Dream Big | Elijah Lamb

In this powerful sermon, we explore the concept of dreaming big through a fresh lens—looking beyond worldly views of success to embrace a definition grounded in servitude, humility, and love. Join us as we delve into how Jesus' life and teachings offer a revolutionary perspective on greatness and encourage us to align our dreams with God's vision.

Discover how to resist cultural pressures and the common pursuit of self-exaltation, in favor of adopting a mindset that values community, connection, and self-giving. Learn how your ambitions, when anchored in Christ, can lead to a life full of meaning, happiness, and eternal significance.

Tune in to find inspiration to not only pursue your dreams but to do so in a way that serves others and honors God. This message challenges listeners to consider who sits at the center of their dreams and invites them to become a vital part of a greater story.

Subscribe and stay connected for more sermons that nourish your faith and inspire profound introspection and growth.

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Transcript

 Well, happy Dream Sunday.

It is really true.

I do like preaching here more than anywhere else in the world.

It's because this is the best church on planet Earth.

I'm really convinced.

I'm privileged to get to be in lots of churches across America and the world now.

And everywhere I go, I'm like, this is cool.

But footnote, you know what I mean?

Like caveat, there is this place.

You got to see it.

So I love our church so much.

It's so amazing.

 Man, so I'm going to preach a sermon this morning titled Dream Big.

No way, bro.

That's crazy.

That is the reference.

Bro got it.

He's glad.

So good.

Basically, this past week I saw a movie about ping pong.

 You are not going to like the rest of the words that come out of my mouth.

I'm just kidding.

Personally, I was kind of stressed out the whole time.

I'm not like, like in my heart, I'm not really like, I don't really enjoy those kinds of movies where you're just watching someone make all of the worst possible decisions at like a really fast pace for two and a half straight hours.

It's not really my kind of movie.

They kind of make me feel gross things on the inside.

 You know, I liked it, okay, I'm not going to break into film analysis right now, that's not really the point, but immediately, you know, after seeing the film, I took to the internet, because I was like, I know everybody's going to have thoughts about this.

So, you know, I got to scrolling, as one does, and I was sort of immediately alarmed to be seeing edits of the main character, you know, like edits of like cool songs, and like the background keeps changing, and there's, you know what I'm talking, you guys see what I'm seeing on the internet, hopefully.

This main character, and sort of idealizing him as this

 inspirational figure worth imitating.

Like, man, I want to be like that guy.

And, you know, my heart is erased and I'm looking at this and I'm like, yo, did you watch the movie?

Did you, did we watch the same movie?

Please don't be like that guy.

He's horrible and his life sucks.

Like, what are we talking about?

That cannot be what we're shooting for.

Long story short, the film was about a young dude pursuing greatness in the, you know, the worldwide sport of ping pong.

You know, the last time you met a guy who was like weirdly good at ping pong, weren't you like

 Oh, God, I got to be like that guy.

Oh, man, that guy.

I got to be like that guy.

And he is pursuing this table tennis greatness at all costs.

And as you watch the film, it's like everything and everyone is subjugated underneath the demands of this dream.

And you watch as he makes...

 Horribly unethical decisions.

He hurts his friends and he betrays his loved ones.

He is utterly humiliated I mean bare-bottoms spanked by a grown man.

I'm such that really happens in the movie on multiple occasion He racks up a huge debt and everyone around him is in his eyes seems to be either an obstacle or some kind of stepping stone and in the end the worst part is that he is for all intents and purposes basically a failure and

 Now, I'm sure at this point there's some film bro listening to me who insists that I am somehow misunderstanding this story, but forget about it.

Forget Marty Supreme, forget Timothy Chalamet, forget the whole thing, okay?

I don't care.

Just work with me here.

What I've just described to you and what I feel like I watched in this movie captures in a really powerful and succinct way the modern American approach to success and simultaneously a story that is utterly antithetical to the biblical vision of what it truly means to be great.

 And I think it's important that we focus in on things like this when we begin to dream up what our next year of life could be.

