October 31, 2025 • 39 mins
What if the dreams God has for you are greater than the dreams you have for yourself?
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdik.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
I wanted to thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope
it gives your perspective to see God is moving.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
In your life. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
This is a scripture in Genesis chapter thirty seven, verse
five that has in it so much so many of
you who know the story of the biblical character Joseph
will be tempted to fast forward again to the end
of the story, and I will challenge you not to,
because this is where the sermon starts today in Genesis
(00:37):
thirty seven, verse five. For a few weeks out of
every year, I plan my teaching to be independent of
a series. A lot of times I teach around one theme,
but then I clear parts of the calendar intentionally. I've
learned to do this now in thirteen years of pastoring,
that you just need to leave a little room for
some things that have been in your heart.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
This particular message.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I was able to share some of the content with
our staff last year and really been waiting for an
opportunity to share it with you, and so I'm very
excited about it today.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
But just one verse to get us started.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
In Genesis, chapter thirty seven, verse five, the Bible says
Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to
his brothers, they hated him all the more so for
everybody who's thinking that when you get a good idea,
everybody's going to go fund you, they're not, and that
everybody's going to support you. And understand you don't expect
(01:31):
that because this message. I want to speak to you
about your dreams today, the dreams God has put in
your heart, but I want to talk about it from
an unusual subject heading called the danger of a dream.
And this message comes with a warning label. If you
like your nice, little comfortable version of the way life
is supposed to be, slip out now click off, now
(01:53):
watch a ted talk. But this message is for somebody
who has a God given dream or he's starting to
sense it.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
And I just pray.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
In fact, let's pray right now, Lord, open our hearts
to receive what you say and then give us the
courage to obey it. That's our prayer in Jesus' name, Amen,
you may be seated. I wonder a lot of the
(02:22):
time what my kids will remember about their childhood, and
I'm scared they'll remember all the scenes I want them
to delete. It seems like they remember the times I
got mad more than the times I bought them stuff,
and I don't like it. But I will say that
some of the things that stand out to me about
my childhood, particularly my teenage years, are some of the
(02:44):
more random incidents. One thing that I remember from my
childhood and my mom remembers it a little differently than
I do, but she's out of town today, so I
can tell this story. The way I want to tell
it is when I was auditioning for this band, and
I won't bore you with the long story, but my
dream from age seventeen on was to be a pastor.
(03:05):
But before that, I wanted to be a punk rocker
and I almost had the chance because I was at
the North Charleston Coliseum.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Have I told you this story? Robert best story ever?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Green Day was playing at the North Charleston Coliseum and
Billy Joe Armstrong called me up on stage and gave
me his guitar to play a guitar solo. And it
was something he had been doing every night on tour.
He was looking for the most talented kid in the room,
which that night was me, or just whatever kid looked
(03:37):
the most excited, or whatever the case was, and he
put his Fender Stratocaster around my neck.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
True story.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I'm fifteen years old and I played the guitar solo
for a three chord song called Knowledge by the band
Operation Ivy. I still remember how the song went, but
I'm not sing it for you right now because it's
waste of time.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
We need to get back to Genesis thirty seven.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
But what that set off was kind of like a
chain of events where I became a lot more popular
in school, and I was so excited. The next morning,
I woke up and I was listening to the radio
and the DJ his name was the Critic, was talking
about the Green Day Show. And I was getting ready
for school listening to the radio, still excited, only slept
(04:26):
about an hour, excited to get to school, excited to
be like how you like me now to all the
girls who didn't pay me attention the day before. And
he goes, oh, he said the Green Day Show last night.
He said it wasn't a very great show, but there
was one part he said there was a kid who
got up on stage and ripped on guitar. He was
(04:49):
the highlight of the show. He stole the show. His
word's not mine. I'm very humble. I would not say
it that way, but that's the way he said it.
That's the way the critics said it. And so I
called in. I called the radio station. I was like,
you got to put me through. That's me he's talking about.
I'm about to go to school right now. I got
to leave in like five minutes. My mom's waiting for me.
(05:09):
But that was me he was talking about on stage
that played guitar. Put me through to the critic, and
they put me through to the critic and I said, hey,
that was me you're talking about. He said, well, hey, kid,
bring your demo tape by because I told him had
a band, and he was like, bring your demo tape
by and we'll play it on the air. We didn't
have a demo tape, but that's all right because we
eventually saved three hundred dollars made a demo tape.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
I took it to the critic. He played it on
the air, and when I was leaving.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
This is several months later, he said by the way,
I am putting together a band. It'd be kind of
cool to have a fifteen year old kid in the band.
So if you want to audition for it, you learn
these songs and you can audition from my band. Well,
I thought that'd be amazing because we'd be playing at
the Music Farm and we'd be playing all around truston
South Carolina, and that'd be pretty cool gig for a
fifteen year old. So I locked myself in the room.
(05:49):
I start learning all the songs on the tape. A
tape A tape is and my mom walks in one night.
This is all I'm gonna say this, because I promise,
I know you didn't come to hear me talk about
my nostalgic fifteen year old memories, but come out of dream.
My mom walks in, picks up the tape, and all
of the songs on the tape had cusswords in the title.
(06:11):
And then even the name of the band had a
cussword in the name of the band. And Buck's laughing
because the name of the band is so inappropriate. I
can't say it in church, I can't even allude to
it in church. But that was the band I was
auditioning for and my mom, who was a Methodist minister's daughter,
had old fashioned monks corner values, and she's like, what
is this. I'm like, this is the band I'm auditioning before.
And she said, if you think I'm going to let
(06:32):
you go audition for this band, You've lost your mind.
If you think I'm gonna let you audition for a
band called the Beads, then you've lost your mind, to
which I said, then I'll run away from home. You
will not stand in the way of my dream, right
(06:52):
because a dream will make you bold. And we never
got to find out whether or not I would have
had the courage to pack it all up and head
out on the mean streets a monk's corner on my
own to chase my dream, because I auditioned for the
band and I didn't make it. But the point of
the story that I'm trying to tell you is this
(07:15):
that a lot of times the dream we start out with,
the dream that we think we see in one stage
of our life, will show up later in our life
in a different dimension, and it will be such a
different dimension that we will not even recognize the dream
(07:36):
as the original dream. The Bible says that when Joseph
was seventeen years old, he had a dream, and his
brothers hated him all the more for it. That phrase
all the more lets me know that Joseph's brothers already
didn't like him, And we can argue if we want to,
(08:00):
about whether Joseph was wise to share with his brothers
the content of his dream. There is such a thing
as talking too much, posting too much. There is such
a thing as sharing too much. There is such a
thing as thinking that everybody else wants to hear what
God has put on your heart. But one thing that
we can conclude from the text, even from a biological perspective.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Is that Joseph was different. And one thing I've noticed
about having a dream is that a dream makes you different.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Joseph was different from his brothers, not only in his aspirations,
but he was he was from a different mother.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
They shared the same father, Jacob.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
And if I listed their names, you might recognize a
few of them. They were the patriarchs of the tribes
of Israel. But Joseph didn't come through the same mom
that his brothers came through. He was the son of Rachel,
the pretty one that his Dad really liked and when
Joseph saw that Rachel his favorite wife, Holley, you're my
(09:04):
favorite wife, by the way, I want to put that
in this message.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Had given him a son.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
He liked him, he liked him extra special, and he
treated him special, and he felt differently about Joseph than
the other boys. To the point I don't know if
you've if you've read the story lately, but you remember
he bought him Magucci coat, and and Joseph's always wearing
it around all the time.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
He's like, you like my coat. And his brothers are like,
we hate your coat. You like you like my coat?
