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Well, we've got an exciting weekend, River Valley here and across all of our campuses this weekend. We've got a guest speaker that's with us. And from my alma mater, he is the president of North Central University. He's also been the president of the Assemblies of God National Black Fellowship. He is an author. He is an ordained pastor. And in River Valley fashion, I'm not gonna take any more of his time. Can we welcome to the platform and welcome this weekend Dr. Pastor President Darnell Williams, Welco River Valley Church.
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Come on, make some noise. God bless you, my friend. Amen. Wow. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. What a great joy and honor it is to be with you here this evening at River Valley. What an incredible church. I'm going to ask you to do something that's on my time. I want you to stand real quick. The song said, when I think of what you've done and think about what you brought me through. Can you just take 30 seconds and give the Lord some praise and think about what he's done and what he brought you through? Amen. Well, bless the Lord. You may be seated in the Lord's presence. I'm so blessed to be here. I'm joined tonight with my wife, Charlene Williams, the 20th of next month. Amen. You can clap. Just a minute. 20th of next month, we'll be married 33 years. Now you can clap. Amen. To my dear friend, my brother, who serves as a regent emeritus at North Central University. Your lead, pastor, Rob Caroling. I'm just so filled with the opportunity of gratitude to stand here in his pulpit to preach in this church and all of the River Valley campuses this weekend. What a great honor. My friend. Rob, I'm leaving you a gift. It'll be a QR code for you and Becca to get a product from Unreal that collaborated with North Central. So I'm leaving you a QR code to get that. So that'll be in the office waiting for you. Amen. Kingdom Builders, you saw our name on the board there. Let me tell you why it's so important what you're doing. North Central University, we're in downtown Minneapolis. If you graduated from North Central, had parents that went to North Central, have a child that went to North Central, paid tuition dollars to North Central, marry somebody that went to North Central, have some legacy relationship with North Central, Stand. We want to honor you. Look at this, look at this, look at this. Amen. Amen. Amen. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. We've been doing God's work for 96 years, starting in 1930, right in the heart of the depression. And here we're committed to. In North Central, we're committed to raising up a generation of Daniels. Amen. Amen. That can stand against the evil of Babylon, that can stand against Nebuchadnezzar and say, our knees will not bow. Amen. So we are invested in them. Academic, rigorous. Right. We're not just youth camp. Right. And then you get a degree, you go to classes, you write papers, you study, you learn. But we also make room for the spirit and the spirit's transformation to occur in the lives of our students. We pride ourselves that that's one of our distinctives. And the third thing is, and you saw it with the people that stood here today, many of you know these folks that stood is the excellence of character you get from a North Central University degree and a North Central University education. So let's give it up for North Central. Amen. Now, the challenge to do this work that God has called us to is the model in education is broken. Amen. And it's broken because what it takes, we can never generate enough tuition dollars to cover what it costs to educate a student. So you say, Mr. President, how do you do that? We do it with partners like. I said, we do it with partners like you. I said, we do it with partners like you. Amen. I had my team pull some numbers, and I was notified that over the last 10 years, River Valley has given over $1 million to North Central University. That's something you should celebrate. Amen. And we're grateful to be a partner with you in Kingdom Builders. And the impact, both locally and globally that Kingdom Builders is having. It costs us about 16. There's a gap of $16,000 between the cost we can generate from a student and the cost to educate a student. And that's why we need partners like River Valley. Amen. I serve as president of North Central. Been in it now for how many months, sweetheart? 10 months? 11 months. Amen. I was a pastor for 28 years of my life. Amen. Praise the Lord. And we pastored in Ohio. And then in 2022, God opened the door for us to move to Minneapolis, where I served as the professor of pastoral studies at North Central and most recently now serve as the president. It's the greatest honor of my life serving as president. Actually, Kirk's dad preceded me in that role. He's the eighth president, Dr. Doug Graham. I'm the ninth president, and I count it a great honor. Amen. Praise the Lord. I want to draw your attention to a passage of scripture found in Genesis, chapter 28, verse 10 through 12. Genesis 28, verses 10 through 12. And I want this message to dovetail into the emphasis of kingdom builders. So I'm going to read the text for you, then I'm going to tell you a story. I'm going to give you three points, as a good preacher should, and then we're going to pray. Amen. Simple. You can follow along with that, right? Genesis 28. And it reads. Now, when Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran, he came to a place and stayed there all night because the sun had set. And he took one stone of that place and put his head upon it. And he laid down in that place and