and that was just on my radar, praying and dreaming.
I pulled this one out this morning because it's such an answer. In 1986, it says my goal, my son Eric is here. My goal is to help Eric overcome his fear of failure. I remember I sent him into the kitchen in 1986 and he was a small boy to make some popcorn and there was a couple things you needed to do and he was so afraid of messing up, he just kind of started crying, I can't do this, can't pour the oil and I don't know how.
And he just, as a little boy, he just so was afraid to fail and I remember writing this down and then I wrote some, you know, push with love, encourage and build him, help him see the positive and I just kept spending time trying to push him into new areas. And I just, he's just one of the most confident people I've ever met now and I've just seen how God is, what a quality, godly young man with confidence and how he's blazed a trail. See, I think you dream little dreams. You know, as I've been talking, I think some of you think that, well, I don't think I'm going to start a worldwide organization. I don't think God wants everyone to start a worldwide organization. But what's, dream a great dream for your marriage, dream a great dream for your kids, dream a great dream for your career, dream a great dream for the ministry God's entrusted to you.
But start out with little bite-sized dreams. In 1986, my goal is to develop as a communicator and develop my gift to its maximum. Ten years later after I got rebuked by Bill Lawrence was, I like to preach great messages for the glory of God that would be used to transform multitudes of people's lives. I want to learn, I want you to do in me and through me, I want to preach great messages for the glory of God that would transform a multitude of people's lives.
It's audacious, but for the right reason, I think God is looking for people. I want to be an awesome mother to the glory of God that would raise kids who would love you. I want to be a CEO that lives out in integrity your principles in this business and funnels millions of dollars to the kingdom of God. I want to be a worker in my company that demonstrates to people all around me what it looks like for Christ to show up in a human body by the way I treat people and manage the people under me. See those are great dreams. Dream a great dream for God. So I have some others for ministry and career and one that I put that I was a little embarrassed by, 1996. I'd like to put some truth and messages in book form in a way that would really serve people in a powerful way. God did that.
Here's all I want you to hear. Unless you think it, desire it, pray it, and then dream it, and I believe write it down, you will never unconsciously gravitate toward and allow God to take you through the Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus process of birthing the dream in your life. As we conclude the process I've kind of modeled for you, but I put it in written form.
Process is number one, write it down. I gave you a few and please those that are obsessive compulsive you can cheer with me and those that aren't, but see these cards? These are my desire cards over the last 20 years. Just when I sense God wants to birth a dream I just write them down and I don't try and memorize them and I don't try and make them happen.
I just want them to be the beat of my heart. I want to say to God I think these are the kind of desires that a God like you who loves me would like to see happen and here they are and I just read them over and then I write them down. Second after reading them over I pray over your dreams. Things we've shared here I would read that and I'd say Lord I can't imagine ever writing a book but it's a desire that if you would want and if you don't it's fine. And I would pray over each of the desires and each of the dreams and then finally look for God's intervention.
And you know what it upset my life. It wasn't fun it wasn't easy but it got back to what's your purpose what's your dream what are you going to do with your life but you have to look for God's intervention. Dream great dreams. I believe he brought you here to birth or grow or expand what he's been doing in your heart because the scripture says now to him right Jesus who is able to do what exceedingly abundantly beyond what you could ever ask or think to him be the glory in the church. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and the message you just heard Dream Great Dreams is from our series Good to Great in God's Eyes. Chip will join us in studio to share some insights from today's talk in just a minute.
In the Gospel of Mark Jesus said, whoever wants to become great among you must what? Well join Chip in this series as he explores God's definition of greatness by highlighting a handful of enriching practices Christians should adopt. And if you want to dive deeper into the subject let me encourage you to check out Chip's book or our small group study. These are the perfect tools to help jumpstart your faith. Learn more about these resources by visiting LivingontheEdge.org the Chip Ingram map or by calling 888-333-6003. Well before we go any further in this program here's Chip.
Thanks Dave. I'll be right back to share some application with you but first at the beginning of today's message I said God delights to do impossible things through improbable people to extend exceeding grace to undeserving recipients. Dreaming Great Dreams is how God launched Living on the Edge.
It was 1995. The church was overrun with people. A businessman saw an opportunity. He put it on the radio and for the last 30 years little by little God has opened doors and we found ourselves ministering to millions of people here and around the world. But it all started with a dream.
A dream to see Christians actually live like Christians and realizing that despite the challenges, despite the hurts, despite all that's happening in the world, when a Christian begins to trust God miraculous things can really really happen. One of the biggest that happened in our life was a number of years ago. We found ourselves at the end of our rope unable to extend the ministry and in the midst of a downtime in the economy a handful of people got together and said why don't you take this to the radio audience and tell them that whatever they give will match it dollar for dollar.
That happened for the first time in 2007 and since then at the end of every year we've done one of these matches. Here's the miracle. I rarely if ever know how it's all going to come together. I don't know how much it's going to be and how God's going to develop it or will it really be matched this time. It's all been steps of faith and now every year end without exception whatever the match number grew to become it's been matched dollar for dollar. In fact it's been exceeded and so I want to invite you into God's miracle in a big way that he funds the work of Living on the Edge. Up till midnight December 31st every dollar you give gets doubled a hundred becomes two hundred five thousand becomes ten thousand and all the way up. It's an amazing thing that God does.
It began with the dream by ordinary people and God is continuing it through ordinary people like you. Thanks for partnering with us. Good wordship. Well if you'd like to be a part of our year and match go to Living on the Edge dot org or call us at triple 8 3 3 3 6 0 0 3. Your support means so much to us as we continue encouraging Christians everywhere to live like Christians and as Chip said every dollar given until midnight December 31st will be doubled dollar for dollar. So to give a gift call triple 8 3 3 3 6 0 0 3 or visit Living on the Edge dot org.
Listeners tap donate. Well Chip as we wrap up I wanted to loop back to something you talked about today. You shared that it was difficult when God began to fulfill the dream he put on your heart but I'm confused why was it difficult? I mean shouldn't that have brought you joy? Well I think getting the dream might be a joyful occasion but there's so much that we have to learn before we're ready to fulfill the dream God puts in our heart and so if people could hear God puts a dream in your heart but he has to work in you deeply before he's going to work significantly through you and in this entire chapter of this book or on the DVD I can tell you we really walk through the process of how God develops this because what you find is that when when God's going to do something really exciting and great and amazing if he did that overnight you would not have the character or the ability to handle the amazing thing he would do you would think it would be about you and so God always has to shape the person and he has to take you deep before your impact goes broad. Here's what you got to listen for dreams are birthed in private they come from intimate times with God where you get around your passions and what could be and what ought to be and what bothers you and oh God and they get birthed in private they get developed in a small group you got to get around a group of people that's safe and say you know I'm thinking this crazy thought you need to get with a group of people and dream a great dream and watch God do the impossible through you. That's a great reminder Chip and let me say here at Living on the Edge we believe community is essential to every Christian's faith and a practical way to find and build those meaningful relationships is in a small group so let me encourage you to visit livingontheedge.org and check out our library of study guides and resources whether you want to build a stronger marriage better understand God's character or biblically respond to our changing culture we have something for you learn more by clicking the store button at livingontheedge.org let us help you build some life-changing community today for Chip and the entire team this is Dave Druey thanking you for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge and I hope you'll join us next time.
