Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdik.
Speaker 2: I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
Speaker 1: I wanted to thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 2: Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope
Speaker 2: it gives your perspective to see God is moving.
Speaker 1: In your life. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 2: This is a scripture in Genesis chapter thirty seven, verse
Speaker 2: five that has in it so much so many of
Speaker 2: you who know the story of the biblical character Joseph
Speaker 2: will be tempted to fast forward again to the end
Speaker 2: of the story, and I will challenge you not to,
Speaker 2: because this is where the sermon starts today in Genesis
Speaker 2: thirty seven, verse five. For a few weeks out of
Speaker 2: every year, I plan my teaching to be independent of
Speaker 2: a series. A lot of times I teach around one theme,
Speaker 2: but then I clear parts of the calendar intentionally. I've
Speaker 2: learned to do this now in thirteen years of pastoring,
Speaker 2: that you just need to leave a little room for
Speaker 2: some things that have been in your heart.
Speaker 1: This particular message.
Speaker 2: I was able to share some of the content with
Speaker 2: our staff last year and really been waiting for an
Speaker 2: opportunity to share it with you, and so I'm very
Speaker 2: excited about it today.
Speaker 1: But just one verse to get us started.
Speaker 2: In Genesis, chapter thirty seven, verse five, the Bible says
Speaker 2: Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to
Speaker 2: his brothers, they hated him all the more so for
Speaker 2: everybody who's thinking that when you get a good idea,
Speaker 2: everybody's going to go fund you, they're not, and that
Speaker 2: everybody's going to support you. And understand you don't expect
Speaker 2: that because this message. I want to speak to you
Speaker 2: about your dreams today, the dreams God has put in
Speaker 2: your heart, but I want to talk about it from
Speaker 2: an unusual subject heading called the danger of a dream.
Speaker 2: And this message comes with a warning label. If you
Speaker 2: like your nice, little comfortable version of the way life
Speaker 2: is supposed to be, slip out now click off, now
Speaker 2: watch a ted talk. But this message is for somebody
Speaker 2: who has a God given dream or he's starting to
Speaker 2: sense it.
Speaker 1: And I just pray.
Speaker 2: In fact, let's pray right now, Lord, open our hearts
Speaker 2: to receive what you say and then give us the
Speaker 2: courage to obey it. That's our prayer in Jesus' name, Amen,
Speaker 2: you may be seated. I wonder a lot of the
Speaker 2: time what my kids will remember about their childhood, and
Speaker 2: I'm scared they'll remember all the scenes I want them
Speaker 2: to delete. It seems like they remember the times I
Speaker 2: got mad more than the times I bought them stuff,
Speaker 2: and I don't like it. But I will say that
Speaker 2: some of the things that stand out to me about
Speaker 2: my childhood, particularly my teenage years, are some of the
Speaker 2: more random incidents. One thing that I remember from my
Speaker 2: childhood and my mom remembers it a little differently than
Speaker 2: I do, but she's out of town today, so I
Speaker 2: can tell this story. The way I want to tell
Speaker 2: it is when I was auditioning for this band, and
Speaker 2: I won't bore you with the long story, but my
Speaker 2: dream from age seventeen on was to be a pastor.
Speaker 2: But before that, I wanted to be a punk rocker
Speaker 2: and I almost had the chance because I was at
Speaker 2: the North Charleston Coliseum.
Speaker 1: Have I told you this story? Robert best story ever?
Speaker 2: Green Day was playing at the North Charleston Coliseum and
Speaker 2: Billy Joe Armstrong called me up on stage and gave
Speaker 2: me his guitar to play a guitar solo. And it
Speaker 2: was something he had been doing every night on tour.
Speaker 2: He was looking for the most talented kid in the room,
Speaker 2: which that night was me, or just whatever kid looked
Speaker 2: the most excited, or whatever the case was, and he
Speaker 2: put his Fender Stratocaster around my neck.
Speaker 1: True story.
Speaker 2: I'm fifteen years old and I played the guitar solo
Speaker 2: for a three chord song called Knowledge by the band
Speaker 2: Operation Ivy. I still remember how the song went, but
Speaker 2: I'm not sing it for you right now because it's
Speaker 2: waste of time.
Speaker 1: We need to get back to Genesis thirty seven.
Speaker 2: But what that set off was kind of like a
Speaker 2: chain of events where I became a lot more popular
Speaker 2: in school, and I was so excited. The next morning,
Speaker 2: I woke up and I was listening to the radio
Speaker 2: and the DJ his name was the Critic, was talking
Speaker 2: about the Green Day Show. And I was getting ready
Speaker 2: for school listening to the radio, still excited, only slept
Speaker 2: about an hour, excited to get to school, excited to
Speaker 2: be like how you like me now to all the
Speaker 2: girls who didn't pay me attention the day before. And
Speaker 2: he goes, oh, he said the Green Day Show last night.