Because your idea of what makes for a good life, what it means to be great, what it looks like to succeed, your understanding of how a person can live well changes and shapes everything.

 And we're sponges, and we're constantly being influenced by the things around us.

And whether you realize it or not, you are taking in a view of success, a view of greatness, a view of glory that looks a lot like the world's.

It's quiet, it's sneaky, it gets in there without us realizing.

And so we have to make the very intentional decision as believers to look inward, and this applies to everything, to look inward and ask ourselves how much our vision of the good life, of success and greatness has been more influenced by the world around us than by the Lord himself.

Right.

 Because the ideal that you uphold, however silently and inwardly or even accidentally, will dictate the way that you feel about everything.

You'll say to yourself things like, this is who I should become.

This is what I should do with my life.

This is what I must attain to be successful.

This is what will make me happy.

This is what makes for a meaningful life.

This is what will ultimately make me valuable.

 This is what will make my personhood matter.

And if you get that wrong, if you get that ideal incorrect, your self-esteem, your satisfaction, your social life, your personal ambition will ultimately be dictated by something like achievements or approval or what have you.

And that's really not a great place to be.

That is no way to live at all.

But unfortunately, it appears, at least to me, to be the norm all around us.

 And like, if I could just break for a moment and give you really, really good news, the really great news is that that kind of mindset, that kind of approach to life is the exact kind of thing that Jesus came to set us free from.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5 that Christ died so that we could be free from the slavery of living to ourselves.

There's a freedom in Jesus to break out of that self-obsession and that self-seeking, you know, and to be free from the traps of comparison and from competition.

 which are such massive hindrances to your ability to live in community, to live in family, to have real fulfilling friendships and connection with people and with Christ himself.

And I was just shown this so brilliantly this past October.

My wife and I had the privilege of going to the C3 Europe conference with Pastor Jake and Nicole.

It was amazing.

It was the coolest thing ever.

And I didn't grow up in C3, so I've been in our church now for four years, which is crazy.

I was like 12 four years ago.

It's insane.

And...

 And so I didn't grow up in a movement like C3, and so I was beginning to witness it through our church and through the various things that my wife and I have been able to attend.

Going to Europe was like the most amazing thing.

What was amazing about it is it was just like non-stop.

They'd bring up some very passionate pastor from somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Europe to just like...

 get everyone stoked about what God is doing in their community and their church.

And like every single time someone came up, the room was exploding, was roaring with excitement.

It was like they were celebrating what was happening in their church through them.

It was like their win was my win.

And it was like, oh my goodness, that's what the church of God is like.

That's totally opposite to the way that any other community in the world works.

 If one wins, we all win.

That's the way that Paul says.

He's like, if one rejoices, we all rejoice.

If one suffers, we all suffer.

Like, whoa, there is a unity and an approach to life that is made possible in Christ.

Like, heck yeah.

Where I don't have to be held down to the slavery of like, it's all about me, me, me.

And I got to make my life work and I have to make my dreams come true.

I can go like, dude, did you have a huge success recently?

That's my success too.

I'm sharing in that.

Like, this is so sick.

Anyway, you get what I'm saying?

Yeah.

 If I could write a slogan and summarize the age that we're living in, it would be, at least to me, an inversion of the words of John the Baptist in John 3.30.

This is my first verse in the Bible I ever memorized when I started reading the Bible myself.

John says of Christ that he, because people are like, John, your disciples are leaving to follow Jesus.

And he's like, yeah, bro.

That's kind of the whole reason I'm here.

He says, he must become more and I must become less.

 And I get this feeling that the modern slogan, and by the way, basically the mindset of Adam in the fall in the Garden of Eden, is I must become more and more and more and more.

The point that I'm trying to make is not that it's wrong to have ambition.

It's definitely not.

It's actually not wrong at all to want to be great.

But we need a biblical definition of what it means to be great, what it means to succeed, if we don't want to be consumed by this twisted, perverted pursuit of self-exaltation, because that's our natural inclination.

That's our natural bend.

That's the direction that any of us, if you leave us on our own,

 go down.

