Making God's Dream Our Dream Series

One of the most famous speeches Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

ever gave was his "I have a dream" speech. It was a dream about a

future America where prejudice was eliminated, and there was

peace and unity among all races. This dream could only become a

reality if men learned to use power in a way that was pleasing to

God. On Palm Sunday we see the King of Kings showing the world

how to use power to make God's dream come true. All of history

and all of life is about the use or abuse of power. Jesus is the only

perfect man, and the one and only perfect king to ever reign, for he

is the only one whoever demonstrated the perfect use of power. By

his perfect use of power he made God's dream come true.

Does God actually dream? Not in the sense of going to sleep and

dreaming, for the Bible says he never slumbers or sleeps. God is

ever conscious and so his dreams are like those we are talking about

in our 50 day adventure. They are desires and goals and plans.

God had all of these, and our goal as Christians is to make His goal

and purpose our own. Jesus did that perfectly, and He submitted to

the dreams of God. He prayed, "Not my will but Thine be done."

God has a will and a purpose, and we re either going with the flow

of His will, or we are resisting it.

Luke 7:30 says, "But the Pharisees and the experts in the law

rejected God's purpose for themselves." God had a dream for

them. He had a purpose for their lives to achieve for His kingdom,

but they rejected it. We see them on Palm Sunday, when the

crowds were shouting, "Blessed is the king of Israel," sulking and

complaining. They refused to join in and acknowledge that Jesus

was their long awaited Messiah. Then they became the perfect

examples of the abuse of power, for they used their position to see

that this king was nailed to a cross.

Their abuse of power did not hinder God's dream, however, for

He uses their evil for good. He had a Son who used His power to

serve, and one of the ways He would serve all mankind was to die

for their sin. So God even used the abuse of power to fulfill His

dream for man. God's dream will come true. Nothing can stop

that, but the big question for all of us is, will I be a partner with

God in making His dream come true, or will I be one trying to

frustrate the dream by abuse of power?

The whole Bible is about God's dream for man, and either man's

cooperation or conflict with this dream. Thomas Curtis Clark has

written this poetic summary.

Dreams are they-but they are God's dreams!

Shall we decry them and scorn them?

That men shall love one another,

That white shall call black man brother,

That greed shall pass from the market-place,

That lust shall yield to love for the race,

That man shall meet with God face to face,

Dreams are they all,

But shall we despise them?

God's dreams!

Dreams are they-to become man's dreams!

Can we say nay as they claim us?

That men shall cease from their hating,

That war shall soon be abating,

That the glory of kings and lords shall pale,

That the pride of dominion and power shall fail,

That the love of humanity shall prevail,

Dreams are they all,

But shall we despise them?

God's dreams! The leaders of Israel did despise God's dream, and they did

abuse their power. Jesus desired God's dream, and He used His

power to fulfill it. Palm Sunday is about the clash between

God-centered and self-centered dreams. Self-centered dreams are

about having power to control and manipulate others. But God's

dreams are about having power to serve others. Jesus had it in His

power to do what the crowds hoped He would do. They hoped He

would use His power to defect the Romans and set them free to

dominate the Gentiles like they had been dominated by them. This

was the dream they thought was about to come true as they

shouted, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord-blessed

is the King of Israel."

This, however, was not God's dream at all. God's dream was

that Israel would fulfill its purpose and become a channel of God's

good news of salvation to the whole world. God's dream was for

His Son to die for the sins of the world and provide the good news

to proclaim, and that Israel would proclaim it. God's dream was

that power would be used, not to control others, but to serve others.