Message by: Robert H. Schuller

Oh my, if you’re watching this across the country or around the world, last Sunday was one of the hottest Sunday’s on record in this California. And the shortage of water is phenomenal in fact I heard what people are doing to save water. The Baptists have started sprinkling. You know we’re in trouble. And the Roman Catholics, they know how to pray. They pray, pray and you what they’re praying for, they’re praying that God will turn the wine back into water.

I’ve just returned from a mission to Korea and I’ve come back so impressed with my subject this morning, which is “God’s Dream for Your Life” that I’m calling God by a new name right now. I’m calling Him the almighty dreamer of great dreams. And if you want a new concept of God that doesn’t replace anything that’s there now, but enhances it, think of God as the big dreamer. You know, if you’ve faced something that’s impossible and succeed, you have to go against all odds. Then become a dreamer of great dreams! Connect with the almighty. You know this ministry started with a dream. You know this Hour of Power television program started with a dream and today it’s the largest viewed church service in history. It’s amazing.

I just came back from Korea and let me tell you what dreams I had in that country. Passed them off to people and what happened to those dreams? First of all, when I first landed in Korea, it was unbelievable. It was on a mission of the air force and I was assigned under a general status to minister to the major troops and when our plane landed in Seoul Korea, it was 12 square miles of nothing but plain dirt. There was not one green tree growing in all of Korea. Not one in twelve square miles. What happened to them all? Did the bullets kill them? No, the people ate them in the famine. Many of you don’t know about it, it was so bad they took the leaves off the tree and made it a salad. Then they took the little thin twigs and chopped them up and ate that like nuts. Then they took the thicker branches and cut them up to save them for winter so they wouldn’t freeze to death in 20 below zero weather. It was horrific, just unbelievable. Against all odds, that country, even though they won the war, it looked totally like a defeated land. But they believed in dreams and I became a little part of that and so did you because through the years ago, I came back from those Korean trips and I preached here in this church on Sunday and I told you what I saw and asked you to pray for them and how your prayers have been answered.

Where did the dreams of renewal come from? Against all those odds and were incredible. Wow. They came from God. Christians in the north fled for their lives and moved to South Korea and South Korea suddenly became heavily indoctrinated with the most powerful Christians in the world have moved down to save themselves and boy do they make South Korea a powerfully, powerfully embedded Christian ministry state. Boy. And today, I don’t know how many trips I’ve made there in the years, but today when I landed there, sky scrapers that are glorious, architecture that is phenomenal. And ministries that are very impressive. Couldn’t believe what I saw.

I was put by my guest who flew me over there, paid all my expenses and put me in the best hotel in the world. That’s what the Lahti Hotel claims and I agree with them. The best hotel in the world is the Lahti in Seoul Korea. It’s the only hotel I’ve ever been in so high tech, when you go to the bathroom and approach the toilet suddenly the lid goes up. Yeah. And when you’re finished, and you turn to leave, the lid goes down and the toilet automatically flushes. Wow. And then when Arvella went to the bathroom I couldn’t help looking to see if it would go up for the women, too. Phenomenal.

Well, they’re dreamers of great dreams. They all began with absolutely against all odds with nothing. Not one green weed growing in their city and today that is one of the greatest cities in the world. And it would not have been possible if they hadn’t learned to dream great dreams and that kind of mentality came from the powerful Christians that survived the war and put together great empires. Oh. Dreams came true. I prayed with them in that early desperate day. I prayed for it and they prayed. And the God that I just call God or the Father of Jesus Christ, I found myself calling Him the almighty, (A), eternal (E), dreamer (capitalized D) of great dreams.