Speaker 2: He said it wasn't a very great show, but there
Speaker 2: was one part he said there was a kid who
Speaker 2: got up on stage and ripped on guitar. He was
Speaker 2: the highlight of the show. He stole the show. His
Speaker 2: word's not mine. I'm very humble. I would not say
Speaker 2: it that way, but that's the way he said it.
Speaker 2: That's the way the critics said it. And so I
Speaker 2: called in. I called the radio station. I was like,
Speaker 2: you got to put me through. That's me he's talking about.
Speaker 2: I'm about to go to school right now. I got
Speaker 2: to leave in like five minutes. My mom's waiting for me.
Speaker 2: But that was me he was talking about on stage
Speaker 2: that played guitar. Put me through to the critic, and
Speaker 2: they put me through to the critic and I said, hey,
Speaker 2: that was me you're talking about. He said, well, hey, kid,
Speaker 2: bring your demo tape by because I told him had
Speaker 2: a band, and he was like, bring your demo tape
Speaker 2: by and we'll play it on the air. We didn't
Speaker 2: have a demo tape, but that's all right because we
Speaker 2: eventually saved three hundred dollars made a demo tape.
Speaker 1: I took it to the critic. He played it on
Speaker 1: the air, and when I was leaving.
Speaker 2: This is several months later, he said by the way,
Speaker 2: I am putting together a band. It'd be kind of
Speaker 2: cool to have a fifteen year old kid in the band.
Speaker 2: So if you want to audition for it, you learn
Speaker 2: these songs and you can audition from my band. Well,
Speaker 2: I thought that'd be amazing because we'd be playing at
Speaker 2: the Music Farm and we'd be playing all around truston
Speaker 2: South Carolina, and that'd be pretty cool gig for a
Speaker 2: fifteen year old. So I locked myself in the room.
Speaker 2: I start learning all the songs on the tape. A
Speaker 2: tape A tape is and my mom walks in one night.
Speaker 2: This is all I'm gonna say this, because I promise,
Speaker 2: I know you didn't come to hear me talk about
Speaker 2: my nostalgic fifteen year old memories, but come out of dream.
Speaker 2: My mom walks in, picks up the tape, and all
Speaker 2: of the songs on the tape had cusswords in the title.
Speaker 2: And then even the name of the band had a
Speaker 2: cussword in the name of the band. And Buck's laughing
Speaker 2: because the name of the band is so inappropriate. I
Speaker 2: can't say it in church, I can't even allude to
Speaker 2: it in church. But that was the band I was
Speaker 2: auditioning for and my mom, who was a Methodist minister's daughter,
Speaker 2: had old fashioned monks corner values, and she's like, what
Speaker 2: is this. I'm like, this is the band I'm auditioning before.
Speaker 2: And she said, if you think I'm going to let
Speaker 2: you go audition for this band, You've lost your mind.
Speaker 2: If you think I'm gonna let you audition for a
Speaker 2: band called the Beads, then you've lost your mind, to
Speaker 2: which I said, then I'll run away from home. You
Speaker 2: will not stand in the way of my dream, right
Speaker 2: because a dream will make you bold. And we never
Speaker 2: got to find out whether or not I would have
Speaker 2: had the courage to pack it all up and head
Speaker 2: out on the mean streets a monk's corner on my
Speaker 2: own to chase my dream, because I auditioned for the
Speaker 2: band and I didn't make it. But the point of
Speaker 2: the story that I'm trying to tell you is this
Speaker 2: that a lot of times the dream we start out with,
Speaker 2: the dream that we think we see in one stage
Speaker 2: of our life, will show up later in our life
Speaker 2: in a different dimension, and it will be such a
Speaker 2: different dimension that we will not even recognize the dream
Speaker 2: as the original dream. The Bible says that when Joseph
Speaker 2: was seventeen years old, he had a dream, and his
Speaker 2: brothers hated him all the more for it. That phrase
Speaker 2: all the more lets me know that Joseph's brothers already
Speaker 2: didn't like him, And we can argue if we want to,
Speaker 2: about whether Joseph was wise to share with his brothers
Speaker 2: the content of his dream. There is such a thing
Speaker 2: as talking too much, posting too much. There is such
Speaker 2: a thing as sharing too much. There is such a
Speaker 2: thing as thinking that everybody else wants to hear what
Speaker 2: God has put on your heart. But one thing that
Speaker 2: we can conclude from the text, even from a biological perspective.
Speaker 1: Is that Joseph was different. And one thing I've noticed
Speaker 1: about having a dream is that a dream makes you different.
Speaker 2: Joseph was different from his brothers, not only in his aspirations,
Speaker 2: but he was he was from a different mother.
Speaker 1: They shared the same father, Jacob.
Speaker 2: And if I listed their names, you might recognize a
Speaker 2: few of them. They were the patriarchs of the tribes
Speaker 2: of Israel. But Joseph didn't come through the same mom
Speaker 2: that his brothers came through. He was the son of Rachel,
Speaker 2: the pretty one that his Dad really liked and when
Speaker 2: Joseph saw that Rachel his favorite wife, Holley, you're my
Speaker 2: favorite wife, by the way, I want to put that
Speaker 2: in this message.
