A Dream Is Never for Now. Start It Anyway

Sermon outline

Every child of God is a visionary, so write the vision down and start acting on it now, through the preparation, the pressing and the tests, laying everything on the altar so that God can use you.

1. The time to act is now

   Write the vision and make it plain, because it is for an appointed time and will surely come. Many have let circumstances, disappointment and comfort sidetrack God's call, and that is exactly where the enemy wants them. We are not waiting for heaven to live better or to serve the Lord.

   Illustration: When people wanted to join the media team, the first thing he asked was that they recite the Lord's Prayer. Those who stumbled after "who art in heaven" were sent to Bible school first.

   “The devil doesn't need you to be a devil worshiper. He just needs you not to operate in the things of God.”

   • Habakkuk 2:2-3
   • Matthew 24:36
   • 1 Thessalonians 5:2

2. A dream is for a future time, and the gap is preparation

   When God births something in us, it is nearly always for a future time, and between now and then is a place called preparation, which is the difficult part. But there is no better time to act than now. God has not called anyone just to take up space on a Sunday morning; doctor, lawyer, salesperson or stay-at-home mother, He has a plan for each.

   Illustration: Ask a young man of twenty-three when he is getting married and he is waiting for the job, the car, the house and to be debt free. You cannot say you are building a life with someone if you are waiting for that life to be built before you add them.

   “Between now and that future time, there's a place called preparation.”

3. Every child of God is a visionary

   What drives people to climb Everest, fly into the stratosphere or cycle around the world is a vision that blinds them to the obstacles. Most people let the obstacles set the terms, and remain docile, happy Christians going nowhere, fixed on me and mine. A God mentality puts God first and then reaches the world, because every believer is a minister of the gospel in every area of life.

   Illustration: Two-thirds of God's name is go. Hamba.

   “Two-thirds of God's name is Go.”

4. So what if you fail?

   Where there is no vision the people perish, and those waiting for things to be perfect never move. People hold back asking what if I fail and what will people say, but those people are not paying your bills or cooking for you. Live the way you see the vision: instead of faking it until you make it, faith it until you make it, walking each day as if you are already there.

   Illustration: God can steer a moving ship, but a ship sitting in the dry docks of indecision is going nowhere.

   “God can direct a moving ship, but those anchored in the dry docks of indecision are going nowhere.”

   • Proverbs 29:18

5. Ministry is forged in the crucible

   Nobody wakes up one day with a ministry; it is born in the crucible of life, through challenges, heaviness and betrayal, as God moulds His character into us. We must be clay in the potter's hand, open to change, since God develops us before He develops others through us. The process is uncomfortable, but the Christian life is pretty in the finish.

   Illustration: A diamond forms under pressure deep in the earth and is still cut and polished. Fruit has to be cut or squeezed before anyone can enjoy it, and every grape gives a different wine only when crushed. A pearl only comes from an oyster that has been irritated.

   “Ministry is born in the crucible of life. Ministry is forged in fire.”

   • Jeremiah 18:6
   • John 2:1-11

6. Every level has a new devil

   God always makes a way of escape, and that escape is the victory to the next level. Our tests are relative to where we are: bread on the table, then rent, then bus fare, a licence, a car, a house, more property, a child. Once we are self-sustaining, God may ask us to lay it down to serve Him, as He asked Abraham for Isaac after twenty-five years of waiting. Expect the God factor that redirects you and the storms of life, and be ready in season and out of season.

   Illustration: Joseph must have wondered why the angel kept sending Mary and him left in order to go right. Some of us cannot wait twenty-five minutes in the queue at Pick n Pay, never mind twenty-five years.

   “For every level, there's a new devil.”

   • 1 Corinthians 10:13
   • Genesis 22:1-2
   • Revelation 1:6
   • Matthew 2:13-22
   • 2 Timothy 4:2

7. Lay it all on the altar

   Follow a heart yielded to the Lord, not one that leads you away from your marriage. He voices the hurts people carry: a father who abandoned them, a mother who kept them from him, abuse by a trusted relative, a brother who took the inheritance, a business partner who stole, a husband who left, a past of crime. Lay it down and come with what is left. God takes the broken and the wretched and makes them whole, as He used Paul, and He will restore what the locust has eaten.

   Illustration: By today's standards, he says, the church would never put the Apostle Paul in the pulpit: a Jew of Jews and a Roman citizen who had been a killer and was in and out of jail. Yet God used him.

   “If God could take a wretch like me and use me, He can use you.”

   • 1 Samuel 16:7
   • Mark 12:41-44
   • Matthew 6:33
   • 1 John 1:9
   • Isaiah 1:18
   • Joel 2:25
   • Psalm 37:4-11

In this message