We are continuing in our series on discovering our destiny, and today we are thinking about the truth that God has a dream for your life.
To focus our thoughts this evening, listen to the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 12:1-2,
And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all He has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind He will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship Him. 2Don’t copy the behaviour and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
The Bible tells us that God, the Creator of the universe, knows you and wants to have a relationship with you.
God has a dream for your life!
God has a plan for your life and mine.
A perfect plan that brings honour and Glory to Him and blessing to us.
I think it’s true to say every parent has a dream for their child.
If you are a parent you have a dream for your children.
A dream that perhaps began before they were born.
If you are not a parent, the truth is your parents probably had a dream for you before you were born.
I’m not sure if mums dream more than dads.
Or if dads dream more than mums.
Or maybe we both dream as much as each other.
What will our baby be like?
What will they dream about becoming?
What will fill their thoughts?
Will they do well in school?
Will they be athletic or artistic or scientific?
Will they get a good job?
What is the destiny God has for them?
God has a dream for His children.
God has a destiny for His children.
God has a dream and a destiny for you.
Sometimes as human parents we can have unrealistic dreams for our children.
We may dream of our child being a pilot - that is possible.
An astronaut not so much.
Our heavenly Father has a dream for every one of His children, and God’s dream is to make you like His Son Jesus. Matthew 5:48 says, “you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
God’s dream for you and I is that we would be perfect. Perfect, that seems to be asking a lot, dreaming a lot, but when we come to know Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, when we repent and turn to Christ, God sees us as perfect.
Isaiah 61:10 says, I am overwhelmed with joy in the Lord my God! For he has dressed me with the clothing of salvation and draped me in a robe of righteousness.
We could never be perfect in our own righteousness. When Jesus died on the cross, He did not just take away your sins. He also gave you His righteousness. God has clothed you and I with the robe of righteousness, which was paid for by Jesus’ blood.
In Romans 8, The Apostle Paul tells us how God uses every circumstance, every up, every down, every relationship, everything we ever go through to make us more like Jesus. God’s dream for you is about, the kind of person you are destined to become, the kind of relationship you will have with Him.
God calls each of us to be loving, kind, gentle, holy, God calls us to be people who live out our daily lives with integrity. God is with us every moment of every day. When you are driving your car, you can have a conversation with Him. When you are washing dishes, you can sing praise to Him. When you face a big decision in your life, you can ask your Heavenly Father to lead and to guide. God cares about the detail of your life, He wants to be in an intimate, loving, deep relationship with you.
God’s dream for His children, for us, for you, for me, is that we would be spiritually mature. As disciples of Christ, as children of the living God, His dream for us is, He wants us to think like Jesus, to walk like Jesus, to love like Jesus.
His dream is that we would be selfless like Jesus.
His dream is that we would live a life where our priorities are the same as Jesus.
His dream is that we would use our money and our time just like Jesus would.
How close is God’s dream to the reality of how you are actually living your life today?
For some people, the way they live their daily lives is far from the dream and plan that God has for them.
For some people who would say they are Christians, there is very little evidence in their daily lives that they are anything more than Christian in name only. Their words, their actions, their lifestyle, their belief in the truth of the Word of God, is all far from what God expects it to be.
God’s dream for you and I is that we would be more than people who are called “Christian”, His dream is that we would truly be disciples of Christ. On fire for the Lord, loving Him, loving each other. Proclaiming by our words, our actions and our lifestyles, “I am a child of God. I am loved. I am forgiven. I am set free from the burden of my sin.
I am saved.”
God’s dream for every child of His, regardless of background, nationality, gender or denomination, God’s dream for every child is to become a disciple a true follower of Christ. That is His dream. That is His plan. That is His will.
In the first 11 chapters of Romans, Paul writes about the work of Christ, the sin of mankind, he covers both basic and deep theology. Paul writes about all God has accomplished and how much God loves people.
God gives us a very clear summary of what His dream is for your life in Romans chapter 12. First, we need to be in a real relationship with God. Let’s consider Romans 12:1 again, “And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all He has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind He will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship Him.”
Then, Romans 12:2, Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
Our relationship with the world must not be allowed to damage our relationship with God.
While many in the modern world may say, “there is no God”, we are not to live like there is no God.
Many in the world see God as unimportant, we are meant to live with God at the center of our lives.
