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