My wife, Lora, and I have a little tradition on Christmas Eve. We watch the 1946 classic It’s a Wonderful Life, starring Jimmy Stewart. Our kids have a tradition too. They watch Inception, the science-fiction thriller written, directed, and produced by Christopher Nolan. It gets our kids into the Christmas spirit, I guess.
The plot line isn’t easy to unravel, but basically, “extractors” infiltrate the subconscious minds of their targets and extricate information while the targets are in a dream state. In one plot-changing scene, Dominic Cobb (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) goes beyond the art of extraction. He attempts the near-impossible task of inception—implanting an idea into a target’s subconscious.
Cobb says to his partner in crime, Arthur (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt), “We have to plant it deep in his subconscious.”
Arthur asks, “How deep?”
Cobb says, “Three levels down.”
Arthur responds with a question that frames the film: “A dream within a dream within a dream—is that even possible?”
Inception popularized the phrase “a dream within a dream,” but its history traces back to an 1849 poem by Edgar Allan Poe titled “A Dream Within a Dream.” I love the last stanza. It poses a question: “Is all that we see or seem/But a dream within a dream?”
I think the answer is yes.
Don’t Play the Odds
This is the second in a three-sermon series on David’s mighty men. In the first sermon, “Run to the Roar,” I talked about Benaiah. In the third sermon, I talk about Eleazar. Here I want to introduce you to Josheb.
Josheb-Basshebeth, a Tahkemonite, was chief of the Three: he raised his spear against eight hundred men, whom he killed in one encounter. (2 Samuel 23:8, NIV)
There comes a moment in every dream journey when you’ve got to raise your spear. You’ve got to go big or go home. And what I love about Josheb is that he didn’t back down, even against 800-to-1 odds.
When I read this story, I imagine Instagram—the picture is focused on Josheb’s spear lifted above his head and there are 800 sworn enemies blurred in the background. That’s when most of us run away. But not Josheb.
Those are long odds, but God loves long shots! And to the Infinite, all finites are equal. There is no possible or impossible. There are no degrees of difficulty.
Impossible odds set the stage for God’s greatest miracles.
I know the motto of the Hunger Games: “May the odds be ever in your favor!” Not in God’s kingdom. May the odds be against you! That’s how God gets His glory. He does things we can’t take credit for. Unless God does it, it can’t be done.
Most of us, though, avoid situations where the odds are against us. And when we do, we rob God of the opportunity to do something supernatural.
If Josheb wins a one-on-one match-up, big deal. I don’t think that gets him into the Bible. But when you beat 800-to-1 odds, someone is going to give you a promotion. And that’s what David did. He tapped Josheb as chief of David’s three mightiest warriors.
Here’s my point: Don’t run away from 800-to-1 odds. And to explain how this can actually work, I want to focus on the last two words in 2 Samuel 23:8. This little phrase is pregnant with possibilities, full of hope—“one encounter.” You are one encounter away from an alternate reality.
Here’s what I believe. I believe God is ordering your footsteps. I believe God is preparing God works in advance. I believe God is strategically positioning you in the right place at the right time.
I don’t believe in coincidence; I believe in providence. And because of it, I live with a holy anticipation, a sanctified expectation. Why? Because God is setting us up! You never know when or where or how God is doing to show up and show off His power, His grace, His goodness.
But what I’ve learned along the way is that we’ve got to take the first step of faith.
Renee’s Ripple
I gave two definitions of faith in the first sermon in this series:
• Faith is the willingness to look foolish.
• Faith is the process of unlearning our fears.
Let me give you one more this week. Faith is taking the first step before God reveals the second step.
Many of us are waiting for God to make a move, while God is waiting for us to make a move. And that’s where we get stuck.
In 2010, we did a series at National Community Church titled “Miracles.” At the end of one of those messages, I felt led to ask anyone who needed a miracle to come to the altar so we could pray for him or her. I was at our Kingstowne campus, and a woman named Renee Reed made her way to the front. Renee is shy by nature, so it took some effort. She told me about the miracle she was looking for.
Renee leads a mission organization called Global Outreach, and they needed $15,000 to complete construction on an orphanage in Uvira, Congo. So I started praying … and then the Lord stopped me. I felt like the Holy Spirit stirred my spirit, saying, “Why are you praying for something when you can do something about it?” So after praying, we took a special offering. One week later, we gave Renee a $15,000 check. Renee had her miracle.
But this is where it gets fun.
In 2011, our first mission team of 13 went to work with the Congo Center for Christ. We got to dedicate the pipeline that brings clean water into the village. The team was so inspired that they did a Tough Mudder together and raised an additional $4,000. National Community Church invested an additional $51,400 in that ministry that first year.
In 2012, we sent another team of 18 people. One of the people the team met was a boy named Noe, whose hips and legs were misaligned because he had polio as a child. A team of NCCers traveled through Congo, across land and water, to consult with doctors who were able to do surgery and restore Noe’s mobility. And Noe had his miracle! NCCers did another Tough Mudder and raised $9,000 this time. NCC added $50,550 to the equation.