Speaker 1: Had given him a son.
Speaker 2: He liked him, he liked him extra special, and he
Speaker 2: treated him special, and he felt differently about Joseph than
Speaker 2: the other boys. To the point I don't know if
Speaker 2: you've if you've read the story lately, but you remember
Speaker 2: he bought him Magucci coat, and and Joseph's always wearing
Speaker 2: it around all the time.
Speaker 1: He's like, you like my coat. And his brothers are like,
Speaker 1: we hate your coat. You like you like my coat?
Speaker 1: You like my coat? You know, They're like, we we
Speaker 1: hate we we hate you. We we hate you because
Speaker 1: you're different.
Speaker 2: Okay, Now, I have a teenage son right now, and
Speaker 2: one of the things that I'm trying to work out
Speaker 2: with him in real time is that people accept what
Speaker 2: is the same, but they eventually respect what is different.
Speaker 2: People eventually come around and respect what stands out. But
Speaker 2: what happens to most of us is that the moment
Speaker 2: we start to realize the differences between us and other people,
Speaker 2: we downplay our distinctives in order to fit in and
Speaker 2: conform with culture.
Speaker 1: One thing I'm proud.
Speaker 2: About when I read about Joseph, And I know it's
Speaker 2: weird to say that I'm proud of Joseph like he cares,
Speaker 2: but I'm proud that he had the courage to wear
Speaker 2: his coat anyway, you know what I mean. It may
Speaker 2: have been unwise, but I'm proud of him that.
Speaker 1: He was not afraid to show up in the.
Speaker 2: Room looking different because he was clothed with the fabric
Speaker 2: of the favor of his father. And I wonder, are
Speaker 2: you courageous enough to wear your coat? Because a lot
Speaker 2: of times, what I've found that God will begin to
Speaker 2: show you things about yourself, about your life, about your calling,
Speaker 2: about your direction, about what He's put inside of you,
Speaker 2: about the gifts He's given you. But someone will, someone
Speaker 2: will actually beat the distinctive out of you. If you
Speaker 2: don't know clearly enough that I have a calling from God,
Speaker 2: who is greater than people, and if he is for me,
Speaker 2: who can be against me? Touch somebody next to you
Speaker 2: and say, I'm gonna.
Speaker 1: Wear my coat.
Speaker 2: Even if people criticize me for it. I'm not ashamed
Speaker 2: to walk in the love and the favor of God.
Speaker 1: Oh we need some Christians.
Speaker 2: Who don't check their coat at the door of culture,
Speaker 2: who are unashamed to be optimistic about the future because
Speaker 2: you know God is already there, if He is the
Speaker 2: author and the finisher of your faith.
Speaker 1: You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: A dream will make you different, and it takes courage
Speaker 2: to be different.
Speaker 1: It takes to speak different.
Speaker 2: If you get a hold of a dream, or better said,
Speaker 2: if a dream gets hold of you from the throne
Speaker 2: of God, it'll make you walk different, talk different, think different,
Speaker 2: eat different, drink different, party different, texts different.
Speaker 1: It'll make you different. Dream will make you different.
Speaker 2: And I'm glad that Joseph had the courage to be different,
Speaker 2: and I wonder do we have the courage to be different.
Speaker 1: The weird thing about.
Speaker 2: Our church is that a lot of times people will
Speaker 2: be attracted to our church because it's different, and then
Speaker 2: when they get to the church, they start trying to
Speaker 2: tell us how we need to make it like the
Speaker 2: church that they left to come to the church that
Speaker 2: was different. Yeah, I don't want to say amen to
Speaker 2: the preacher today. It's the truest thing, Like you're attracted
Speaker 2: to something because it's different, and they even say it's
Speaker 2: a marriage that before marriage, opposites attracted and then opposites attacked.
Speaker 2: Because you're attracted to what's different, you're drawn to what's different,
Speaker 2: not at first.
Speaker 1: At first you fear it.
Speaker 2: That's why they had to take the Old Town Road
Speaker 2: off of the Billboard charts on country music because it
Speaker 2: was too different. They couldn't they couldn't find a category
Speaker 2: for it, and they said, it's not country enough, but
Speaker 2: it's not rap enough, and we don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: It's different. That's why they crucify Jesus. You know, you
Speaker 1: don't have many preachers.
Speaker 2: They can put a little Nasaks and Jesus in the
Speaker 2: same paragraph. But he was so different, we don't know
Speaker 2: what to do with him. He's grace and truth. He's different.
Speaker 2: Somebody shot him different. And I don't mean different in style.
Speaker 2: I mean different in substance. I don't mean different just
Speaker 2: for the sake of difference, because that's frankly kind of annoying.
Speaker 1: And there's always a temptation, you know.
Speaker 2: I've noticed that some people just want to be different,
Speaker 2: just to be different. But there's nothing different about being different.