slept. And then he dreamed. Say he dreamed. And behold, a ladder was set up between earth and heaven, and its top reached to the heavens, and there were angels of God ascending and descending upon it. Today I want to talk to you. A title. Dare to Dream. Can you say that? Dare to dream. Dare to dream. Turn to your neighbor and tell them, dare to dream. Why would I bring such a message? Because once a passion gets lit inside of you for a dream, it will change your life forever. Dreams are quite expensive. Amen. Your dreams will cost you sometimes. Your dreams will cost you friendships. Your dreams will sometimes cost you relationships. They will cost you who your comrades are and who your peers will be. Your dreams will cost you opportunities. Doors will open. But you will say no to something because you recognize even though it's an open door, it's inconsistent with my dream. Your dreams will cause you to be missed, misunderstood, misread, misheard, mistaken, misinterpreted, and misjudged. Why then, Dr. Williams, would you talk about dreaming if dreams are so expensive? Because the Kingdom needs dreamers. God needs people in this generation who will dream not based upon their resource, but they'll dream not based upon their reality, but they'll dream. They'll close their eyes and invite the Holy Spirit in and say, holy Spirit, give me a dream. Come, give me a dream for my life. Give me a dream for my future. Give me a dream for my family. Give me a dream for my marriage. Give me a dream for my children. Give me a dream for my grandchildren. And I'm at an age where you start saying, lord, I want a dream that's gonna outlive me. Give me a dream for my legacy and for my future. So I'm gonna talk to you today about daring to dream. And I'm gonna begin this story, this message about dreaming, telling you a very personal and painful story from our lives, and I say our lives. But really the primary character in this story is my wife. After 33 years, I didn't need permission to tell this story. Amen. Hallelujah. And I'm going to title this story as we talk about daring to dream. I'm going to tell you about a thief known as grief. A thief known as grief. I remember it was almost 30 years ago. I remember it was a Saturday morning and I remember specifically the Saturday because I was a young church planter and there was the Promise Keepers event that was happening on the Mall of America. How many of you men remember that? You may have even been there? Well, I was listening on the radio because I was young church planter and I was broke and couldn't afford to go to Washington bi vocational trying to hash out life. And my wife and I had probably been married five years and we were in Columbus, Ohio, digging out a church and doing God's work. And we were up doing the things that you would do on the weekend. Saturday was recovery day for us. Both of us were working. And at this point, her mother, my mother in law, was living with us. She was a part of our life. Now I know people tell mother in law jokes and jokes at their mother in law's expense. That wasn't my experience. I loved having my mother in law live with us. She was a blessing. She prayed for us, she interceded, she would cry out to heaven on our behalf. But this particular Saturday, my wife and I were up doing the things just in recovery mode. Starting laundry, folding clothes, you know, cleaning out the car, washing the car, mowing the grass. We were going about our daily tasks and we noticed it was getting late in the afternoon and we have not heard from her mother yet. So she just called me in the house, she said, just go up and check up on mom, see how she's doing. And when I went in the room, I saw my mother in law lying on the bed in absolute stillness. And I knew something was wrong. I went over, as we do, and you know, you touch the person's neck, carotid artery, see if you feel a pulse. There was no pulse. And to be quite honest with you, not only was there not a pulse, she was cold. So I stood there for a moment saying, dear God, how am I going to tell my wife that I just found her mother has passed away? And I went and I said, babe, sit down, I got to tell you something. And I said, you know Momma's gone, her body's cold. I guess she died through the night. We don't know when it happened. And that thief called grief gripped my wife like nothing else ever has that I've ever seen in life. That thief gripped her so tightly that it was like she was losing her rational mind. And something happened in that moment. My wife shut down and she got stuck. She couldn't move forward. She was trying to negotiate and navigate. How do I move forward with my mother being gone? She was not sick. Matter of fact, she was young. You know, when you young, everybody look old, right? But when you get some years on you, you start realizing old is real relative, right? She was 60 years old, young woman, right? And this thing affected my wife. It was hard for her to move forward. She. We had to call the EMS and they had to come and take my mother in law's body out and put it in the body bag. And I told my wife, I don't want you to see this. So I took her downstairs in the basement and I just told the guys, do whatever you need to do. And there was an eerie hollowness in our home from that day forward. This thief known as grief stole so much of my wife's joy, her intimacy with the Lord. She began to question God. God, how could you allow my mother to die? As a matter of fact, my wife prides herself on being a woman who hears the voice of God. So she began to say, how could you not tell me and prepare me that you were going to take her? And we were struggling at this point with infertility. And I tell