In 2013, Sarah Bayot, who was our office manager at the time and co-leader of the Congo team, quit her job at NCC to chase her 500-pound lion called Kicheko. She used her creative gifting and entrepreneurial anointing to start a business that provides scholarships for under-resourced children in the Congo. By the way, kicheko means “smile.” And I think what she’s doing puts a smile on our heavenly Father’s face.
One little footnote to this story.
When Sarah stepped out in faith, I got an email from someone who had just started attending NCC. Lindsay felt led to invest $15,000 in Sarah’s startup. And what I love is the way she found NCC. Lindsay was at a white elephant exchange and she got a copy of In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. That’s how she found NCC. Now, a white elephant gift is a gift you give away because you don’t want it. That hurts a little bit. But I think back to the prayer we prayed when that book released—that God would put it into the right hands at the right time. I don’t think Lindsay getting the book was coincidental. I think it was providential.
In 2014, a team of 16 NCCers helps build Mango Tree School, which serves 200 students. NCC invested $81,300 in that effort.
In 2015, the first high schoolers graduated and NCCers helped scholarship them so they could attend university here in the United States.
I’ve got to stop somewhere in talking about what came from one encounter, and so I’m going to stop there. But I want to explain how it all matters.
In the realm of physics, there is a phenomenon known as precession. Technically speaking, it is the change in orientation of the rotational axis of a rotating object. I have no idea what that means, so let me paint a picture. Think of a spinning top—like the spinning top at the end of the movie Inception. As the spinning top slows down, its spin axis gets wider and wider in concentric 90-degree right angles.
For the sake of simplicity, it’s dropping a stone into a body of water. There is an initial impact, but then there is a ripple effect. Those concentric circles ripple out further and further and further.
The same is true of our lives. Every action we take, every decision we make has a cause-and-effect echo beyond our ability to comprehend, beyond our ability to control.
Buckminster Fuller ranks as one of the most amazing minds of the 20th century. He not only invented the geodesic dome; he also served a ten-year tenure as world president of Mensa. In other words, smart guy.
Buckminster Fuller was fascinated with the phenomenon of precession. In fact, he once said that only one in 10 million people could comprehend the ramifications of the ripple effect. If Fuller is right, there is a chance that this sermon won’t make sense to anybody, including me. This is past our pay grade! But let me play it out anyway.
Our actions and inactions, our decisions and indecisions have a ripple effect way beyond our ability to comprehend or control. We have a tough time comprehending the cause-and-effect of our actions right here, right now, let alone the future-tense impact of those actions. But what I’m getting at is this: your decisions make a difference; your actions have an impact. And I believe that what God is doing for you isn’t just for you—it’s for the third and fourth generation. God is always dreaming bigger and thinking longer.
Renee Reed had no idea the ripple effect that her one prayer, her one act of obedience, her act of step of faith would set in motion. But that’s the beauty of precession. That’s the beauty of God’s sovereignty. If you keep doing the right things day in and day, God is going to show up and show off in ways that you could never predict. Renee Reed was coming to the altar for her miracle, but the ripple effect was a miracle for Noe, for the students who got scholarships, for Mango Tree School, and for the Congo Center for Christ.
A Dream Within a Dream
This is where I want to push the envelope:
You are one risk away from a totally different reality.
You are one idea away from a totally different mentality.
You are one decision away from a totally different eternity.
And I’m not speaking in a vacuum.
When I was 19 years old, I heard a sermon by Sam Farina. He preached about a guy named Benaiah who chased a lion into a pit on a snowy day and killed it. An idea was conceived in my spirit: If I ever write a book, I want to write a book about that verse. It took 16 years, but that dream became reality. And I’m cognizant of the fact that everything God does through In a Pit or Chase the Lion traces back to a sermon by Sam Farina.
So this series is a sermon within a sermon, a dream within a dream, a prayer within a prayer. I don’t take credit for it. And Sam Farina doesn’t get the credit either. God gets the glory.
That’s the precession of one sermon. And honestly, it’s why I pour my heart and soul into every sermon I preach, because I never know how God might use it. I never know what dream might get birthed in someone’s spirit.
Back to Josheb.
I don’t think Josheb was looking for 800-to-1 odds. It just happened. But when it did, Josheb didn’t see 800 problems. He saw 800 opportunities! And he raised his spear.
I don’t think Benaiah was hunting lions. It wasn’t on his to-do list that snowy day. But when it happened, he didn’t see a 500-pound problem. He saw a 500-pound opportunity. And he chased the lion.
In the first sermon in this series, I asked a question: Are you living your life in a way that is worth telling stories about?
Let me ask another question this time: What are you doing today that will make a difference a hundred years from now?
Last week I talked about inaction regrets. Our greatest regrets at the end of our lives will be the 500-pound lions we didn’t chase. It’ll be the opportunities we left on the table. They’re called inaction regrets.
Let me talk for a minute about a phenomenon in social psychology called inaction inertia. When you miss an opportunity, there is scientific evidence that you are even more likely to miss it the next time and the time after that.
