God's Dreams in Your Heart
- Joakim Lundqvist
- Apr 10, 2021
- 16 min read
[Starts at 3:24] - I wanna to take you guys on to a very special place in Nevada. It's a
desert area called Death Valley. Now Death Valley is one of the most barren areas on
the face of the planet. It's way too hot and it's way too dry. Nothing can live there and
nothing can grow there. But in March, 2005, due to very specific weather conditions, big
rain clouds came in. Normally never seen in this area. And for a few hours, rain pour
down on the sand on the dry desert land. And as a result, this happened, the whole
desert was turned into an amazing, beautiful, colorful garden. Death Valley went all I say
are on us. You know, the waste land will be turned into a beautiful garden, Amen? And
people from all over the world came to study this amazing miracle. How, what seemed
to be the most barren area in the world, turned into this amazing colorful garden. How
could this happen? Well, the key, my friend, is because there were seeds in the ground.
There were seeds in the ground since years past but they hadn't shown their true
potential because the conditions were not yet, right. There were seeds in the ground
waiting for the right time and the right conditions to start to grow and unleash their
potential. And why do I share this with you? You guys know where I'm going with this.
God has placed seeds in your heart my friend. God has placed seeds in your heart and
some of those seeds has got 2021 written all over them. Some of those seeds, and
maybe the devil tried to give you a hard time and maybe he tried to create Death Valley
areas in your life. And you might look at that area of your life. You may look at that area
of your marriage or your job, your career, your family, your church, if you're a pastor or
a leader and say, there is nothing there, there's no hope. Nothing can grow and nothing
can live. But I just speak out over your life for 2021. There's a rain coming your way.
There's a rain coming your way and whatever Death Valley you might've stared at for
many, many years, I do believe together with you that that Death Valley is gonna be
turned into a beautiful garden. Can we give some praise to God, in church. And you
know, we always find God in the business of turning Death Valleys into beautiful
gardens. We see that all throughout scripture, and I wanna bring you to Genesis 17. And
the story of when God comes to a man named Abram. And Abram has a Death Valley in
his life, he's got no children. And God speaks some very specific and strange words into
Abraham's life. He says, "As for me," Genesis 17:4-5, "this is my covenant with you. You
will be the father." Everybody say you will be a father. - [Crowd] You will be a father. - "Of many nations. No longer will you be called Abram. Your name will be Abraham for
I have made you a father of many nations." Everybody says I have made you. - [Crowd] I have made you. - So you will be a father for I have made you a father. My friend you can be everything
that God has already made you. And what is he made me? We see Ephesians 1 and 4
says that, he planned you, he called you, even before the foundation of the worlds,
imagine that. Your life was planned out by God even before he said, let there be light.
The whole root of your life, the whole, every single dream, every single seed was
already planned out. And then he needed you together in your mother's womb
according to Psalms 139. And as he did that, he placed seeds inside your heart, seeds
that would come up and come alive in the due time, in the right time, as the rain of the
Holy spirit will say, now this is the right time. This is the season. So in God's eyes,
because he plans you before the foundation of the world. And he place seeds inside of
you from the very beginning, you are already a father Abraham. And because you
already are a father you can also become a father. You can always become everything
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that God has already made you. I'm not saying that you can become him anything.
Some people think they can become anything, and you can't. You could just have to
check out some clips on America's Got Talent? And they've all voice. And there's this
guy who really thinks he can sing, and then he opens his mouth and we go, oh, your
mother should have told you, before you went on national TV, maybe this is not your
thing. Maybe there's something else that you might be really good at. You cannot
become anything, my friend but you can become everything that God has already made
you. Everything that God has already made you. Everything, he called you to be before
the foundation of the world. Anything that connects with the seeds already planted in
your heart. He has called you to be Holy so you can live a Holy life. He's called you to be
more than a conqueror, so you can become more than a conqueror. Not because of
your own strength and personality, but because there are seeds planted in the ground.