You like my coat? You know, They're like, we we
hate we we hate you. We we hate you because
you're different.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Okay, Now, I have a teenage son right now, and
one of the things that I'm trying to work out
with him in real time is that people accept what
is the same, but they eventually respect what is different.
(10:06):
People eventually come around and respect what stands out. But
what happens to most of us is that the moment
we start to realize the differences between us and other people,
we downplay our distinctives in order to fit in and
conform with culture.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
One thing I'm proud.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
About when I read about Joseph, And I know it's
weird to say that I'm proud of Joseph like he cares,
but I'm proud that he had the courage to wear
his coat anyway, you know what I mean. It may
have been unwise, but I'm proud of him that.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
He was not afraid to show up in the.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Room looking different because he was clothed with the fabric
of the favor of his father. And I wonder, are
you courageous enough to wear your coat? Because a lot
of times, what I've found that God will begin to
show you things about yourself, about your life, about your calling,
about your direction, about what He's put inside of you,
(11:09):
about the gifts He's given you. But someone will, someone
will actually beat the distinctive out of you. If you
don't know clearly enough that I have a calling from God,
who is greater than people, and if he is for me,
who can be against me? Touch somebody next to you
and say, I'm gonna.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Wear my coat.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Even if people criticize me for it. I'm not ashamed
to walk in the love and the favor of God.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Oh we need some Christians.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Who don't check their coat at the door of culture,
who are unashamed to be optimistic about the future because
you know God is already there, if He is the
author and the finisher of your faith.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
A dream will make you different, and it takes courage
to be different.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
It takes to speak different.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
If you get a hold of a dream, or better said,
if a dream gets hold of you from the throne
of God, it'll make you walk different, talk different, think different,
eat different, drink different, party different, texts different.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
It'll make you different. Dream will make you different.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
And I'm glad that Joseph had the courage to be different,
and I wonder do we have the courage to be different.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
The weird thing about.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Our church is that a lot of times people will
be attracted to our church because it's different, and then
when they get to the church, they start trying to
tell us how we need to make it like the
church that they left to come to the church that
was different. Yeah, I don't want to say amen to
the preacher today. It's the truest thing, Like you're attracted
(13:06):
to something because it's different, and they even say it's
a marriage that before marriage, opposites attracted and then opposites attacked.
Because you're attracted to what's different, you're drawn to what's different,
not at first.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
At first you fear it.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
That's why they had to take the Old Town Road
off of the Billboard charts on country music because it
was too different. They couldn't they couldn't find a category
for it, and they said, it's not country enough, but
it's not rap enough, and we don't know what it is.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
It's different. That's why they crucify Jesus. You know, you
don't have many preachers.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
They can put a little Nasaks and Jesus in the
same paragraph. But he was so different, we don't know
what to do with him. He's grace and truth. He's different.
Somebody shot him different. And I don't mean different in style.
I mean different in substance. I don't mean different just
for the sake of difference, because that's frankly kind of annoying.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
And there's always a temptation, you know.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
I've noticed that some people just want to be different,
just to be different. But there's nothing different about being different.
To be different, there's something about being different because you
have a different set of values and a different dream. See,
I don't just dream of making it through the day.
I don't just dream of surviving my life. I don't
(14:28):
just dream.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
When you get a dream, it'll make you different.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
You'll start sacrificing, and people will think you're crazy because
of what you sacrifice. Even if you go on a
diet because you have a dream to lose twenty pounds,
the first thing that everybody around you is going to say.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Is you're not fine anymore. You used to meet someone's fine.
You used to just eat all the time when you
ain't contained. Why are you now. Don't let the fact
that they don't have the discipline to eat something different
cause you to give up on a goal that.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
You set that's real for your life.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
And if it's true with the diet, it's much more
true with I wonder have you been dumbing down yourself
because to be different is too painful, And if you're
not careful, you will be conformed to the patterns of
this world, rather than being transformed by the renewing of
your mind.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Christians are supposed to.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
See different, think different, understand different.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
It's a different perspective.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
I always thought that Joseph's life was a story about perseverance.
You know, Joseph had a dream when he was young,
and then he had to go.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Through a lot of things.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
But you know, don't give up because eventually you will
achieve your dream. Yet, that is a cultural understanding of dreams,
not a Christian understanding of dreams, not a scriptural understanding
of dreams. And we have a really bad habit of
taking a concept like a dream and then overlaying our
own preferences and our own prejudices on that concept, and
(15:55):
so we make it what it's not, and.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
We miss what it is.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Because it's really common for people to say, follow your dreams.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Yet, if you study the life of Joseph, and.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
I mean really read every single word John and Tittle,
every single invention, every single period in Comma, like I
did preparing to preach this, you will see a phrase
iterated over and over again, no matter what he went through,
that says, the Lord was with Joseph. That's a statement
about God's presence. You will see that wherever he was,
(16:32):
God promoted him, and that's a statement about purpose. But
the story of Joseph is not about getting a dream
and holding on tight to the dream and persevering, because
I used to think this was the story of Joseph, Like, don't.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Let anybody talk you out of your dream.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
If your mom told you that you're going to be
the next you know, the next whatever. Just hold on
to your dream. And then anybody who doesn't agree with
your dream as a hater.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Maybe not.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Maybe your mom just loved you too much to hear
the bad notes you were hitting and you're not supposed
to be a professional singer.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Does the thought No, I'm sick of it. I'm really
sick of it because we take Joseph. It's not fair
to Joseph. Joseph went through this whole life. He was
called and chosen, and.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
There was all kinds of conflict that came along.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
And we're like, Joseph had a dream. Do you have
a dream? Would you like to open your own company?
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Be like Joseph, have a dream, and then you can
make it from the pit to the palace.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Hold on in the pit, because there's a palace on
the other side.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Let me go into it for a moment. That is
not the story of Joseph's life. The story of Joseph's
life has nothing to do with if you have a
dream that you can think of that's big enough, God
is obligated.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
To bless it. Watch this.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Joseph didn't ask God for a dream. Joseph did not
make a vision board. That doesn't mean you can't make one.
I've made a few myself. Let's just be clear that
we mean the same thing when we say a dream,
(18:12):
and then and then it becomes very devastating.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Watch this, because your dream can become a distraction.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Joseph's dream was very specific and epic, and it had
broad implications, you know. And he tells his brothers his dreams.
