Embracing Dreams: A Journey of Faith and Hope

### Bible Study Discussion Guide

#### Bible Reading
- Acts 1:4-8 (ESV): "And while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, 'you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.' So when they had come together, they asked him, 'Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?' He said to them, 'It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.'"

#### Observation Questions
1. What are the four elements that the sermon identifies as key to Silicon Valley's success, and how do they relate to dreaming? [23:35]
2. How did the early church's understanding of the Holy Spirit differ from previous Jewish beliefs, according to the sermon? [35:28]
3. What does the sermon suggest is necessary for creating margin in our lives to dream effectively? [40:14]
4. How does the sermon describe the role of the Holy Spirit in empowering the early church to dream and act? [32:08]

#### Interpretation Questions
1. How does the sermon connect the concept of dreaming with the early church's mission as described in Acts 1:4-8? [32:08]
2. In what ways does the sermon suggest that modern believers can emulate the early church's approach to dreaming and transformation? [38:22]
3. How does the sermon interpret the metaphor of Silicon Valley in relation to spiritual dreaming and innovation? [28:14]
4. What does the sermon imply about the relationship between personal identity as image-bearers of God and the capacity to dream? [46:08]

#### Application Questions
1. Reflect on the pressure of New Year's resolutions. How can you shift your focus from external pressures to a deeper transformation rooted in hope and faith? [23:35]
2. Consider the metaphor of Silicon Valley. How can you cultivate curiosity, opportunity, community, and possibility in your spiritual journey this year? [28:14]
3. The sermon emphasizes creating margin for dreams. What specific steps can you take to create more space in your life for dreaming and spiritual growth? [40:14]
4. How can you actively seek God's vision for your life and become an ambassador of hope and transformation in your community? [46:08]
5. The sermon mentions the concept of 20% time for personal passions. What is one passion or goal you can dedicate time to this year, and how will you make it a priority? [42:25]
6. Reflect on the idea of 10x goals. What is one goal you have that you can expand significantly, and how will this challenge your reliance on God? [43:55]
7. How can you engage with your community to support and encourage one another in dreaming and pursuing God's vision together? [49:33]

Day 1: True Transformation Through Hope and Faith
True transformation is not about succumbing to the pressure of resolutions but about embracing a deeper change rooted in hope and faith. As a new year begins, many feel the urge to set resolutions and make significant life changes. However, this pressure can often lead to feelings of overwhelm and inadequacy. Instead of focusing on external changes, consider the internal transformation that comes from a foundation of hope and faith. This kind of transformation is sustainable and life-giving, as it aligns with the deeper purposes God has for us. By shifting our focus from resolutions to the transformation God offers, we can experience a more profound and lasting change. [23:35]

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." (Jeremiah 29:11, ESV)

Reflection: What is one area of your life where you feel pressured to change? How can you invite God into this area to experience true transformation through hope and faith?


Day 2: Dreaming with Curiosity and Community
Silicon Valley's unique blend of curiosity, opportunity, community, and possibility serves as a metaphor for dreaming in our spiritual journey. Just as this region has fueled technological innovation, these elements can inspire us to dream again in our faith. Curiosity drives us to explore new possibilities, while community provides the support and encouragement needed to pursue these dreams. By embracing these elements, we can reignite our spiritual journey and dream of what God can do in and through us. This metaphor encourages us to see our faith as a dynamic and evolving journey, full of potential and opportunity. [28:14]

"Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near." (Hebrews 10:24-25, ESV)

Reflection: How can you cultivate curiosity in your spiritual life this week? Who in your community can you reach out to for support and encouragement in your faith journey?


Day 3: Carrying Forward the Early Church's Dream
The early church was driven by hope and the power of the Holy Spirit, enabling them to dream and act in ways that changed the world. This dream was not about establishing an earthly kingdom but about revealing God's kingdom through their lives. Today, we are called to carry that same dream forward, to be ambassadors of hope and transformation in our world. By embracing the dream of God's kingdom, we can live lives that reflect His love and grace, impacting those around us in meaningful ways. This calling invites us to participate in God's ongoing work of redemption and transformation in the world. [32:08]

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." (Acts 1:8, ESV)

Reflection: What is one way you can be an ambassador of hope and transformation in your community this week? How can you rely on the Holy Spirit to guide and empower you in this endeavor?


