Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

Guest (Male): Hey everyone, thanks for stopping by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. And today we're kicking off a new series with Rick called Time to Dream, trusting God to open doors. Maybe you've been waiting for a breakthrough, an opportunity, or just some clarity about what's next. If so, you're in the right place. Rick's going to turn to the Bible and show us how God can open doors when we trust him with our future. So let's get started with part one of a message called Dreaming, the future God wants for you.

Pastor Rick Warren: Well, there are three definitions to a dream. Let me put them on the screen here. Here's the first definition. A dream can be the thoughts and images you have while sleeping. That can also be a nightmare. The thoughts and images you have while sleeping. Not all dreams that you have while you're sleeping are good. Everybody agree with that? Okay. Not all of them are from God, okay? Some of them you just had a bad burrito the night before, okay? Second meaning of dream is this, B. The desires, ambitions you have while you're awake. Now look up here.

The dreams you have with your eyes open are far more important than the dreams you have with your eyes closed. Makes sense? You can ignore 99% of the dreams you have with your eyes closed. Every once in a while you might get one, but 99% of the dreams with your eyes closed, you don't need to worry about those. But the ones that you have while you're awake, the desires and ambitions you have like I've always dreamed of, I've always wanted to do, I've had this goal, I've had this passion, I've always wondered, I've always thought, I've always wanted to.

That that's a more important dream, but there's an even more important dream than that, and that's C. Third meaning of dream is the goals and plans that God created you to fulfill. That's far more important than even my my own dreams. God hasn't promised uh to bless everything that I think up. I might have thought well I'm going when I was a kid I had a dream of being a rock star, shredding the guitar, you know? That was not God's dream for me. Okay? Let me give you some theme verses. I'm going to give you three verses.

Look up here on the screen. Jeremiah 29:11. God says, I know the plans I have for your life. That's the plans, insert the word dreams. I know the dreams I have for your life. They are plans, they're dreams for your good, not plans to harm you. My plans for your life will give you great hope and a wonderful future. Now notice, your dreams might be messed up, but God says my dreams aren't are number one, they're they're good. They're good. They're not going to harm you. They're going to give you hope, and they're going to give you a wonderful future.

I vote for God's dream for my life rather than my own, because some of my dreams would have ended in disaster. Some of you thought you were going to marry a certain person, and looking back now you go if I had married them that would have been a disaster. Okay, that was a dream you had, okay? So God's dreams are good. Okay, they're perfect. He says they're they're they're for your good, they're going to give you hope, they're going to give you a wonderful future. A second thing I want to say is this, God's dream for your life is far bigger than your dream.

God's dream for your life will always be bigger, always be bigger than your dream. How do I know that? Because God promises it. In fact, here's what he says in Ephesians. God, Ephesians 3:20, God can do anything far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request or dream in your wildest dreams. He does it not by pushing us around, but by working gently within us. God says think of the greatest dream for your life and I can top that. I can beat your dream. It's bigger than you can think, request, guess, dream, imagine.

And I don't do it by pushing you. I'm not driving you. I I I I'm pulling you and I'm working gently within you. So God's dream for your life, and that's what we're going to look at, is always bigger, always bigger than your dream for your life. Not only that, this is really important, when you follow God's dream for your life, here's the cool part. He arranges the circumstances to make it happen. He doesn't do that on just any old dream. But when you line up with God's dream for your life, that's what we're going to look at now for the next six weeks.

He arranges all of the circumstances so it happens. Stuff that you couldn't possibly arrange. I could give you hundreds of examples from my life on this. We just go wow, how did that happen? Only God did it. And and there will be things that happen in your life you go there's no way that could have happened, that I could have met that person at just the right time, that that money could have come at just the right time, that that circumstance, that that opportunity would open up just right that. When you get in line with God's will, you can't miss it because God doesn't sponsor flops.

Success is inevitable because God doesn't sponsor flops. And so when you follow God's dream, he arranges the circumstances. And that's the second part of this campaign. It's revelation. The Bible says this, verse three chapter three verse eight. God says, I have set before you an open door that no one can shut. When God gives you a dream, then he circumstantially provides the open doors for you to make that dream come true. Now here's the hard part. You have to have the courage to walk through that open door. That 's where faith comes in. I've seen a lot of people understand God's dream for their life.

