April 23, 2025 • 21 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello, everybody, This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. If you're
joining us for the first time or you've been listening
every day for ten years, we just want to say welcome,
We love you, and we pray for you every day.
So we're continuing with this series called Daring Faith The
Key to Miracles. And in this series you're learning how
(00:22):
to have a bold, unshakable faith that gives you courage
to impact the.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
World around you.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
And if you're like me, you'd really like to be
more bold and have more courage to share your faith
in Christ. And now here's Rick with part one of
a message called Daring to Imagine.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I want us to continue with part four of Daring
Faith The Key to Miracles. One of the greatest gifts
that God has given you is the gift of imagination.
It is the ability to see things in your mind,
to think, and to create with mental pictures in your mind.
God gave you this gift of imagination. And the reason
(01:02):
you have this gift is because God imagines. The Bible
tells us that God imagined the entire universe and it
was created. He thought it up before it became reality.
The Bible says God has imagined all of history. He's
already seen it all happen, even before it's happened, because
he thought it up. He imagined it in advance. The
(01:22):
Bible calls that God's fore knowledge. And you are most
like your creator when you are being creative. Does that
make sense? You are most like your creator God when
you are being creative. And God gave you the ability
to create with your imagination. And when you use your
imagination for good and for God, God smiles. Now everything
(01:46):
starts with imagination. Nothing becomes reality unless first somebody thinks
it up. This building did not become a reality until
somebody had to think it up in their mind first.
Every great business, every great company, every piece of art,
every musical note, somebody imagined it before it became reality.
(02:09):
Nothing happens unless somebody imagines it. And without imagination, you
couldn't even make decisions. You see, when you start to
make a decision, you imagine what would happen if I
did this, and what would happen if I do that,
and then you make the decision. Everything that has been
created on planet Earth by human beings started in the
imagination of somebody's mind. And this is a gift from God. Now,
(02:32):
imagination is a tool, and it can be used for
good or it can be used for bad. And like
any other gift of God, whether it's fire or water,
or sex or anything else, anything that God gives us
a gift can be misused, abused, and perverted. And today
many people are misusing their imagination for wrong ways to
(02:55):
be clever in their evil. And so the Bible actually
gives us three categories. There on your outline. There are
some things the Bible says we should not imagine. And
then there are some things that we cannot imagine because
our brains aren't big enough. And then there are some
things that we should imagine. Let me just talk about
these for a second, just to open up the subject.
(03:16):
There are some things the Bible says that as human
beings we should not imagine, we should not allow in
our mind. And the Bible calls these evil imaginations or
vain imaginations or empty imaginations. Worry. Worry is a misuse
of your imagination because you imagine as something in your
(03:39):
mind and you start getting fearful about it, and you
go over and over and over and over and over.
You're using your imagination every time you worry but you're
misusing it. It is a perversion. God didn't give you your
imagination to be able to picture something and get stressed
out about it. Lust is a misuse of imagination when
you think of a lust in your mind over and
(04:00):
over and over. Revenge is a misuse of imagination when
you think, oh, I know how I'm going to get
back of that person. You start planning and plotting in
your mind, using your imagination, how you're going to get back.
And they said that to you, and I'm going to
say this back. That's a misuse of your imagination. The
Bible tells us that the reason God flooded the earth
(04:20):
and told Noah to build an arc is because it's said,
in those days, all he could find was quote evil
imaginations in people's lives, and they had taken a gift
of God, and they were using their imaginations for violence,
using their imaginations for perversion, using their imaginations for the occult,
for evil, for bad things, for dark things. And today
(04:42):
many people use their imaginations in very very dark ways.
You should not fill your mind with those things. So
there's some things we should not imagine. But then the
Bible says a second category is there's some things that
we cannot imagine. The Bible says that God is so great,
we can't even imagine how great he is, how powerful
(05:03):
he is. We look at the universe and see how
great the universe is, and the universe just shows a
fraction of God's greatness. The Creator is certainly bigger than
the creation. So we can't imagine the universe. We can't
even imagine the God who created the universe. The Bible says,
you cannot imagine. Very clearly, this says multiple times in
the Bible, you can't imagine how much God loves you.
