Jim Van Gelderen: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. This is Jim Van Gelderen and I am podcasting from Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. Well, I feel like I’ve been away from the Thee Generation Podcast for a few weeks now and it’s good to be back.

I won’t go into all the reasons why, hard drive crashes, all kinds of things happening that have limited my ability. And I am not the most techie guy in planet Earth, but I’m grateful for all the Thee Generation personnel that are. But it’s great to be back behind the microphone, and I appreciate so much those of you that have a heart for Thee Generation.

And I want to just challenge you here for a few moments on something that I hope for you to be an encouragement. I’m going to be preaching at the Baptist College of Ministry graduation service here in just a few weeks. It’s a delayed because of the whole coronavirus situation.

I believe it’s on August 30th. And I want to just share you some of the things that I’m going to share on that time. The importance of a dream.

Now, when I’m talking about a dream, I’m not talking about, you know, we all dream. And I guess there’s certain commonalities in dreams. I assume most of you listening have been chased in a dream and you can’t run.

I guess that’s a pretty common experience. I guess another common experience is if you jump off a cliff, you always wake up before you go splat, which is a good thing, I guess. But we all have, there’s different commonalities in those kind of dreams, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about a dream like Joseph had, and that was a dream of really calling us a sense. We might sometimes call it vision. We might call it a sense of destiny in a divine sense, obviously God giving us that sense of destiny.

I’m here for the same purpose. It’s kind of like Esther. I’m here at the right time.

God put me here in this place for a very important purpose, And yet, young people, if you’re saved, that’s what you are. You’re a person of destiny. God has a purpose for your life.

He has a calling. He has something he wants you to do. And it’s very important for you to get a sense of that calling, that dream.

Now, you may not know specifics. Sometimes you have a sense, like I think of one young lady when she was young, just would go, I think, and look at RV, look at RVs or get material. And she wanted to be an evangelist wife, and that’s what she’s doing now.

God gave her a dream, and many young men had a sense, God’s called me to preach, and they began to get a dream of one day standing in a pulpit and giving an invitation and watching God work. These are things that are very real.

I know in my teenage years, I would be in the car all alone preaching, and in fact, there’s one part of the dashboard that started to crack because that was where I’d pound the dashboard instead of the pulpit because I didn’t have one, but I would preach in that car, and I had hardly done any preaching at that point, But you see, God was, I didn’t realize it, but God was giving me a dream.

He was giving me a sense of calling, a sense I’ve purposed for my life. And I believe, young person, every one of you, that’s what God’s doing. And many times sin and distraction and selfishness causes us not to really understand or see the dream or for it to diminish if it was once alive.

But it’s important to have a dream. And you say, why is it important? Well, obviously one day we want to live out the dream in the sense that it will funnel us into God’s will.

And I know for myself, I guess you call it living the dream. Sometimes you’ve heard that little phrase. And I feel like for 36 years, I’ve been living the dream, living the dream of being a full-time evangelist and full-time ministry, particularly with young people.

I love what I do. I can’t wait in the morning to be able to get up, particularly with War of Special Forces, and go into that Christian school and see God work. I just feel like that’s what God made me to do.

It’s so fulfilling. That’s what a dream is when you’re beginning to live it. It’s so fulfilling because it’s what God uniquely made you to do.

I put it this way. God uniquely made you to do something only you can do like God made you to do it. Now, why is a dream important?

Well, obviously, one day you got to do it, but I’m going to give you three examples. Number one, Joseph. God gave him a dream.

You know what that dream did? Got him through temptation. You know, when Potiphar’s wife came along, that was an unbelievable temptation, But this is the thing young men, you particularly need to understand, but even young ladies, at that moment of temptation, you need to be able to say, hey, you’re not worth sacrificing my dream.

And that’s what Joseph in essence did. He said, no, I can’t sin against God, do this great wickedness. And in the day in which we live, a dream is important in keeping you from in that moment of temptation.

And I will tell you, young people, particularly in the day in which we live, There is such a moral temptation, and we know there’s one temptation in looking at things we shouldn’t, but I’m even referring to situations where guys and young ladies get into trouble, and there really needs to be a dream at that moment where you say, no, I’m not going there.

I’m not going to sacrifice what God called me to do, put a blight, a stain on my life, and I’m thinking of this happening. It happens. When I was growing up, it would happen, and And that would happen because young people, the dream wasn’t big enough, and they sacrificed the dream for a moment of sinful pleasure.

And that’s one of the things that’s important about a dream. A dream will help you in the moment of temptation, when you realize I’m not going there. I don’t want to sacrifice what God’s called me to do because of that temptation.

So it helps you fight battles. Now God gave David a dream. You know what his dream was?

