Each one of us has some big dream for our lives – woven into our DNA by God.  But sometimes – we feel so inadequate.  And that dream – well it looks so big!

Great to be with you again today. For the last couple of weeks we’ve been talking about living out the big dreams for our lives. We’ve been doing that because I believe that God has an amazing plan for each one of us and He has an amazing plan for this world. And His plan is to use ordinary, fallible people like you and me to reach other ordinary, fallible people with the love of His Son, Jesus Christ. Who me? Yes, you.

Most times He communicates a little bit of His plan at a time by laying a dream on our hearts. Something that burns inside us, something that we lose sometimes or forget. But a desire that comes back again and again.

So many people live their lives but forget to live God’s dream in their hearts. And one reason for that is that God’s dream can be so big, it can seem so far beyond us, that it’s scary.

Let me read to you something that a woman called Marianne Williamson wrote back in 1992. She wrote this: “Our deepest fear is not that we’re inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, or gorgeous, or talented, or fabulous? Actually who are you not to be? You’re a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing in writing about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure about you. We are all meant to shine as children do. We were born to manifest the glory of God that’s within us. It’s not just in some of us. It’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Do you find that thought provoking? I certainly do. The notion that we aren’t good enough, the notion that I couldn’t possibly ever live out a dream as big as this. It’s a notion that a lot of us have.

I often wonder about Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela spent 27 years, 27 years in jail because of his opposition to apartheid in South Africa. Have you thought about that? 27 years is a very long time. And it must have been the dream in his heart one day to lead his country. One day to see apartheid abolished. And I’m sure, when he was sitting in that prison cell, in fact if you read his book, we discover this. There were times when he felt that he wasn’t adequate.

People often ask me, “How do you know that the dream that you have for your life is from God?” Well one sure way to tell is that it’s way beyond anything that you or I could do, it’s so outrageous. That unless God’s in it, we can’t succeed.

Now in a sense that’s scary. But when you think about it, that’s also really good. If God’s not in something, frankly I don’t want it to succeed. I don’t want to get two-thirds the way down a path and find that I’m carrying a huge and heavy load and God’s not in this to carry that load with me. This was never God’s plan for my life.

So I don’t want to succeed in anything that isn’t God’s plan.

All right. But then are you saying that we all have to end up doing high profile things that make us famous? No, I’m not saying that at all. Sometimes beyond a young mother with a young child that has nappy rash, that’s teething, there are dirty nappies all over the lounge room, it’s a mess, you’re tired, the whole breast-feeding thing isn’t working and your dream was always to have a little baby and be a Mum and see this child grow up. God is in that place too.

We live in this entertainment world where we have larger than life celebrities and we see people, and even Christians, succeed at their dreams. And we look at them and think , “Ah, I could never do that. God’s not in my world the way that God’s in that person’s world.” That is such wrong thinking.

Look at who Jesus hung out with when He walked on this earth. Who did Jesus hang out with? Jesus hung out with prostitutes, He hung out with lepers, He hung out with tax collectors, He touched lepers. Yet all the people, the society said, “These are flotsam and jetsam. These are nobodies.” They’re the ones that Jesus spent His time with. Not the famous people. The little people.

Paul writes this to the church in Ephesus. He says:

God is able to do immeasurably more than all that we can ask for or even imagine according to His power that’s at work in us. (Ephesians 3:20 )

Do you have a dream that seems so far beyond anything that you can do? You can imagine the dream. You can picture it. You can see it. But there’s just no way that you can get there.

Let’s have a look at that little verse again.

God is able to do immeasurably more than all that we can ask for or imagine.

So let’s take your dream for a minute and say, “That’s all that you can ask for or imagine.” That’s the dream.

Paul says, “God is able to do immeasurably more ... infinitely more God is able to do” Not because we’re wonderful and clever, not because we’re strong, not because we’re adequate but through His power that is at work in us. That’s the operative phrase.

A dream that we pursue for our lives, if this is God’s dream, is a partnership with Jesus, and He gives us His power. Sometimes we think Well, I’ve got God here, but God seems so far away...” and what we end up doing is we put God in a really small box. And the moment we put God in a small box, all of a sudden I have to be big and strong to make this whole thing happen. Because my God is small, He’s in a small box. So I can’t rely on Him to do stuff.

But we serve a God who is able to do immeasurably more than anything that we can ask or imagine. So we serve a huge God, a powerful God, and little old me. And we struggle to try and make that connection. But that’s the perfect connection. A big God and a little me. That is a powerful combination.

I mean, here’s Moses, one of the greatest leaders in all history, and God calls him to lead Israel out of Egypt. He says, “You’ve got to go and tell Pharaoh to let My people go.” Moses came up with five excuses.

He said, “Who am I to go to Pharaoh? Who will I say sent me? But what if no one listens to me or believes in me? But I’m a lousy public speaker. Oh, God, please send someone else.”

See Moses thought it depended on him. Moses said, “Who am I? What if they don’t believe me?” Moses forgot he serves a massive God.

Now I look back in my own life and I look at the progression of walking through despair and going to Bible college and doing some practical ministry here at Back to the Bible and doing some short radio spots for commercial radio and they said to me on my first assignment when I was at Back to the Bible was “Produce some short radio spots for commercial radio.”

So off I went and did it. And all the radio stations in Sydney played those commercial spots. And afterwards they told me that they’ve never been able to achieve that before. It’s probably just as well they didn’t tell me.

And then I did 5-minute programs and then I gave up my job and today I’m doing these programs and other programs. Tens of thousands of people every day are listening to them. I look at that and think If it were up to me, that could never have happened.

I know what you’re saying. You’re saying, “Oh, right, that’s you Berni. That’s you. That could never happen to me.” Well that exact thing couldn’t. But the pattern’s a very familiar pattern. It’s the way that God works.

See how God takes an ordinary person like me. In fact, a broken down, hurting person, puts a dream in their hearts and uses them for His glory. You have a different dream. You have different skills, different abilities, different gifts. But the principle is the same.

Are you a Jesus follower? Do you believe in Jesus? Then you have a God-shaped dream in your heart. Out there somewhere is a God-shaped need. Now it might be right where you are or it might physically be somewhere else.

Will you join hands with Him and go? This God Who is able to do immeasurably more than all that we could ask for or even imagine, according to his power at work in us. Will you go? Not in your own strength. Not doing just things on your own, but in His strength. Seeing Him doing miracles along your road, bringing His love into the lives of other people. Will you go?