people, I don't hate anybody and if I hated you, I wouldn't wish infertility on you. So we had this hollowness in our home and in our marriage because we had my mother in law who had been a part of our lives and immersed in life with us and our rhythms and our routines. And now she was gone. And every day just became a reminder of her absence. And days were passing and weeks were passing and months passed. My wife could not even allow anyone in that room. When her sisters came, she didn't allow anything in the room to be touched or moved. It almost became like a memorial to the memory of a mother. She would later say it felt like I was desecrating her by going in that room and disturbing anything that she left. Now here's where it gets complicated. If that wasn't complicated enough, after years of infertility and struggling, we realized we're now going to have a baby. Amen. My son is now 26 years old. Praise the Lord. Amen. We realized we're gonna have a baby, Pastor Kirk. And we lived in a little Cape Cod home. You know, start a home for a young couple. And my wife's stomach is just growing, getting bigger and bigger and bigger. You know, babies are growing. And what should be the nursery is her mother's bedroom. And the conflict that she was wrestling through. How do I empty the room, the space that is there to honor and memorialize my mother's memory? And how do I create a space to prepare for a new life that's coming into the world? So do I continue to remember the death, or do I look forward to the new life? And maybe she was seven months old. And I went to her, I said, sweetheart, I know this is sensitive, and I know it's tough. I know it's hard. I know you're dealing with grief. I know. I know she never got to that last stage of grief, which is what? Acceptance. Not resolution acceptance. She couldn't get to accept. She couldn't get to this place of acceptance. Her mother was gone, but she couldn't accept the fact that she was gone. And so finally, I said, sweetheart, nothing would have made your mother more joyful than to see you have a grandbaby for her. So we gotta prepare for the life that's coming. And that means we gotta readjust from what was to what is. We gotta take down the stuff that reminds us of someone who was alive but no longer here and get ready for someone who is not here, but who we know is coming. And as painful as it was, she said, okay, you go ahead and do it. So I called my brother and he came to Columbus, and he and I went and we packed up stuff and we boxed things up, and we went to Lowe's and bought paint, and we painted a beautiful sky view and clouds in the sky. And when my wife walked in that room and saw what was a memorial to her grief now as a place of anticipating a baby being born, she stood in that room and she cried. All right, Reverend, why you tell that story? I tell the story because I feel like there's a whole lot of Christians who are stuck just like my wife was stuck. Life has done some stuff to you that you just can't get past. You can't get to the place of accepting the fact that this happened and time has gone on and seasons have passed and events have occurred, and the Lord has birthed something in your spirit that he wants to release right now, and you cannot do it. Because you're cleaving to the past and what was. And what was hurtful and what was painful and what caused you to doubt God and question him and not depend upon his sovereignty. And I'm telling you, you need to get yourself healed up. Dare to dream again. You need to get yourself healed up. You got to let go of what was so that you can prepare and welcome the thing that God is trying to birth in and through you right now. That's a great place to give the Lord some praise. You got to let the pain of the past God and embrace what God is trying to do right now. T.E. lawrence said, all men dream, but they don't dream equally. Those who dream at night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was all in vanity. But the true dreamers, the dangerous dreamers, are those who dream during the day. And they act with their dreams with their eyes wide open to make it possible. Listen, it's time to open your eyes. Your season of grief is over. Touch your neighbor. Tell them your season of grief is over. You're. Listen. No, no, no, no, no. Don't you do that to me. Don't do that to me. Don't do that to me. Come on. I'm up here preaching. Good. Come on. Touch your neighbor and tell them your season of grief is. Is over. You got to get ready. You got to get ready. You got to get ready. God wants to birth some new things through you. There's some dreams God wants to accomplish in and through your life. And you've got to get yourself in a position and a posture to give birth to the dream. You got to make room for the dream. It's time to wake up from the grief and allow yourself the space to dream again. Let me tell you three things about dreams. I got seven minutes. God help me. Number one, Dreams are disruptive. Say that dreams are disruptive. Dreams will upset the status quo. They'll upset the status quo. Your dreams will disturb your routine. They will challenge the regular rhythm and routines of your life. And oftentimes, the way a dream shows up is at a time of crisis. You got to choose. Am I going to cling to yesterday, or am I going to embrace what God is doing now? Martin Luther King Jr. Said, Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the staircase. Listen, God doesn't need you to figure it all out. He just wants you to take the next step. Come on, say take the next step. Dreams require us to change. My dear friend, Dr. Sam Chan wrote and said, we change when the pain of change becomes less than the pain of