The devil will try his hardest to lure us away from the way in which God expects us to live, we must never let the behavior and customs of this world draw us away from doing what is right in God’s sight.
God expects us to arrange our lives, our relationships, and our priorities around His will, His plan, His purpose, His dream, His Word.
The Word of God must be our guide to life and The Holy Spirit is the one who helps us in our daily walk.
God wants to be in relationship with you, not your religious activity. Yes there is a place for Bible study, yes there is a place for church, yes there is a place for prayer, yes there is a place for all kinds of spiritual things. But we can do all those things and still not be in a living relationship with Him. We can do all those things and still not be living a life surrendered to God.
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
If we are born-again disciples of Jesus in whom the Spirit of God lives, then we can not live with one foot walking with God and the other foot walking in the world.
Paul doesn’t say try hard to be a good Christian. Paul does not say, "It is ok to compromise in certain areas." Paul says, “Let God transform you.”
Listen to the words of James 1:6-8, “be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.”
God or the world. God or the devil. God or self.
Do not waiver in your faith, trust God, follow His plan, His purpose, His dream for you, His commandments.
Look at 1 John 2:4-6, If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth. But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love Him. That is how we know we are living in Him. Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.
God loves you and God has a dream for you.
God has told us what it means to live a holy life.
God has told us what it means to be righteousness in His sight.
1 John 2:15-17, Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.
God is sovereign and by His grace, His mercy, His compassion in Christ, even though we stumble, even though we fall short, God continues to love us and forgive us.
Can you see yourself the way God sees you? You need to see yourself the way God sees you and experience all He has for you!
You are loved, you are valuable, you are precious, you are forgiven. God made you. You are His child. You are His masterpiece. Ephesians 2:10, For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.
You are God’s masterpiece. Accept the gifts, the strengths God has given you. Know what your weaknesses are, know where you experience difficulty, know where you fall short, but know God has a dream for your life, God has a purpose for your life.
Whose purpose are you trying to fulfill in your life?
Your purpose? Your mum or dad’s view of your purpose? The world’s view of your purpose?
Are you willing to fulfil God’s purpose, God’s dream for your life?
Do you know your purpose?
“This is why I’m here. God’s purpose for me is this!” “This is what God enables me to be good at!”
“This is where I need God’s help!”
“This is where God is using me for His glory and honour.”
Why are you in church tonight? Is it because God loves you and you love God?
Fulfilling God’s dream for your life, God’s purpose for your life requires more from you than just turning up for a church service on a Sunday.
It is more than an attitude of, “It’s Sunday morning, it’s Sunday evening, do I have to go to church.”
It is a willingness to surrender to God, to cross the line, to be separate from the values of the world.
It is serving God in love, sincere love, not pretence.
It is hating what is evil and clinging to what is good.
It is honouring God, giving preference to God.
It is sacrificial living and giving to God.
It is a relationship with God who loves you so much.
Why do you read your Bible? When you open God’s Word do you seek His voice speaking to you today?
Do you pray that He will speak into your mind and into your heart?
God wants to encourage you through His Word. God’s wants you to experience His presence.
When did you last experience God’s presence? We do so many things in our daily lives, and there are things we pray about, and we hope God will do something, somehow, someway.
When did you last set aside some quality time to experience God’s presence in your life? When did you last take the time to consider the height and depth and length and breadth of how much God loves you? Have you even noticed how God has demonstrated His love to you today?
My final encouragement this evening is:
Remember God loves you.
Remember God has a plan for you.
Remember God has a dream for you.
Remember God has a destiny for you.
May each of us discover our destiny in Christ.
Amen
COMMUNION:
As we come to our time of communion, we need to remember that all of us fall short of the glory of God.
Romans 3:23 says, For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard
Falling short is more than not being a nice person.
Falling short is more than a few errors in our lives.
The Bible is clear, all have sinned.
All of us fall short of the glory of God, but there’s a solution.
The solution to sin is salvation in Jesus.
Romans 3:24-26 Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.
Jesus, fully man, fully God, lived a perfect life, died upon the cross to pay for your sin and rose from the dead and offers a free gift to whosoever would believe and receive it.
Romans 3:27-28, Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law. It is based on faith. So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law.
1 Corinthians 11:23-26,
For I pass on to you what I received from the Lord himself.
On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
In the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood. Do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it.”
For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord’s death until he comes again.