He comes out in his coat one day and they're like,
oh God, this guy. And so he comes over and
they're like, you talk to him this time.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
I'm sick of talking to him. He's like, hey, guys,
guess what I had a dream. You want to hear
my dream.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
They're like, no, we hate your dream, we hate your coat,
we hate your voice, we hate you You're different.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
But he didn't really, he didn't really care if they
wanted to hear it. He was going to tell him anyway.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Joseph needed a journal, by the way, so he could
write some of this down and not tell other people.
He needed somewhere he could just process his dreams where
he didn't let other people get involved too soon. Nevertheless,
even Joseph's inability to discern the nature of the dream
and who was capable of handing it, played a part
and leading him to the place where he could do
the dream that God put in his heart.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Did you feel God on that what I just said?
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Because God's dream for my life will involve my decisions,
even if my decisions are immature. God will use some
of the desires in your heart that aren't good desires
at first. But Psalm thirty four thirty seven four says,
if you delight yourself in the Lord, he will give
you the desires of your heart.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
And he will take the desires that you had.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
And purify them, and he will rinse them, and he
will separate the wheat from the chaff to bring you
to an ultimate place, a purpose. But when Joseph started
sharing his dream with his brothers, it was all about him.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
Hey, I had a dream, and it was awesome. We
were binding our sheaves of grain, and we were in
let your sheaves started bowing down to my sheaves.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
And and in that awesome and they're like, no, it's
not awesome. We hate your dream, we hate your cod
we hate you. And he's like, but then I had
another dream, and in this dream there were eleven stars.
I don't know why Joseph sounds like Keanu reeves.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
There were eleven stars and a sun and the moon,
and they were all bowing down to me.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
In my dream awesome. And they're like, no, we don't
like your dream.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
In fact, we hate your dream so much that we
are about to push you in.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
A pit and leave you for dead.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
And if it hadn't have been for Reuben, who decided
we should at least get twenty shekels of silver out
of this boy, there's no need to kill him when
we can profit off of him, they wouldn't have sold
him to the Ishmaeli Caravan.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
They would have left him for dead.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
But understand that even Joseph's decision to speak about his
dream prematurely was part of what God used to motivate
his brothers to push him in the pit. At the
same time they did that, and Ishmaelik Caravan was setting
out to bring whoever they would pick.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Up along the way back to the place of slavery.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Now it was a place of slavery at that point,
but it would ultimately become a place of deliverance. I'm
gonna teach the Bible today because when Joseph was picked
up and put in Potterphar's house, he served so well
in Potterphar's house that everything Potiphar put under him prosper.
And so when Potiphar saw how Joseph served, he promoted
him to a position of influence. But he wouldn't have
(21:20):
been in Potiphar's house to begin with if he hadn't
been pushed in a pit, and he wouldn't have been
pushed in a pit if he didn't wear a coat.
And so when you leave your coat in the closet
and downplay your dream to fit in with people who
don't like you because you're different, you can't end up
in the position you need to be in. I'm preaching
to somebody who's different. The more like Christ you become,
(21:40):
the more different from culture you will be. And it's
all right to be weird, and it's all right to
have hope.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
And it's all.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Right to have vision, and it's all right to.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Know who you are.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
And all of this happened because Joseph had a dream,
And yet Joseph's dream looked nothing when it finally happened,
like it looked in the distance when he first saw it.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Can you relate to this.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
How sometimes marriage looks different in the distance than it
does after twenty years. I need all my people who
have been married over twenty years to just wave at
me real quick and let me know that it's so
much different, so much different, so much better, so much harder,
(22:41):
so much different. Not like the movies that I saw,
not like the songs that I heard.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Different, It's just different.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Because when Joseph is young, he sees shiny stars, but
sometimes when it comes up closer, it's not so shiny anymore.
Having kids is different. This is where me and Holly
are different. She always dreamed of being a parent. I
didn't dream of being a parent. I dreamed of being
a punk rocker and then a preacher. But one of
(23:20):
our staff members was having a baby the other day
and he was telling me how happy he was, and
he was like, O always dreamed of being a dad,
And that made me feel sorry for my kids, because
I'm like, I didn't even like kick in as a
dad until they were five you know that's so worthless.
(23:40):
In fact, if we can really be honest and not
put this one online. I dreaded being a dad because
all I ever saw kids do was make people have
to leave restaurants before they finish their meal. So you know,
like now, there is no greater delight in my life
(24:03):
than my kids thirty percent at the time, There's no
greater investment. There's nothing I'm more passionate about. There's nothing
that can just wake me up more and make me
realize what matters more. But it wasn't the thing I
dreamed about. It was the thing that I did, and
(24:24):
when I did it, God gave me the desire for it.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
But it didn't start as a dream. It started as
a duty.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
This is so critical for a world and a time
where all we're ever told is follow your dreams. There
is no record in Genesis thirty seven, thirty eight, thirty nine,
forty forty one, two forty three, forty four, forty five
where the Bible says and Joseph remembered his dream and
pushed on through because when life gets hard, you got
to have a dream, and sometimes life will give you hurdles.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
But you know, this is really.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Allward or this little motif I've gotten myself into right here,
this little, this pastic motivational speaker thing that I've set
up here.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
But just follow your dreams. You know what I can't find.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
In Genesis where Joseph followed his dream. What I saw
in Genesis was Joseph's dream followed him.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
So watch this. I don't follow dreams. I follow Jesus,
and when I do, dreams follow me.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Joseph's dream followed Joseph. It followed him to Potterphar's house,
it followed him to prison, it followed him into Pharaoh's court,
because dreams follow me when I follow Jesus. If you
look behind your life, you will see very clearly that
some of the things that God did for you, and
some of the doors he opened for you, and some
(25:53):
of the ways he made for you, and some of
the opportunities that he granted for you were accidental from
your perspective. But I've got good news for you. God's
dream for you is bigger than your dream for you.
Just because it doesn't look shiny when you see it
doesn't mean it isn't real. God said, you've got the
right dream.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
You just need to see it differently. The fact of
the matter is.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
That some of us are standing in the middle of
our dream, but we can't see it because it feels
different than we thought it would when we first saw it.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
And I believe in dreams. I had a dream about you.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
I dreamed that you would be here in this church,
and God did that.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
But it's a lot different than I thought it would
be because y'all are different, and it's different. Y'all are different.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
You're different than the person three seats down for you,
and you grew up in vacation Bible school, and they're
thinking like Joseph is when that Jesus' dad, And they
were like this, I don't and I'm trying to appreach
to all these different people. It's just different. It's different
because you picture like Joseph had a dream. Have you
got a dream? Everybody had a dream. You had a dream,
(27:22):
Doctor King had a dream.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
You have a dream. It's not the same kind of dream.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
You know, this was a This was a dream that
Joseph didn't decide for himself.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Don't follow your dreams.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Because what if your dream was just the first draft?