(05:25):
God loves you so much your brain would explode if
you understood how much He loves you. It is God
is love, it's his nature, and so you cannot understand that.
The Bible says, you can't imagine what heaven is going
to be like. Now, that's why a lot of people
aren't really interested in heaven, because it's so foreign to us.
We can't imagine those dimensions. We're limited to time and
(05:47):
space and distance, three three dimensions here in our world.
But heaven isn't. It has many more dimensions than three
dimensions to it, and so we can't imagine how cool,
how great, how wonderful it's going to be like one.
John three to two says, yes, dear friends, we're already
God's children, and we can't even imagine what we will
(06:12):
be like when Christ returns. But we do know this.
We do know that when he comes, we will be
like him, for we will see him as he really is.
And what that verse says is that right now you
can't see Jesus directly, so you're growing to be more
like him a little bit at a time. But when
one day when Christ comes back, he says, when we
(06:34):
see him perfectly, you're going to become perfectly like him.
You're going to be transformed in that instant. And the
Bible says, we can't even imagine what we're going to
be like when Jesus comes back. It's you are going
to be so cool, so different, and your body will
be different. And the Bible says, we can't even imagine that.
(06:54):
It's hard for us to conceive. But then there are
some things we should imagine. Philippians four a eight. Fix
your thoughts. That means concentrate. It means focus, it means consider,
it means meditate. It means imagine. Fix your thoughts on
what is true and honorable and right. Think about things
(07:17):
that are pure and lovely and admirable. This is what
God wants you to be imagining your mind. Lovely scenes,
beautiful scenes, admirable things, things that are right, things that
are good. Think about things that are excellent and worthy
of praise. These are the kind of things God wants
you to imagine. Now, what I want to do this
weekend as we do this Part four in Daring Faith
(07:38):
is I want to show you the relationship between your
imagination and faith, and I want to help you unlock
your imagination in a way that's never been done before.
And in order to do that, I'm not going to
do a typical message where I take a text and
do an exposition or an explanation of that text. Instead,
I want to take text from all over the Bible,
(07:59):
and I want to give you a personal testimony of
eight things that I've learned about imagination and the importance
of it in your life after walking with God for
fifty years. All right, get out your pencils and let's
look at what I've learned about God inspired imagination. This
really could make a major difference in your life if
(08:20):
you'll let God expand the way you think about your family,
your career, your life, God, and everything else. Number one,
the first thing, my imagination shapes my life. My imagination
shapes my life. In other words, the way you think
is going to affect the way you feel, and the
way you feel is going to affect the way you act.
(08:42):
And if you want to change the way you act,
you need to change the way you think. Proverbs twenty three,
verse seven. For as a man thinks in his heart,
so is he is. It is God's way of saying,
I want you to understand that how I work in
your life is through your thoughts. As a man thinks
(09:03):
in his heart, so is he. For instance, the person
who says I can't do this and the person who
says I can't do this are both right. They're both
right because if you think you can't, you can't, and
if you think you can, you can. The person who
says I just can't imagine that ever happening to me,
well guess what, it won't. It won't because you're already
(09:27):
doing a self fulfilling prophecy. Now, the Bible says this
in Proverbs four twenty three, be careful how you think.
Your life is shaped by what your thoughts circle that
your thoughts now. Because I've always been interested in this
and the power of imagination, particularly as it relates to faith,
I've collected quotes of famous people over the years about imagination,
(09:50):
and I thought I would just share some of them
with you. Here's the first one from Albert Einstein. Look
up here on the screen. Einstein says, imagination is more
important than knowledge. Logic will get you from A to B.
Imagination will take you everywhere. There's no limit to your imagination.
The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination.
(10:12):
Albert Einstein. That's interesting, very interesting. Okay, here's one George
Bernard Shaw, the famous playwright and poet. Imagination is the
beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, You will
what you imagine, and then you create what you will.
In other words, Michelangelo, when he painted the Sistine Chapel,
(10:34):
those beautiful frescoes, he had to imagine it all in
his mind. He had to see it in his mind
before he could put it on the wall. C. S.