This church has been on this theme since I started it 52 years ago. I didn’t realize what a God thing it was. And God says through the Bible, He has a plan for you. Wonderful. He has a will. He wants you to be a part of His will. Fine. But I never visualized how this would all unfold and how He would communicate to us by giving us dreams and the motivation to go after them. And the commitment to pay the price and never give up! That’s God at work in you. It’s God at work in me. We are the dreamers of great dreams which means we are walking in the will of God. Which means we are living out God’s plan for our tomorrow and today. And anytime you think that God is not alive, ask yourself this question: how often have you gotten some wild dreams in your brain, or some other simple dreams, or some powerful dreams like I’m going to have a wonderful marriage, or I’m going to have wonderful kids or I’m going to get a good job or I’m going to get a career. Oh all these thoughts that come in are not divine dreams. But He’s mixed up in all of them. So you take positive thinking very, very seriously and you don’t make jokes about it and you don’t put it down, because God is in the positive thinking process. Think of it. His dream was to create a universe and we haven’t begun to discover what it all is. And His dream was to create a world, an earth and on there His dream is to create creatures, but one creature that would be like He is: a dreamer of dreams, the planner of plans, a doer of good things. We would become God’s instruments on planet earth. And we would take the earth and keep it beautiful, and make it better for the rest of the human race. And then His dream was that He would send His son Jesus Christ who would come and be our Savior. Live on a cross and die on a cross and live eternally in heaven. And then send a Holy Spirit that could take that heart of Jesus and put the heart of Jesus into you. Wow!

Dreamer of great dreams! So I’ve been a dreamer all my life. Four years eleven months old I had a dream of becoming a minister. Then in seminary, I had the dream that I didn’t want a church, I just wanted an empty place where I could start my own church, make it positive thinking people, and meet the people who didn’t go to church and share with them what wonderful things could happen if you get the creative faith. What bigger dreams you get and what obstacles you overcome. And what friends you acquire, what institutions like this church that you could become a part of and be thrilled every time you go to church and leave with excitement. God’s dream.

I had a seminary class mate when the Korean war was on and suddenly it looked like Korea was going to lose it completely, and they’d be driven into the ocean. And with that news, my class mate, who was from Korea said I got to go home because it looks like we’re going to lose and if I don’t get home now, and we fall, I’ll never be let into the country, so he got an early diploma, he went to Korea, we never heard from him. And years and years and years and years assumed he was one of the many that died. And years later, not that many years ago, the federal government asked me to go on a special assignment and minister to all the uniformed officers and I went and on thanksgiving morning, there was a service in Taegu, and there was a choir that came from the Korean church downtown. And they sang this wonderful. I said to the choir director, you know I used to have a friend, I don’t know if he’s dead or alive, he came here before the war was over, his name was Chun Yung Chang and he looked shocked. Chun Yung Chang, oh he’s a great Korean. He’s building a school where there is no school in the whole county. Really? Oh, yes kindergarten through high school. He’s made news but he’s.. I said really? If you can get word to him, tell him Robert Schuller said hello and I’m praying for him. Oh, he said, I will.