Are you open to a revision? I wanted to I
wanted to be a punk rocker. I wanted to sing songs,
but I didn't know God was gonna let me write
songs and pastor a church that churches around the world
(28:00):
world would sing.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
As an expression or as an anthem of faith.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
It wasn't my dream, but God took that desire and
he gave me the dream.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
And I don't have to be the one singing the song.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
I just want to be a part of it.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
It's the value of a bigger picture.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
But your dream can be a distraction because now you're
not following Jesus.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
You're following your dreaming. When your dream takes you down an.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Unexpected path, you start to complain and freak out and
get frustrated, and you are missing the dream because you
will not wake up to the reality. Sometimes we don't
know the difference between a dream and a fantasy. I
told our staff recently, this is the dream when you're
(28:46):
frustrated in ministry. Remember that some of you were watching
elevision church online before you came to work here, and
you thought, oh, if I could ever get there one day.
But you didn't know that the baptism tank was gonna
be half full when you got here, and you'd have
to fill it up right before and next time you
next time you have to get here and the volunteers
don't show up, and next time you have to just
(29:07):
just say to yourself, this is the dream.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Waking up in the middle of the night as a
new mom, this is the dream. Even if you have
to fake a smile. The devil won't know the difference.
All I see is that you're smiling. This is the dream.
And yet it won't feel like American idol. And yet
it won't feel like an Olympic gold medal ceremony, because
it's not that.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Kind of dream.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
By the time Joseph's dream finally came true, because dreams
do come true, it was two decades later. Not only
been falsely in prison, not only had he been forgotten about,
not only had he been misunderstood, not only was he
incarcerated for a crime he didn't commit, but in the
(29:54):
process of it, he was unappreciated for his part in
someone else's freedom. Yet, when he finally got to his dream,
he realized something that is very hard for us to
comprehend in an Instagram world. That God develops dreams in
the dark room and The issue is that we have
(30:16):
an Instagram expectation, but we serve a darkroom God.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
For the four of y'all who are clapping, I'm gonna
keep preaching. When you get your picture.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Really developed by a professional, they don't post it ten
seconds after they took it with a prefabricated filter by
Instagram incorporator. They take it into a special room and
they do special things in a special room. If any
of y'all ever had to drop some film off at CVS,
(30:51):
if any of you ever had to go through a
season of your life where you had to trust a professional,
where you had to put something in the hands of God,
where you had to hand him the negatives, and trust
him to take the negatives and take them into the
secret place of the Most High, and take them into
(31:13):
the place of his purpose, and take them into the
place of his wisdom, and take them into the mystery.
And trust him that if I put it in his hands,
and if I have the patience to let it develop,
if I have the patience to know that every scene
of my life is playing a part in the bigger picture,
not of the dream that I had, but of the
(31:34):
desire that was in God's heart, and I might be
standing in the middle of a dream that I don't
have the clarity to see right now because the picture
does not match for my preference. But watch this, I'm
willing and ready and able to trust God even in
the dark places of my disappointment, because I understand that
(31:56):
some of God's greatest work happens in the dark where
I don't understand. And I'm feeling around, and I thought
I was going to be done with this by now,
and I thought i'd be different by now. And this
is not how they put it on the box, and
this is not how the Hamburger looked on the commercial.
But here I am God, and I trust you, not
my dream. I trust you, not my idea. I will
(32:19):
not make my ideas my idol. I'm worshiping you, I'm
serving you. It's not about position, it's about purpose. So
when he finally had his dream come true, it was
(32:42):
not in the form of shiny stars. It was in
the form of his eleven brothers who betrayed him, coming
to him and asking for food. And Joseph is in
Pharaoh's court distributing the grain for not only that nation,
but for all the surrounding nations. And he looks up
at his brothers who hurt him, who are standing with
(33:04):
their hands out, and realizes, this is the dream. I'm
at the center. But it's not for status, it's for service.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Has God been trying to get you to see that
in your own life? Lately?
Speaker 2 (33:31):
We attach ourselves to a version of a dream that
may not have even come from God to begin with.
And what if the greatest thing God is going to
do through your life is what He is going to
allow you to contribute to somebody else's Are you open
(33:54):
to that dream? When the angel came to marry, he said,
you're gonna have a baby. When the Angel came to
Joseph in a dream, he said, you're gonna help her.
What if the dream God has for me isn't even
(34:14):
about me. It's the danger of a dream to start
thinking like this is what my kids are gonna grow
up and do, Okay, Like get your Harvard mug out
of your coffee mug cabinet.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
And what if your kid doesn't turn out to do
what you wanted him to do.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
What if God has a different dream for them? What
if it's better, What if it's deeper. What if the
reason God lets your dream.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Die is because it wasn't big enough.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
When we put too much pressure on a dream to
come true, we allow our dream to become a di
traction from the season that we're in. And I preached
this way because if Joseph had gone around looking for
stars for his dream, you know, reach for the stars.
But it wasn't in the form of a star that
(35:12):
the dream came. It was in the form of his brothers.
It was in the form of his responsibility.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
It was in the form of a duty. You don't
have to have some grand, dynamic dream to serve God.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Stop feeling guilty because you don't have some huge dream
to end cancer, or to or to start a new
to start a new ministry, or to maybe like be
the next Bill Gates or Elon Musk or go to space.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Maybe you don't have the talent for that.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
You don't have to have a huge dream, but you
do need to serve a purpose in this season. And
I wonder, is there's somebody here watching online who was
standing right in the middle of the dream, but it
looks different than it did in the distance.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
This is the.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Dream to know him, to serve him, to love him.
And there's two types of people in the room. Some
of you were discouraged because you had a dream and
it didn't happen, hasn't happened yet, don't know if it will.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
And others are disillusioned because you're in your dream, but
it's different than you thought it was going to be.
You're standing in the middle, but it's your brother's around you.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
God said that today was going to be a day
for you, for you to see the dream for what
it really is and let go of the illusion of
what you thought it would be. If you stand right now,
I'll pray for you.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
You could put your notebook down. I'm done teaching.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
It's one of those things that we all have to
deal with at different points in our life, to realize
that this is what I saw, but it just doesn't
feel the same.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Are you open to a different dream.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Maybe it's not even a different dream, maybe it's just
a more mature version of it. The Disciples had a
dream for Jesus, you know, he's going to restore the
Kingdom of Israel. When they saw him hanging on the cross,
they didn't know what to do with that. That wasn't
the way they saw liberation. But that's the way he
(37:46):
did it, and it is in the process of doing it,
and it is in the process of accepting it.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
That greater faith is born.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Father, Today I thank you for the illumination that you've
given us through your word and by your spirit. I
felt like you were using me while I was preaching
to speak to somebody on a personal level, and I
want to thank you for that because I want to
be used by you. But now God, I want to
step out of the way, and I want them to
(38:16):
hear what they need to hear from you, because it
didn't turn out the way they dreamed.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
It's different.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
It doesn't look so shiny anymore, it doesn't look so
sexy anymore. Now it's time for them to embrace the
purpose for the season that you've placed them in and
let go of the one that may never come, or
let go of the one that was. This is the dream.
