Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - God's Dream in Your Heart

Episode Date: January 3, 2021

God has big plans for you. He plants big dreams in your heart—and they can bloom when the soil is fertile. Set your sights on what’s ahead and prepare your soul to chase new hopes and goals as we enter this year together. Join Pastor Joakim Lundqvist for a special message as we kick off 2021 focused on God’s big dreams for our lives.WELCOME PASTOR JOAKIM LUNDQVISTPastor Joakim Lundqvist is Senior Pastor of Word of Life Church in Uppsala, Sweden, with 3,200 members and an international network including over 700 churches. Before stepping into the ministry of Senior Pastor at Word of Life, Pastor Joakim founded the Christian cross-denominational student organization New Generation in Sweden. His 30 years of experience in youth ministry shines through in his creative sermons, aiming to relate to every generation. He is married to Maria, who serves as Music Director at Word of Life, and they have two daughters, Evelina and Julia, who are also both involved in the church and ministry. CONNECT WITH PASTOR JOAKIMInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/joakiml  Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/joakim.lundqvist  Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/joakimlundqvistWE’RE OPENTo ensure safety at all of our Life.Church locations, our weekend services have been redesigned to create a sanitary, touchless environment that allows for physical distancing. Learn more about everything we're doing to keep you safe and how you can help by using hand sanitizer, washing your hands often, and more: https://www.life.church/updatesFind a time and attend a service with us: http://www.life.church/locationsNEXT STEPSHave you made a decision to follow Jesus? You may be wondering what’s next on your journey. We want to help! Let us guide you to your next steps in your walk with Christ: https://www.life.church/nextABOUT LIFE.CHURCHWherever you are in life, you have a purpose. Life.Church wants to help you find your next step. Our hope is that your journey will include joining us at a Life.Church location throughout the United States or globally online at https://www.live.life.church. Find locations, videos, and more info about us at https://www.life.church or download the Life.Church app at https://www.life.church/app. FIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIAFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/life.churchInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/life.churchTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/lifechurchCONNECT WITH PASTOR CRAIGYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIIdiIO-Y20hRW9niR0CA8AFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/craiggroeschelInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/craiggroeschelTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/craiggroeschel Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I want to take you guys on to a very special place in Nevada. It's a desert area called Death Valley. Now, Death Valley is one of the most barren areas on the face of the planet. It's way too hot and it's way too dry. Nothing can live there and nothing can grow there. But in March 2005, due to very specific weather conditions, big rain clouds came in, normally never seen in this area. And for a few hours, rain poured down on the sand, on the dry desert land.

And as a result, this happened. The whole desert was turned into an amazing, beautiful, colorful garden. Death Valley went all Isaiah on us. You know, the wasteland will be turned into a beautiful garden, amen. And people from all over the world came to study this amazing miracle, how what seemed to be the most barren area in the world turned into this amazing, colorful garden. How could this happen? Well, the key, my friend, is because there were seeds in the ground.

They were seeds in the ground since years past, but they hadn't shown their true potential because the conditions were not. yet right. There were seeds in the ground waiting for the right time and the right conditions to start to grow and unleash their potential. And why do I share this with you? You guys know where I'm going with this. God has placed seeds in your heart, my friend. God has placed seeds in your heart and some of those seeds has got 2021 written all over them. Some of those seeds and maybe, maybe the devil try to give you a hard time and maybe he tried to create death valley areas in your life and you might look at that area of your life you may look at that area of your marriage or your job your career your

family your church if you're a pastor or a leader and say there is nothing there's no hope nothing can grow and nothing can live but i just speak out over your life for 2021 there's a rain coming your way there's a rain coming your way and whatever death valley you might have stared at for many many years I do believe together with you that that death valley is going to be turned into a beautiful garden can we give some praise to God in church and you know we always find God in the business of turning death valleys into beautiful gardens we see that all throughout scripture and I want to bring you to Genesis chapter 17 and the story of when God comes to a man named Abraham and Abraham has a death valley in his life. He's got no children and God speaks some very specific and strange words

into Abraham's life. He says as for me Genesis 17 verse 4 and 5 this is my covenant with you you will be the father everybody said you will be a father of many nations. No longer will you be called Abraham. Your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. Everybody says, I have made you. So you will be a father,

for I have made you a father. My friend, you can be everything that God has already made you. And what has he made me? you see Ephesians 1 and 4 says that he planned you, he called you even before the foundation of the world. Imagine that. Your life was planned out by God even before he said, let there be light. The whole root of your life, the whole, every single dream, every single seed was already planned out. And then he needed you together in your mother's womb, according to Psalms,

139 and as he did that he placed seeds inside your heart seeds that would come up and come alive in the due time in the right time as the reign of the holy spirit will say now this is the right time this is the season so in god's eyes because he planned you before the foundation of the world and he placed seeds inside of you from the very beginning you are already a father abram and because you already are a father you can also become a father. You can always become everything that God has already made you. I'm not saying that you can become anything. Some people think they can become anything. And you can't. You can just have to check out some clips on America's Got Talent or the voice. And there's this guy who really thinks he can sing and then he opens his mouth and we go,

oh, your mother should have told you before you went on national TV maybe this is not your thing. Maybe there's something else that you might be really good at. You cannot become anything, my friend, but you can become everything that God has already made you.