Then we had a dinner and that night a special dinner in the general’s quarters and when the door opened, and in the door came a security guard. He went to the general, whispered something and the general nodded his head up and down, whispered to me, he said there’s a native Korean here. They’re not allowed on base but he got on base and he wants to see you. Says he was in school with you, his name is Chun Yung Chang. Oh, I was crying. And he said I’ve just given him the right to come in. Turned to the man sitting next to me at the table and said please give him your chair. And Chun was brought in. We hugged, we cried, he sat next to me. And after the dinner, the general said where is he sleeping tonight? Its three hours by road to his home, took him that long to get here. He said he may sleep in the extra bed in your quarters. Really? That’s not allowed. The general can set the tone and they’re not allowed to do that, so he was invited to sleep overnight in my generous quarters and we talked and talked. And he said so why didn’t you let us know you were alive? He said oh because I’m so embarrassed we haven’t done anything. We haven’t done anything? I hear you’ve got a good school started. Yes, he said, but it’s just a school, nothing like you folks. You build these beautiful buildings. We don’t have beautiful buildings. We don’t have the money. I said ask me, I could help raise the money. No, he said, I can’t do that. I said please, give me the privilege. And I won the day and I came back home and I shared it with this congregation on a Sunday morning like this. And you helped me and we raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, delivered it to him and he was overjoyed. He hired a great architect and as they were finishing the details of the building, he said well it won’t be like you’re buildings in America. He said, you know, in Korea we don’t have running water so we don’t have toilets. What? I said put running water in it. He said that’s a lot more money. I said I’m in charge of the money. Put running water in there with toilets. Oh. And so he said do you really mean that? I said I mean it absolutely. And he said it won’t have forced air heating. None of the schools have forced air heating in Korea. But I said it gets twenty below zero. What do you all do? The kids still come to school. Yes, he said, they keep their winter clothes on, they keep their gloves on, they keep their galoshes on. I said that’s ridiculous. Put forced air heating. He said that’s going to be expensive. I said this is my project now, helping you Chun. It’s for God. We want to give the best impression of God we can leave behind so we always want to do it the best! They built it, they put in running water, flushed toilets, forced air heating, the whole country heard about it. Well, they were so grateful they put a plaque in the front hallway that’s still there, thanks to they named my name and they named the name Kate Bates, who we lost recently and her husband Ralph. That plaque is still there. You are remembered. Wow. Wow. And I said when I came back there, how is the school doing today? They said it is probably recognized as the best school in Korea. Education is not what it should be and the president of South Korea has established a very elite committee of prominent people in the country to tell us how we can make our schools greater. And guess what: the chairman of that committee picked by the president is my friend Chun Yung Chang’s son, who took over the ministry when his dad died. So your influence is living on and will affect the whole education in that nation. Amazing.

Great dreams of great dreamers always come true unless you kill it. You are the only one that can knock your dreams out. You never say no to God’s dream. Wow. What a school. God is the almighty dreamer of great dreams and He’s finding people who can do something with it. Then I went to visit the church that’s so well known because it’s the world’s largest Methodist church with fantastic architecture, structure this size and when the Tower of Hope like we have on the cross; phenomenal church in South Korea, in Seoul. Then one day, when the Crystal Cathedral is finished and the tower was finished with the cross on the top, I got a telephone call from a young man, who said he was outside, downstairs and wanted to meet me.

(VIDEO ROLL IN)
MAN: (SPEAKING KOREAN)
(END OF VIDEO ROLL IN)
RHS: So I went downstairs and here was a young Korean from Fuller Theological Seminary.
(VIDEO ROLL IN)
MAN: (SPEAKING KOREAN)
RHS: He said this is a beautiful church you built.
MAN: (SPEAKING KOREAN)
RHS: And this is a beautiful tower with a cross on the top.
MAN: (SPEAKING KOREAN)
RHS: And this is a beautiful statue of Jesus and the sheep.
MAN: (SPEAKING KOREAN)
RHS: I want to take your picture.
MAN: (SPEAKING KOREAN)
RHS: Because I’m going to go back to Korea and build a church like this.
MAN: (SPEAKING KOREAN)
RHS: That’s when I met Sun Do Kim.
MAN: (SPEAKING KOREAN)
RHS: Dreams do come true!
MAN: (SPEAKING KOREAN)
(END OF VIDEO ROLL IN)

RHS: So he started with a rented tent on a piece of rented ground with nothing about like we did. And the church grew. He was a dreamer of great dreams. This gave him a dream. He got it all here, from the buildings you built, from the church that is your church, from you dreamers of great dreams.
Let me tell you, this church is distinctive. This church has always motivated people to dream great dreams and never give up.