You’re gonna be king. You’re gonna be king. So when David went down to fight Goliath, he thought to himself, I am sure.

Now Goliath, either you’re gonna die or I’m gonna die and it can’t be me because God told me I’m gonna be king and I’m not king yet. Now that dream caused him to go in the valley because he thought, I can’t die because God told me I’m gonna be king and I’m not king yet. So I can’t die.

Wow, can you imagine going and fighting Goliath knowing you can’t die? You know what kept him alive? a dream, a God-given dream, a sense of calling destiny.

God’s called me to be king. He went down to fight battles. You know, many people are afraid to fight battles, and they’re afraid to take a stand for God, and they’re afraid to sacrifice to do what’s right.

But if you have your dream, you won’t be, because the dream’s important, and you realize, yeah, I may sacrifice, and this may be a tough battle, but God’s given me a dream. And many times, the battles will actually make you. I remember in my dad’s latter years, he referred to a leaving a convention, the convention of his youth.

And at the time, he was told it would ruin him. And he told me in his later years, he looked at me and had a wistful look. He said, Jim, he said, when I left the convention of my youth, I thought it was going to ruin me.

But he said, Jim, it did not ruin me. It’s the very thing that made me. And that’s what battles do.

They make you. They’re part of your fulfilling the dream that God’s given you. It’s not always easy, but you have to fight battles for God.

It’s not like you go looking for battles, and we certainly don’t want to be pugnacious just to be pugnacious. But there’ll be times if you just do God’s will. God will bring the battles to you, and he’ll show you when you need to fight the battles.

But a dream will get you through the battles. Well, there’s one last thing that a dream will do. First of all, of course, Joseph’s dream got him through temptation.

David’s dream got him through battles, but Peter, Peter’s dream got him through failure, failure. I know some of you out here already, you say, well, you know what? I have had some failure in my life.

Maybe I’ve hurt my dream. Well, if anybody could think that, that would certainly be Peter. Peter denied the Lord three times.

And I’ve been to the very place that happened. And we don’t know exactly the distance, but it probably wasn’t long. When he denied the Lord that third time, Jesus looked at him and it was probably pretty close.

And it obviously went to his heart. He went out and wept bitterly. He sobbed.

I’m talking to many teenagers who probably more than once in your life have sobbed because you failed the Lord. You didn’t take the stand you should have taken. You gave into temptation when you shouldn’t have.

And I’m not diminishing those things because I’ve just given you the importance of fighting battles and running in the strength of the Lord from temptation. But friend, if you have failures in the past, you know what will get you through them? The dream.

Yep, the Lord Jesus said to Peter, follow me. I’m going to make you fishers of men. And you know what Peter had to think?

I’m not a fisher of men yet. And Jesus promised, you follow me? I will make you fishers of men.

Now, you know, he struggled. He went back to fishing. Jesus met him out there.

There’s a whole lot about Paul’s, excuse me, Peter’s restoration that is stunning. In fact, the two time campfires are mentioned in the Bible in the life of Peter, the first ones when he denied the Lord, the second ones when the Lord restored them there at the Sea of Galilee. But here’s the point.

Peter got up on the day of Pentecost and preached, and 5,000 people were saved. You know what? He was fishers of men.

He had finally was living the dream. He was living the dream. I’m going to tell you why, friends, because somewhere along the line, there was a lot of the Lord prayed for him that his faith fail not.

But even Jesus said, when you’re converted, strengthen your brethren. He knew that Peter was going to fall and fail. But the thing I want you to understand is the dream got him through.

He wasn’t a fisher of men yet, and yet Jesus had promised him he was going to be. That was the dream, and Peter spent the rest of his life fishing men in a remarkable fashion, and I don’t know where you are, young person, but let the dream the next time you’re tempted. May God give you the dream.

That’s not worth it when you’re tempted, and God give you the dream to fight battles that come your way. Take stand for God. Do what God wants you to do.

Be humble about it, but fight the battles God brings your way. But oh, my friend, if there’s failure in the past, let the dream overcome the failure and get back up. God’s got a purpose for your life.

The gifts and calling of God are without repentance. I don’t understand all that means, but I would say most young people, God wants to use your life. And even somehow it’s amazing God does it.

He takes your failure and he wants to weave it into your life to be a blessing and to help administer to others in a way you couldn’t have without the failure. It’s kind of one of those things that’s almost unbelievable how God does that. But friend, do you have a dream?

I’m going to be preaching this at Falls Baptist. You can probably look at it online on August 30th. But in the meantime, if you want to listen to it, listen to it.

But my burden for you is you get a dream in your heart and live the dream. And I’m telling you, we need a generation of young people that are living the dream, totally surrendered to the will of God, and totally depending on His grace to live that dream and do God’s will.