Day 4: Creating Margin for Dreams
To dream effectively, we need margin in our lives—space to think, pray, and imagine. This might mean creating time for personal passions or setting ambitious goals that push us beyond our comfort zones. By moving from survival mode to a place where we can truly thrive, we open ourselves up to the dreams God has for us. Creating margin allows us to hear God's voice more clearly and align our lives with His purposes. It is an intentional practice that requires us to prioritize our spiritual well-being and make space for God's transformative work in our lives. [40:14]

"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." (Matthew 11:28-29, ESV)

Reflection: What is one practical step you can take this week to create more margin in your life for dreaming and spiritual growth? How can you prioritize rest and reflection in your daily routine?


Day 5: Embracing God's Vision for Our Lives
Our capacity to dream is rooted in our identity as image-bearers of the Creator. Let's embrace the opportunity to dream big, seek God's vision for our lives, and be part of a community that supports and encourages one another. By aligning our dreams with God's vision, we can experience a deeper sense of purpose and fulfillment. This involves seeking God's guidance and being open to His leading, trusting that He has a unique and meaningful plan for each of us. As we pursue these dreams, we can find joy and satisfaction in knowing that we are living in alignment with God's purposes. [46:08]

"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." (Ephesians 2:10, ESV)

Reflection: What is one dream or vision you believe God has placed on your heart? How can you take a step towards pursuing this dream with faith and confidence in God's plan for your life?

"Thanks for the flexibility last week as we gave all of our volunteer teams and staff teams a chance to rest and recover from some truly amazing and full Christmas Eve services across all of our campuses at the end of a very full month, at the end of a pretty full year. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Speaking of which, welcome to our campuses in San Mateo, Mountain View, Saratoga, Menlo Park, and those of you joining us online, we're so glad that you're here. And for those of you online, we brought all of our kind of voices to the online chat last week. Sorry, it got kind of noisy. Thanks for bearing with us. I've heard it said that Christmas is like a mirror that shows the things that we like or don't like about our lives. And I would say that if Christmas is a mirror, then I think New Year's Eve is a mirror. And New Year's is a magnifying glass. Whether imperfections or areas that we want to improve in our lives, we instantly get products marketed to us or white -knuckled attention to fix whatever it is in the new year. And the kind of pressure that I think we feel around this time of the year can be exhausting." [00:20:15] (66 seconds)


"And I actually don't think it's particularly helpful, nor do I think it really results in significant transformation. And so with that in mind, this week, we are beginning... We are beginning a new series called Startup Faith. And I think for some of you, that's the place you find yourself today. For whatever reason, you came back after Christmas Eve, and I'm so glad that you did, even if you're not normally a church person. And now you're wondering what to do about that prayer you prayed a couple weeks ago or about the step that you've taken to kind of reintroduce or introduce for the first time to your regular rhythms coming to church on a weekend. For others of you, this represents a return. A return to something that you thought you had grown out of. Maybe you grew up in church, or you attended when you were younger, and it just stopped ringing true to you. Or maybe something happened, and you felt like, I needed to walk away. And along the way, somewhere, you just found that you were looking for hope, and coming back felt like the most natural place to find it. I'm so glad that you did. But before we jump in, before we get started, I'm going to pray for us. And if you've never been here... Or never heard me speak, before I speak, I pray kneeling. And part of the reason that I do that on a day like today, at this time of the year, is because I know the pressure and the weight that we are all carrying as we step into a new year like this. And I'm praying that God would alleviate some of that weight for you, whether you call yourself a person of faith or not. So would you pray with me as we begin?" [00:21:20] (94 seconds)


"God, thank you so much. Thank you for a new year with the same God. The same hope, the same peace, the same love, the same comfort, I pray that you would take some of those things off of our shoulders, the weight we were never designed to carry on our own anyway. Give us a fresh perspective, God. Help us to find the freedom to dream today in the hope that we have, or could have, in you. It's in Jesus' name." [00:22:54] (26 seconds)


"Curiosity has been overcome by assumptions, opportunity reduced to obligation, community fractured into isolation, and possibility constrained by practicality. And here's the thing. The church in America has often followed the same path away from dreaming into complacency, too." [00:29:21] (20 seconds)