It’s the natural tendency to keep doing what you’ve been doing, ad infinitum. It’s the tendency to keep thinking what you’ve been thinking, ad nauseam. Listen, if you want God to do something new, you can’t keep doing the same old thing. You tell me the last you were uncomfortable, and I’ll tell you the last time you grew. The status quo doesn’t cut it. It’s not going to get you where you want to go spiritually or relationally or professionally or physically.
Let me have a little fun with this.
If you live in D.C., there is a little phrase on your license plate—“taxation without representation.” Let me tell you where it originated.
In 1761, James Otis resigned his position as advocate general for the royal colony in Massachusetts because he was conscientiously opposed to the writs of assistance that had been levied by Great Britain on the colonies. “Taxation without representation,” said Otis, “is tyranny.” James Otis argued against taxation without representation with such fervor and such candor that John Adams said he sired the Revolution.
“Then and there the child Independence was born,” said John Adams, who heard Otis’s courtroom speech in February of 1761. “In fifteen years, that is in 1776, he grew up to manhood and declared himself free.”
The irony is that that dream isn’t reality yet for those of us who live in D.C. It’s a dream within a dream for every person who lives in D.C. But it all started with one man who took his stand and raised his spear in a Boston courtroom.
James Otis didn’t set out to start a revolution. It wasn’t a bumper sticker campaign. He just acted according to his convictions.
Here’s what I’m getting at: what you do makes a difference. But it’s the little things—the small acts of kindness, the sacrifices you make that no one sees, the prayers you pray that no one hears, the little steps of faith that scare you to death. That’s how the kingdom advances. It’s when one person has the courage to raise his spear against 800 because he knows he isn’t outnumbered, not if God is on his side. If God is on your side, the odds are in your favor. It’s called the favor of God.
Your dream predates you. God was setting you up before you were born. And your dream postdates you. Your legacy isn’t your dream. Your legacy is the dreams that your dream inspires.
Tim Scott is the first African American in U.S. history to be elected to both the House of Representatives and the Senate. But he had to defy the odds to do so. Tim grew up in a single-parent household with a mom who worked 16-hour days just to put food on the table. And he struggled academically, failing English and Spanish. “That doesn’t make you bilingual,” Tim says in self-deprecating fashion. “It makes you bi-ignorant.”
But in the eighth grade there was a teacher who spotted political potential and said, “You ought to think about student council.” Those seven words changed the trajectory of his life. Never underestimate the power of one well-timed, well-phrased word of encouragement. One sentence can alter someone else’s destiny!
I recently met Senator Scott backstage at the Catalyst Next Conference in Washington, D.C. During an unplugged interview, the senator said, “I’m a big believer in writing down vision.” That’s precisely what he did as a 19-year-old.
Tim’s mentor, a Chick-fil-A operator named John Moniz, had a dream of positively influencing one million people. One of those one million was a teenage kid who could only afford fries. John gave Tim free sandwiches and a steady diet of godly wisdom.
When John died of a heart attack at 38, Tim adopted John’s dream and one-upped it. He then wrote down that second-generation dream: to positively affect the lives of one billion people. That’s a 500-pound lion! Against all odds, Tim is now making decisions that directly affect the lives of 319 million Americans. And those decisions indirectly affect billions around the globe.
In our cultural narrative, Senator Scott is the hero of the story. But Tim would argue that the true hero is his mother, the true hero is an eighth-grade teacher, the true hero is a Chick-fil-A operator who saw his potential. They are the bylines that helped Tim Scott make headlines. And that’s true of Benaiah and his band of brothers.
Every David needs a Benaiah.
Every Tim Scott needs a John Moniz.
And someone needs you!
I’m eternally indebted to the people who have leveraged my dream—my parents, professors, coaches, mentors, and pastors. Most of their names you would not know—Bob Rhoden, Kirk Hanson, Jac Perrin, Opal Reddin, St. Clair Mitchell, John Green, Michael Smith, Robert Smiley, Dick Foth, Jack Hayford.
Some of my uplines intersected my life for only a few seconds, such as a missionary named Michael Smith, who spoke a prophetic word over my life when I was 19 years old. He wouldn’t even remember that moment, but I’ve never forgotten it. The same is true of Opal Reddin and Jac Perrin. It was a sequence of conversations with each of them at a critical juncture in my journey that helped me resolve a theological conundrum. Then there is Dick Foth, who has been a spiritual father to me for two decades. The only way I can repay the debt I owe each of them is by doing for others what they have done for me.
Your legacy isn’t your dream. Your legacy is leveraging the dreams of those who come after you. Your legacy is your downlines—those you parent, mentor, coach, and disciple. You may not influence a million people. But who knows? You may influence one person who influences a billion people.
Success is succession.
Success is precession.
I don’t know what risk you need to take. I don’t know what decision you need to make. I don’t know what opportunity you need to stake. But I do know this: faith is taking the first step before God reveals the second step. I know that you cannot finish what you do not start. I also know that He who began a good work in you will carry it to completion.
Renee Reed walked an aisle.
Sarah Bayot started a business.
Sam Farina preached a sermon.
James Otis gave a speech.
John Moniz mentored a teenager.
Each of them raised a spear in his or her own unique way. May we do likewise.