And so for me, it's like, where better to turn to than the Son of God himself?

How did Jesus Christ, the Messiah, define success and greatness?

What kind of dreams did Jesus have?

And I think there's a really solid biblical answer.

Two verses, check this out.

Mark chapter 10, verses 42 to 45.

Jesus called them, his disciples, over and said to them, you know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles, they lord it over them, and those in high positions, great people, they act as tyrants over them, but it is not so among you.

 On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you will be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you will be a slave to all.

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

In other words, to summarize, Jesus is basically saying, hey, you know all those people who everyone thinks is great and who think of themselves that they are very, very awesome?

You know those people?

Yeah, they're not great.

They're actually not awesome.

They're actually not

 succeeding.

And in fact, I'm calling you to a totally upside down definition of what it means to be great.

If you want to be great in my kingdom, you'd be a servant.

If you want to be first in my house, you'd be a slave to all.

Give your life, give your very self away.

And I think to anyone hearing this, be it the disciples now or us today as we're reading this, it's total insanity.

It literally on the surface does not appear to work in any field ever.

You know, so let me give you a few examples.

You know, imagine I get my one-on-one interview with Michael Jordan.

Michael,

 MJ, brother, not B, just regular Michael Jordan.

How did you become the greatest?

How did you do that?

And he's like, yeah, so basically every time I had a chance to, you know, to make a moment about me, I passed the ball.

You know, I just don't want all that attention.

No dunks, no game winners.

I'm not into that kind of thing.

I want to let somebody else have their moment.

You know, hey, brother, I don't think that's how you attain goat status.

You know what I'm saying?

I don't think that's the way that that works really at all.

You know, hey, Warren Buffett.

 How'd you do it?

I mean, the stacks, bro.

How did you reverse engineer, I don't know, the stock market or something?

And it's like he sits me down and he's like, oh, I have some age-old financial wisdom for you.

Basically, take your savings, everything you're excited about investing, and just donate it.

Just give it to somebody else.

Just go net zero.

You know what I mean?

Let's just lose everything.

 okay WB I'm not really seeing the vision there or it's like hey the Beatles you know how did you achieve super international super stardom and Ringo Starr would be like it's me Ringo Starr

 It's me, Ringo from the Beazles.

He would say that.

And he would say, you know, we write really great songs.

And they were just so good that we would like ship them off to the Beach Boys or whatever.

Because they were just too good for us.

They were just too darn good.

We only wanted the medium good songs.

You know, none of those things work.

It doesn't work that way, Jesus.

You ever try to be great at anything, Jesus?

It doesn't really work that way.

 And I'm not saying any of those guys, Michael Jordan, Warren Buffett, the Beatles, should have done any of those things.

But what Jesus is telling here is what actually makes someone great in the eyes of God is servitude and humility.

Things that on the surface appear to be the antithesis of greatness, appear to be opposite of what we need to do if we want to be successful.

 The principle, when Jesus communicates this in Mark chapter 10, is not simply that if you are humble, then God will make your dreams come true.

I'm not saying dream big and don't forget to not be prideful.

Otherwise, they won't come true.

God's this magic genie.

God, I think less of myself.

Ah, okay, cool.

We're chilling.

I can do whatever you want now.

Though something like that is kind of true in the Bible, God does promise to uplift.

 and exalt the humble, but there's more to it than that.

It's more so a matter of what kind of greatness you would like to attain.

And making the decision, do I want God's definition, or do I want the culture's definition of greatness?

Do you want the kind of success that is aligned with Jesus, that leads to soul happiness and everlasting joy, that brings about oneness and connection with God, and that situates you within something greater than yourself?

Or do you want the kind of greatness that resists Christ?

 That, in the words of Solomon, rots the bones, that steals joy, and that ultimately shrinks your world.

I mean, that's the decision that we have to make here.

Basically, life is a movie from the early 2000s, and you are a Gen X dad.

And you get to choose to be the dad at the beginning of the movie or the dad at the end of the movie.

You know, you can be the dad at the beginning of the movie with the over-ear Bluetooth cell phone and the beeper, or you can leave your corporate job.