"Last month, we studied the birth of Jesus, and January can always feel like a pretty big pendulum swing because we go from the cradle to the cross of Jesus to him wearing a crown in heaven in just a few days. But when Jesus ascended to heaven after coming back from the dead, people dreamed. And there's a reason for that. When we have a foundation of hope, we have the freedom to dream." [00:29:42] (26 seconds)


"Now, throughout the book of Acts, this pattern that we see over and over again is that someone, who chose to become a follower of Jesus, they had repentance or a complete life change, a pivot in their life from their ways to Jesus' ways, water baptism, an act of remembering what Jesus has done on their behalf, and then receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. This idea that they became empowered by God the Holy Spirit to live the transformation that God designed for them. They didn't always follow a specific timeframe in that. They didn't even always follow that order. But God wasn't just making a promise to them about the presence of God's Spirit inside of them. It was a promise for all of us. It was a promise for Christians forever, even you." [00:35:30] (46 seconds)


"Now, the core of our ability to dream, if you're a follower of Jesus, I think it actually comes from the deepest part of who we are as image bearers of the Creator of the universe. And I'd say this, even if you aren't a Christian, you're not a person of faith at all, you are created in the image of God with infinite dignity, value, and worth. And no matter what you've done or what's been done to you, nothing can change that." [00:36:16] (25 seconds)


"See, these ingredients, they provided the seedbed for dreaming in the early church. It allowed them to think differently than the world around them. It allowed them to imagine a world that was better and different than their own. But that's hard to do when you're living from scarcity. It's hard to do when you're living scared." [00:40:00] (21 seconds)


"Some of you, you start every new year with a resolution that focuses on one habit that you either want to start or you want to stop. But if we're honest, really, this is what a new year's resolution is. This is what it really is. We're asking this question. How can I accomplish this very different thing in my life while changing the least about my life in the long term and doing the most in the short term? That's what we think. And the answer is not much. Because it's our direction, not our desire, that determines our destination. Wanting it is... not enough." [00:40:49] (34 seconds)


"Wanting something is good, but it's just a first step. You have to take real steps after that. And often the capacity to dream only comes when we are willing to create enough margin to do the dreaming. Maybe that's financial margin, time margin, relational margin. I think one of our biggest things right now is attention margin." [00:41:23] (22 seconds)


"So what would it look like for you to create margin in your life this year? For you to intentionally say, I'm not going to get to all of the things that I maybe necessarily need to do. What's the difference between my life and my limit? And if the difference is nothing, if you're regularly living right here, or you're living above your limit in these areas, I'm telling you, it will be very difficult to dream because the drudgery of just surviving will take all of your energy." [00:43:27] (28 seconds)

Well, good morning, Menlo Church, and welcome, welcome, welcome. So glad that you're here. Happy New Year! How's the resolution going? Too soon still, or?

Thanks for the flexibility last week as we gave all of our volunteer teams and staff teams a chance to rest and recover from some truly amazing and full Christmas Eve services across all of our campuses at the end of a very full month, at the end of a pretty full year. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Speaking of which, welcome to our campuses in San Mateo, Mountain View, Saratoga, Menlo Park, and those of you joining us online, we're so glad that you're here. And for those of you online, we brought all of our kind of voices to the online chat last week. Sorry, it got kind of noisy. Thanks for bearing with us.

I've heard it said that Christmas is like a mirror that shows the things that we like or don't like about our lives. And I would say that if Christmas is a mirror, then I think New Year's Eve is a mirror, and New Year's is a magnifying glass. Whether imperfections or areas that we want to improve in our lives, we instantly get products marketed to us or white-knuckled attention to fix whatever it is in the new year. The kind of pressure that I think we feel around this time of the year can be exhausting. And I actually don't think it's particularly helpful, nor do I think it really results in significant transformation.

And so with that in mind, this week, we are beginning a new series called Startup Faith. And I think for some of you, that's the place you find yourself today. For whatever reason, you came back after Christmas Eve, and I'm so glad that you did, even if you're not normally a church person. And now you're wondering what to do about that prayer you prayed a couple of weeks ago or about the step that you've taken to kind of reintroduce or introduce for the first time to your regular rhythms coming to church on a weekend.