Everything that God has already made you. Everything it called you to be before the foundation of the world. anything that connects with the seeds already planted in your heart. He has called you to be holy so you can live a holy life. He's called you to be more than a conqueror so you can become more than a conqueror. Not because of your own strength and personality, but because there are seeds planted in the ground.

And even if that ground temporarily might look like a death valley, the reign of the Holy Spirit can change all that. Can we say amen? You see that also in the life of Gideon in Judges chapter 6, remember? Gideon is a young teenager, scared to death, and with the lowest possible self-esteem. And God comes to him and say, you are a mighty warrior. Is God lying? No.

God called Gideon to be a mighty warrior before the foundation of the world. He placed seeds to become a mighty warrior in the heart of Gideon, and that's why Gideon can now be everything that God has already made him. You can be a father for I've made you a father. You can be a mighty warrior for I have made you a mighty warrior. Amen? So if God called you before the foundation of the world and if God has already placed seeds in the ground,

though they might be in a death valley right now, and if God is also the God sending the rain, then what is our part in the equation? What are we supposed to do? I'm going to tell you. We need to make sure that our heart is good ground. Our heart is good ground. My friend, the word heart,

the Hebrew and Greek words for the human heart, is the second most used word in the Bible, second only to the name of the Lord. That tells us something. It tells us how important it is that we guard our own. hearts, that we purify our hearts, that we keep our hearts clean, amen? Not only because God just wants us to, but because our heart is the breeding ground for the seeds

of God's plans for our future. And if we keep our hearts pure, if we keep our hearts clean, then there's no death valley in the world that can keep God's seeds from growing up in its due time. Amen? I want to share with you. you today two attitudes of the heart that is needed in order for God's seeds to grow. Amen? So the first attitude that the Bible speaks repeatedly about that is absolutely vital and important and necessary for God's seeds to grow is a humble heart. God's seeds will only grow in a humble heart. And every time there is a list in the Bible of stuff that God hates, pride will be right there at the top. Why? Because pride aborts the seeds in your heart. Pride will take away the power of growth so that the plans and the

purposes and the dreams for your life and future will not come to pass. That's why God hates pride. James chapter 4 verse 6 says God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble. And that's also why God has got so many methods to keep us humble. You know, number one, his word. You ever open the U-Version app? Thank you, by the way. You open the U-Version app, I've done it so many times, and I'm expecting to find a beautiful,

soothing, calming, inspiring, comforting word. And out from the app comes God's hand that slaps me in the face, pointing out something that is a weakness in my life, for character or leadership. And I thought, oh, okay, here we go again. But you know, when God uses His word to keep you humble, it's simply so that your heart can be good ground

for the seeds that are about to come up in your heart. Amen? So God uses his word. Of course, also God uses His spirit to humble us. Every time we say something that we shouldn't say or do something that we shouldn't do, and we feel that nudging of the spirit calling us to repent, calling us to ask God for forgiveness,

and also asking those we might have hurt for forgiveness. As God humbling us by his spirit. But the worst thing in the world, the method we hate the most, is when God uses other people to humble us. That's really, really tough. And I just want to share a story with you about when that happened to me a couple of years ago. Okay, so back home at World of Life in Sweden, we have a project that we call the Euro Tour.

Every other year, our young people, our teenagers, they work for about six months to put together an evangelistic outreach concert production. It's a mixture of music and dance and spoken word and drama and multimedia, and they work really hard for that. And then we take that out in Europe. About 150 to 200 teenagers go on tour. And together with churches in European capitals, we put on big outdoor concert events to reach out with the gospel. And so far we've been in 18 European nations collaborating with churches all over the place.

And we've seen hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people being saved, and accepting Christ and their heart as a result. So a couple of years back, I was sitting in my office. I had the schedule for the Eurotour. It was pretty much planned out for the upcoming summer. All of a sudden, there was a knock on my door, and in comes a 14-year-old girl from our youth ministry. She is fired up.

And she says, Pastor Yolakam! I'm too old to even do the gestures anymore. She says, Pastor Yolakam, I got this great idea. as we go on the Eurot Tour this summer, let's make a big fat Jesus concert at Disneyland Paris. And I smiled at her, this kind of smile. And I thought, said to her, what? Interesting idea.