 You know, there's a reason why every Gen Z is like, I need to work a made up job that doesn't really exist.

Because every movie when I was a kid told me that if I had a corporate job, I would not go to heaven when I died and my life would be miserable and I would never be happy.

You know what I'm saying?

Be it Eddie Murphy, Robin Williams, Jim, you know, all these guys just constantly play dads that just sucked because they cared too much about work.

You know, you think we'd learn.

You know what I'm saying?

Like how many?

Anyway, my bad.

So the really important point here.

 It's not impossible to fulfill Jesus' ideal of being a servant and a slave to all while simultaneously achieving great success in the lifestyle, the line of work that you've chosen.

However, if your pursuit of success causes you, forces you to transgress what the Apostle James calls the royal law of love, then in the eyes of God, you are not great.

Amen.

 you are not successful.

And that's a really helpful bit of truth to hold on to in the things that we pursue and the things that we dream about.

Jesus set the example.

Jesus gave the ideal.

According to God, that is greatness.

That is success.

The cross, the self-giving sacrifice of God, that is the greatest definition of glory and honor and of anything praiseworthy or worth imitating.

 So to the disciples, it's like Jesus is saying, like, listen, you could teach like me.

You could work wonders like me.

You could cast out demons like me.

You could draw crowds and stir up controversy like me.

But if you will not serve, then you are not great.

In Paul's words, I can prophesy and I can know all mysteries and a perfect theology and I can have mountain moving faith.

But if I do not have love, I am nothing.

 In Christ and through the writer of Hebrews, we actually have this really, I think, is a cool paradigm for how big we ought to dream.

So let me answer the question for us.

What did Jesus dream about?

This is my best attempt at answering this question.

The writer of Hebrews says in chapter 12, verse 1, Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses, large, large,

 A large cloud of witnesses surrounding us.

Let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us.

Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.

Here's the real critical answer to our question.

For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

In other words, the Bible gives us a really key piece to understand the motivation behind Jesus getting on the cross.

This isn't like an accident, and this isn't something Jesus is like,

 I guess I'll do it if I have to.

You know, I don't really want, it's like Jesus does this because of the joy that he anticipates being the effect of what he does on the cross.

In other words, Jesus is looking at the sons and daughters that he would redeem and heal and adopt and going, ah, for this reason, it is worth it.

And so from the cross and through his life, here's what Jesus is daydreaming about.

From his crucifixion, Jesus is daydreaming about whose sickness am I carrying?

 Whose pain am I bearing?

Whose peace am I punished for?

Whose healing am I wounded for?

Whose rebellion am I broken for?

That's what Jesus is dreaming about.

He dreamt about the power of his sacrifice.

Jesus was.

 He was definitionally great, you know, like human par excellence.

He had status with the father in heaven.

He had supernatural power, divine authority, cosmic significance.

And his ambition, his dream was to leverage those things for our sake so that he could serve not just the people in his immediate world when he walked the earth, but so that he could serve you.

 So that he can serve us.

And so in other words, the biblical definition of greatness is that you would resist the urge to make your life about you and choose to make your life about him and his purposes and the ones that he loves.

Every Christian has to actively resist the lie that life is about how much you can have and choose instead to believe this truth shown to us by Jesus Christ that life is really about how much you can give away.

 And this consists the meaning of life.

And that's exactly how Peter describes the way that Christians should think in his first epistle.

He says in chapter 4, verse 10, just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve others as good stewards of the varied grace of God.

You've received a gift.

Think about how you can give that gift away.

We live in a re-gifting kingdom.

You know, it's like, oh, it's a wonderful thing.

Wrap it back up, buddy.

Give it away.

 This is precisely what it means to put on the mind of Christ.

It's to think like Jesus.

He wants us to consider, how can my growth, my success, work to serve and bless somebody else?

Basically, how can I make my greatness, in whatever measure that I have it, about somebody who isn't me?

 How can my gift of prophecy work to serve somebody instead of just drawing attention to my special giftedness?

