Resound Church
Leah Ramirez
JUNE 13, 2010
RUN THE RACE: DREAM AGAIN
Can you hear the witnesses calling your name? It’s time to run the race. It’s time to live! What would it take
for you to follow your dream? What were you made for? What were you made to love? Life is a gift. Every
breath is a gift from heaven. It’s time to wake up and really live. It’s time to engage your very being with the
purpose and dream of God’s heart.
I. EVERYONE HAS A DREAM, EVEN GOD
A. God is The Dream Giver. And He has formed us and hard-wired us for a purpose. He has made us for a
reason. We are unique and uniquely fitted to love Him in a way only we can. There is a song we sing,
“No one else can love you like I love you Lord.” And this is so absolutely true! No one else can love
God with all of your heart. Only you.
B. Most often when I hear the Lord, He is affirming me in the sweetest and kindest ways. Each time His
love breaks in it’s always a little surprising. Little words of affection from God if received are life
changing. Little ways He lets me know that He has noticed me all over again. Being loved by God
never, ever gets old.
C. He’s all around. He’s closer than a friend and nearer than a brother. He’s not a God far off, but as near
as your very breath. He’s present. He’s near. He’s a God at hand. And one thing we must comprehend
is that God’s dream is to be noticed by us. To be received. He has loved us. He has formed us. He
desires us. His dream is intimacy with us. And He has gone through the greatest of lengths to reconcile
us into His dream.
John 3:16
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish
but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that
the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not
believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
D. God’s dream was to save the world.
E. He is not distant. He is NOT distant. He is not DISTANT. God wants to be known. The Word is about
the great revealing of His heart. He wants you to know Him.
Acts 17
22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you
are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar
with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in
temples made by man, [2] 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he
himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of
mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their
dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find
him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for
“‘In him we live and move and have our being’;
as even some of your own poets have said,
“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’
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Resound Church
Leah Ramirez
JUNE 13, 2010
RUN THE RACE: DREAM AGAIN
29 Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an
image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he
commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in
righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him
from the dead.”
F. The dream of God’s heart is to be known. The boundaries, the coming to the end of ourselves, is the
beginning of finding Him.
II. EVERYONE HAS A PURPOSE
A. You were specifically and uniquely created in God. You are a dream of His heart. You resonate a
sound. You are important.
Psalm 139
139:1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you
discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all
my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me
in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high;
I cannot attain it.
7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven,
you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in
the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold
me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
12 even the
darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I
am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame
was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the
earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days
that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 If I would count them,
they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.
B. It’s not one size fits all. God has a call and purpose…
Genesis 12
12:1 Now the Lord said [1] to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to
the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your
name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I
will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Jeremiah 1
4 Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed
you a prophet to the nations.”
6 Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.” 7 But the Lord
said to me,
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Resound Church
Leah Ramirez
JUNE 13, 2010
RUN THE RACE: DREAM AGAIN
“Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’;
for to all to whom I send you, you shall go,
and whatever I command
you, you shall speak.
8 Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you,
declares the Lord.”
9 Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me,
“Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.
10 See, I have set you this day over nations and over
kingdoms,
to pluck up and to break down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant.”
John 1
57 Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. 58 And her neighbors and relatives
heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. 59 And on the eighth day they
came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah after his father, 60 but his mother
answered, “No; he shall be called John.” 61 And they said to her, “None of your relatives is called by this
name.” 62 And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted him to be called. 63 And he asked for
a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they all wondered. 64 And immediately his mouth was
opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. 65 And fear came on all their neighbors. And all
these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea, 66 and all who heard them laid them up
in their hearts, saying, “What then will this child be?” For the hand of the Lord was with him.
C. God has formed you exactly for the purpose of His heart. You were made exactly and precisely.
III. BEYOND JUST EXISTING
A. There is something more than simply going through the motions of life. There is something more than
the daily grind. It’s a coming back to being fascinated. Being in love. Being curious. Being excited.
Being ALIVE. This is the call.
Matthew 18
18:1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 And
calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them 3 and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and
become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever humbles himself like this child
is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
B. There is something we must come back to if we are ever to enter in at all. There is a foolishness
required of us. We are far too sophisticated and need to unlearn much to enter into the faith at all. We
are far too dignified. Far too practical. Far too polished. And it will never do if we are going to enter
into the kingdom of heaven.
1 Corinthians 1
18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power
of God. 19 For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made
foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through
wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
C. There is a verse I’ve never preached because of the sheer perversion of it in our day. But it’s truth is
absolute if regarded beyond the temporal. Jesus came to restore us, and restore us absolutely.
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Resound Church
Leah Ramirez
JUNE 13, 2010
RUN THE RACE: DREAM AGAIN
John 10
9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The
thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
D. He didn’t come to put a band-aid on your hurt, but heal you utterly. Remember what is was like when
you believed anything was possible? It’s time to be restored!
John 5
24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does
not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
E. There is something pure and unjaded about believing. It requires innocence. It requires that we allow
for the possibility of God and the supernatural to break in. Belief and sophistication are polar opposites.
Mark 10
27 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible
with God.”
IV. DOING THE DREAM
A. What is your dream? What is the thing that you were created for? What is the thing that makes you feel
most alive? What do you love to do? What do you wish you could be doing all the time?
Psalm 27
4 One thing have I asked of the Lord,
that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all
the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
and to inquire [3] in his temple.
B. David was alive to his calling. He was called to be in the house/tent of prayer and worship. At the end
of his life, he was remembered as being the “sweet psalmist of Israel” not the king. This was what he
gave himself to. This is how he identified himself.
Philippians 3
7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss
because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all
things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ …
12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because
Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing
I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for
the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
C. Paul gave up everything for the sake of knowing Jesus. This was his dream. This was his goal.
D. What is your dream? Jesus came to give you real life and life more abundantly. The more we know
Him, the more we will understand what moves our own heart. We discover our dream by knowing Him.
It’s time to live again!
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