Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

Happy New Year everybody. I hope everybody had a great holiday season. If you’re anything like me, you really don’t like January. I’m kind of a Christmas junkie. I love the holidays. I love having some time off to spend with my family. I’m just all about it.

So when January arrives, I always go into a little bit of a funk. All the fun and festivities are over and it’s back to life as usual. If December allows us to take a mini-vacation from life, January is always there to shock us back into reality.

For some of us, this New Year is a reminder of just how much our lives are not shaping up like we thought they would. Some of you are starting this New Year stuck in the same place that you were at the end of the old year.

We’re going to kick off this year by doing something about that. In Luke 4, Jesus said, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” (Luke 4:18-19, NIV)

Jesus came to set people free. He came to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and to release the oppressed.

We might not think that applies to us. No one here today is in jail. We don’t feel like we’re prisoners. But, practically speaking, many of us live like we are. We are stuck. We live like we are imprisoned in our lives.

In this series, Jesus is going to do what He said He would do. Set us free. You don’t have to be stuck. Jesus has the power to do something about it.

We’re going to kick off the series by allowing Jesus to hit us where a lot of us live. I’ve met a TON of Christians who are stuck in their small dreams.

Mark Batterson wrote, “Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze a new trail. Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Quit running away.”

How well does that describe your life? For most Christians in the American church, that manifesto from Mark Batterson is the antithesis of their lives. Most Christians wouldn’t know an adventure if they tripped right over it. Their faith is about maintenance. They strive to maintain their comfort, maintain their convenience, and maintain the status quo.

If you think I’m being harsh, I’m not. I’m just being honest. Most American Christians don’t have a radical bone in their body. It’s not that they don’t love God. It’s just that their dreams are too small because their God is too small.

And so it’s no surprise that so many Christians are bored with their faith. One of the most common reasons people give for not plugging into a church is this: church is boring.

And, as sad as this, they’re right a lot of the time. When a bunch of bored believers get together to do the same boring thing that they’ve always done, guess what the end result is? The end result is boring!

Here’s what we believe at ACC. We believe that the gospel is the greatest news in history, and the greatest news deserves to be told in the greatest, most energetic, passionate, exciting way possible. I actually believe that it is sinful to bore someone with the gospel. We don’t believe in entertaining people into heaven, but we don’t believe in boring people into hell, either.

God is not boring. He is living, vibrant, creative, exciting, and unpredictable. If you have a god that you can always predict, you don’t worship the God of the Bible. If you have a god that approves of boring, self-serving religion, you don’t worship the God of the Bible. If you have a god who never asks you to take a risk, to do something dangerous, to step out on faith, you don’t worship the God of the Bible.

The God of the Bible is not a god of bored believers with small dreams. He is the God of passionate followers who dream huge, audacious dreams because they really believe that the gospel has the power to change the world.

Those are the kind of people that Paul was talking to in the book of Ephesians. We’re going to spend some time today working through an incredible piece of Scripture from Ephesians 3.

Starting in verse 14, the Apostle Paul writes, “For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:14-21, NIV)

This passage is chocked full good stuff. It is full of stuff to expand your dreams and to drive a death nail into your boring faith. This is dangerous territory that we’re treading on today. If you allow Him, God is going to shake you up today. But that’s a good thing. We need to be shook up if we’re going to shake our world up.

Let’s go back and walk through this passage step-by-step. Paul opens the passage in verse 14 by writing, “For this reason I kneel before the Father…” (Ephesians 3:14, NIV)

Paul begins here because we have to begin here. Dreams begin on your knees. God-given dreams come out of prayer. We can’t concoct God-sized, God-ordained, God-given dreams on our own. If your dream isn’t born out of prayer, it probably isn’t of God.

In verse 16, Paul says, “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being…” (Ephesians 3:16, NIV)

The Bible reminds us that God has “glorious riches.” We can’t even fathom what God has or what He can do. But, even though it is beyond our ability to comprehend, He gives us access to His glorious riches. Out of His abundance of power and grace, God gives us strength through the Holy Spirit in our inner being.

A lot of Christians are afraid of the Holy Spirit. We hear the term “Holy Ghost” from the King James Bible and we get a little spooked. Ghosts are weird and spooky. They appear from out of nowhere and say, “boo!”

Well, first of all…the term “Holy Ghost” is a bad translation. The name isn’t “Holy Ghost.” It is “Holy Spirit.”

The Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity. He is equal to God the Father and God the Son. And yes, we refer to the Spirit as “He.” Not “it.” The Holy Spirit is one of the three persons that make up our one God.

And part of the Holy Spirit’s role is to give us strength. Strength in hard, tough times. And strength to pursue Kingdom-sized dreams.

Do you have a Kingdom dream down deep inside you? Everyone else says it can’t be done. It’s too risky. It’s too dangerous. There are no guarantees. But, in spite of the odds, you keep feeling drawn to this dream?