And even at that ground temporarily might look like a Death Valley, the rain of the Holy
spirit can change all that, can we say amen? - [Crowd] Amen. - You see that also in the life of Gideon in Judges 6 remember, Gideon is a young
teenager, scared to death, and with the lowest possible self-esteem. And God comes to
him and say, "You are a mighty warrior." Is God lying? No, God called Gideon to be a
mighty warrior before the foundation of the world. He placed seeds to become a mighty
warrior in the heart of Gideon. And that's because that's why Gideon can now be
everything that God has already made him. You can be a father for I've made you a
father. You can be a mighty warrior for I have made you a mighty warrior, Amen? - [Crowd] Amen. - So if God called you, before the foundation of the world, and if God has already placed
seeds in the ground, though they might be in a Death Valley right now. And if God is
also the God sending the rain then what is our part in the equation? What are we
supposed to do? I'm gonna tell you, we need to make sure that our heart is good
ground. Our heart is good ground. My friend, the word heart, the Hebrew and Greek
words for the human heart is the second most used word in the Bible. Second only to
the name of the Lord. That tells us something. It tells us how important it is that we
guard our hearts, that we purify our hearts, that we keep our hearts clean, Amen? - [Crowd] Amen. - Not only because God just wants us to but because our heart is the breeding ground
for the seeds of God's plans for our future. And if we keep our hearts pure, if we keep
our hearts clean, then there's no Death Valley in the world that can keep God's seeds
from growing up in its due time, Amen? - [Crowd] Amen. - Now I wanna share with you today two attitudes of the heart that is needed in order
for God's seeds to grow, Amen? So the first attitude that the Bible speaks repeatedly
about, it is absolutely vital and important and necessary for God's seeds to grow, is a
humble heart. God's seeds will only grow in a humble heart. And every time there is a
list in the Bible of stuff that God hates pride will be right there at the top. Why, because
pride aborts the seeds in your heart. Pride will take away the power of growth so that
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the plans and the purposes and the dreams for your life and future will not come to
pass. That's why God hates pride. James 4:6 says, "God opposes the proud, but shows
favor to the humble." And that's also why God has got so many methods to keep us
humble. You know, number one, his word. You have an hope, you ever open the
YouVersion app, thank you by the way. If you open the YouVersion app, I don't have so
many times and I'm expecting to find a beautiful, soothing, calming, inspiring,
comforting word. And out from the app comes God's hand that flaps me in the face.
Pointing out something that is a weakness in my life or character or leadership. And I
thought, okay, here we go again. You know, when God uses his word to keep you
humble, it simply so that your heart can be good ground for the seeds that are about to
come up in your heart, Amen? So God uses this word. Of course also God uses his spirit
to humble us. Every time we say something that we shouldn't say or do something that
we shouldn't do. And we feel that nudging of the spirit, calling us to repent, calling us to
ask God for forgiveness. And also asking those we might've hurt for forgiveness. That's
God humbling us by his spirit, but the worst thing in the world, the method we hate the
most, is when God uses other people to humble us. That's that's really, really tough. And
I just want to share a story with you about when that happened to me a couple of years
ago. Okay, so back home at Word of Life in Sweden, we have a project that we call the
Europe Tour. Every other year, our young people, our teenagers, they work for about six
months to put together an evangelistic outreach concert production. As a mixture of
music and dance and spoken word and drama and multimedia. And they work really
hard for that. And then we take that on out in Europe. About 150 to 200 teenagers go
on tour in and together with churches in European capitals, we put on big outdoor
concert events to reach out with the gospel. And so far we've been in 18 European
nations. - [Crowd] Wow. - Collaborating with churches all over the place. And we seen hundreds and hundreds
and hundreds of people being saved and accepting Christ in their heart as a result. So a
couple of years back, I was sitting in my office. I have the schedule for the Europe Tour.
It was pretty much planned out for the upcoming summer. All of a sudden, there's a
knock on my door and in comes a 14 year old girl from our youth ministry. She is fired
up and she says, "Pastor Joachim," I'm too old to even do the gestures anymore. She
says, "Pastor Joachim, I got this great idea. As we go on the Europe tour this summer,
let's make a big fat Jesus concert at Disneyland Paris." And I smiled at her, this kind of
smile. And I thought, said to her what, interesting idea. I thought in my mind, craziest
idea ever. She's 14, she doesn't know what she's talking about. Of course, Disneyland will
never allow, you know, sold out evangelistic Jesus event anywhere in the Amusement
Park. So I say, okay, thanks, interesting, now leave. And so, was like okay, thanks for
listening pastor. And she left and honest to God when she shut the door, her ID was
already halfway down my mental wastepaper basket. And the Holy spirit spoke to me.