For others of you, this represents a return. A return to something that you thought you had grown out of. Maybe you grew up in church, or you attended when you were younger, and it just stopped ringing true to you. Or maybe something happened, and you felt like you needed to walk away. And along the way, somewhere, you just found that you were looking for hope, and coming back felt like the most natural place to find it. I'm so glad that you did.

But before we jump in, before we get started, I'm going to pray for us. And if you've never been here or never heard me speak, before I speak, I pray kneeling. And part of the reason that I do that on a day like today, at this time of the year, is because I know the pressure and the weight that we are all carrying as we step into a new year like this. And I'm praying that God would alleviate some of that weight for you, whether you call yourself a person of faith or not. So would you pray with me as we begin?

God, thank you so much. Thank you for a new year with the same God. The same hope, the same peace, the same love, the same comfort. I pray that you would take some of those things off of our shoulders, the weight we were never designed to carry on our own anyway. Give us a fresh perspective, God. Help us to find the freedom to dream today in the hope that we have, or could have, in you. It's in Jesus' name. Amen.

So as of today, I have been at Menlo Church for 735 days, but who's counting? It's been a fun couple of years, and we pray for many more. But when our family arrived, I had some sense of what Silicon Valley was and the technology hub that it serves as for the rest of the world. But since then, I have learned a lot more about the community that we love and live in, and I'm so glad that I have.

Now, before I share some of what makes our community really special and how we got here historically, I want to acknowledge that for some of you, like right here at Menlo Church, you're at one of our campuses today, you are literally a part of the history I'm about to describe, which is incredible. And my retelling of a minuscule portion of it will feel wild compared to what you could offer and share. So I just want to acknowledge that.

But for others of us, we are pretty new around Silicon Valley, and the understanding that we have of Silicon Valley is how we got here can be pretty narrow. It can be pretty limited, and our exposure can leave some pretty big blind spots. And so I'd love for us to spend just a few minutes talking about that.

Now, if you're a Bible person, I get it. I am a Bible person, too. But today, I'm hoping that you'll give me a little bit of latitude before I get there. Like a good judge in a Law & Order episode, just imagine yourself sitting on a bench looking at me and going, "You've got a short leash, counselor." Like, that's fine. If you have to do that emotionally to give me just a few minutes, I'll take it.

Speaking of Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley had a lot of unique things that allowed it to be in the right place at the right time. And I'm going to focus on four categories that I think are the most helpful in this conversation.

First, Silicon Valley had curiosity, with lots of room to ask big questions and to do more than just iterate on the status quo. Now, I'm not trying to start any fights in the room, but there were some really big institutions that have helped fuel this curiosity, like Stanford and Cal Berkeley. I'm not making a preference statement there. Just both of them existed and many more. There were people, and there still are, who came from all around the country and all around the world with the same curiosity to study and learn from the best and the brightest. And these institutions set the tone for asking really big questions for years to come.

The second ingredient that has led to the prominence of Silicon Valley is opportunity. Now, World War II specifically sparked significant opportunities for contracts with companies in the region to support the war effort. It created electronics and aerospace innovations at a staggering rate, not just during, but after the war as well.

The third ingredient for the dream that has become Silicon Valley is community. The same academic institutions and companies that accelerated through the last half century also created a clustering effect, where the best and the brightest, they didn't want to just learn together. They wanted to live among one another and work together, for the good of those around them and for the world as a whole.

I love this about Silicon Valley. Like, every region of the country has its own set of stereotypes. And if I said a region of the country, you would have some stereotypes that would come pretty quickly. Sometimes we can be blind, though, to our own stereotypes. And so I asked ChatGPT to describe a Silicon Valley stereotype for me, and this is the answer:

A tech-savvy dreamer in an expensive hoodie, so far so good, all bird's shoes and a smartwatch monitoring their biostats. They sip a meticulously crafted pour-over coffee from an ethically sourced region, of course, and they debate quantum computing while pitching their latest startup idea. Their car is either a Tesla or a beat-up Prius, because who needs flash when you're coding the future, am I right? Optimistic and caffeinated, they genuinely believe technology will solve all the world's problems, even as they brainstorm how to disrupt the negative impacts of disruption.

I also want to just acknowledge the fact that that guy was wearing an outfit in that picture. I probably have most of the items of that outfit, right? So I think we can all acknowledge there's a unique community that has formed in Silicon Valley. There's a vibe of where we live.