How can the wisdom that God has given me, supernaturally by the Spirit or through really hard times, how can that wisdom work to help somebody that I'm choosing to disciple?

How can my financial blessing go to build the church's vision and to help those in need?

How can my career success enable me to mentor some clueless up-and-comer who is going to crash and fail if somebody doesn't intervene?

 How can my growth and influence help me to draw lost people to Christ?

How can my free time and my open table in a busy week serve to heal someone who is hurting or struggling?

How can my yes change somebody's life?

That's the question to be asking.

How can my yes to God change somebody else's story?

The key question for us to ask today as we pray on these things and consider like, man, what am I ambitious about?

What do I want to see God do?

What am I dreaming?

The question is, who sits at the center of your dreams?

 Who are you dreaming for?

Because you and I were at the center of Christ's dreams.

And if we return the favor by living at the center of our own, it's like that's not how this is going to work.

The father gave his son.

The son gave his life.

And the father and the son together have given us the Holy Spirit.

And so the only way we learn to read the scriptures to stay aligned with this truly great and glorious God is to give and give and give and give.

To dream about who your sacrifices can help and heal.

 And so when I think of this, I can't help but think of Jesus' final moments with the disciples in John 13.

On the night when Jesus was betrayed, in his final moments with the disciples, they gathered together for this Last Supper.

And I just want you to stop and think.

Have you ever had someone ask you, I hate questions like this, what would you do if you knew you were going to die tomorrow?

 Please don't ask me to think about things like that.

That's super weird.

I don't want to think about that at all.

Where do you hope you are in 10 years?

Stop it.

That's too many years.

I hate these kinds of questions.

Stop making me think about the future.

It's weird.

But you can ask yourself that question.

What would you do if you knew you were going to die tomorrow?

We have that answer for Jesus.

We have that in the Bible.

We know exactly what Jesus would do if he knew he was going to die tomorrow.

 That happened in the Bible.

And so let me just show you.

Jesus' final thing he does with his disciples, John chapter 13, verse 1.

Before the Passover festival, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world to the Father.

 Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

And so here is, this is the moment where we get, this is Jesus is like, this is the prestige.

You know, this is the, and for my final act, this is what I will do.

And you're thinking you're going to get like the big reveal of Jesus, his awesomeness.

And then it's like Jesus constantly subverting expectations.

Verse three, Jesus knew that the father had given everything into his hands, that he was great, that he had come from God and that he was going back to God, that his mission had succeeded.

 So he got up from supper, laid aside his outer clothing, took a towel and tied it around himself.

Next, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet and to dry them with the towel wrapped around him.

 The story just makes me think of the book of Exodus, where in chapter 3, Moses stumbles upon God's presence and glory in a burning bush on the mountain of Sinai.

And he walks into the mountain, and he's like, what's up with this bush?

Why is it burning but also not burning?

And then God is like, it's actually God.

And Moses is like, whoa.

And God is like, hey, Moses, this place is holy ground.

Take your shoes off.

 I don't always really understand the connections being made there, but that's God's thing.

He does the same thing with Joshua.

And so it's like God is speaking, and he's like, Moses, servant of God, the glory of the living God is here.

And so your way of responding in humility is to take off your shoes.

And here again in John chapter 13, the glory of God is revealed as the followers of God who are recognizing his glory take off their shoes.

Here is the glory of God in the God-man, the one with a towel wrapped around his waist and kneeling down to wash his disciples' feet.

 Jesus was not insecure, like not even a bit.

He was utterly confident in his greatness and his success and his belovedness by the Father.

And his ultimate moment was like, hey, I'm going to show you how glorious I've really been all along.

It's right here.

I'm going to tie this towel around my waist and I'm going to wash your feet.

I'm going to take on the role of a servant.

 And then he says to the disciples afterward in verse 12, when Jesus had washed their feet and put on his outer clothing, he reclined again and said to them, do you know what I have done for you?

You call me teacher and Lord, and you're speaking rightly since that is what I am.

So if I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.

You're thinking, I've been to church before.