Lewis the greatest Christian thinker of the last century. He said,
imagination is the organ of meaning Napoleon Bonaparte. Imagination rules
the world. The philosopher Pascal said, imagination decides everything. William
(11:00):
arthur Ward said, if you can imagine it, you can
achieve it, and if you can dream it, you can
become it. And then that great theologian George Lucas, you
can't do it unless you imagine it. Imagine him imagining
all of the Star Wars trilogies. That took a lot
(11:21):
of imagination. Okay, that's George Lucas, okay. And then here
are a couple other great leaders. Walt Disney said Disneyland
will never be completed. It will continue to grow as
long as there's imagination left in the world. And then
this quote, saddleback will never stop growing. As long as
(11:43):
there's one person who has not heard the good news
of Jesus, we will keep reaching out. That's from the
first sermon in nineteen eighty Imagination imagination. Now God warned
about the power of imagination being misused. He tells the
people in Babel where they were building this giant Tower
(12:03):
of Babel, which was going to be basically an idol.
They were going to build it to reach up to
God and here's what God says in Genesis eleven about imagination.
The Lord said, now that they are one people speaking
one language, this is only the beginning of what they
will do. Now, nothing they have imagined they can do
(12:28):
will be impossible for them. Notice this is God talking.
God always speaks the truth. He says, because they're one
people with one language, and they're unified, they've got clear communication.
He said, nothing they have imagined they can do will
be impossible for them. Now this is actually a warning,
(12:49):
but there's also a teaching here. If you are a businessman,
I want you to listen closely. How do you get
a group of people to do the impossible? How do
you make the impossible pos Maybe you've got a project
in your business that you go, man, there's no way
that's going to happen. How do you get people to
do the impossible? Well, he says, there are three things.
You need cooperation, you need communication, and you need imagination.
(13:12):
He said, you've got to have cooperation. They've got to
be unified one people. You've got to have clear communication
they're speaking one language. And you've got to have imagination.
And if you've got those three, that's how the impossible
becomes possible. That's a little leadership tip I just thought
i'd throw in there now. Number two. Second thing I've
learned about imagination. Imagining is simp is essential to living
(13:33):
by faith. Imagination is essential to living by faith. In fact,
you cannot live by faith without using your imagination, because
since you can't see God, you've got to use imagination
to practice your faith. Now, Hebrews Chapter eleven is the
great chapter of heroes of the faith. In Hebrews eleven,
(13:55):
we have God's hall of fame, you know as the
Rocks rock and roll hall of Fame is baseball hall
of fame. Well, God has a hall of fame, and
it's called Hebrews chapter eleven. And in the Bible he
lists all the people who are the real heroes in
God's book, Abraham, Moses, and Joseph and Gideon and all
these people. And he starts off Hebrews eleven talking about
faith by saying this in verse one, defining faith, let's
(14:18):
read it aloud together. What is faith? It is the
confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen.
It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see. Now,
notice two things faith is a way of seeing. And
he says here that God says, whatever you hope for
(14:41):
when you believe it's going to happen, not that it
might happen, that's hope. When you believe it will happen,
that's faith. And he said, it's the evidence of things
we cannot yet see. God gave you two ways of seeing.
Gave every human being two ways to seeing. First you
can see through your physical eyes. That's one way of seeing.
And second you can see by the imagination in your mind.
(15:04):
And you can picture things in your mind, and you can,
of course you dream them, but you can visualize them,
and that's another way of seeing. And when you can't
see something physically, you have to imagine it in your mind. Now,
it says here that faith is when we hope for
something and we know it's going to happen. In order
(15:24):
to hope for something, you have to picture it in
your mind. Do you remember when you were a kid
and at Christmas time there are gifts wrapped under the
Christmas tree and you started you saw the ones with
your name on it, and you started imagining what was
inside that box, and you got excited because you thought
you knew what was inside that box because you were
(15:45):
picturing it in your mind. You could not see it,
but you are imagining that gift. You're imagining that toy.
And this is a tool that God says you have
to use in walking on with Christ because you can't
see God. So when you can't see God right now,
you have to imagine. God has given us tools of imagination. Communion,
(16:06):
the Lord's Supper, baptism. Both of those symbols engage your imagination.