And the final ingredient to the dream that has become Silicon Valley is possibility. There's an entrepreneurial spirit that has fueled people to ask the question of what if, what could be, not just what is. And they really believe that the future can be brighter and we can work together to achieve it.

Now, those are some pretty cool ingredients to fuel a dream, but maybe you're asking, like, why am I a pastor giving you what might feel like a rudimentary book report on the history of Silicon Valley? Fair question.

Well, I think part of what has made it difficult for Silicon Valley to dream in recent days is what has also made it difficult for you and me to dream in recent days as well. Now, I wonder, did you know, like, every year there's this word of the year that the Oxford Dictionary puts out? Do you know what the word of the year was for 2024? Brain rot.

Which I think is funny because it's actually two words, but they're the experts, you know? But we all have this sense, don't we, that the things that got us here technologically and through media, they are simultaneously deteriorating and they are eroding us and even our minds along the way.

Curiosity has been overcome by assumptions, opportunity reduced to obligation, community fractured into isolation, and possibility constrained by practicality. And here's the thing. The church in America has often followed the same path away from dreaming into complacency, too. But it wasn't always that way.

Last month, we studied the birth of Jesus, and January can always feel like a pretty big pendulum swing because we go from the cradle to the cross of Jesus to him wearing a crown in heaven in just a few days. But when Jesus ascended to heaven after coming back from the dead, people dreamed. And there's a reason for that. When we have a foundation of hope, we have the freedom to dream.

Maybe that's hard for you to believe right now with the circumstances that you find in your life, and you find yourself without hope, you feel like you've got anything but free. But stick with me, because we don't just have a history here in Silicon Valley. Our faith has a history worth studying, too.

We have four biographies of Jesus' life written by four different authors to four different audiences. And right after those four biographies, there is another biography of sorts written by Luke, a physician who became a follower of Jesus, who brought the greatest level of detail, not only in his biography of Jesus' life, but his sort of autobiography of the events of the early church.

In this book called Acts or the Acts of the Apostles, he shows us the dream that the early church was given, and he recorded it this way. He says, "about the kingdom of God. And while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, you heard from me. For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. So when they had come together, they asked him, 'Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?' He said to them, 'It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive the power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.'"

I told you we'd get to the Bible. I told you. Now, this snapshot that we see, Luke gives us a lot in just a few verses. He covers the foundation of hope from the events of Jesus' life, and he's referencing, as he's kind of casting this picture for the early church, he's referencing his original audience, this guy named Theophilus, who he wrote not only the book of Acts to, but he wrote his biography of Jesus' life, we just call Luke.

Theophilus was likely a wealthy non-Jewish person who some believe was a government official, and actually some scholars believe that he became a follower of Jesus as a result of Luke's account of Jesus' life, between the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. It's a pretty wild power that God used in these words even back then.

He tells a bit of the story from the end of the biographies of what we call the gospels and the foundation of the hope that come from them, and that the early church would receive the Holy Spirit, that people in the early church would sort of all of a sudden become the basis by which God would reveal his kingdom to a world that was desperately looking for it.

Now, throughout Jesus' ministry, there were lots of competing expectations and agendas that people would bring to Jesus and try to put on him, and most of them revolved around taking on earthly power and trying to establish an earthly kingdom. But that was never Jesus' intended purpose. As a matter of fact, every time someone tried to do that, he would push back.

When Jesus taught his earliest followers to pray, he used some familiar words. Maybe you've heard these before. He said, "...our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." He goes on to more in the prayer, but these words are so important as we think about this idea of dreaming for the future.

The hope that Jesus provides isn't to make earth great again. We should be good citizens no matter what time of history we find ourselves in, no matter what nation we are in. But Jesus' hope is for a kingdom that predated this place and will one day restore it to the fullness of what God made it to be forever.

The kingdom of heaven was revealed to us so that it could be offered through us, even in the midst of other smaller kingdoms. Jesus doesn't just offer a picture of the future. He also offers the power that God would use to help you and me achieve it. And Luke shares that the earliest followers would receive the Holy Spirit.