Nobody's ever offered to wash my feet.

 It's a metaphor, bro.

Stop being weird.

For I have given you an example that you should also do just as I have done for you.

Truly, I tell you, a servant is not greater than his master and a messenger is not greater than the one who sent him.

Jesus right here in the kingdom of God forever redefines what it means to be great.

He says, listen, if you think that you're so great that you can't stoop down and serve one another, then you are in that act making yourself greater than me.

 You're saying, I'm better than the Messiah.

I'm better than the Lord.

I'm better than the teacher.

And Jesus is like, if you really are my disciples, then this is the attitude with which you must live.

This is what must characterize your existence.

And so the world around us celebrates the vicious up-and-comer, you know, the loneliest lone ranger who suffers in total silence out of pure devotion to his craft, you know what I mean?

For you millennials, like the Enneagram 4 and 5, you know, you're like, wow, those guys are so cool and special, you know?

 I'm a four-winged five.

Yeah, I'm super different and a really original.

You know, the self-made, self-led superstar who never needed any help in all her ambition and in the end is, of course, vindicated by finally being recognized and beloved and is super famous and praised and given millions of dollars.

You know, that's what we aspire to.

But the Bible, on the other hand, and this is crazy, more or less invites men and women to be wildly happy cogs in the machine.

That's God's biblical vision.

Hey, come be a small piece of something really big.

 While simultaneously, paradoxically affirming that every righteous act and sacrificial decision in the kingdom of God is of literally eternal significance.

That's awesome.

The key to success, according to Jesus, is not about becoming something bigger.

It's about shrinking so that you can become a part of something bigger.

So that you can act out your God-given role.

 In the true story of the world.

You basically have two options.

You can play a big part in a small story or a small part in a big story.

You can get the lead role in a flop or you can be the supporting character in an all-time classic.

You make your decision.

You know what I'm saying?

Take your pick.

And so here's my conclusion.

I have two conclusions.

So here's my first conclusion.

We'll see if I get to the second one.

The call of the Christian is to a life of holy love.

 Many smart people before and during the time of Jesus were asking really serious questions about the law.

They were wondering, you know, what made someone great?

What made someone good in the eyes of God?

Trying to figure out what marked a successful life just like you and I. And for them, that came out as, what is the most important of the 613 laws that God has given us?

And a lot of answers were given.

The most common was actually to honor your father and mother, which I think is interesting.

 But Jesus had a different answer, a unique answer that no one else had ever offered before.

He combined two commands, one from Deuteronomy called the Shema and one from Leviticus.

Let me just read Jesus' response when he's asked, what is the greatest command in all of the law?

 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.

This is the greatest and most important command.

The second is like it.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

All the law and the prophets depend on these two commands.

When we're asking questions like, man, what does it mean to live well?

What does it mean to please God?

Jesus is like, hey, you literally can't do that if this isn't what your life is like.

To be great is to be a lover of God and a lover of your fellow man.

 At the end of the day, these are our two core convictions and commitments as Christians.

We love Jesus and we love one another with everything.

And love for us Christians, we don't just like throw that one to the wind and just like accept whatever ambiguous definition of love happens to be floating around or accept like a circular definition where we're just like, love is love.

And that's all that love is.

It's like, actually, we're going to grab onto something a little bit more powerful than that.

And we're going to look to the cross.

For every single Christian, the definition of love is the sacrificial self-giving crucifixion

 Jesus and that's the paradigm Paul invites us to in Ephesians 5 he says walk in love as Christ also loved us and therefore it gave himself for us a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God this is our counter cultural commitment as a people this is what it means to be a Christian and for the church to be the church is our commitment to keep on loving like this and to keep on dreaming about how we can leverage our success for somebody else's benefit so that we can receive and only so that we might give and give and give and give away

 Amen?

Okay, I want to end by reading something from this second century Christian letter called the Epistle to Diognetus.

So it's one of the oldest Christian documents after the Bible that we have, and it's a sort of apologetic defense of the church.

And he is writing to a pagan, and basically the Christians at the time didn't have a great reputation because they were misunderstood.