Speaker 2: To be different, there's something about being different because you
Speaker 2: have a different set of values and a different dream. See,
Speaker 2: I don't just dream of making it through the day.
Speaker 2: I don't just dream of surviving my life. I don't
Speaker 2: just dream.
Speaker 1: When you get a dream, it'll make you different.
Speaker 2: You'll start sacrificing, and people will think you're crazy because
Speaker 2: of what you sacrifice. Even if you go on a
Speaker 2: diet because you have a dream to lose twenty pounds,
Speaker 2: the first thing that everybody around you is going to say.
Speaker 3: Is you're not fine anymore. You used to meet someone's fine.
Speaker 3: You used to just eat all the time when you
Speaker 3: ain't contained. Why are you now. Don't let the fact
Speaker 3: that they don't have the discipline to eat something different
Speaker 3: cause you to give up on a goal that.
Speaker 1: You set that's real for your life.
Speaker 2: And if it's true with the diet, it's much more
Speaker 2: true with I wonder have you been dumbing down yourself
Speaker 2: because to be different is too painful, And if you're
Speaker 2: not careful, you will be conformed to the patterns of
Speaker 2: this world, rather than being transformed by the renewing of
Speaker 2: your mind.
Speaker 1: Christians are supposed to.
Speaker 2: See different, think different, understand different.
Speaker 1: It's a different perspective.
Speaker 2: I always thought that Joseph's life was a story about perseverance.
Speaker 2: You know, Joseph had a dream when he was young,
Speaker 2: and then he had to go.
Speaker 1: Through a lot of things.
Speaker 2: But you know, don't give up because eventually you will
Speaker 2: achieve your dream. Yet, that is a cultural understanding of dreams,
Speaker 2: not a Christian understanding of dreams, not a scriptural understanding
Speaker 2: of dreams. And we have a really bad habit of
Speaker 2: taking a concept like a dream and then overlaying our
Speaker 2: own preferences and our own prejudices on that concept, and
Speaker 2: so we make it what it's not, and.
Speaker 1: We miss what it is.
Speaker 2: Because it's really common for people to say, follow your dreams.
Speaker 1: Yet, if you study the life of Joseph, and.
Speaker 2: I mean really read every single word John and Tittle,
Speaker 2: every single invention, every single period in Comma, like I
Speaker 2: did preparing to preach this, you will see a phrase
Speaker 2: iterated over and over again, no matter what he went through,
Speaker 2: that says, the Lord was with Joseph. That's a statement
Speaker 2: about God's presence. You will see that wherever he was,
Speaker 2: God promoted him, and that's a statement about purpose. But
Speaker 2: the story of Joseph is not about getting a dream
Speaker 2: and holding on tight to the dream and persevering, because
Speaker 2: I used to think this was the story of Joseph, Like, don't.
Speaker 1: Let anybody talk you out of your dream.
Speaker 2: If your mom told you that you're going to be
Speaker 2: the next you know, the next whatever. Just hold on
Speaker 2: to your dream. And then anybody who doesn't agree with
Speaker 2: your dream as a hater.
Speaker 1: Maybe not.
Speaker 2: Maybe your mom just loved you too much to hear
Speaker 2: the bad notes you were hitting and you're not supposed
Speaker 2: to be a professional singer.
Speaker 1: Does the thought No, I'm sick of it. I'm really
Speaker 1: sick of it because we take Joseph. It's not fair
Speaker 1: to Joseph. Joseph went through this whole life. He was
Speaker 1: called and chosen, and.
Speaker 2: There was all kinds of conflict that came along.
Speaker 1: And we're like, Joseph had a dream. Do you have
Speaker 1: a dream? Would you like to open your own company?
Speaker 2: Be like Joseph, have a dream, and then you can
Speaker 2: make it from the pit to the palace.
Speaker 1: Hold on in the pit, because there's a palace on
Speaker 1: the other side.
Speaker 2: Let me go into it for a moment. That is
Speaker 2: not the story of Joseph's life. The story of Joseph's
Speaker 2: life has nothing to do with if you have a
Speaker 2: dream that you can think of that's big enough, God
Speaker 2: is obligated.
Speaker 1: To bless it. Watch this.
Speaker 2: Joseph didn't ask God for a dream. Joseph did not
Speaker 2: make a vision board. That doesn't mean you can't make one.
Speaker 2: I've made a few myself. Let's just be clear that
Speaker 2: we mean the same thing when we say a dream,
Speaker 2: and then and then it becomes very devastating.
Speaker 1: Watch this, because your dream can become a distraction.
Speaker 2: Joseph's dream was very specific and epic, and it had
Speaker 2: broad implications, you know. And he tells his brothers his dreams.
Speaker 2: He comes out in his coat one day and they're like,
Speaker 2: oh God, this guy. And so he comes over and
Speaker 2: they're like, you talk to him this time.