They help us visualize. They help us picture the death, burial,
and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Going under the water coming
back out is a picture of Jesus dying and being
buried and rising again. And communion is a picture of
Jesus giving his body and blood for your salvation. They
(16:28):
are tools that engage your imagination. Now, when you read
the rest of Hebrews eleven about all those heroes of faith,
you realize that every one of them became heroes of
faith because they used their imagination. For instance, God says
to Abraham, Abraham, you're ninety years old and you have
no kids, but I'm going to change your name to Abram,
(16:50):
from Abram to Abraham, which means father of a great nation.
Now for about a decade, Abraham still has there's no kids.
And so he goes to a local restaurant and he said,
party for two, you know, table for two. What's your name,
father of a great nation? Oh wow, that's how many
kids you got none. It'd be pretty embarrassing to be
(17:13):
named father of a great nation and you don't have
any kids. But God always calls things that are not
as though they were. He names it in advance. And
then he says, I want you to go outside, Abraham,
and he said, I want you to count the stars
at night. And he said, that's how many grandchildren and
great grandchildren, great great grand How many are you going
to have in your family tree? That's going to be
(17:35):
the nation visual that's going to be how many Jews
there are in the world? Count all the stars? What
is God doing when he tells Abraham to go count
the stars? He is activating his imagination. He's saying, I
want you to visualize what I'm going to do in
your life. Look at the next verse. Tecwod Corinthians four eighteen.
We set our eyes not on what we see, but
(17:57):
on what we cannot see. What we see will last
only a short time, but what we cannot see will
last forever. Now what does that verse mean. It means
that the material is temporary and the immaterial is eternal.
For instance, everybody can see this chair right now. It's
a wooden chair. It's material, but it's not gonna last.
(18:20):
It won't last five hundred years. This chair will decay
and fall apart. It's not gonna last. It's material, and
anything material isn't gonna last. On the other hand, you
can't see the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
but they're gonna last for eternity. You can't see your
own soul. It's gonna last for eternity. And the Bible
says you need to focus on the things that are
gonna last, which you actually can't see with your eyes.
(18:43):
You have to imagine them.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
I don't know about you, but I am encouraged after
that message. And let's keep the encouragement going with a
letter from one of our listeners.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Here's Rick. I started this Daily Hope ministry because I
want to help you fulfill the great commission and the
great commandment of Jesus Christ to love God with all
your heart, love your neighbors, yourself, to make disciples, to
teach them to grow, and to baptize them and bring
them into the family of God. And all of these
(19:20):
things happen when you do what God tells you to do.
You were part of the effort. We are a team
here at Daily Hope. Let me read your letter from
Jeff who listens to Daily Hope in Alabama and he's
using all of the resources that we produce in addition
to these broadcasts to help disciple other people in the Word.
He wrote, Dear Pastor Rick, our adult classes at Green
(19:43):
Valley Baptist Church here in Hoover, Alabama, just finish your
six week study kit for the series Daring Faith. I
just wanted to drop you a line tell you how
much we enjoyed that study and the video. Many of
our class members have been going through a lot of
personal ties, tragedies, problems, and difficulties lately, and your video
(20:04):
spoke so strongly to how we need to depend on
God in our faith to help us get through both
the good and bad times of life. Well, thanks Jeff
for writing in first place. Second, I'm so excited to
hear that you're using these resources in addition to the
broadcast that we're preparing for groups and individuals and even
(20:25):
churches and my prayers that was we put together these
resources like the Daring Faithkit, that they will be used
by thousands of small groups around the world to help
people grow in faith and in knowledge of Jesus Christ. Now,
for those of you who are listening today, there are
a lot of different resources that Daily Hope produces, Bible studies, kits, manuals, scripture,
(20:49):
memory cards, all kinds of things that you need to
be aware of. So go to my website today pastorick
dot com. If you've never been there, take a minute
and go to pastorick dot com and see all of
the resources that we've prepared to help you grow in
your faith and share your faith with others. We did
it for you. God bless you.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Please join us next time as we look into God's
Word for our Daily hope. This program is sponsored by
Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.