I thought in my mind, craziest idea ever. She's 14, she doesn't know what she's talking about. Of course, Disneyland would never allow, you know, sold out evangelistic Jesus, anywhere in their amusement park. So I said, okay, thanks, interesting, now leave. And so, okay, thanks for listening, pastor. And she left, and honest to God,

when she shut the door, her idea was already halfway down my mental waste paper basket. And the Holy Spirit spoke to me. And he said, Yoakim, when did you become so proud to not even consider if an idea is from me? me simply because the messenger is 14 years old. And I repented. And I got that idea up and I looked at it and said, what in the world do I do with this one? I said, the only thing I can do really is to call Disneyland Paris. And I so did not want to call Disneyland Paris because I didn't want to lose

face. I didn't want to act like a complete idiot. But you see, that's the definition of pride. when you are so concerned about your own self-image that you elevate that concern above your obedience to whatever the spirit of God is telling you to do right now. So I call Disneyland Paris and I hated every second of the call. Hello, I'm a pastor from Sweden. Could we please come to your amusement park and make a big evangelistic outreach

because we love Jesus and we want the world to hear the gospel? How about that? And they said, we never had that question. asked before. Happy to be the first. We talked for a while. She really wanted to end the conversation. And then she said finally, we'll call you back. And it was one of those, yeah, we're totally going to call you back. Not a chance. So, but at least I knew I've done anything I could do. So a week went by and they called us back. And they said, we checked out your video clips that you sent. this is good stuff

so even though we never done anything like this we're willing to give you a chance we're going to give you a 15 minute slot on the smallest stage of Disneyland the Winnie the Pooh stage are you okay with that we are so okay with the Winnie the Poohs we love Winnie the Pooh

from the bottom of our hearts we need the push is the best So that summer we came and as the first Christian act ever performing at Disneyland We did a 15 minute Jesus concert on the Winnie the Pooh stage After that concert was done the team the Disneyland team said we loved it Next time you're welcome back and we'll give you 30 minutes at the bus light year stage Come on church And that's like the middle stage at Disneyland so we came back two years later

We did a 30-minute slot Jesus concert at the bus lightier stage. They loved it again. And then they said, you know, we're going to give you. Next time you come 45 minutes at the biggest stage in Disneyland. So we came back and we did a full concert at main stage, Disneyland, Paris. And as this thing happened and as our young people got crazy for Jesus on the stage

and I looked at the thousands of people listening, I thought to myself, thank God for a 14-year-old girl. who heard something that I did not hear and who God used to make me a little bit more humble. Can we make some noise for Jesus? Oh Lord. When God humbles you, my friend, through His word, his spirit or through other people,

is because he's about to release a brand new dream that you couldn't even dream of. He's about to start the growth process of a seed that is up until now, have been hiding inside your heart. Amen? So a humble heart is the first. first heart attitude that is needed in order for the seeds of God to grow up in your life and come into fulfillment. Now the second and last thing I want to share with you is the importance also

to have an open heart, an open heart. Because some of the dreams that are coming your way are way too big for the present state of your hearts. Amen? Maybe even some of the 2021 dreams needs either to be shrunk down to your present size of heart or for your heart to expand, to fathom even greater dreams than you ever seen before. Amen. It says in Isaiah chapter 55, verse 8 to 9, for my thoughts are not your thoughts,

nor are your ways, my ways, says the Lord. For us the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Now, church, this is not a proclamation of how far above you God is, how high he is and how low you are. This is an invitation for you to leave behind your low ways and your low thoughts and come up to his level. Because the verse right before these two, verse seven, says, let the wicked forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts. let him return to the Lord.

God is going to call you this upcoming year to expand your heart, to open your heart because there are big dreams coming your way. And you need to be ready. You need to be ready for the dreams on the individual basis, for your marriage dreams, for your family dreams, for your church dreams. Life Church, I do believe the best is yet to come. You've done amazing. You've changed the world.

new dreams, bigger dreams. And you just need to expand your heart and prepare yourself to give into those dreams, to serve in seeing those dreams fulfilled. Because you see the limit is not in the potential of the seed. The limit is in the size of the flower pot. You can take a seed with a potential to grow a big oak and you can put it in a small flower pot. And it's a small flower pot. And he will come up to a certain level. And it might be a great plant and it might be beautiful to behold, but it's nowhere near the full potential of that seed. We need a bigger flower pot to grow bigger dreams. You need a bigger heart to fathom bigger dreams that are coming your way. And I just also want to close with one more story where God really challenged me in regards to

expanding my heart. Okay, so a few years ago, I took my core staff on a cruise in the Baltic Sea in Scandinavia. Okay, American people going on a cruise in the Baltic Sea of Scandinavia is not anywhere near like going on a cruise in the Bahamas. Okay, we're at completely different place, okay? People who go on cruises in the Baltic Sea in Scandinavia go for one or two reasons, either to buy endless amounts of alcohol and get drunk or to, use the very good conference facilities.