And that’s where we are today, and I want to thank you and report to you what your dreams have done. And all of them started not in this head, not in your head, but in the head of the almighty dreamer of great dreams. This is His world, we are His people. And Adam and Eve blew it. But He came up with a bigger dream. When you have problems, all you have to do is come up with a new dream, bigger, better, longer, shorter, but its there. If you don’t give up, wow. And that’s the message I want you to take home today. We believe in a God whom I call the almighty and eternal dreamer of great dreams. And He gives them to people like you and me. And it would be impossible but if we dare to say God with Your blessing I’ll try, that satisfies Him. And if it gets bad and you want to quit, you ask God and He’ll say don’t quit. Hang in there. Dream the great dream and make it happen and I’ll be with you. We’re the only creatures on planet earth that have that power, that creative ability. And He could communicate with all of us through the brain. Some people sitting here will say I don’t think God ever spoke to me. And let me tell you something: there isn’t a single human being in this audience, even if you’re an atheist, to whom God has not spoken. You didn’t know it. An idea came, passed through your brain. Where did it come from? You didn’t go to the library to find a book on the subject.

Ideas: they used to say ten thousand a day go through the average human brain. Well, it’s a lot more than that today. God created the human being to be His Son, His child, a dreamer, a child of the almighty dreamer of great dreams. And with it, He gave every human being the freedom to choose how to do it. Ignore it? Ignore the idea or discard the idea or see that it’s probably fantastic but impossible. You have more things to do so it’s gone. But every human being on planet earth has ideas that come through the brain from where? Maybe from things, maybe from other people, maybe from nature, water or trees. And you choose how to handle it, how to manage them. Wow. Dreamers of great dreams. Wow. Against all odds.

What are your dreams today? Maybe you threw them away years ago, but you’re still alive. You know I have a secretary up there called Maria. How many of you know Maria? Raise your hand. How many here? But two and a half years ago, she got cancer and it would be the worst kind. Shortest life span projected. Maria. Cancer of the pancreas. It’s what took a lot of good friends. Anyway, she took chemotherapy. The doctor said you can expect to live four months, unless maybe chemotherapy might extend it a bit. So she took chemotherapy. She took these drugs. They were painful. They were horrific. She lived a whole year. And she kept saying I’m going to get well. She deliberately joined this church to be a member of this church because of the prayer power in this church. And took a job working for me and I was happy to get her. She lived a whole year. Oh, chemotherapy got worse, she lived another whole year. Then we’re up to spring, 2-0-0-7: she lived two years. A few weeks ago when I had to leave for Korea, I was told she would have an x-ray because the doctor felt all of those years of chemotherapy and the tumor was that big and did not shrink one bit. And because it was still the same size, he was going to give her a scan. I was leaving here I think on Sunday, she was having the x-ray on Tuesday. Tried to reach her but she was out of commission being prepared for the chemotherapy. So I left a message on her telephone: Maria, I want you to know that the experts do not expect you to be alive when I get back, I’m gone three weeks. So I won’t be surprised to get a message from you from someone there that it finally took you, and then personal messages to her and then a prayer. And I said I love you and I was crying when I put the phone back up.

She went to get her x-ray. I didn’t hear anything. But the morning I would go to that church, the world’s largest Methodist church to talk to them about dream the impossible dream, if it’s against all odds, don’t you give up on it. You are the only one that can kill the dream. That morning, this piece of paper in an envelope was slipped under the door. Arvella said you got a letter from home. She said from Maria. I said read it. No, she said you have to read it. August 10, 2007: “I have wonderful news that can’t wait until you get home. I went to my oncologist last night, and he told me the results of my cat scan test showed that I am cancer free. He said the tumor has died and all that is left is a large mass that has calcified.”

The almighty dreamer of great dreams, and that’s the God we know in this ministry. And what are your dreams? How impossible are they? I invite you to accept Jesus Christ. You know, become a believer and let God work miracles. Yeah, you got to dream. Thank You Lord, oh You’ve created us all with brains that can dream. You created us with brains that could project and imagine and envision future events. You created us with brains that can pick up Your spiritual messages and they would come like dreams. You’d say I had a wonderful dream last night. God’s calling me to do this or that. Almighty dreamer of great dreams, help us to believe in the impossible ones and then help us to go for it and make a difference in our lifetime, Amen.