Hello, everybody, This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. If you're
joining us for the first time or you've been listening
every day for ten years, we just want to say welcome,
We love you, and we pray for you every day.
So we're continuing with this series called Daring Faith The
Key to Miracles. And in this series you're learning how
(00:22):
to have a bold, unshakable faith that gives you courage
to impact the.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
World around you.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
And if you're like me, you'd really like to be
more bold and have more courage to share your faith
in Christ. And now here's Rick with part one of
a message called Daring to Imagine.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I want us to continue with part four of Daring
Faith The Key to Miracles. One of the greatest gifts
that God has given you is the gift of imagination.
It is the ability to see things in your mind,
to think, and to create with mental pictures in your mind.
God gave you this gift of imagination. And the reason
(01:02):
you have this gift is because God imagines. The Bible
tells us that God imagined the entire universe and it
was created. He thought it up before it became reality.
The Bible says God has imagined all of history. He's
already seen it all happen, even before it's happened, because
he thought it up. He imagined it in advance. The
(01:22):
Bible calls that God's fore knowledge. And you are most
like your creator when you are being creative. Does that
make sense? You are most like your creator God when
you are being creative. And God gave you the ability
to create with your imagination. And when you use your
imagination for good and for God, God smiles. Now everything
(01:46):
starts with imagination. Nothing becomes reality unless first somebody thinks
it up. This building did not become a reality until
somebody had to think it up in their mind first.
Every great business, every great company, every piece of art,
every musical note, somebody imagined it before it became reality.
(02:09):
Nothing happens unless somebody imagines it. And without imagination, you
couldn't even make decisions. You see, when you start to
make a decision, you imagine what would happen if I
did this, and what would happen if I do that,
and then you make the decision. Everything that has been
created on planet Earth by human beings started in the
imagination of somebody's mind. And this is a gift from God. Now,
(02:32):
imagination is a tool, and it can be used for
good or it can be used for bad. And like
any other gift of God, whether it's fire or water,
or sex or anything else, anything that God gives us
a gift can be misused, abused, and perverted. And today
many people are misusing their imagination for wrong ways to
(02:55):
be clever in their evil. And so the Bible actually
gives us three categories. There on your outline. There are
some things the Bible says we should not imagine. And
then there are some things that we cannot imagine because
our brains aren't big enough. And then there are some
things that we should imagine. Let me just talk about
these for a second, just to open up the subject.
(03:16):
There are some things the Bible says that as human
beings we should not imagine, we should not allow in
our mind. And the Bible calls these evil imaginations or
vain imaginations or empty imaginations. Worry. Worry is a misuse
of your imagination because you imagine as something in your
(03:39):
mind and you start getting fearful about it, and you
go over and over and over and over and over.
You're using your imagination every time you worry but you're
misusing it. It is a perversion. God didn't give you your
imagination to be able to picture something and get stressed
out about it. Lust is a misuse of imagination when
you think of a lust in your mind over and
(04:00):
over and over. Revenge is a misuse of imagination when
you think, oh, I know how I'm going to get
back of that person. You start planning and plotting in
your mind, using your imagination, how you're going to get back.
And they said that to you, and I'm going to
say this back. That's a misuse of your imagination. The
Bible tells us that the reason God flooded the earth
(04:20):
and told Noah to build an arc is because it's said,
in those days, all he could find was quote evil
imaginations in people's lives, and they had taken a gift
of God, and they were using their imaginations for violence,
using their imaginations for perversion, using their imaginations for the occult,
for evil, for bad things, for dark things. And today
(04:42):
many people use their imaginations in very very dark ways.
You should not fill your mind with those things. So
there's some things we should not imagine. But then the
Bible says a second category is there's some things that
we cannot imagine. The Bible says that God is so great,
we can't even imagine how great he is, how powerful
(05:03):
he is. We look at the universe and see how
great the universe is, and the universe just shows a
fraction of God's greatness. The Creator is certainly bigger than
the creation. So we can't imagine the universe. We can't
even imagine the God who created the universe. The Bible says,
you cannot imagine. Very clearly, this says multiple times in
the Bible, you can't imagine how much God loves you.