Speaker 1: I'm sick of talking to him. He's like, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: guess what I had a dream. You want to hear
Speaker 1: my dream.
Speaker 2: They're like, no, we hate your dream, we hate your coat,
Speaker 2: we hate your voice, we hate you You're different.
Speaker 1: But he didn't really, he didn't really care if they
Speaker 1: wanted to hear it. He was going to tell him anyway.
Speaker 2: Joseph needed a journal, by the way, so he could
Speaker 2: write some of this down and not tell other people.
Speaker 2: He needed somewhere he could just process his dreams where
Speaker 2: he didn't let other people get involved too soon. Nevertheless,
Speaker 2: even Joseph's inability to discern the nature of the dream
Speaker 2: and who was capable of handing it, played a part
Speaker 2: and leading him to the place where he could do
Speaker 2: the dream that God put in his heart.
Speaker 1: Did you feel God on that what I just said?
Speaker 2: Because God's dream for my life will involve my decisions,
Speaker 2: even if my decisions are immature. God will use some
Speaker 2: of the desires in your heart that aren't good desires
Speaker 2: at first. But Psalm thirty four thirty seven four says,
Speaker 2: if you delight yourself in the Lord, he will give
Speaker 2: you the desires of your heart.
Speaker 1: And he will take the desires that you had.
Speaker 2: And purify them, and he will rinse them, and he
Speaker 2: will separate the wheat from the chaff to bring you
Speaker 2: to an ultimate place, a purpose. But when Joseph started
Speaker 2: sharing his dream with his brothers, it was all about him.
Speaker 4: Hey, I had a dream, and it was awesome. We
Speaker 4: were binding our sheaves of grain, and we were in
Speaker 4: let your sheaves started bowing down to my sheaves.
Speaker 1: And and in that awesome and they're like, no, it's
Speaker 1: not awesome. We hate your dream, we hate your cod
Speaker 1: we hate you. And he's like, but then I had
Speaker 1: another dream, and in this dream there were eleven stars.
Speaker 1: I don't know why Joseph sounds like Keanu reeves.
Speaker 2: There were eleven stars and a sun and the moon,
Speaker 2: and they were all bowing down to me.
Speaker 1: In my dream awesome. And they're like, no, we don't
Speaker 1: like your dream.
Speaker 2: In fact, we hate your dream so much that we
Speaker 2: are about to push you in.
Speaker 1: A pit and leave you for dead.
Speaker 2: And if it hadn't have been for Reuben, who decided
Speaker 2: we should at least get twenty shekels of silver out
Speaker 2: of this boy, there's no need to kill him when
Speaker 2: we can profit off of him, they wouldn't have sold
Speaker 2: him to the Ishmaeli Caravan.
Speaker 1: They would have left him for dead.
Speaker 2: But understand that even Joseph's decision to speak about his
Speaker 2: dream prematurely was part of what God used to motivate
Speaker 2: his brothers to push him in the pit. At the
Speaker 2: same time they did that, and Ishmaelik Caravan was setting
Speaker 2: out to bring whoever they would pick.
Speaker 1: Up along the way back to the place of slavery.
Speaker 2: Now it was a place of slavery at that point,
Speaker 2: but it would ultimately become a place of deliverance. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna teach the Bible today because when Joseph was picked
Speaker 2: up and put in Potterphar's house, he served so well
Speaker 2: in Potterphar's house that everything Potiphar put under him prosper.
Speaker 2: And so when Potiphar saw how Joseph served, he promoted
Speaker 2: him to a position of influence. But he wouldn't have
Speaker 2: been in Potiphar's house to begin with if he hadn't
Speaker 2: been pushed in a pit, and he wouldn't have been
Speaker 2: pushed in a pit if he didn't wear a coat.
Speaker 2: And so when you leave your coat in the closet
Speaker 2: and downplay your dream to fit in with people who
Speaker 2: don't like you because you're different, you can't end up
Speaker 2: in the position you need to be in. I'm preaching
Speaker 2: to somebody who's different. The more like Christ you become,
Speaker 2: the more different from culture you will be. And it's
Speaker 2: all right to be weird, and it's all right to
Speaker 2: have hope.
Speaker 1: And it's all.
Speaker 2: Right to have vision, and it's all right to.
Speaker 1: Know who you are.
Speaker 2: And all of this happened because Joseph had a dream,
Speaker 2: And yet Joseph's dream looked nothing when it finally happened,
Speaker 2: like it looked in the distance when he first saw it.
Speaker 1: Can you relate to this.
Speaker 2: How sometimes marriage looks different in the distance than it
Speaker 2: does after twenty years. I need all my people who
Speaker 2: have been married over twenty years to just wave at
Speaker 2: me real quick and let me know that it's so
Speaker 2: much different, so much different, so much better, so much harder,
Speaker 2: so much different. Not like the movies that I saw,
Speaker 2: not like the songs that I heard.
Speaker 1: Different, It's just different.
Speaker 2: Because when Joseph is young, he sees shiny stars, but
Speaker 2: sometimes when it comes up closer, it's not so shiny anymore.