(38:45):
Somebody make that confession. This is the dream. And so
God give them the perspective to go back into their lives,
go back into their homes, go back into their jobs, and.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
See it how you see it.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
In a world that's obsessed with stats, us in position,
make us servants of purpose to serve your purpose in
every season that we're in and to find our satisfaction
in that.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
You can click the link in the description to give
now or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more
information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Thanks again for listening. God bless you
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdik.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
I wanted to thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope
it gives your perspective to see God is moving.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
In your life. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
This is a scripture in Genesis chapter thirty seven, verse
five that has in it so much so many of
you who know the story of the biblical character Joseph
will be tempted to fast forward again to the end
of the story, and I will challenge you not to,
because this is where the sermon starts today in Genesis
(00:37):
thirty seven, verse five. For a few weeks out of
every year, I plan my teaching to be independent of
a series. A lot of times I teach around one theme,
but then I clear parts of the calendar intentionally. I've
learned to do this now in thirteen years of pastoring,
that you just need to leave a little room for
some things that have been in your heart.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
This particular message.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I was able to share some of the content with
our staff last year and really been waiting for an
opportunity to share it with you, and so I'm very
excited about it today.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
But just one verse to get us started.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
In Genesis, chapter thirty seven, verse five, the Bible says
Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to
his brothers, they hated him all the more so for
everybody who's thinking that when you get a good idea,
everybody's going to go fund you, they're not, and that
everybody's going to support you. And understand you don't expect
(01:31):
that because this message. I want to speak to you
about your dreams today, the dreams God has put in
your heart, but I want to talk about it from
an unusual subject heading called the danger of a dream.
And this message comes with a warning label. If you
like your nice, little comfortable version of the way life
is supposed to be, slip out now click off, now
(01:53):
watch a ted talk. But this message is for somebody
who has a God given dream or he's starting to
sense it.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
And I just pray.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
In fact, let's pray right now, Lord, open our hearts
to receive what you say and then give us the
courage to obey it. That's our prayer in Jesus' name, Amen,
you may be seated. I wonder a lot of the
(02:22):
time what my kids will remember about their childhood, and
I'm scared they'll remember all the scenes I want them
to delete. It seems like they remember the times I
got mad more than the times I bought them stuff,
and I don't like it. But I will say that
some of the things that stand out to me about
my childhood, particularly my teenage years, are some of the
(02:44):
more random incidents. One thing that I remember from my
childhood and my mom remembers it a little differently than
I do, but she's out of town today, so I
can tell this story. The way I want to tell
it is when I was auditioning for this band, and
I won't bore you with the long story, but my
dream from age seventeen on was to be a pastor.
(03:05):
But before that, I wanted to be a punk rocker
and I almost had the chance because I was at
the North Charleston Coliseum.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Have I told you this story? Robert best story ever?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Green Day was playing at the North Charleston Coliseum and
Billy Joe Armstrong called me up on stage and gave
me his guitar to play a guitar solo. And it
was something he had been doing every night on tour.
He was looking for the most talented kid in the room,
which that night was me, or just whatever kid looked
(03:37):
the most excited, or whatever the case was, and he
put his Fender Stratocaster around my neck.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
True story.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I'm fifteen years old and I played the guitar solo
for a three chord song called Knowledge by the band
Operation Ivy. I still remember how the song went, but
I'm not sing it for you right now because it's
waste of time.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
We need to get back to Genesis thirty seven.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
But what that set off was kind of like a
chain of events where I became a lot more popular
in school, and I was so excited. The next morning,
I woke up and I was listening to the radio
and the DJ his name was the Critic, was talking
about the Green Day Show. And I was getting ready
for school listening to the radio, still excited, only slept
(04:26):
about an hour, excited to get to school, excited to
be like how you like me now to all the
girls who didn't pay me attention the day before. And
he goes, oh, he said the Green Day Show last night.
He said it wasn't a very great show, but there
was one part he said there was a kid who
got up on stage and ripped on guitar. He was
(04:49):
the highlight of the show. He stole the show. His
word's not mine. I'm very humble. I would not say
it that way, but that's the way he said it.
That's the way the critics said it. And so I
called in. I called the radio station. I was like,
you got to put me through. That's me he's talking about.
I'm about to go to school right now. I got
to leave in like five minutes. My mom's waiting for me.
(05:09):
But that was me he was talking about on stage
that played guitar. Put me through to the critic, and
they put me through to the critic and I said, hey,
that was me you're talking about. He said, well, hey, kid,
bring your demo tape by because I told him had
a band, and he was like, bring your demo tape
by and we'll play it on the air. We didn't
have a demo tape, but that's all right because we
eventually saved three hundred dollars made a demo tape.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
I took it to the critic. He played it on
the air, and when I was leaving.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
This is several months later, he said by the way,
I am putting together a band. It'd be kind of
cool to have a fifteen year old kid in the band.
So if you want to audition for it, you learn
these songs and you can audition from my band. Well,
I thought that'd be amazing because we'd be playing at
the Music Farm and we'd be playing all around truston
South Carolina, and that'd be pretty cool gig for a
fifteen year old. So I locked myself in the room.
(05:49):
I start learning all the songs on the tape. A
tape A tape is and my mom walks in one night.
This is all I'm gonna say this, because I promise,
I know you didn't come to hear me talk about
my nostalgic fifteen year old memories, but come out of dream.
My mom walks in, picks up the tape, and all
of the songs on the tape had cusswords in the title.
(06:11):
And then even the name of the band had a
cussword in the name of the band. And Buck's laughing
because the name of the band is so inappropriate. I
can't say it in church, I can't even allude to
it in church. But that was the band I was
auditioning for and my mom, who was a Methodist minister's daughter,
had old fashioned monks corner values, and she's like, what
is this. I'm like, this is the band I'm auditioning before.
And she said, if you think I'm going to let
(06:32):
you go audition for this band, You've lost your mind.
If you think I'm gonna let you audition for a
band called the Beads, then you've lost your mind, to
which I said, then I'll run away from home. You
will not stand in the way of my dream, right
(06:52):
because a dream will make you bold. And we never
got to find out whether or not I would have
had the courage to pack it all up and head
out on the mean streets a monk's corner on my
own to chase my dream, because I auditioned for the
band and I didn't make it. But the point of
the story that I'm trying to tell you is this
(07:15):
that a lot of times the dream we start out with,
the dream that we think we see in one stage
of our life, will show up later in our life
in a different dimension, and it will be such a
different dimension that we will not even recognize the dream
(07:36):
as the original dream. The Bible says that when Joseph
was seventeen years old, he had a dream, and his
brothers hated him all the more for it. That phrase
all the more lets me know that Joseph's brothers already
didn't like him, And we can argue if we want to,
(08:00):
about whether Joseph was wise to share with his brothers
the content of his dream. There is such a thing
as talking too much, posting too much. There is such
a thing as sharing too much. There is such a
thing as thinking that everybody else wants to hear what
God has put on your heart. But one thing that
we can conclude from the text, even from a biological perspective.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Is that Joseph was different. And one thing I've noticed
about having a dream is that a dream makes you different.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Joseph was different from his brothers, not only in his aspirations,
but he was he was from a different mother.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
They shared the same father, Jacob.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
And if I listed their names, you might recognize a
few of them. They were the patriarchs of the tribes
of Israel. But Joseph didn't come through the same mom
that his brothers came through. He was the son of Rachel,
the pretty one that his Dad really liked and when
Joseph saw that Rachel his favorite wife, Holley, you're my
(09:04):
favorite wife, by the way, I want to put that
in this message.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Had given him a son.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
He liked him, he liked him extra special, and he
treated him special, and he felt differently about Joseph than
the other boys. To the point I don't know if
you've if you've read the story lately, but you remember
he bought him Magucci coat, and and Joseph's always wearing
it around all the time.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
He's like, you like my coat. And his brothers are like,
we hate your coat. You like you like my coat?
