Title: The Impossible Dream
Bible Book: Philippians 4 : 13
Author: John Bisagno
Subject: Christian Living; Dream; Doing the Impossible; Power of Christ
Objective:
Introduction
The believer in Christ who is indwelt by the Lord Jesus has two things.
i. First, he needs to come to the acceptance of the fact that God gave him his unique and distinct unusual drive and personality, because that the way God wants him to be.
Everyone can't be alike. We have to have dreamers and achievers, doers and goal setters.
ii. But you must also deny what you are.
To be at war with your own personality rather than appreciating that God just made some that way. Taking the power of God to achieve and do. That is the essence and greatness of life is all about.
There is no one who is completely satisfied with who you are or what you are. Some want to be a better Christian. One may want to make the big deal. To another it's the home in the country. To another it's finally getting down to that weight. Don't quite whatever dreams or drives there are in your life.
There are three ingredients that God has put in your heart that has made you what you are.
I. I Can
There is nothing you cannot do. There is nothing that hasn't been done - somebody else has done it and you can do it.
Thomas Edison had a colleague to tell him one day as he was coming out of his laboratory, "I can see by your face you have been successful at last." Edison replied, "On the contrary, it's been a whale of a day. I found 79 more ways it can't be done."
The best men among us that ever lived, the Einstein's, the geniuses, the most disciplined, the doers, the builders, all of them, at best, have probably never used over 10% of their capabilities. Whatever needs to be done has already been done. I can.
II. I Can, Because It Can Be Done
There are men who have written the entire gospel of John on the head of a pen.
A Russian aviator fell 17,000 feet from his plane and lived.
A man in the world can write and speak fluently 116 languages.
When our prisoners of war in Vietnam had seven long years of captivity in the prison camp call Hanoi Hilton, one of the men was a marvelous pianist and they wrote out in the dust every morning before the guards came and scratched it away as an imprint of a keyboard. Every day one of the men practiced. He came out and went to a grand piano and played beautifully.
Another man with an invisible stick, one of the guys was nearly a pro golfer, was taught how to play every hole on the golf green on a certain course in south Florida. He had never held a golf club in his hand. He came out of prison, went to the golf course and shot an 86.
A woman named Margaret Owens in 1918 set the all-time record in a contest - she typed and 180 words a minute.
Men have walked on the moon.
When Roger Banister broke the four-minute mile, everybody began to break it.
Once it has been done. The floodgates are open. We realize that it is usually a mental, physiological hang up and that we could have done it all the time.
The winners and the achievers of life have not been the kind who get up in the morning and look out the windowsay, "Good Lord, its morning," but rather they rose to say, "Good morning, Lord!"
The cup is not half empty to them, it’s always half full and life's lemons are regularly turned into lemonade.
Moses came to the Red Sea. A man couldn't walk through the Red Sea, but he did walk through the Red Sea.
Samson had two chains on his hands tied to two giant pillars. A man can't pull down two giant pillars, but he did.
Daniel was thrown into the lion's den. You can't live all night in a lion's den. But he did!
The Hebrew children were caste in the fiery furnace and they lived all night.
Jesus was nailed to a cross and they washed their hands of Him and said there that's the end of Him. A man can't come back from the dead. But he did! Because he did, he lives in you and you've got the power to do any and everything that you must.
Keep chasing that dream! Be faithful. That is the way God made you. And he's going to take care of your needs. Keep those hopes and keep dreaming.
III. I Can, Therefore, I Must
Once you have settled in your mind that this thing that eludes you that you need to do, that you have just got to do, can be done, there comes a sense a holy presence of possibility. It grips you and you know that more than I can do it; I just have to do it. Once you are at the point of acknowledging possibility, it's just a short step to reality. That step is a holy compulsion that says it just must be done.
You find out that when your mind is set for a goal you will achieve that there are tremendous forces in this universe, in life, in society and in your own being in the power of God. That all begins to focus with you toward the realization of what you are dreaming and thinking about.
What is your goal? Where are you going? Most people aim at nothing in life and hit it right on the head. When you know what it is, when you dream and believe that it can be done, and there comes a holy conviction that it is imperative, then you CAN DO IT. You keep your mind on the sweetness of the victory achieved and it keeps high the ought-ness and must-ness that allows you to go through it.
You'll never try until you can believe you can.
Christianity has not been tried and found wanting. It's been found hard and not tried. But there are unconceivable potentials. You can do anything that God has put into your physical and mental makeup – that which is good and right for you. I can, so therefore I must.
Life will give you exactly what you demand of it.
“I bargained with Life for a penny,
And Life would pay no more,
However I begged at evening
When I counted my scanty store;
For Life is just an employer,
He gives you what you ask,
But once you have set the wages,
Why, you must bear the task.
I worked for a menial's hire,
Only to learn, dismayed,
That any wage I had asked of Life,
Life would have paid.” ? Jessie B. Rittenhouse
IV. I Can, Therefore I Will
I can, therefore I must.
I must, therefore, I will.
You have the potential and the capacity and the power that is resident nowhere in all of God's creation except in human personality. You can decide to do exactly what you want. You can have what you want because God has given you the power of choice. You are created with a very distinct capacity in choice. Because of this, life is what you make of it. The difference in failure and defeat is defeat is only temporary and failure is permanent. It's not the circumstance but your response to the circumstance that counts.