If this dream was born out of prayer and you keep getting drawn to it, you may be staring down a dream that God has planted in your life and His Spirit is empowering you in your inner being right now to pursue it. That’s not weird. That’s not spooky. That is awesome.

Now, check out the next verse. Verse 17 says, “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love…” (Ephesians 3:17, NIV)

Paul prayed that Christ would dwell in our hearts through faith. Faith, being the key component. Faith is such a broad, general term in our language. But the Bible gives us a really good working definition for faith in Hebrews 11.

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1, NIV)

Did you notice the confidence and conviction in this verse? Faith is being SURE of what we hope for. It is being CERTAIN of what we do not see.

When you step out in faith to pursue a God-sized dream, a lot of people will think you’re crazy. People with small dreams and a small God will think you’ve lost your mind. That’s because they don’t have this kind of faith.

If you are sure that God is huge, then your dreams will be huge. If you are certain that God overcomes the odds and supersedes your circumstances, everything about your life will be different.

Let’s go back to verse 17 in our text. Paul also prayed that we would be “rooted and established in love.”

Kingdom dreams don’t come to shallow, flighty, immature Christians. To have a dream from God, you’ve got to be rooted and established in the love and the will of God.

That means that, if you think I’m giving you free license to pursue a selfish, self-centered dream, you’re way off. We’re talking about Kingdom dreams, not selfish dreams.

What does that look like?

Maybe you’ve been dreaming of starting your own business. Is that a Kingdom dream or a selfish dream? It depends. How is your business going to help people? Will it give you new ways to influence people for Christ? Are you looking to make money so you can live a life of selfishness or a life of generosity? Ask yourself, “Does my dream build God’s Kingdom or my kingdom?” That’s a tough, tough question.

You need to understand that not even pastors are immune to selfish dreams. We’re human. We have an ego and we have to keep it in check.

I have a dream that our church will blow the doors off this community in 2010. I’m dreaming about a record number of baptisms this year. I’m dreaming about doing whatever it takes to reach people who are far from God and bringing them into a relationship with Jesus. I’m dreaming of more and more people connecting, growing, and serving through the ministry of our church.

But I’ve got to go deep within myself and examine my motives. Is this my dream because I truly want to see God’s Kingdom grow and expand like wildfire? Or is it my dream so everyone will look at me and think I’ve done a good job? Do I want people to think that I am this stellar, awesome leader…or do I want people to see Jesus instead of me?

What if God did turn this community upside down for Jesus? What if people started coming to Jesus at an unbelievable clip? What if the poor were fed, marriages were saved, families were healed, and people were won to the Kingdom…but God did it through someone else’s ministry? What if God answered my every prayer for our city, but He did it through another church? Would I be ok with that?

You’ve got to go deep to answer this kind of question. This is pretty advanced stuff. It is not comfortable to examine your motives on this level. But if you don’t go this deep, you’ll never know if your dream is about building God’s Kingdom or your kingdom?

No one is immune to this. It takes some soul searching, but you’ve got to examine your core motivation. The motives deep within your heart will reveal whether you have a Kingdom dream or a selfish dream.

Next verse. Paul said, “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ…” (Ephesians 3:17b-18, NIV)

Paul prayed that we would have the power to grasp how wide, long, high, and deep the love of Christ really is.

The love of Jesus is not only huge in size, but it is huge in variety. That is evidenced by the variety of passions and gifts that God has given every one of us. And when we find that intersection where our passion meets our giftedness, like Dave talked about last week, we’re in the sweet spot of God’s love and plan for our lives.

Just because your dream doesn’t make sense to others doesn’t mean it isn’t of God. God’s love for us is wide, long, high, and deep. In other words, it stretches beyond the box that we like to put people in…and the box that we put ourselves in.

Is God calling you to write that book? Go back to school? Is he calling you to give up your good paying job for something with less earthly benefits, but more Kingdom benefits? Is He calling you to go on that mission trip? Is He calling you to start serving at a place like the Pregnancy Resource Center or Grace & Mercy Outreach Center? Is He calling you to do something radical…something audacious?

So many of us feel the call of God on our lives, but we immediately think, “I can’t do that. I know I can’t do that.”

Verse 19. Paul prayed that we would know that, “know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:19, NIV)

The love, and grace, and mercy, and power of God surpasses your knowledge. You can’t rely on what you know about you. You’ve got to rely on what you know about God. You’ve got to rely on the love that God has for you. And in His love, He can propel you to places that you could never go on your own.

1 John 4 says it so simply. “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.” (1 John 4:16a, NIV)

There are two components to living in the love of God. Knowing and relying. A lot of Christians do the knowing pretty well. I’ve known countless Christians who know Scripture. They’ve spent their life going to Bible studies. They’ve heard thousands of sermons. They study the Bible on their own. They know all about the love of God.

But if we don’t make the transition from knowing to relying, it’s all meaningless. You can know Scripture and not rely on it. You can know all kinds of facts about God and still not trust God. You can understand the theology of Jesus and still have no confidence in Jesus.