You like my coat? You know, They're like, we we
hate we we hate you. We we hate you because
you're different.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Okay, Now, I have a teenage son right now, and
one of the things that I'm trying to work out
with him in real time is that people accept what
is the same, but they eventually respect what is different.
(10:06):
People eventually come around and respect what stands out. But
what happens to most of us is that the moment
we start to realize the differences between us and other people,
we downplay our distinctives in order to fit in and
conform with culture.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
One thing I'm proud.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
About when I read about Joseph, And I know it's
weird to say that I'm proud of Joseph like he cares,
but I'm proud that he had the courage to wear
his coat anyway, you know what I mean. It may
have been unwise, but I'm proud of him that.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
He was not afraid to show up in the.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Room looking different because he was clothed with the fabric
of the favor of his father. And I wonder, are
you courageous enough to wear your coat? Because a lot
of times, what I've found that God will begin to
show you things about yourself, about your life, about your calling,
about your direction, about what He's put inside of you,
(11:09):
about the gifts He's given you. But someone will, someone
will actually beat the distinctive out of you. If you
don't know clearly enough that I have a calling from God,
who is greater than people, and if he is for me,
who can be against me? Touch somebody next to you
and say, I'm gonna.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Wear my coat.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Even if people criticize me for it. I'm not ashamed
to walk in the love and the favor of God.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Oh we need some Christians.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Who don't check their coat at the door of culture,
who are unashamed to be optimistic about the future because
you know God is already there, if He is the
author and the finisher of your faith.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
A dream will make you different, and it takes courage
to be different.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
It takes to speak different.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
If you get a hold of a dream, or better said,
if a dream gets hold of you from the throne
of God, it'll make you walk different, talk different, think different,
eat different, drink different, party different, texts different.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
It'll make you different. Dream will make you different.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
And I'm glad that Joseph had the courage to be different,
and I wonder do we have the courage to be different.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
The weird thing about.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Our church is that a lot of times people will
be attracted to our church because it's different, and then
when they get to the church, they start trying to
tell us how we need to make it like the
church that they left to come to the church that
was different. Yeah, I don't want to say amen to
the preacher today. It's the truest thing, Like you're attracted
(13:06):
to something because it's different, and they even say it's
a marriage that before marriage, opposites attracted and then opposites attacked.
Because you're attracted to what's different, you're drawn to what's different,
not at first.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
At first you fear it.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
That's why they had to take the Old Town Road
off of the Billboard charts on country music because it
was too different. They couldn't they couldn't find a category
for it, and they said, it's not country enough, but
it's not rap enough, and we don't know what it is.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
It's different. That's why they crucify Jesus. You know, you
don't have many preachers.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
They can put a little Nasaks and Jesus in the
same paragraph. But he was so different, we don't know
what to do with him. He's grace and truth. He's different.
Somebody shot him different. And I don't mean different in style.
I mean different in substance. I don't mean different just
for the sake of difference, because that's frankly kind of annoying.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
And there's always a temptation, you know.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
I've noticed that some people just want to be different,
just to be different. But there's nothing different about being different.
To be different, there's something about being different because you
have a different set of values and a different dream. See,
I don't just dream of making it through the day.
I don't just dream of surviving my life. I don't
(14:28):
just dream.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
When you get a dream, it'll make you different.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
You'll start sacrificing, and people will think you're crazy because
of what you sacrifice. Even if you go on a
diet because you have a dream to lose twenty pounds,
the first thing that everybody around you is going to say.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Is you're not fine anymore. You used to meet someone's fine.
You used to just eat all the time when you
ain't contained. Why are you now. Don't let the fact
that they don't have the discipline to eat something different
cause you to give up on a goal that.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
You set that's real for your life.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
And if it's true with the diet, it's much more
true with I wonder have you been dumbing down yourself
because to be different is too painful, And if you're
not careful, you will be conformed to the patterns of
this world, rather than being transformed by the renewing of
your mind.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Christians are supposed to.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
See different, think different, understand different.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
It's a different perspective.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
I always thought that Joseph's life was a story about perseverance.
You know, Joseph had a dream when he was young,
and then he had to go.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Through a lot of things.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
But you know, don't give up because eventually you will
achieve your dream. Yet, that is a cultural understanding of dreams,
not a Christian understanding of dreams, not a scriptural understanding
of dreams. And we have a really bad habit of
taking a concept like a dream and then overlaying our
own preferences and our own prejudices on that concept, and
(15:55):
so we make it what it's not, and.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
We miss what it is.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Because it's really common for people to say, follow your dreams.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Yet, if you study the life of Joseph, and.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
I mean really read every single word John and Tittle,
every single invention, every single period in Comma, like I
did preparing to preach this, you will see a phrase
iterated over and over again, no matter what he went through,
that says, the Lord was with Joseph. That's a statement
about God's presence. You will see that wherever he was,
(16:32):
God promoted him, and that's a statement about purpose. But
the story of Joseph is not about getting a dream
and holding on tight to the dream and persevering, because
I used to think this was the story of Joseph, Like, don't.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Let anybody talk you out of your dream.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
If your mom told you that you're going to be
the next you know, the next whatever. Just hold on
to your dream. And then anybody who doesn't agree with
your dream as a hater.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Maybe not.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Maybe your mom just loved you too much to hear
the bad notes you were hitting and you're not supposed
to be a professional singer.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Does the thought No, I'm sick of it. I'm really
sick of it because we take Joseph. It's not fair
to Joseph. Joseph went through this whole life. He was
called and chosen, and.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
There was all kinds of conflict that came along.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
And we're like, Joseph had a dream. Do you have
a dream? Would you like to open your own company?
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Be like Joseph, have a dream, and then you can
make it from the pit to the palace.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Hold on in the pit, because there's a palace on
the other side.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Let me go into it for a moment. That is
not the story of Joseph's life. The story of Joseph's
life has nothing to do with if you have a
dream that you can think of that's big enough, God
is obligated.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
To bless it. Watch this.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Joseph didn't ask God for a dream. Joseph did not
make a vision board. That doesn't mean you can't make one.
I've made a few myself. Let's just be clear that
we mean the same thing when we say a dream,
(18:12):
and then and then it becomes very devastating.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Watch this, because your dream can become a distraction.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Joseph's dream was very specific and epic, and it had
broad implications, you know. And he tells his brothers his dreams.
He comes out in his coat one day and they're like,
oh God, this guy. And so he comes over and
they're like, you talk to him this time.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
I'm sick of talking to him. He's like, hey, guys,
guess what I had a dream. You want to hear
my dream.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
They're like, no, we hate your dream, we hate your coat,
we hate your voice, we hate you You're different.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
But he didn't really, he didn't really care if they
wanted to hear it. He was going to tell him anyway.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Joseph needed a journal, by the way, so he could
write some of this down and not tell other people.