Speaker 2: Having kids is different. This is where me and Holly
Speaker 2: are different. She always dreamed of being a parent. I
Speaker 2: didn't dream of being a parent. I dreamed of being
Speaker 2: a punk rocker and then a preacher. But one of
Speaker 2: our staff members was having a baby the other day
Speaker 2: and he was telling me how happy he was, and
Speaker 2: he was like, O always dreamed of being a dad,
Speaker 2: And that made me feel sorry for my kids, because
Speaker 2: I'm like, I didn't even like kick in as a
Speaker 2: dad until they were five you know that's so worthless.
Speaker 2: In fact, if we can really be honest and not
Speaker 2: put this one online. I dreaded being a dad because
Speaker 2: all I ever saw kids do was make people have
Speaker 2: to leave restaurants before they finish their meal. So you know,
Speaker 2: like now, there is no greater delight in my life
Speaker 2: than my kids thirty percent at the time, There's no
Speaker 2: greater investment. There's nothing I'm more passionate about. There's nothing
Speaker 2: that can just wake me up more and make me
Speaker 2: realize what matters more. But it wasn't the thing I
Speaker 2: dreamed about. It was the thing that I did, and
Speaker 2: when I did it, God gave me the desire for it.
Speaker 1: But it didn't start as a dream. It started as
Speaker 1: a duty.
Speaker 2: This is so critical for a world and a time
Speaker 2: where all we're ever told is follow your dreams. There
Speaker 2: is no record in Genesis thirty seven, thirty eight, thirty nine,
Speaker 2: forty forty one, two forty three, forty four, forty five
Speaker 2: where the Bible says and Joseph remembered his dream and
Speaker 2: pushed on through because when life gets hard, you got
Speaker 2: to have a dream, and sometimes life will give you hurdles.
Speaker 1: But you know, this is really.
Speaker 2: Allward or this little motif I've gotten myself into right here,
Speaker 2: this little, this pastic motivational speaker thing that I've set
Speaker 2: up here.
Speaker 1: But just follow your dreams. You know what I can't find.
Speaker 2: In Genesis where Joseph followed his dream. What I saw
Speaker 2: in Genesis was Joseph's dream followed him.
Speaker 1: So watch this. I don't follow dreams. I follow Jesus,
Speaker 1: and when I do, dreams follow me.
Speaker 2: Joseph's dream followed Joseph. It followed him to Potterphar's house,
Speaker 2: it followed him to prison, it followed him into Pharaoh's court,
Speaker 2: because dreams follow me when I follow Jesus. If you
Speaker 2: look behind your life, you will see very clearly that
Speaker 2: some of the things that God did for you, and
Speaker 2: some of the doors he opened for you, and some
Speaker 2: of the ways he made for you, and some of
Speaker 2: the opportunities that he granted for you were accidental from
Speaker 2: your perspective. But I've got good news for you. God's
Speaker 2: dream for you is bigger than your dream for you.
Speaker 2: Just because it doesn't look shiny when you see it
Speaker 2: doesn't mean it isn't real. God said, you've got the
Speaker 2: right dream.
Speaker 1: You just need to see it differently. The fact of
Speaker 1: the matter is.
Speaker 2: That some of us are standing in the middle of
Speaker 2: our dream, but we can't see it because it feels
Speaker 2: different than we thought it would when we first saw it.
Speaker 1: And I believe in dreams. I had a dream about you.
Speaker 2: I dreamed that you would be here in this church,
Speaker 2: and God did that.
Speaker 1: But it's a lot different than I thought it would
Speaker 1: be because y'all are different, and it's different. Y'all are different.
Speaker 2: You're different than the person three seats down for you,
Speaker 2: and you grew up in vacation Bible school, and they're
Speaker 2: thinking like Joseph is when that Jesus' dad, And they
Speaker 2: were like this, I don't and I'm trying to appreach
Speaker 2: to all these different people. It's just different. It's different
Speaker 2: because you picture like Joseph had a dream. Have you
Speaker 2: got a dream? Everybody had a dream. You had a dream,
Speaker 2: Doctor King had a dream.
Speaker 1: You have a dream. It's not the same kind of dream.
Speaker 2: You know, this was a This was a dream that
Speaker 2: Joseph didn't decide for himself.
Speaker 1: Don't follow your dreams.
Speaker 2: Because what if your dream was just the first draft?
Speaker 2: Are you open to a revision? I wanted to I
Speaker 2: wanted to be a punk rocker. I wanted to sing songs,
Speaker 2: but I didn't know God was gonna let me write
Speaker 2: songs and pastor a church that churches around the world
Speaker 2: world would sing.
Speaker 1: As an expression or as an anthem of faith.
Speaker 2: It wasn't my dream, but God took that desire and
Speaker 2: he gave me the dream.
Speaker 1: And I don't have to be the one singing the song.
Speaker 2: I just want to be a part of it.