It’s a plague in the church. We are educated beyond our level of obedience. We gain more and more head knowledge, but for so many of us, it doesn’t make the connection into our lives.

Think about that as we look at the last couple of verses in our text. “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20-21, NIV)

This is the linchpin for the whole passage. God is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or even imagine.

Our son, Ryan, wanted a Nintendo Wii for Christmas this year. But before Christmas, he kept telling people, “I want a Wii, but they cost a lot of money. I don’t think I’ll get it.”

We’ve been teaching Ryan about our budget. When he asks for certain things, we tell him, “It’s not in our budget.” He is really grasping the concept incredibly well for a five-year-old.

So he came to the conclusion, on his own, that a Wii wasn’t in our budget. But what he didn’t know is that we started a little Wii savings account months before Christmas. By the time we did our Christmas shopping, we had all the money we needed and we bought the Wii. And he absolutely lit up on Christmas morning.

Ryan didn’t understand that Mommy & Daddy had a plan. He didn’t understand we had more than enough resources to do this. He viewed the situation with a scarcity mentality instead of an abundance mentality.

How many of us look at God the same way? We view God through the lens of scarcity instead of abundance. This verse should destroy that way of thinking.

But this verse has to move from knowing to relying. This is a classic memory verse. There are certain verses in the Bible that a lot of Christians have memorized. This is one of them.

A lot of us know this verse, but not many of us live this verse. It never moves from knowing to relying.

How would your life be different if you didn’t just know this verse, but you actually relied on it? What would you do today if this wasn’t just words on the pages of your Bible, but you also believed that this is how God wants to move in your life?

God has glorious riches, like we saw earlier. And He is able to do greater things than we can even imagine. Your Kingdom dream may be too big for you, but it’s not too big for God. What would you do if you didn’t just know this truth, but you relied on it? What would you do if you lived everyday relying on this truth: God is able to do immeasurably more than you can ask or imagine?

Now, this doesn’t take risk out of the equation. God isn’t some slot machine that comes up with three sevens every time you pull the lever. He isn’t just a vending machine ready to spit out a blessing whenever you want it. He doesn’t always do what we think He should do when we think He should do it. God is sovereign, which means He works on His own timetable and He doesn’t have to answer to us about anything.

But along with being sovereign, He is loving, gracious, and powerful. And He loves to work through the lives of His children who are willing to step out and pursue a Kingdom dream.

If you are a follower of Christ, you have power that you don’t even realize. His power is at work within us. Paul states it as a fact in this verse. God is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us. If you are in Christ, the power of God is at work within you. It is happening right now. Stop trying to squelch it or stop it and start living in it!

That goes for every one of us as individuals, and it goes for us collectively as God’s church.

Paul wrote, “to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus.” God loves working through churches who pursue audacious goals. Who aren’t content to keep recycling what they have always done. Who reach for Kingdom dreams that are bigger than they are.

That’s what 2010 has to be about at ACC. It’s got to be about us pushing harder, going deeper, and reaching further than we ever have before. It’s going to mean pursuing audacious, God-given dreams. That means that it will be scary. It will be risky. It will be uncomfortable.

But God never blesses people who kowtow to fear, who always play it safe, and who value their comfort over His glory. We cannot be that kind of church. That is not the church that God blesses. That is the church that God dismisses. And I don’t want to be that church. We’re not going to be that church.

Complete this sentence. In your mind, in your heart, in the depth of your soul…complete this sentence.

If I really believed that God was able to do more through my life than I can ask or imagine, then I would ______________________________.

We are so serious about this that we’re not going to move on from this. We’re going to live right here for a few minutes. For some of you, this is going to be really uncomfortable because you’re going to have to face the God-given dream that you’ve been denying. You’re going to deal with the call of God on your life that you’ve been running away from.

If I really believed that God was able to do more through my life than I can ask or imagine, then I would ______________________________.

We’re going to spend some time right now allowing this question to get into our minds and hearts and spirits. Let the Holy Spirit move in you. Let Him take you where He wants you to go. Let Him show you something audacious, something huge that He wants to do in you and through you.

Open your eyes, and ears, and minds, and hearts, and spirits to the Word of God. This is the truth. This is who God is. This is what God does.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20-21, NIV)

That is our God, church. That is our God, who allowed a virgin to conceive and give birth to His Son. That is our God, who lived a perfect, sinless life so He could be the perfect sacrifice for our sin on the cross. That is our God, who couldn’t be held captive by death but rose from the dead to seal our victory over sin, and death, and hell.

And our God wants that same power to flow freely in our lives. You don’t have to settle for small, insignificant dreams. God is able to do immeasurably more than that. If God can rescue you from the fires of hell, then you tell me what He can’t do in your life.

Mike Edmisten

Tags: dreams, Ephesians 3, God's power, Holy Spirit, Stuck,