And he said, "Joachim, when did you become so proud to not even consider if an ID is
from me simply because the messenger is 14 years old?" And I repented and I got that
idea up and I looked at it and said, what in the world do I do with this one? I said the
only thing I can do really is to call Disneyland Paris and I so did not want to call
Disneyland Paris because I didn't wanna lose faith. I didn't wanna act like a complete
idiot but you see that's the definition of pride. When you're so concerned about your
own self image, that you elevate that concern above your obedience, to whatever the
spirit of God, is telling you to do right now. So I called Disneyland Paris and I hated
every second of the call. Hello, I'm the pastor from Sweden. Could we please come to
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your Amusement Park and make a big evangelistic outreach, because we love Jesus and
we want the world to hear the gospel. How about that? And they said, we never had
that question asked before, happy to be the first. We talked for a while, she really
wanted to end the conversation. And then she said, finally, we'll call you back. And it
was one of those, yeah, we're totally gonna call you back, not a chance. So at least I
knew I've done anything I could do. So a week went by and the called us back. And they
said, we checked out your video clips that you sent, this is good stuff. So even though
we never done anything like this, we're willing to give you a chance. We're gonna give
you a 15 minute slot on the smallest stage of Disneyland, the Winnie the Pooh stage Are
you okay with that? I said we are so okay with the Winnie the Pooh. We love Winnie the
Pooh from the bottom of our hearts. Winnie the Pooh is best. So that summer we came
and as the first Christian act ever performing a Disneyland, we did a 15 minute Jesus
concert on Winnie the Pooh stage. After that concert was done, the team, the
Disneyland team said that we loved it. Next time you're welcome back and we'll give
you 30 minutes at the Bus Light your stage. Come on church. And that's like a middle
stage at Disneyland. So we came back two years later, we did a 30 minute slot Jesus
concert at the Bus Light your stage. They loved it again. And then they said, you know,
we're gonna give you next time you come, 45 minutes at the biggest stage in
Disneyland. So we came back and we did a full concert at main stage Disneyland Paris.
And as this thing happened and asked so young people got crazy for Jesus on the
stage. And I looked at the thousands of people listening. I thought to myself, thank God
for a 14 year old girl who heard something that I did not hear and who God used to
make me a little bit more humble. Can we make some noise for Jesus? Oh Lord, when
God humbles you my friend through his word, his spirit or through other people is
because he's about to release a brand new dream that you couldn't even dream up. He's
about to start the growth process of a seed that is up until now have been hiding inside
your heart, Amen? So a humble heart is the first heart attitude that is needed in order
for the seeds of God to grow up in your life and come into fulfillment. Now, the second
and last thing I wanna share with you is the importance also to have an open heart. An
open heart, because some of the dreams that are coming your way are way too big for
the present state of your hearts, Amen? Maybe even some of the 2021 dreams needs
either to be shrunk down to your presence size of heart or for your heart to expand to
fathom even greater dreams than you ever seen before, Amen? And says in, Isaiah 55:8
9 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and
my thoughts than your thoughts." Now, church, this is not a proclamation of how far
above you God is. How high he is and how low you are, this is an invitation for you to
leave behind your low ways and your low thoughts and come up to his level. Because
the verse right before these two, verse seven says, "Let the wicked forsake his ways,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts, let him return to the Lord." God is gonna call you
this upcoming year to expand your hearts, to open your heart, because there are big
dreams coming your way. And you need to be ready, you need to be ready for the
dreams on the individual basis. For your marriage dreams, for your family dreams, for
your church dreams. Life.Church I do believe the best is yet to come. You've done
amazing. You'll change the world, but there're new dreams, bigger dreams. And you just
need to expand your heart and prepare yourself to give into those dreams. To serve in
in seeing those dreams fulfilled. Because you see the limit is not in the potential of the
seed. The limit is in the size of the flower pot. You can take a seed with a potential to
grow a big oak and you can put it in the small flower pot and he will come up to a
certain level and it might be a great plant and it might be beautiful to behold but it's
nowhere near the full potential of that seed. We need a bigger flower pot to grow
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bigger dreams. You need a bigger heart to fathom bigger dreams that are coming your
way. And I just also wanna close with one more story where God really challenged me in
regards to expanding my heart. Okay, so a few years ago, I took my core staff on a
cruise in the Baltic Sea in Scandinavia, okay. American people going on a cruise in the
Baltic Sea of Scandinavia is not anywhere near like going on a cruise in The Bahamas.
Okay, we're at completely different place, okay? People who would go on cruises in the
Baltic Sea in Scandinavia, go for one or two reasons. Either to buy endless amounts of
alcohol and get drunk or to use the very good conference facilities. Please note, we
went for number two, okay? So we got onboard and we had great time with the staff.