(05:25):
God loves you so much your brain would explode if
you understood how much He loves you. It is God
is love, it's his nature, and so you cannot understand that.
The Bible says, you can't imagine what heaven is going
to be like. Now, that's why a lot of people
aren't really interested in heaven, because it's so foreign to us.
We can't imagine those dimensions. We're limited to time and
(05:47):
space and distance, three three dimensions here in our world.
But heaven isn't. It has many more dimensions than three
dimensions to it, and so we can't imagine how cool,
how great, how wonderful it's going to be like one.
John three to two says, yes, dear friends, we're already
God's children, and we can't even imagine what we will
(06:12):
be like when Christ returns. But we do know this.
We do know that when he comes, we will be
like him, for we will see him as he really is.
And what that verse says is that right now you
can't see Jesus directly, so you're growing to be more
like him a little bit at a time. But when
one day when Christ comes back, he says, when we
(06:34):
see him perfectly, you're going to become perfectly like him.
You're going to be transformed in that instant. And the
Bible says, we can't even imagine what we're going to
be like when Jesus comes back. It's you are going
to be so cool, so different, and your body will
be different. And the Bible says, we can't even imagine that.
(06:54):
It's hard for us to conceive. But then there are
some things we should imagine. Philippians four a eight. Fix
your thoughts. That means concentrate. It means focus, it means consider,
it means meditate. It means imagine. Fix your thoughts on
what is true and honorable and right. Think about things
(07:17):
that are pure and lovely and admirable. This is what
God wants you to be imagining your mind. Lovely scenes,
beautiful scenes, admirable things, things that are right, things that
are good. Think about things that are excellent and worthy
of praise. These are the kind of things God wants
you to imagine. Now, what I want to do this
weekend as we do this Part four in Daring Faith
(07:38):
is I want to show you the relationship between your
imagination and faith, and I want to help you unlock
your imagination in a way that's never been done before.
And in order to do that, I'm not going to
do a typical message where I take a text and
do an exposition or an explanation of that text. Instead,
I want to take text from all over the Bible,
(07:59):
and I want to give you a personal testimony of
eight things that I've learned about imagination and the importance
of it in your life after walking with God for
fifty years. All right, get out your pencils and let's
look at what I've learned about God inspired imagination. This
really could make a major difference in your life if
(08:20):
you'll let God expand the way you think about your family,
your career, your life, God, and everything else. Number one,
the first thing, my imagination shapes my life. My imagination
shapes my life. In other words, the way you think
is going to affect the way you feel, and the
way you feel is going to affect the way you act.
(08:42):
And if you want to change the way you act,
you need to change the way you think. Proverbs twenty three,
verse seven. For as a man thinks in his heart,
so is he is. It is God's way of saying,
I want you to understand that how I work in
your life is through your thoughts. As a man thinks
(09:03):
in his heart, so is he. For instance, the person
who says I can't do this and the person who
says I can't do this are both right. They're both
right because if you think you can't, you can't, and
if you think you can, you can. The person who
says I just can't imagine that ever happening to me,
well guess what, it won't. It won't because you're already
(09:27):
doing a self fulfilling prophecy. Now, the Bible says this
in Proverbs four twenty three, be careful how you think.
Your life is shaped by what your thoughts circle that
your thoughts now. Because I've always been interested in this
and the power of imagination, particularly as it relates to faith,
I've collected quotes of famous people over the years about imagination,
(09:50):
and I thought I would just share some of them
with you. Here's the first one from Albert Einstein. Look
up here on the screen. Einstein says, imagination is more
important than knowledge. Logic will get you from A to B.
Imagination will take you everywhere. There's no limit to your imagination.
The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination.
(10:12):
Albert Einstein. That's interesting, very interesting. Okay, here's one George
Bernard Shaw, the famous playwright and poet. Imagination is the
beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, You will
what you imagine, and then you create what you will.
In other words, Michelangelo, when he painted the Sistine Chapel,
(10:34):
those beautiful frescoes, he had to imagine it all in
his mind. He had to see it in his mind
before he could put it on the wall. C. S.