Oh, please note, we went for number two, okay? So we got on board and we had great time with the staff. We did planning, strategizing, praying, great fellowship. And I remember that in between two sessions, I got up and I can just see this before me. It was so clear. I had a coffee cup in my hand and I was moving toward the coffee machine because I'm a sweet and we can't live without coffee. When there's too much blood in our coffee system, we have to do something about that.

And I remember walking up to the coffee machine, I had a new thought. Could we rent this entire cruise ship? Could we bring on 2,000 on fire Jesus-loving teenagers and do a youth conference at sea? immediately in my other ear, there was another whisper saying, it's impossible, it will cost millions, you can't afford it, it's never been done before. But then in my other ear again, a little voice said, remember Disneyland. And I remember Disneyland. And I shared this with my team and we started praying and we prayed, Lord, expand our hearts.

If this is from you, even though the dream is, crazy big and seem completely unreachable and is something that no one has ever done before give us the faith to believe for the impossible because god has not called us to build a natural church but a supernatural church and we can't do that by our own faith we need his faith in our hearts amen so i called a cruise ship company i'm getting quite used to these calls now these humbling calls I said, hello, I'm a pastor from Sweden. We'd like to know if we could rent your biggest ship and do a big fat youth conference at sea. And he said, we never had that question asked before.

He said, happy to be the first. And we talked about it's not going to be really possible. It's going to be incredibly expensive. And I said, oh, by the way, this is a Christian youth conference so no alcohol can be served at all on board. And he said, you are crazy. Our take-in for alcohol is $1 million per day. Imagine the amount of money we would lose. Well, say, sorry, that's the condition.

He said, we will call you back. And we hung up and we started praying and believing God for greater things. What we did not know was that the CEO of the big cruise ship company at that time, since a few months back, had had a real problem with his conscience. because he realized that I've made my fortune from pouring alcohol into people and destroying so many people's lives and so many marriages. All of a sudden he heard that there's this Christian group who wants to rent a boat to do a non-alcoholic youth conference in the name of Jesus.

He called the board together and he said, we need to do this for the sake of our own hearts. He was not a Christian or anything, but the Holy Spirit was upon this whole process. So what they did was they took the full cost for us to rent this cruise ship. They cut it down by 80% and all of a sudden it came within reach. So we rented the biggest cruise ship in Scandinavia and we brought on board 2,000 on fire Jesus-loving teenagers. And we had youth meetings and we had.

concerts and we had prayer nights and we had seminars and we had salvation and no one who was on board this ship will ever never ever forget it we turned this place into a church for jesus christ national media in sweden wrote all about it saying obviously god is not dead after all and i just love the fact that god challenged us to dream big and as a result came a national statement of God's power and the next generation following Jesus Christ. I just want to share one last anecdote of this whole story. You see, when they build these cruise ships, they build them in a way to distribute the weight of the passengers evenly.

There will be like one restaurant in the front and one in the back and everything made out so that the weight of the passengers will be evenly spread. Nobody told us about that. So what we did, we just found the biggest theater on board. which was right at the back and we jam-packed all 2,000 kids in that theater and no one on the rest of the ship and when we got them in the back of the ship what did we do we cramped up the praise and worship and everybody started jumping up and down the captain freaked out for the first time in his life he felt the whole ferry doing that and I thought to myself I would have given anything to sit on an

in the Swedish archipelago and see the biggest cruise ship in Scandinavia passed by going Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Come on, let's give it up. I'm just praying now that God will be able to break this message down to the exact place where you are. As an individual, as a marriage, as a family, your church, if you're a pastor or a leader, God has got seeds in the ground and the rain is coming your way. Let us walk into 2021 with humble hearts, but also open hearts and full of expectancy for every single miracle we're about to see and every single mighty work of God that we are about to experience. Let me just pray God's blessing over you. Father, I thank you in Jesus' name for every single one in all the physical locations,

everyone watching online, Father. And I thank you that you have great plans. You have called every single one from before the foundation of the world. You have placed seeds in their hearts, knitting them together in their mother's womb, and now they can be everything you've already made them. So, Father, I pray in Jesus' name, as we now enter 2021, that we will enter with humble hearts, that our pride will not stand in the way of your work of the spirit in and through our lives.

And we pray, Father, that our hearts will be able to expand to fathom all the great and beautiful and wonderful dreams that you have in store for this upcoming year. I speak blessing over every single one within the reach of my voice. I pray blessing over life church, Father, as they go into this new year. I thank you for expansion and breakthroughs and miracles. This we pray in Jesus' mighty name. Amen.