remaining the same. See, what pushed my wife into accepting the new thing that God was birthing out of her was the reality that something was coming. A baby was showing up. New life was being released. You gotta push past the pain of remaining the same and embrace the pain that will cause you to have to change. Amen. Dreams are disruptive. Number two. Dreams are deceptive. Oh, Pastor, what do you mean? Listen to the onlooker. A dream is glamorous and alluring, But for the dreamer who is living out the test and the assignment. You understand that the journey of the dreamer is hard and it's arduous. There are no guarantees when you have a dream. You just gotta trust God. Dreams will require faith and hard work. You don't just go get a dream and say, okay, God gave me a dream. I'm just gonna sit here and stand here and just wait for it to show up. No, no, you' you gotta get to work. You gotta roll your sleeves up. You gotta put in the sweat equity that will allow the room and the space for your dream to come to pass. Oswald Chambers says, faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the one who's leading. Come on. Is anybody in here that knows Jesus and can trust that if he's leading you into your next dream, it'll be all right? I don't know. It doesn't make sense. I don't understand it. I don't know how the Lord is going to do it, but I'm trusting him. Dreams are deceptive because we ought to see the destination but not the journey required to get there. One of my church members when I pastor, said, pastor Williams, you're pretty smart. You earned a doctorate degree. I said, no, I ain't smart. I've been around smart people. Trust me. I can tell you I'm not smart. I had a Professor Doug Oles. Doug Oles translated the first or second Peter in the new living translation. He's smart. Yeah, I'm not smart. I've just done enough not to quit. Did you hear that? I'm just dumb enough not to quit. And sometimes to fulfill a dream, you just gotta stay persistent. You just gotta keep at it and stay at it long enough. Right? Dreams are deceptive. Dreams, number three are dangerous. Why would I say dreams are dangerous? Dreams are dangerous cause they give hope. Touch somebody and tell them hope. Nobel laureate Langston Hughes wrote these words and said, what happens to a dream deferred question mark. What happens when we defer a dream? What happens when I put pause on my dream? What happens when I refuse to move forward on my dream? And so, at his poetic language, Langston Hughes tried to wrestle through what happens to a dream deferred. Does it stink like rotten meat? Does it become sticky and syrupy sweet? Does it shrivel up like a raisin? What happens when we defer a dream? Listen, dreams are dangerous because they give hope. If you feel hopeless, start dreaming and you'll get hopeful, right? Dreams give hope a destination, and hope gives dreams energy. Dreams are dangerous because they require a risk. You cannot see God move. Playing it safe. With risk comes the option to fail. Yes, with risk will come criticism. With risk, you could be misunderstood. Don't believe me? Ask Noah. Don't believe me? Ask the three Hebrew boys. Don't believe me? Ask Naomi. And over and over and over again, the Scriptures are replete with people who risk it all because God gave them a dream. Would you stand with me if you dare to dream? Remember, dreams will disrupt your comfort. Dreams will test your perseverance. Dreams will require your courage. But let me tell you a little secret. God has always used dreamers. And everyone who stepped into that future, they seemed impossible in the moment. Dreams are not about personal ambition or what I want to see accomplished in my life. Dreams are about anticipating the purpose of God and participating with him in it. And now let me tell you something. When you dream, you're not dreaming alone. You serve a God of Ephesians 3:20, he who can do exceedingly and abundantly. Above all that we could ask or even think. Would you do me a favor right now? Would you throw your hands up in the air in the last few seconds we have together? And would you say, God, I need you to fill me with a dream. God, give me a dream. Give me a dream for my business. Give me a dream for my community. Give me a dream. Give me a dream. I want to be a dreamer, Father. You need dreamers that are going to make a difference. I have in my office, which is the president's office. It was the president's office before I got in. It is going to be the president's office after I'm gone. And I have the diary of F.J. lindquist, who is the founder of North Central University. And he tells a story of how they were looking at buying that hospital, which is now called Miller Hall. And he said, we went and they said that building was for sale for $500,000. And I said, oh, $500,000? Yeah, that's a good amount of money. And then I realized, oh, he's talking about 1930. $500,000. So I pulled out, you know, all seeing all knowing Chatgpt, and I said, how much is $500,000 from 1930 in today's money? And ChatGPT spit out and said $11 million. And F.J. lindquist said, we didn't have a dime, but all we had was a dream. And God showed up. Father, thank you for this room of dreamers. There's enough dreams in this room to change the world. There's enough dreams in this room to impact the lives of hundreds and thousands of people. Thank you for the dreamers that are here. And thank you Lord, for those that may be stuck. That may be stuck. That may be stuck by that thief called grief who's robbed them of their ability to dream. And Father, I pray for the grace of God to come and rest on their lives right now that they can dream again. In Jesus name, amen. God bless you.