Speaker 1: It's the value of a bigger picture.
Speaker 2: But your dream can be a distraction because now you're
Speaker 2: not following Jesus.
Speaker 1: You're following your dreaming. When your dream takes you down an.
Speaker 2: Unexpected path, you start to complain and freak out and
Speaker 2: get frustrated, and you are missing the dream because you
Speaker 2: will not wake up to the reality. Sometimes we don't
Speaker 2: know the difference between a dream and a fantasy. I
Speaker 2: told our staff recently, this is the dream when you're
Speaker 2: frustrated in ministry. Remember that some of you were watching
Speaker 2: elevision church online before you came to work here, and
Speaker 2: you thought, oh, if I could ever get there one day.
Speaker 2: But you didn't know that the baptism tank was gonna
Speaker 2: be half full when you got here, and you'd have
Speaker 2: to fill it up right before and next time you
Speaker 2: next time you have to get here and the volunteers
Speaker 2: don't show up, and next time you have to just
Speaker 2: just say to yourself, this is the dream.
Speaker 1: Huh.
Speaker 2: Waking up in the middle of the night as a
Speaker 2: new mom, this is the dream. Even if you have
Speaker 2: to fake a smile. The devil won't know the difference.
Speaker 2: All I see is that you're smiling. This is the dream.
Speaker 2: And yet it won't feel like American idol. And yet
Speaker 2: it won't feel like an Olympic gold medal ceremony, because
Speaker 2: it's not that.
Speaker 1: Kind of dream.
Speaker 2: By the time Joseph's dream finally came true, because dreams
Speaker 2: do come true, it was two decades later. Not only
Speaker 2: been falsely in prison, not only had he been forgotten about,
Speaker 2: not only had he been misunderstood, not only was he
Speaker 2: incarcerated for a crime he didn't commit, but in the
Speaker 2: process of it, he was unappreciated for his part in
Speaker 2: someone else's freedom. Yet, when he finally got to his dream,
Speaker 2: he realized something that is very hard for us to
Speaker 2: comprehend in an Instagram world. That God develops dreams in
Speaker 2: the dark room and The issue is that we have
Speaker 2: an Instagram expectation, but we serve a darkroom God.
Speaker 1: For the four of y'all who are clapping, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: keep preaching. When you get your picture.
Speaker 2: Really developed by a professional, they don't post it ten
Speaker 2: seconds after they took it with a prefabricated filter by
Speaker 2: Instagram incorporator. They take it into a special room and
Speaker 2: they do special things in a special room. If any
Speaker 2: of y'all ever had to drop some film off at CVS,
Speaker 2: if any of you ever had to go through a
Speaker 2: season of your life where you had to trust a professional,
Speaker 2: where you had to put something in the hands of God,
Speaker 2: where you had to hand him the negatives, and trust
Speaker 2: him to take the negatives and take them into the
Speaker 2: secret place of the Most High, and take them into
Speaker 2: the place of his purpose, and take them into the
Speaker 2: place of his wisdom, and take them into the mystery.
Speaker 2: And trust him that if I put it in his hands,
Speaker 2: and if I have the patience to let it develop,
Speaker 2: if I have the patience to know that every scene
Speaker 2: of my life is playing a part in the bigger picture,
Speaker 2: not of the dream that I had, but of the
Speaker 2: desire that was in God's heart, and I might be
Speaker 2: standing in the middle of a dream that I don't
Speaker 2: have the clarity to see right now because the picture
Speaker 2: does not match for my preference. But watch this, I'm
Speaker 2: willing and ready and able to trust God even in
Speaker 2: the dark places of my disappointment, because I understand that
Speaker 2: some of God's greatest work happens in the dark where
Speaker 2: I don't understand. And I'm feeling around, and I thought
Speaker 2: I was going to be done with this by now,
Speaker 2: and I thought i'd be different by now. And this
Speaker 2: is not how they put it on the box, and
Speaker 2: this is not how the Hamburger looked on the commercial.
Speaker 2: But here I am God, and I trust you, not
Speaker 2: my dream. I trust you, not my idea. I will
Speaker 2: not make my ideas my idol. I'm worshiping you, I'm
Speaker 2: serving you. It's not about position, it's about purpose. So
Speaker 2: when he finally had his dream come true, it was
Speaker 2: not in the form of shiny stars. It was in
Speaker 2: the form of his eleven brothers who betrayed him, coming
Speaker 2: to him and asking for food. And Joseph is in
Speaker 2: Pharaoh's court distributing the grain for not only that nation,
Speaker 2: but for all the surrounding nations. And he looks up
Speaker 2: at his brothers who hurt him, who are standing with
Speaker 2: their hands out, and realizes, this is the dream. I'm
Speaker 2: at the center. But it's not for status, it's for service.
Speaker 1: Has God been trying to get you to see that
Speaker 1: in your own life? Lately?
Speaker 2: We attach ourselves to a version of a dream that
Speaker 2: may not have even come from God to begin with.
