Encountering Bullies // Living Your Dreams, Part 3

Each one of us has some big dream for our lives – woven into our DNA by God.  But sometimes, when we expect those closest to us to be excited and supportive, they’re anything but!  Why is that?

It's great to be with you again today. You know, this week and next week we are doing something that's really exciting. I'm excited by the teaching that we are having on the program over these next two weeks.

We are looking at the dreams in our lives. What's the dream that God has planted in your life? Are you living that dream or is it, maybe, a lost and forgotten dream? Or is it maybe a dream your heart burns after but, somehow, you are stuck in a rut-you are stuck in a comfort zone.

Sometimes, we have a dream; we step out of our comfort zone through an invisible wall of fear (that often accompanies our dream) and on the other side, in that zone between our comfort zone and our dream, in that border land, we can find bullies, people who don't want us to live out God's big dream for our lives.

Bruce Wilkinson in his book, The Dream Giver, calls them border bullies. I wonder who are the border bullies in your life?

Jesus knew what dream God had put in his heart; He knew that He was on this earth to love people, to show people what God is like through His words and through His actions. But Jesus also knew that He was put on this earth to die on a cross to pay for our sins. He was telling His disciples about that second part one day. You can read about it in Matthew's Gospel, Chapter 16. It goes like this:

Jesus began to show His disciples that He would have to go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and the scribes and be killed and on the third day rise again. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke Him saying, "Lord, God forbid that this should happen to You."

Isn't that interesting? Jesus, the Son of God has a dream that God has put in His heart. For as long as Jesus can remember, He has been the Son of God. And for as long as Jesus can remember, Jesus the boy, Jesus the teenager, Jesus the young man, for as long as He can remember, He knew that He would have to go to the cross to die a grizzly and ugly death to pay for my sins and for your sins.

Now, we have the benefit of looking back on 2,000 years of history and looking back and saying, "I understand why Jesus had to go and do that; I understand that my sins are forgiven because Jesus paid the price for me on the cross."

Peter, on the other hand, Peter did not have that benefit. Peter was living a life where he was following Jesus around in ministry. And he saw Jesus Christ do some amazing things. He saw Him bring people back to life. He saw Him heal lepers. He saw Him heal blind people. He saw Jesus rebuke the religious establishment for their hypocrisy. He saw Jesus teach people with the amazing power of God's Word.

So, why does Peter take Jesus aside and say, "Lord, I'm going to rebuke You; You can't be talking like this, this is not positive words coming out of Your mouth. This is not the way I expected it?"

Why does Peter take Jesus aside and rebuke His Lord? Is it that Peter doesn't want Jesus to do God's will? I don't think that's what motivates Peter's here. The thing that motivates Peter is that Jesus' dream of going to a cross is a radical one. And you know something? It's threatens Peter's own comfort zone. All of Peter's hopes and dreams for the future are wrapped up is this Jesus.

Peter's like us. We never want to take a step backwards to go three steps forward. We never want to suffer pain. We never want to struggle. And so when Jesus is talking about suffering and dying and rising again on the third day, Peter is thinking, Well, if that happens to Jesus, what is going to happen to me? What is going to happen to my comfort zone? I have all these plans. I have plans to be with Jesus all the time. If one of these things happens, what is going to happen to me?

Isn’t that often the way with those who are closest to us? We have a dream; we have a dream to do something that's radical, that's different, that doesn't fit with other people's concept of who we are or what their relationship is with us. And we talk about our dream. We talk about the dream to become a teacher. We talk about the dream to become a nurse.

When I was a little kid, I talked to my mother about the dream that I had to become a minister. I didn't quite know what a minister was, but I had that dream. And she said to me, "Ah, Berni, you won't become a minister. You wouldn't be able to get married" because I grew up in a Catholic household. Now, it wasn't that she wanted to push me down; it wasn't that she wanted to pour cold water on me. But it didn't fit with her concept of what her son would grow up to be.

So, when we share our dreams and our hopes for the future with those we love, and when those we love don't exactly jump up in support; but, on the other hand, they point out the risks and they stand and they try and stop us, it really helps to understand a couple things because we really expect those who love us, those who are our closest friends, our closest allies, we expect them to support us. And when they don't, it hurts. So, we need to understand a couple of things.

The first thing is this: What's their motivation? Why is it they stand against our dream?

If anyone is going to bully us, if anyone is going to oppose our dream, shouldn't it be someone we don't know?, shouldn't it be someone out there somewhere. It certainly shouldn't be my wife; it certainly shouldn't be my parents; it shouldn't be my best friend. But sometimes it is. What motivates them?

Well, I believe that it's the same as with Peter. They look at you and your dream doesn't fit with their concept. When we talk about stepping out of our comfort zone, it rattles other people's comfort zones. That's the point Wilkinson makes in his book, The Dream Giver. People get uncomfortable when they see someone close to them walking out of their comfort zone. Just like Peter.

Jesus was talking about doing something out of his comfort zone; it was more than that, it actually threatened Peter's own life and existence because he was afraid that he would be persecuted. He was afraid that he would be crucified too.

So, the first thing is, when the people closest to us don't support us in our dream, it's not because they don't love us. Most of the time, it's not that at all. It's because when we talk about leaving our comfort zones, it shakes their comfort zones up.

The second point that Wilkinson makes in his book The Dream Giver, which I totally agree with is this: Some of their concerns will help us along our way.

They see the things that we can't see. They point out the risks that we can't see. You know what we can do? We can take their wisdom; we can take their insight; and we can put them in our travel bag to use later. Often other people's criticism can be used to sharpen our focus, to shape our dream. Isn't that wonderful?

When we are talking about border bullies, there is one person in my life and, perhaps, in your life, that stands in a class of their own. If you are married, as I am, then your husband or wife stands in a class of their own. When I was dreaming the dream of leaving a high paying consulting job for the risk of a ministry which involved radio and Internet and media, we were excited my wife and I. And, some days, we were scared.

And you know what happened? One day she was excited. And that same day I might be scared. And the next week, I might be excited, and she's scared. It was really interesting to see how we went through the excitement and the fear thing at different times. You know what happens? Sometimes the enemy uses that to pull us apart. Sometimes the enemy tries to use that to stop us from following our dreams.

But we came to a decision: This was a dream for both of us. We both had to be a part of this. So, we decided to let God bring us closer rather than let the devil pull us apart. Husband and wife is God's smallest fighting formation. It is a team.