We did planning, strategizing, praying, great fellowship. And I remember that in
between two sessions, I got up and I can just see this before before me, it was so clear. I
had a coffee cup in my hand and I was moving toward the coffee machine because I'm a
Swede and we can live without coffee. When there's too much blood in our coffee
system, we have to do something about that. And I remember walking up to the coffee
machine, I had a new thoughts. Could we rent this entire cruise ship? Could we bring on
2000 on fire Jesus loving teenagers? And do a youth conference at sea. Immediately in
my other ear there was another whisper saying, it's impossible. It will cost millions. You
can't afford it. It's never been done before. But then in my other ear, again, a little voice
said, remember Disneyland. And I remembered Disneyland. And I shared this with my
team and we started praying and we prayed, Lord, expand our hearts. If this is from you,
even though the dream is crazy big and seem completely unreachable and is something
that no one has ever done before, give us the faith to believe for the impossible. Cause
God has not called us to build a natural church but as supernatural church. And we can't
do that by our own faith. We need his faith in our hearts say Amen. So I called a cruise
ship company. I'm getting quite used to these calls now. Is humbling calls. I said hello,
I'm a pastor from Sweden. I'd like to know if we could rent your biggest ship and do a
big fat youth conference at sea. And he said, we never had that question asked before.
So its happy to be the first. And we told him, I said, it's not gonna be really positive. It's
gonna be incredibly expensive. And I said, oh, by the way this is a Christian youth
conference. So no alcohol can be served at all on board and said you are crazy. Taking
for alcohol is $1 million per day. Imagine the amount of money we would lose. Was it
safe? Sorry, that's the condition. He said, we will call you back. And we hung up a week.
We started praying and believing God for greater things. What we did not know was
that the CEO of the big cruise ship company at that time since a few months back had
had a real problem with his conscience. Because he realized that I made by fortune from
pouring alcohol into people and destroying so many people's lives and so many
marriages. All of a sudden he heard that there's this Christian group who wants to rent
the boat to do a non-alcoholic youth conference in the name of Jesus. He called the
board together and he said, we need to do this for the sake of our own hearts. He was
not a Christian or anything. But the Holy spirit was upon this whole process. So what
they did was they took the full cost for us to rent this cruise ship. They cut it down by
80%, and all of a sudden it came within reach. So we rented the biggest cruise ship in
Scandinavia. And we brought on board 2000 on fire, Jesus loving teenagers. And we
had youth meetings and we had concerts and we have prayer nights and we had
seminars and we had salvation and no one who was on board this ship will ever never
ever forget it. We turned this place into a church for Jesus Christ. National media in
Sweden wrote all about it, saying obviously God is not dead after all. And I just loved
the fact that God challenged us to dream big. And as a result came a national statement
of God's power and the next generation following Jesus Christ. I just wanna share one
last anecdote of this whole story. You see, when they build these cruise ships, they build
them in a way to distribute the way that the passengers evenly. There will be like one
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restaurant in the front, the one in the back and everything made out so that passing, the
weight of the passengers will be evenly spread. Nobody told us about that. So what we
did which is found the biggest theater room board which was right at the back and we
jam-packed all 2000 kids in that theater and no one on the rest of the ship. And when
we got them in the back of the ship, what did we do? We cramped up the praise and
worship and everybody started jumping up and down. The captain freaked out for the
first time in his life. He felt the whole ferry doing that. And I thought to myself, I would
have given anything to sit on an Island in the Swedish Archipelago and see the biggest
cruise ship in Scandinavia, pass by, going Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, come on, let's give it out.
I'm just praying now that God will be able to break this message down to the exact
place where you are. As an individual, as a marriage, as a family, your church, if you're a
pastor or a leader, God has got seeds in the ground and the rain is coming your way. Let
us walk into 2021 with humble hearts but also open hearts and full of expectancy for
every single miracle we're about to see and every single mighty work of God that we
are about to experience. Let me just pray God's blessing over you. Father I thank you in
Jesus name for every single one in all the physical locations, everyone watching online
Father and I thank you that you have great plans. You have called every single one from
before the foundation of the world. You have placed seeds in their hearts, needing them
together in their mother's womb and now they can be everything you've already made.
So father, I pray in Jesus name as we now enter 2021 that we will enter with a humble
hearts, that our pride will not stand in the way of your work of the spirit in and through
our lives. And we pray Father that our hearts will be able to expand to fathom all the
great and beautiful and wonderful dreams that you have in store for this upcoming year.
I speak blessing over every single one within the reach of my voice. I pray blessing over
Life.Church Father as they go into this new year. I thank you for expansion and
breakthroughs and miracles. This we pray, in Jesus mighty name, Amen.
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God has big plans for you.
He plants dreams in your heart—and they can bloom when the soil is fertile. Set your sights on what’s ahead and prepare your soul to chase new hopes and goals as we enter this year together.
Guest speaker:
Pastor Joakim Lundqvist is Senior Pastor of Word of Life Church in Uppsala, Sweden, with 3200 members and an international network including over 700 churches. Word of Life has an extensive international missions program and has produced millions of books and audio and video material containing faith inspiring teaching in several languages.