Now, the Holy Spirit, the gift that God himself, that's the Holy Spirit is God himself, would live inside of not just those early followers, but you and me. That was something in stark contrast to what they would have understood at the time. For them, the Holy Spirit, even as much as they could articulate it, was reserved for key leaders in Jewish history in the Hebrew Scriptures, or what we call the Old Testament. It was the thing that set them apart. It was the thing that allowed them to do these unbelievable and incredible feats that no one had ever seen before. And now Jesus was promising it to every follower of Jesus. That's a pretty big difference.

Now, throughout the book of Acts, this pattern that we see over and over again is that someone who chose to become a follower of Jesus, they had repentance or a complete life change, a pivot in their life from their ways to Jesus' ways, water baptism, an act of remembering what Jesus has done on their behalf, and then receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit.

This idea that they became empowered by God the Holy Spirit to live the transformation that God designed for them. They didn't always follow a specific timeframe in that. They didn't even always follow that order. But God wasn't just making a promise to them about the presence of God's Spirit inside of them. It was a promise for all of us. It was a promise for Christians forever, even you.

Now, the core of our ability to dream, if you're a follower of Jesus, I think it actually comes from the deepest part of who we are as image bearers of the Creator of the universe. And I'd say this, even if you aren't a Christian, you're not a person of faith at all, you are created in the image of God with infinite dignity, value, and worth. And no matter what you've done or what's been done to you, nothing can change that.

And when we live from this reality of who we really are, it points us back to the bigger picture that can give us hope and the kind of hope for the kind of God that loves you no matter what, that unlocks your capacity to dream.

Here's where a bit of cognitive dissonance shows up, though. I know that if you're new or newer to faith, you are going to see this over the next couple of years. As we dive into the book of Acts together, you're going to see in the book of Acts things happen or the power of the Holy Spirit get demonstrated in ways in the early church that seemed very normal for them and very different from the church experience that we have today.

Now, I think there are a few reasons for why that difference exists, and we'll get into those in the coming weeks. But I think the same things that help serve as catalysts for Silicon Valley becoming what it has been in our region and in our world have also—actually, they were the same things that were the same catalysts for the early church, too.

See, the early church, it had the capacity to dream through curiosity. The earliest followers didn't have the New Testament. When we open our Bibles, when we study this book, the book of Acts, it comes from a collection inside of your Bible of 27 books that we call the New Testament that were written by people who were early followers of Jesus. It's a part of the library of what we call the Bible or tabiblia. That's 66 books. But for the earliest followers of Jesus, they only had a smaller group of resources to pull from.

Once Jesus had ascended to heaven, every new follower of Jesus had the Hebrew Scriptures, or what we call the Old Testament. The person that shared the gospel with them or the good news of what Jesus had done on their behalf. And at some point, maybe they heard a New Testament letter read out loud. And so they became great listeners because a lot of what they were learning about what it meant to follow Jesus happened relationally.

There was also a very special moment of sort of cultural opportunity for them. With relative peace, a common language for the region, and a road system that allowed for travel, they were placed in a historic and unprecedented moment of opportunity to communicate a message in a way that no one ever had before.

They didn't let the fact, by the way, that they were outnumbered religiously or culturally push them to the margins. Let me just say that one more time if you find yourself in a similar situation. They didn't let the fact that they were outnumbered religiously or culturally push them to the margins. Instead, they leveraged the deep and sustaining community of other early Jesus followers to stay faithful when it would have been much easier to stay silent.

And finally, there was possibility. After waiting their entire lives for a sudden and sweeping ushering in of the kingdom of heaven to the world, specifically targeting the Jewish people, they had been shown how the kingdom would be revealed through God's work and through them for all people for all time. It wasn't a once and for all thing. It was an always and forever thing through their work as ambassadors. And it still is.

See, these ingredients provided the seedbed for dreaming in the early church. It allowed them to think differently than the world around them. It allowed them to imagine a world that was better and different than their own. But that's hard to do when you're living from scarcity. It's hard to do when you're living scared.

Many of you know my story, but I grew up in an abusive home and there was no dreaming in our home. You didn't have time to dream because you were focused on survival. And I would just say that some of you, you feel like the last year you were focused on survival and you made it through and you're a little nervous that the next year is going to be focused on the same thing, just surviving.