He needed somewhere he could just process his dreams where
he didn't let other people get involved too soon. Nevertheless,
even Joseph's inability to discern the nature of the dream
and who was capable of handing it, played a part
and leading him to the place where he could do
the dream that God put in his heart.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Did you feel God on that what I just said?
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Because God's dream for my life will involve my decisions,
even if my decisions are immature. God will use some
of the desires in your heart that aren't good desires
at first. But Psalm thirty four thirty seven four says,
if you delight yourself in the Lord, he will give
you the desires of your heart.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
And he will take the desires that you had.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
And purify them, and he will rinse them, and he
will separate the wheat from the chaff to bring you
to an ultimate place, a purpose. But when Joseph started
sharing his dream with his brothers, it was all about him.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
Hey, I had a dream, and it was awesome. We
were binding our sheaves of grain, and we were in
let your sheaves started bowing down to my sheaves.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
And and in that awesome and they're like, no, it's
not awesome. We hate your dream, we hate your cod
we hate you. And he's like, but then I had
another dream, and in this dream there were eleven stars.
I don't know why Joseph sounds like Keanu reeves.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
There were eleven stars and a sun and the moon,
and they were all bowing down to me.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
In my dream awesome. And they're like, no, we don't
like your dream.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
In fact, we hate your dream so much that we
are about to push you in.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
A pit and leave you for dead.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
And if it hadn't have been for Reuben, who decided
we should at least get twenty shekels of silver out
of this boy, there's no need to kill him when
we can profit off of him, they wouldn't have sold
him to the Ishmaeli Caravan.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
They would have left him for dead.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
But understand that even Joseph's decision to speak about his
dream prematurely was part of what God used to motivate
his brothers to push him in the pit. At the
same time they did that, and Ishmaelik Caravan was setting
out to bring whoever they would pick.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Up along the way back to the place of slavery.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Now it was a place of slavery at that point,
but it would ultimately become a place of deliverance. I'm
gonna teach the Bible today because when Joseph was picked
up and put in Potterphar's house, he served so well
in Potterphar's house that everything Potiphar put under him prosper.
And so when Potiphar saw how Joseph served, he promoted
him to a position of influence. But he wouldn't have
(21:20):
been in Potiphar's house to begin with if he hadn't
been pushed in a pit, and he wouldn't have been
pushed in a pit if he didn't wear a coat.
And so when you leave your coat in the closet
and downplay your dream to fit in with people who
don't like you because you're different, you can't end up
in the position you need to be in. I'm preaching
to somebody who's different. The more like Christ you become,
(21:40):
the more different from culture you will be. And it's
all right to be weird, and it's all right to
have hope.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
And it's all.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Right to have vision, and it's all right to.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Know who you are.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
And all of this happened because Joseph had a dream,
And yet Joseph's dream looked nothing when it finally happened,
like it looked in the distance when he first saw it.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Can you relate to this.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
How sometimes marriage looks different in the distance than it
does after twenty years. I need all my people who
have been married over twenty years to just wave at
me real quick and let me know that it's so
much different, so much different, so much better, so much harder,
(22:41):
so much different. Not like the movies that I saw,
not like the songs that I heard.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Different, It's just different.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Because when Joseph is young, he sees shiny stars, but
sometimes when it comes up closer, it's not so shiny anymore.
Having kids is different. This is where me and Holly
are different. She always dreamed of being a parent. I
didn't dream of being a parent. I dreamed of being
a punk rocker and then a preacher. But one of
(23:20):
our staff members was having a baby the other day
and he was telling me how happy he was, and
he was like, O always dreamed of being a dad,
And that made me feel sorry for my kids, because
I'm like, I didn't even like kick in as a
dad until they were five you know that's so worthless.
(23:40):
In fact, if we can really be honest and not
put this one online. I dreaded being a dad because
all I ever saw kids do was make people have
to leave restaurants before they finish their meal. So you know,
like now, there is no greater delight in my life
(24:03):
than my kids thirty percent at the time, There's no
greater investment. There's nothing I'm more passionate about. There's nothing
that can just wake me up more and make me
realize what matters more. But it wasn't the thing I
dreamed about. It was the thing that I did, and
(24:24):
when I did it, God gave me the desire for it.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
But it didn't start as a dream. It started as
a duty.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
This is so critical for a world and a time
where all we're ever told is follow your dreams. There
is no record in Genesis thirty seven, thirty eight, thirty nine,
forty forty one, two forty three, forty four, forty five
where the Bible says and Joseph remembered his dream and
pushed on through because when life gets hard, you got
to have a dream, and sometimes life will give you hurdles.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
But you know, this is really.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Allward or this little motif I've gotten myself into right here,
this little, this pastic motivational speaker thing that I've set
up here.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
But just follow your dreams. You know what I can't find.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
In Genesis where Joseph followed his dream. What I saw
in Genesis was Joseph's dream followed him.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
So watch this. I don't follow dreams. I follow Jesus,
and when I do, dreams follow me.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Joseph's dream followed Joseph. It followed him to Potterphar's house,
it followed him to prison, it followed him into Pharaoh's court,
because dreams follow me when I follow Jesus. If you
look behind your life, you will see very clearly that
some of the things that God did for you, and
some of the doors he opened for you, and some
(25:53):
of the ways he made for you, and some of
the opportunities that he granted for you were accidental from
your perspective. But I've got good news for you. God's
dream for you is bigger than your dream for you.
Just because it doesn't look shiny when you see it
doesn't mean it isn't real. God said, you've got the
right dream.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
You just need to see it differently. The fact of
the matter is.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
That some of us are standing in the middle of
our dream, but we can't see it because it feels
different than we thought it would when we first saw it.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
And I believe in dreams. I had a dream about you.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
I dreamed that you would be here in this church,
and God did that.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
But it's a lot different than I thought it would
be because y'all are different, and it's different. Y'all are different.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
You're different than the person three seats down for you,
and you grew up in vacation Bible school, and they're
thinking like Joseph is when that Jesus' dad, And they
were like this, I don't and I'm trying to appreach
to all these different people. It's just different. It's different
because you picture like Joseph had a dream. Have you
got a dream? Everybody had a dream. You had a dream,
(27:22):
Doctor King had a dream.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
You have a dream. It's not the same kind of dream.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
You know, this was a This was a dream that
Joseph didn't decide for himself.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Don't follow your dreams.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Because what if your dream was just the first draft?
Are you open to a revision? I wanted to I
wanted to be a punk rocker. I wanted to sing songs,
but I didn't know God was gonna let me write
songs and pastor a church that churches around the world
(28:00):
world would sing.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
As an expression or as an anthem of faith.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
It wasn't my dream, but God took that desire and
he gave me the dream.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
And I don't have to be the one singing the song.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
I just want to be a part of it.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
It's the value of a bigger picture.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
But your dream can be a distraction because now you're
not following Jesus.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
You're following your dreaming. When your dream takes you down an.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Unexpected path, you start to complain and freak out and
get frustrated, and you are missing the dream because you
will not wake up to the reality. Sometimes we don't
know the difference between a dream and a fantasy. I
told our staff recently, this is the dream when you're
(28:46):
frustrated in ministry. Remember that some of you were watching
elevision church online before you came to work here, and
you thought, oh, if I could ever get there one day.