They were like...

 You know, they come to communion and they're like, these guys are cannibals.

And they were like, guys, it's bread, you know.

I mean, it's more than bread, but like, for all intents, you know, you're thinking it's just bread.

We're not eating human flesh down here.

Chill out.

And so he's writing this apologetic to be like, this is what the church is like.

And this is why being a Christian actually makes a lot of sense.

And he writes this beautiful description of what the church was doing and what the church is supposed to be.

So let me just read this to you.

 He says, the difference between Christians and the rest of mankind is not a matter of nationality or language or customs.

Christians do not live apart in separate cities of their own, speak any special dialect, or practice any eccentric way of life.

They pass their lives in whatever township and conform to ordinary local usage in their clothing, diet, and other habits.

Nevertheless, the organization of their community does exhibit some features that are remarkable.

This is very good.

It's good.

For instance, though they are residents at home in their own countries, their behavior is more like that of transients.

 For them, any foreign country is a motherland, and any motherland is a foreign country.

Any Christian is free to share his neighbor's table, but never his marriage bed.

Though destiny has placed them here in the flesh, they do not live after the flesh, for their citizenship is above in the heavens.

They obey the prescribed laws, but in their own private lives they transcend the laws.

 They show love to all men and all men persecute them.

They are poor yet making many rich, lacking all things yet having all things in abundance.

They repay slander with blessings and abuse with courtesy.

And then this is my favorite part right at the end.

To put it briefly, the relation of the Christians to the world is that of a soul to the body.

It is the Christians who hold the world together.

Such is the high duty in which God has placed them and it is their moral duty not to shrink from it.

 So sick.

Yo, in simplest terms, to read that and to conclude the message with that, my point is that I hope you will dream of the glory of Christ, the beauty of the bride, and the good of the city.

I hope that you will dream big of being bold and intentional and generous.

You know, my dream when I read these words and I situate cathedral into that narrative is that

 Man, I really hope the cathedral would come to be seen in Los Angeles as an indispensable, absolutely necessary thing that men and women in Highland Park and in the South Bay and in Mount Juliet and wherever God sends us in the coming years, that they would say in their hearts that our cities really could not go on without cathedral.

 That they could not keep on moving forward without our prayers and our efforts and our sacrifices and our smiles and our encouragements and our helping hands and skills and songs and tender embraces.

That the world around us would look and go, we couldn't be who we are without them here.

They are an indispensable part of our city.

Does that make sense?

You with me on that?

Praise God.

I'm done.

I'm going to pray.

So dream this year.

 Not about the things the world dreams about.

Be really awesome.

Be so freaking great.

Be so good at whatever you pursue.

Aim to be the absolute best at it.

But situate yourself within something bigger.

Don't pursue those things just for your sake.

But think about, how can I make this about him?

And how can I make this, how can I do this for what he's concerned about?

How can I dream with Christ?

How can I dream about the same stuff as Jesus?

You with me?

 Father, we love you so much and we are so thankful and so happy to be your people, to live in your world as your representatives, God.

We're so thankful to be situated within the friendships and the relationships and the city that you've put us in.

God, I just pray that you would continue to transform us to... Wow.

 I don't know what that noise was, to open doors in front of us.

And God, as we respond, as we are people respond with humility, as we choose to take up our crosses, God, I just pray that you would look on us and see people who are trustworthy, who can be trusted with more, that God, you would continue to put more into our hands and to enable us to be more influential.

 to have more and to have more and more opportunities.

God, I just pray that there'd be a favor on us that people look at and they can't understand because you know that we will be good stewards of whatever you give us.

Lord, help us to dream about who our sacrifices could affect, who our giving and our reaching out and our sacrificing could impact and change and heal and help.

We love you so much, Jesus.

It's our aim.

 to be aligned with you.

It's our aim for your name to be honored as holy, for your kingdom to come, for your will to be done through us.

And so help us, God, for a moment to dream not just about ourselves and our personal ambitions, but about something bigger.

We love you, Jesus.

We honor you.

Amen.