Cultivating dreams, it means we have to aim higher than survival. It means oftentimes that it takes hope and it takes margin. Some of you, you start every new year with a resolution that focuses on one habit that you either want to start or you want to stop. But if we're honest, really, this is what a new year's resolution is. This is what it really is. We're asking this question: How can I accomplish this very different thing in my life while changing the least about my life in the long term and doing the most in the short term? That's what we think. And the answer is not much.

Because it's our direction, not our desire, that determines our destination. Wanting it is not enough. Wanting something is good, but it's just a first step. You have to take real steps after that. And often the capacity to dream only comes when we are willing to create enough margin to do the dreaming. Maybe that's financial margin, time margin, relational margin. I think one of our biggest things right now is attention margin. Where are you living past your limits? Where are you living where there is just no margin?

See, the early church was all in on dreaming about the future. This idea that the kingdom they were waiting for was actually available through them to the world around them. But unfortunately, Silicon Valley, the early church, and even us, we can all move from dreaming about the future to scheming about presuming the present, even if it's dysfunctional.

Look, there's nothing inherently wrong or evil about the American dream, but it is not the ultimate picture of the kingdom of heaven. And in 2025, if you have to pick God's dream for you or the American dream for you, make sure you make the right choice. One satisfies, one does not.

I want to challenge you with two ways that Silicon Valley dreams at its best that I think are really good and practical ways for you to maybe think about it this year in your life, to bring hope not only to your life, but through your life to the world around you.

The first concept is called 20% time. This idea was very popular several years ago at Google, where employees were given the freedom to spend up to 20% of their time on things that they were really personally passionate about, even if they weren't in their job description, even if it wasn't in their normal responsibility.

Now, if you're thinking, what could that do? Well, there are some things that you can do. There are some things that you can do that you have definitely heard of that have come from 20% time. Things like, maybe you've heard some of these: Google Chrome, Gmail, Google News, AdSense—they flowed from this 20% time. The principle is that we can dream when we have margin.

So what would it look like for you to create margin in your life this year? For you to intentionally say, I'm not going to get to all of the things that I maybe necessarily need to do. What's the difference between my life and my limit? And if the difference is nothing, if you're regularly living right here, or you're living above your limit in these areas, I'm telling you, it will be very difficult to dream because the drudgery of just surviving will take all of your energy.

I love, by the way, the rhythms of faith around daily study, which we sometimes call quiet times, where we study the Bible and we pray every day. I find them very helpful, very valuable. But there are also lots of ways to experience God in our daily lives that can feel like margin, that can feel like get to and not have to.

And if part of the reason you've never spent time with God every day is because you don't as easily connect in those areas, I would just encourage you, if part of your new year is setting new rhythms for your faith, it might be helpful to pick up a book called *Liturgy of the Ordinary* by Tish Harrison Warren, where she highlights regular rhythms and spiritual habits that can be a part of your daily life.

So if you're not dreaming in your daily life, where you can move past the drudgery of duty, where it can just feel like you're surviving your day to really thriving today.

The second concept is something called 10x goals. And if you're like, what does that mean? This one's really helpful. It means what I just said. So that's good, I guess. But you take a personal goal that feels maybe achievable. Maybe even it feels like a stretch goal. You're like, I know maybe how I'd get there. It's going to take everything I've got, but here's how I do it. Here's how I calendar it, all that stuff. And then you take that goal and the tools that you think you might use to accomplish it, and you multiply that goal and the target by 10x.

Now this kind of thinking has fueled some of the biggest innovations of our time. Things like the iPhone, Netflix, reusable rocket technology, the human genome project, and what would we do without Amazon one-click shopping, right? They can't all be winners.

See, in business, this activates dreaming and innovation because usually the solutions that get to your original target are not relevant or effective when you grow the goal by that much. And if you're a follower of Jesus, I think that this practice can actually drive you to more regular prayer and dependency on the Holy Spirit in your life.

I think oftentimes what we have done without realizing it is we have stopped dreaming because we have shrunk our goals down and our God down to a size we can control. If you want to see your neighbor meet Jesus this year and find hope for the most challenging things in their life, that's amazing. I'm so glad. But like, what about your whole neighborhood?

Instead of texting someone around Christmas and Easter, inviting them to come with you, that's awesome, that's fantastic. But like, maybe start prayer walking around your neighborhood. As you go on those walks, you're like praying people's specific names. You're lifting up their circumstances in real time.