But you didn't know that the baptism tank was gonna
be half full when you got here, and you'd have
to fill it up right before and next time you
next time you have to get here and the volunteers
don't show up, and next time you have to just
(29:07):
just say to yourself, this is the dream.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Waking up in the middle of the night as a
new mom, this is the dream. Even if you have
to fake a smile. The devil won't know the difference.
All I see is that you're smiling. This is the dream.
And yet it won't feel like American idol. And yet
it won't feel like an Olympic gold medal ceremony, because
it's not that.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Kind of dream.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
By the time Joseph's dream finally came true, because dreams
do come true, it was two decades later. Not only
been falsely in prison, not only had he been forgotten about,
not only had he been misunderstood, not only was he
incarcerated for a crime he didn't commit, but in the
(29:54):
process of it, he was unappreciated for his part in
someone else's freedom. Yet, when he finally got to his dream,
he realized something that is very hard for us to
comprehend in an Instagram world. That God develops dreams in
the dark room and The issue is that we have
(30:16):
an Instagram expectation, but we serve a darkroom God.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
For the four of y'all who are clapping, I'm gonna
keep preaching. When you get your picture.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Really developed by a professional, they don't post it ten
seconds after they took it with a prefabricated filter by
Instagram incorporator. They take it into a special room and
they do special things in a special room. If any
of y'all ever had to drop some film off at CVS,
(30:51):
if any of you ever had to go through a
season of your life where you had to trust a professional,
where you had to put something in the hands of God,
where you had to hand him the negatives, and trust
him to take the negatives and take them into the
secret place of the Most High, and take them into
(31:13):
the place of his purpose, and take them into the
place of his wisdom, and take them into the mystery.
And trust him that if I put it in his hands,
and if I have the patience to let it develop,
if I have the patience to know that every scene
of my life is playing a part in the bigger picture,
not of the dream that I had, but of the
(31:34):
desire that was in God's heart, and I might be
standing in the middle of a dream that I don't
have the clarity to see right now because the picture
does not match for my preference. But watch this, I'm
willing and ready and able to trust God even in
the dark places of my disappointment, because I understand that
(31:56):
some of God's greatest work happens in the dark where
I don't understand. And I'm feeling around, and I thought
I was going to be done with this by now,
and I thought i'd be different by now. And this
is not how they put it on the box, and
this is not how the Hamburger looked on the commercial.
But here I am God, and I trust you, not
my dream. I trust you, not my idea. I will
(32:19):
not make my ideas my idol. I'm worshiping you, I'm
serving you. It's not about position, it's about purpose. So
when he finally had his dream come true, it was
(32:42):
not in the form of shiny stars. It was in
the form of his eleven brothers who betrayed him, coming
to him and asking for food. And Joseph is in
Pharaoh's court distributing the grain for not only that nation,
but for all the surrounding nations. And he looks up
at his brothers who hurt him, who are standing with
(33:04):
their hands out, and realizes, this is the dream. I'm
at the center. But it's not for status, it's for service.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Has God been trying to get you to see that
in your own life? Lately?
Speaker 2 (33:31):
We attach ourselves to a version of a dream that
may not have even come from God to begin with.
And what if the greatest thing God is going to
do through your life is what He is going to
allow you to contribute to somebody else's Are you open
(33:54):
to that dream? When the angel came to marry, he said,
you're gonna have a baby. When the Angel came to
Joseph in a dream, he said, you're gonna help her.
What if the dream God has for me isn't even
(34:14):
about me. It's the danger of a dream to start
thinking like this is what my kids are gonna grow
up and do, Okay, Like get your Harvard mug out
of your coffee mug cabinet.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
And what if your kid doesn't turn out to do
what you wanted him to do.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
What if God has a different dream for them? What
if it's better, What if it's deeper. What if the
reason God lets your dream.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Die is because it wasn't big enough.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
When we put too much pressure on a dream to
come true, we allow our dream to become a di
traction from the season that we're in. And I preached
this way because if Joseph had gone around looking for
stars for his dream, you know, reach for the stars.
But it wasn't in the form of a star that
(35:12):
the dream came. It was in the form of his brothers.
It was in the form of his responsibility.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
It was in the form of a duty. You don't
have to have some grand, dynamic dream to serve God.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Stop feeling guilty because you don't have some huge dream
to end cancer, or to or to start a new
to start a new ministry, or to maybe like be
the next Bill Gates or Elon Musk or go to space.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Maybe you don't have the talent for that.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
You don't have to have a huge dream, but you
do need to serve a purpose in this season. And
I wonder, is there's somebody here watching online who was
standing right in the middle of the dream, but it
looks different than it did in the distance.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
This is the.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Dream to know him, to serve him, to love him.
And there's two types of people in the room. Some
of you were discouraged because you had a dream and
it didn't happen, hasn't happened yet, don't know if it will.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
And others are disillusioned because you're in your dream, but
it's different than you thought it was going to be.
You're standing in the middle, but it's your brother's around you.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
God said that today was going to be a day
for you, for you to see the dream for what
it really is and let go of the illusion of
what you thought it would be. If you stand right now,
I'll pray for you.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
You could put your notebook down. I'm done teaching.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
It's one of those things that we all have to
deal with at different points in our life, to realize
that this is what I saw, but it just doesn't
feel the same.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Are you open to a different dream.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Maybe it's not even a different dream, maybe it's just
a more mature version of it. The Disciples had a
dream for Jesus, you know, he's going to restore the
Kingdom of Israel. When they saw him hanging on the cross,
they didn't know what to do with that. That wasn't
the way they saw liberation. But that's the way he
(37:46):
did it, and it is in the process of doing it,
and it is in the process of accepting it.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
That greater faith is born.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Father, Today I thank you for the illumination that you've
given us through your word and by your spirit. I
felt like you were using me while I was preaching
to speak to somebody on a personal level, and I
want to thank you for that because I want to
be used by you. But now God, I want to
step out of the way, and I want them to
(38:16):
hear what they need to hear from you, because it
didn't turn out the way they dreamed.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
It's different.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
It doesn't look so shiny anymore, it doesn't look so
sexy anymore. Now it's time for them to embrace the
purpose for the season that you've placed them in and
let go of the one that may never come, or
let go of the one that was. This is the dream.
(38:45):
Somebody make that confession. This is the dream. And so
God give them the perspective to go back into their lives,
go back into their homes, go back into their jobs, and.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
See it how you see it.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
In a world that's obsessed with stats, us in position,
make us servants of purpose to serve your purpose in
every season that we're in and to find our satisfaction
in that.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
You can click the link in the description to give
now or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more
information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Thanks again for listening. God bless you
Host
Steven Furtick
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