Lewis the greatest Christian thinker of the last century. He said,
imagination is the organ of meaning Napoleon Bonaparte. Imagination rules
the world. The philosopher Pascal said, imagination decides everything. William
(11:00):
arthur Ward said, if you can imagine it, you can
achieve it, and if you can dream it, you can
become it. And then that great theologian George Lucas, you
can't do it unless you imagine it. Imagine him imagining
all of the Star Wars trilogies. That took a lot
(11:21):
of imagination. Okay, that's George Lucas, okay. And then here
are a couple other great leaders. Walt Disney said Disneyland
will never be completed. It will continue to grow as
long as there's imagination left in the world. And then
this quote, saddleback will never stop growing. As long as
(11:43):
there's one person who has not heard the good news
of Jesus, we will keep reaching out. That's from the
first sermon in nineteen eighty Imagination imagination. Now God warned
about the power of imagination being misused. He tells the
people in Babel where they were building this giant Tower
(12:03):
of Babel, which was going to be basically an idol.
They were going to build it to reach up to
God and here's what God says in Genesis eleven about imagination.
The Lord said, now that they are one people speaking
one language, this is only the beginning of what they
will do. Now, nothing they have imagined they can do
(12:28):
will be impossible for them. Notice this is God talking.
God always speaks the truth. He says, because they're one
people with one language, and they're unified, they've got clear communication.
He said, nothing they have imagined they can do will
be impossible for them. Now this is actually a warning,
(12:49):
but there's also a teaching here. If you are a businessman,
I want you to listen closely. How do you get
a group of people to do the impossible? How do
you make the impossible pos Maybe you've got a project
in your business that you go, man, there's no way
that's going to happen. How do you get people to
do the impossible? Well, he says, there are three things.
You need cooperation, you need communication, and you need imagination.
(13:12):
He said, you've got to have cooperation. They've got to
be unified one people. You've got to have clear communication
they're speaking one language. And you've got to have imagination.
And if you've got those three, that's how the impossible
becomes possible. That's a little leadership tip I just thought
i'd throw in there now. Number two. Second thing I've
learned about imagination. Imagining is simp is essential to living
(13:33):
by faith. Imagination is essential to living by faith. In fact,
you cannot live by faith without using your imagination, because
since you can't see God, you've got to use imagination
to practice your faith. Now, Hebrews Chapter eleven is the
great chapter of heroes of the faith. In Hebrews eleven,
(13:55):
we have God's hall of fame, you know as the
Rocks rock and roll hall of Fame is baseball hall
of fame. Well, God has a hall of fame, and
it's called Hebrews chapter eleven. And in the Bible he
lists all the people who are the real heroes in
God's book, Abraham, Moses, and Joseph and Gideon and all
these people. And he starts off Hebrews eleven talking about
faith by saying this in verse one, defining faith, let's
(14:18):
read it aloud together. What is faith? It is the
confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen.
It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see. Now,
notice two things faith is a way of seeing. And
he says here that God says, whatever you hope for
(14:41):
when you believe it's going to happen, not that it
might happen, that's hope. When you believe it will happen,
that's faith. And he said, it's the evidence of things
we cannot yet see. God gave you two ways of seeing.
Gave every human being two ways to seeing. First you
can see through your physical eyes. That's one way of seeing.
And second you can see by the imagination in your mind.
(15:04):
And you can picture things in your mind, and you can,
of course you dream them, but you can visualize them,
and that's another way of seeing. And when you can't
see something physically, you have to imagine it in your mind. Now,
it says here that faith is when we hope for
something and we know it's going to happen. In order
(15:24):
to hope for something, you have to picture it in
your mind. Do you remember when you were a kid
and at Christmas time there are gifts wrapped under the
Christmas tree and you started you saw the ones with
your name on it, and you started imagining what was
inside that box, and you got excited because you thought
you knew what was inside that box because you were
(15:45):
picturing it in your mind. You could not see it,
but you are imagining that gift. You're imagining that toy.
And this is a tool that God says you have
to use in walking on with Christ because you can't
see God. So when you can't see God right now,
you have to imagine. God has given us tools of imagination. Communion,
(16:06):
the Lord's Supper, baptism. Both of those symbols engage your imagination.