Maybe for you, you start a directory of all the different people in your neighborhood and you distribute it so you know who is there and you can support one another. You start a text thread where you can complain about the unknown cars driving through your neighborhood on a regular basis, right?

Maybe you start holding block parties to get to know the people you love. Maybe you start holding a prayer walk around your neighborhood to get to know the people that live around you. The strategy changes drastically when we 10x the goal. And it feels crazy, right? For some of you, you're like, Phil, you don't know what my goal is. That would be way too big. There's no way I could possibly do it. It feels way overwhelming to do it like that. And I would say fantastic. Because when it's overwhelming for you, you have to depend on God.

The most common New Year's resolution revolves around weight and exercise. I'm sure there's a generation of Ozempic that may change in time. But for now, 25 to 30% of gym membership signups start in January every year. It's also why so many people quit their resolutions so quickly, right? Because if you've not been working out regularly and you're going from the couch to a marathon, there are incremental steps that take you from one to the other.

And I think it's important to recognize the same thing is true about dreaming. If you are constantly dulling your boredom with screens and mindless content, you're not giving your brain any space or margin. You're trying to avoid downtime. You will also avoid dreaming. And it will be easy to quit trying. Remember brain rot. We are all feeling that.

But just like in the early days of Silicon Valley, and certainly the early days of the early church, we can pursue curiosity. We can pursue opportunity. We can pursue community. And we can pursue possibilities. And we can pursue possibility to discover a vision for the future that our normal routines will not make time for.

Some of you, what you needed was just this reminder. And you're like, okay, I'm back in. You know what? I hadn't opted in for this for a while. This had sort of faded or drifted in my life. Thank you for the reminder. I'm back. But for others of you, it's going to take a much more intentional step to say yes to something you've never jumped into before, even if you've been around here for a long time.

And that's why next week we hold something that we hold for a long time. And that's called Discover Menlo at all of our campuses. This is a casual lunch. And it is something that we want for you, not from you. This is not a sales pitch. This is not like a timeshare presentation church style. I promise. I promise it's not that. It's an introduction to us as a community and to other people who are in a similar spot as you are, just checking things out.

Whether you have been at Menlo for a few years or just a few weeks. If you've been on the sidelines and you want to dip your toes into the water of this place and the people in it, this is for you. And dreaming might be on the other side of it. You can learn more and sign up at menlo.church.com. And I would really encourage you to do that. You may have to reschedule something, or maybe you're a little nervous and you bring a friend with you, but I promise you'll be glad that you went.

So whether you're starting up your faith for the first time or you're restarting it after some time away, let's just believe that God could do something amazing as you seek him this year. See, the goal thing that I hope we all believe and want in our lives, whether you've just been a follower of Jesus for a little while or it's been a long time, is that God would use 2025 to help you build something you've never experienced before with him. That his love for you is immeasurable. His plan for you is available, and the future in him couldn't be better.

See, as believers, that's the kind of kingdom we get to carry with us everywhere we go. And there are these reminders that we have as faith practices over the course of thousands of years, and we're going to celebrate one of those in just a minute called communion. That if you're a follower of Jesus, whether Menlo Church is your home church or not, we invite you to take part and remember the sacrifice that Jesus made by laying down his life for you and me.

And if you're not a follower of Jesus, totally great. We're so glad that you're here. Feel no pressure. Just hang out and watch and see a group of people that believe, that really believe they can dream, because the kingdom of heaven is here.

Would you pray with me?

God, thank you so much. Thank you that you showed us a couple thousand years ago, a group of people, men and women, who were bold enough to dream. Who even when things were stacked against them, even when it felt like it wasn't going to get better anytime soon, they could believe you, they could trust you, they could lean on you. And I pray that we would too.

I pray that those aspects that maybe for us have drifted away from curiosity and possibility and really diving into things like community, that God, we're going to be able to do that. And I pray that we're going to be able to wake us back up to those, that you have placed us, God, in one of the most influential places in all of human history.

And for those of us who are followers of you, I pray that you would spark innovation, that you would provide dreams in us that show a level of innovation that is not available without you. Help us to see a future only possible with you and to lean on you to walk towards it together. In Jesus' name, amen.