And I have seen God open circumstances and open doors this wide, but they were scared to death to walk through the door. And they missed it. You can miss God's dream for your life. You can miss it. This is why it's so important. All right, I want to give you 12 reasons from scripture why you must know God's dream for your life. It's not optional. What we are going to talk about for the next several weeks is not some minor subject. It's the second most important thing in your life after do you know the Lord.

Once you know the Lord, you need to know his dream for the rest of your life. God will give you many dreams for different ages and stages of your life. His purposes, we've talked about God's purpose for your life many times. God's purposes never change. He wants you to know him, he wants you to grow in him, he wants you to love him, he wants you to love his family, he wants you to serve him, he wants you to share him. Those never never never change. But the dreams that God have for your life change with age, change with stage, change with maturity, change with growth, and change with how obedient you are to the previous dream that he gave you.

And if if if you're faithful in what he gives you in small things, he gives you more, and he expands your dream, and he gets it bigger, and he gets it better, and he gets it wider, and it has more impact because you were faithful in the other. So let me give you why are we going to spend six weeks studying God's dream for you? Number one, God gave me the capacity to dream. God God gave me the capacity to dream. I didn't get it from anybody else. I got it from God. The only reason you have the ability to dream great dreams, to have a vision, to think about the future is because you're made in the image of God.

Genesis chapter one verse 26. God says, let us make human beings in our image and our likeness. What makes you different from animals is the capacity to think about the future. Horses don't think about the future. Snails don't think about the future. Cows don't think about the future. Ants don't think about the future. Only they have instincts, but they don't think and plan. They can't make plans for the future. They have instincts, but I'm talking about the ability to dream up a skyscraper, the ability to dream up a business, the ability to dream up a piece of art or a piece of music.

No animal can do that. Why? They're not made in God 's image. You are most like your creator when you're being creative. God made you to be creative. You say I'm not creative. Oh yes, you are. You're a human being. You may have stumped you know you know pushed it down. You may have stamped it out of your life. Everybody's creative. Just look at the little kid. Every little kid is creative. And by the time they get six grade we've educated them out of it. And now they're drawing in the lines. And now they've conformed to what we think they ought to be doing.

God gave you the capacity to dream. Guess what? He expects you to use it. If you don't dream, you are sinning. Because God gave you the ability to dream great dreams. And it's not like God put you here on earth to not dream. He gave you the capacity, he expects you to use the capacity, and one day you will be evaluated on that capacity. Number two, without a dream I'm dying. Without a dream I'm dying. Proverbs 29:18, one of the most famous verses in the Bible says this, without a vision, where there is no vision, the people perish.

Without a vision, where there is no vision, the people perish. I tell pastors where there is no vision in a church, the people go to another parish. People hang around here because we've always got a bigger dream. We're always saying God what he wants us to do next. Without a dream I am dying. You're either dreaming or you're dying. Some of you start dying a long time ago. You die before you die because you stop dreaming. Guess what I'm going to do? As your coach, as your pastor, somebody who loves you, I'm going to rev up the dream machine in you again.

Okay, I'm going to rev up the dream machine in you again and let's make whatever time you got left the best. Without a dream I'm dying. Number three, everything starts with a dream. This is why we have to spend at least six weeks on it because everything starts with a dream. You look at anything that has been created, somebody dreamed it up first, either God or a human being. God dreamed up every tree, every mountain. God dreamed up this planet. God dreamed up the universe. It all started as a dream, and then he created you and he gave you the ability to be a dreamer.

He is the dream giver. God is the dream giver. They all come from God. God gives you about ability to dream new hobbies, to dream new businesses, to dream new ministries, to dream making a difference, to dream changing the world, to dream making an impact. God gives every dream. Everything starts with a dream. Albert Einstein said, imagination is more important than knowledge. Now that's a pretty significant statement knowing who made it. One of the smartest, most knowledgeable men in history said imagination is more important than knowledge. He said imagination rules the world, not knowledge, imagination.