They help us visualize. They help us picture the death, burial,
and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Going under the water coming
back out is a picture of Jesus dying and being
buried and rising again. And communion is a picture of
Jesus giving his body and blood for your salvation. They
(16:28):
are tools that engage your imagination. Now, when you read
the rest of Hebrews eleven about all those heroes of faith,
you realize that every one of them became heroes of
faith because they used their imagination. For instance, God says
to Abraham, Abraham, you're ninety years old and you have
no kids, but I'm going to change your name to Abram,
(16:50):
from Abram to Abraham, which means father of a great nation.
Now for about a decade, Abraham still has there's no kids.
And so he goes to a local restaurant and he said,
party for two, you know, table for two. What's your name,
father of a great nation? Oh wow, that's how many
kids you got none. It'd be pretty embarrassing to be
(17:13):
named father of a great nation and you don't have
any kids. But God always calls things that are not
as though they were. He names it in advance. And
then he says, I want you to go outside, Abraham,
and he said, I want you to count the stars
at night. And he said, that's how many grandchildren and
great grandchildren, great great grand How many are you going
to have in your family tree? That's going to be
(17:35):
the nation visual that's going to be how many Jews
there are in the world? Count all the stars? What
is God doing when he tells Abraham to go count
the stars? He is activating his imagination. He's saying, I
want you to visualize what I'm going to do in
your life. Look at the next verse. Tecwod Corinthians four eighteen.
We set our eyes not on what we see, but
(17:57):
on what we cannot see. What we see will last
only a short time, but what we cannot see will
last forever. Now what does that verse mean. It means
that the material is temporary and the immaterial is eternal.
For instance, everybody can see this chair right now. It's
a wooden chair. It's material, but it's not gonna last.
(18:20):
It won't last five hundred years. This chair will decay
and fall apart. It's not gonna last. It's material, and
anything material isn't gonna last. On the other hand, you
can't see the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
but they're gonna last for eternity. You can't see your
own soul. It's gonna last for eternity. And the Bible
says you need to focus on the things that are
gonna last, which you actually can't see with your eyes.
(18:43):
You have to imagine them.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
I don't know about you, but I am encouraged after
that message. And let's keep the encouragement going with a
letter from one of our listeners.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Here's Rick. I started this Daily Hope ministry because I
want to help you fulfill the great commission and the
great commandment of Jesus Christ to love God with all
your heart, love your neighbors, yourself, to make disciples, to
teach them to grow, and to baptize them and bring
them into the family of God. And all of these
(19:20):
things happen when you do what God tells you to do.
You were part of the effort. We are a team
here at Daily Hope. Let me read your letter from
Jeff who listens to Daily Hope in Alabama and he's
using all of the resources that we produce in addition
to these broadcasts to help disciple other people in the Word.
He wrote, Dear Pastor Rick, our adult classes at Green
(19:43):
Valley Baptist Church here in Hoover, Alabama, just finish your
six week study kit for the series Daring Faith. I
just wanted to drop you a line tell you how
much we enjoyed that study and the video. Many of
our class members have been going through a lot of
personal ties, tragedies, problems, and difficulties lately, and your video
(20:04):
spoke so strongly to how we need to depend on
God in our faith to help us get through both
the good and bad times of life. Well, thanks Jeff
for writing in first place. Second, I'm so excited to
hear that you're using these resources in addition to the
broadcast that we're preparing for groups and individuals and even
(20:25):
churches and my prayers that was we put together these
resources like the Daring Faithkit, that they will be used
by thousands of small groups around the world to help
people grow in faith and in knowledge of Jesus Christ. Now,
for those of you who are listening today, there are
a lot of different resources that Daily Hope produces, Bible studies, kits, manuals, scripture,
(20:49):
memory cards, all kinds of things that you need to
be aware of. So go to my website today pastorick
dot com. If you've never been there, take a minute
and go to pastorick dot com and see all of
the resources that we've prepared to help you grow in
your faith and share your faith with others. We did
it for you. God bless you.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Please join us next time as we look into God's
Word for our Daily hope. This program is sponsored by
Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.
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