Speaker 2: And what if the greatest thing God is going to
Speaker 2: do through your life is what He is going to
Speaker 2: allow you to contribute to somebody else's Are you open
Speaker 2: to that dream? When the angel came to marry, he said,
Speaker 2: you're gonna have a baby. When the Angel came to
Speaker 2: Joseph in a dream, he said, you're gonna help her.
Speaker 2: What if the dream God has for me isn't even
Speaker 2: about me. It's the danger of a dream to start
Speaker 2: thinking like this is what my kids are gonna grow
Speaker 2: up and do, Okay, Like get your Harvard mug out
Speaker 2: of your coffee mug cabinet.
Speaker 1: And what if your kid doesn't turn out to do
Speaker 1: what you wanted him to do.
Speaker 2: What if God has a different dream for them? What
Speaker 2: if it's better, What if it's deeper. What if the
Speaker 2: reason God lets your dream.
Speaker 1: Die is because it wasn't big enough.
Speaker 2: When we put too much pressure on a dream to
Speaker 2: come true, we allow our dream to become a di
Speaker 2: traction from the season that we're in. And I preached
Speaker 2: this way because if Joseph had gone around looking for
Speaker 2: stars for his dream, you know, reach for the stars.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't in the form of a star that
Speaker 2: the dream came. It was in the form of his brothers.
Speaker 2: It was in the form of his responsibility.
Speaker 1: It was in the form of a duty. You don't
Speaker 1: have to have some grand, dynamic dream to serve God.
Speaker 2: Stop feeling guilty because you don't have some huge dream
Speaker 2: to end cancer, or to or to start a new
Speaker 2: to start a new ministry, or to maybe like be
Speaker 2: the next Bill Gates or Elon Musk or go to space.
Speaker 1: Maybe you don't have the talent for that.
Speaker 2: You don't have to have a huge dream, but you
Speaker 2: do need to serve a purpose in this season. And
Speaker 2: I wonder, is there's somebody here watching online who was
Speaker 2: standing right in the middle of the dream, but it
Speaker 2: looks different than it did in the distance.
Speaker 1: This is the.
Speaker 2: Dream to know him, to serve him, to love him.
Speaker 2: And there's two types of people in the room. Some
Speaker 2: of you were discouraged because you had a dream and
Speaker 2: it didn't happen, hasn't happened yet, don't know if it will.
Speaker 1: And others are disillusioned because you're in your dream, but
Speaker 1: it's different than you thought it was going to be.
Speaker 1: You're standing in the middle, but it's your brother's around you.
Speaker 2: God said that today was going to be a day
Speaker 2: for you, for you to see the dream for what
Speaker 2: it really is and let go of the illusion of
Speaker 2: what you thought it would be. If you stand right now,
Speaker 2: I'll pray for you.
Speaker 1: You could put your notebook down. I'm done teaching.
Speaker 2: It's one of those things that we all have to
Speaker 2: deal with at different points in our life, to realize
Speaker 2: that this is what I saw, but it just doesn't
Speaker 2: feel the same.
Speaker 1: Are you open to a different dream.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's not even a different dream, maybe it's just
Speaker 2: a more mature version of it. The Disciples had a
Speaker 2: dream for Jesus, you know, he's going to restore the
Speaker 2: Kingdom of Israel. When they saw him hanging on the cross,
Speaker 2: they didn't know what to do with that. That wasn't
Speaker 2: the way they saw liberation. But that's the way he
Speaker 2: did it, and it is in the process of doing it,
Speaker 2: and it is in the process of accepting it.
Speaker 1: That greater faith is born.
Speaker 2: Father, Today I thank you for the illumination that you've
Speaker 2: given us through your word and by your spirit. I
Speaker 2: felt like you were using me while I was preaching
Speaker 2: to speak to somebody on a personal level, and I
Speaker 2: want to thank you for that because I want to
Speaker 2: be used by you. But now God, I want to
Speaker 2: step out of the way, and I want them to
Speaker 2: hear what they need to hear from you, because it
Speaker 2: didn't turn out the way they dreamed.
Speaker 1: It's different.
Speaker 2: It doesn't look so shiny anymore, it doesn't look so
Speaker 2: sexy anymore. Now it's time for them to embrace the
Speaker 2: purpose for the season that you've placed them in and
Speaker 2: let go of the one that may never come, or
Speaker 2: let go of the one that was. This is the dream.
Speaker 2: Somebody make that confession. This is the dream. And so
Speaker 2: God give them the perspective to go back into their lives,
Speaker 2: go back into their homes, go back into their jobs, and.
Speaker 1: See it how you see it.
Speaker 2: In a world that's obsessed with stats, us in position,
Speaker 2: make us servants of purpose to serve your purpose in
Speaker 2: every season that we're in and to find our satisfaction
Speaker 2: in that.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
Speaker 2: this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
Speaker 2: You can click the link in the description to give
Speaker 2: now or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more
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Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening. God bless you