The ability to think it up. This is a God-given ability, and without a dream I'm dying, and everything starts with a dream. That's why Ephesians 1:18 says this, I pray, I pray that your heart will be flooded, that your heart will be flooded with light so that you can see something, just something of the future that God has called you to share. That's the dream. The dream is the future that something of the future that God has called you to share. Paul says I'm pray as your pastor, I'm praying that for your life in the next six weeks, that you're going to get a new dream, a new vision for the woman God wants you to be, a new dream for a vision of the man God wants you to be, the husband, the dad, the father, the business woman, the business leader, the student.

I want you to dream great dreams. You know the neat thing about dreams, it doesn't cost a penny. Doesn't cost any money to dream. It's free. So I I dare you to dream great dreams in the next six to eight weeks. Everything starts with dreams. Number four, this is the big one. Dreams show what God wants to do through me. A dream shows me what God wants to do through me. Couple weeks ago I read the original dream of Saddleback Church. God gave me a vision of what he wanted to do through me. God wants to give you a dream of what he wants to do through you.

He wants you to see your future. Why? Because when you could see a little bit of your future, he's not going to show it all to you, but you could see a little bit of it. Then you realize you can cooperate. Now when God gives you a dream, it's not like the plan is all laid out and you can see it from beginning to end. Because if you could see the end of the dream of God's God's dream for your life, it's scary to death. What it is, it's kind of like a scroll where you roll down a little bit and you read that part of the dream and you do that, then you roll it down a little bit more and you do that, then you roll it down a little bit more and you do that, and eventually you get to the end.

But he's not going to give you the whole picture up front, it'll scare you to death. But what I want you to do is just get a peak, a peak of what God wants to do in your life. Everything starts with a dream and it shows what God wants to do through me. God does this even with non-believers. Did you know that? Look at this next verse here on the screen. Joseph told Pharaoh, who clearly was not a believer, God has given you two dreams to let you know what he has definitely decided to do and that he will do it in your future.

God let Pharaoh see in advance what was going to happen. There were going to be seven years of famine, then seven years of plenty, then seven years of famine. And and Pharaoh is going to be able to save his nation because God gave him a peak in advance. God was not a believer, but that's the graciousness of God. Dreams show what God wants to do through me. Number five, my dreams define me. My dreams define me. We shape our dreams and then our dreams shape us. If you don't have any dream, you don't have any definition of your life.

Why are so many people today confused about their identity? One of the biggest problems in our society is identity confusion. Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? What am I supposed to doing? Does my life matter? Is there any significance to my life? Is there meaning to life? What is it life all about, Alfie? And the reason why is because your dreams define you, and if you don't have God's dream, you don't have any definition to your life. You don't know who you are. You don't know the woman you're supposed to be.

You don't know the man you're supposed to be. My dreams define me. So you better make sure you got the right dream because you don't want to be dreamed in the wrong way. Jesus said it like this, Matthew chapter six here on the screen. Verse 22 and 23. He said, your eye is the light for your body. Your your eye is like the window to your soul. It lets light into your body. Your eye is the light or the lamp for your body. If your eye, if your vision is good, it's clear, it's bright. If your vision is good, your whole body will be full of light.

But if your vision, your eye is evil, your whole life will be full of darkness. Your dream defines you. Your dream defines you. A great dream will define a great person. A small dream will define a small person. An evil dream will define an evil person. It's your choice. Your dream defines you. So pick your dream wisely. Make sure it's the dream God has for your life because the dreams define us. If your body is full of light, if your vision is clear, then your body will be full of light. If your vision is unclear, it's cloudy or it's dark or it's evil, then that's the way you're going to end up living, okay?

Number six, a dream keeps me growing. This is one of the reasons I want to teach this to you, is because it is in having a dream you keep growing. A dream forces you to develop skills that you don't have. I have had to be on a learning curve my entire life. When God called me and gave me the dream at 25 to start Saddleback, I had none of the skills, zero zip that I was going to need to lead a church as big. None of those skills, not a one of them. They might have been latent, they might have been hidden, but I certainly didn't I know I had them.

You don't even know what you're good at until the dream pulls it out of you. And then you go oh, I didn't know I had that skill. I didn't know I had that spiritual gift. I didn't know I had that ability. I didn't know I was shaped for that. It is only in the dream that it pulls you out of yourself, forces you to be bigger than yourself, to grow beyond yourself so you're not selfish anymore. Dreams make us great. You know I I really have decided I I've read hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of biographies of great people.

And I really just come to this conclusion, there aren't any great people. There are only great dreams. But when an ordinary person goes after a great dream, she or he becomes a great person. There are no intuitively, instinctively great people on the planet. We're all born the same way. We don't even know how to eat. We we know nothing. We all start at the same level. But some ordinary people attach themselves to an extraordinary dream. And in attaching yourself to an extraordinary dream, you become an extraordinary person. You have no idea what God could do in your life.

Most of the things in your life that control your life, you had no choice over. I call them the sovereignty factors. You didn't choose who your parents were. You didn't choose when you were born. You didn't choose where you were born. You didn't choose your race. You didn't choose your gender. You didn't choose your parents. That's all God's choice. But there is one thing you do have 100% control over. It's one 100% I have control over in my life, and you have it in your life, and that is this. You have 100% control over how much you choose to believe God.

That's your choice. Believe God for a little, you have a little in your life. Believe God for more, you'll have more in your life. You believe God for great things, God will do great things in your life. You believe God for big dreams, God will do big dreams in your life according to your faith that'll be done unto you. A dream keeps me growing. Philippians chapter three says this, verse 12 to 15. Paul says, I know I'm not yet what God wants me to be. Well, thank God Paul admits it because we can all admit that too.

Everybody agree I'm not all what God wants me to be? Everybody agree with that? Okay, we're all in the same boat on that. We're not all what God wants. I'm not, you're not. None of us are what God wants us to be completely. I'm not yet. I love that word yet. Circle that. I'm not yet what God wants me to be. I haven't reached that goal, that dream, but I keep moving toward it to make it mine because Christ made me and he saved me for this. You were saved to make a difference. I know that I haven't yet reached my goal, but there is one thing, one thing I always do.

For getting the past, that's a good starting point. For getting the past and straining toward what is ahead. That's the dream ahead of you. I keep my eyes focused on the goal so that I may one day win the prize that God has called me to receive through Christ in the life above. All of you who are spiritually mature should think this same way. If you don't want to have a big dream for your life, you are not spiritually mature. The mark of spiritual maturity is that right there. I have a dream that's so big for my life, I couldn't possibly do it on my own.

It's going to take all of us working together. I can't do it on my own guess. I'm going to need God to step in. I'm going to need other people in my life. I'm going to need a small group. I'm going to need support. If your dream doesn't scare you, it's too small. And it doesn't require any faith.

Guest (Male): What a special message from Pastor Rick. And now let's hear how lives are changing through Daily Hope. Here's Rick with a letter from one of our listeners.

Pastor Rick Warren: I love receiving notes and emails from Daily Hope listeners like you. Here's one that I got from Vio, a listener from Canada. She shared Pastor Rick, I'm eternally grateful for all the wonderful work you're doing. Your messages are touching my heart and changing my life, and I'm sharing Daily Hope broadcast with other people. Last month I was baptized at my local church and God is truly working in my life. Thank you Pastor Rick. Well Vio, it's so encouraging to hear these kind of messages. Thanks for writing me. And it's exciting to hear that you're sharing this Daily Hope program with other people.

And I'm also glad to hear that you were baptized. Every Christian should be baptized. It's an important step of faith that says I'm not ashamed of saying that I'm a follower of Jesus Christ. I'm also happy that you found a local church family. You cannot be all God wants you to be without being connected to some kind of local church family where you live out all of God's purposes for your life. Thanks for listening today, and join me next time as we continue to look into God's word for our Daily Hope.

Guest (Male): You know I share Pastor Rick's Daily Hope all the time, and whether it's a friend or someone you meet in a restaurant, everyone needs hope and encouragement from the Bible every day. So tell the people you know and love about Daily Hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.