Discovering Your Identity & Calling pt7/Dreams Different, Harder, Longer, Better/Various

[Music] Hey tonight we are wrapping up our fall practice on discovering your identity and calling and a few weeks ago Bethany and myself and our teaching team were just praying about how to end the series and with it the practice and a teaching came to mind that I had have never done here before actually I've done a few I'd on to other continents I did it in the summer in the UK at this festival outdoor festival with like fourteen thousand charismatic people from all over Western Europe it was just like Woodstock with the Holy Spirit it was awesome actually what kind of wasn't like that at all but it was great and I did it in South Africa a few months before that and I realized I've never done it here and this is just something that I have been learning in my own journey of discovering my identity and my calling that I find helpful and I think you will find it helpful as well if not come back next week okay let's start off here in Genesis chapter 37 take a look at verse 2 this is the account of Jacob's family line Joseph a young man of seventeen I'm just saying was tending the flocks that could be your vocation prophetic word over your life I hope not with his brothers the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpha his father's wives and he brought their father a bad report about them he's a bit of a tattletale now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons because he had been born to him in his old age and he made an ornate robe for him when his brother saw that their father loved him more than any of them they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him and Joseph had a dream and when he told it to his brothers they hated him all the more he said to them listen to this dream I had we were binding sheaves of corn out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright while your sheaves gathered round mine and bowed down to it now like before read the next part how would you feel if your little brother said that to you yeah I have a little brother no his brother said to him do you actually intend to reign over us will you actually rule us in Hebrew it means more like you are an idiot and they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said but then he had another dream and he did not learn from his mistake he told it to his brothers listen he said I had another dream and this time the Sun and the moon and the Eleven stars were all bowing down to me when he told his father as well as his brother as his father rebuked him and he said what is this dream you had will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you his brothers were all jealous of him but his father kept the matter in mind Joseph was a dreamer and God's people have always been dreamers as long as God has been in relationship with people he has been giving them dreams and when I say dreams I don't just mean literal dreams when you are asleep that too for sure we believe in all of that but I mean it in a much broader sense any kind of a vision for your future and the role that you are to play in the family of God a prophetic word over your life from a family member or friend or just a gut sense this is going to happen or that is going to happen or an idea in your mind's eye that you just can't quite shake maybe your dream has to do with your career the role that you want to play in the healing and the renewal of our city maybe it's not that at all maybe it has more to do with the relationship marriage or family or a child maybe it has to do with your own character the kind of man or woman that you want to grow and mature into maybe it has to do with the justice issue or problem in our day or our age or business you want to start or church you want to plant or you get the idea but my guess is that on each and every one of you here there is some kind of a dream deep in your heart maybe more than one maybe two or three or even more and the odds are that at least some of that dream is from the Spirit of God because you see dreams play a key role in our life without dreams we would just get sucked into the tyranny of the urgent right into the vortex of the busyness and the digital distraction and the materialism of our day and age we would just wander our way through life and squander it on trivia but dreams have the potential to operate kind of like a roadmap for life or at least like a compass to keep you and I on track and the language of the self-help world they are how we quote start with the end in mind put into the language of our practice dreams are how God leads us and how God guides us into our identity and calling to be who God made us to be and do what God made us to do but here's the thing dreams are a tricky thing to live with am i right because there is always a gap between the dream and the fulfillment of that dream that gap might be a few days long or a few months long or a few years long or a few decades long but in that gap we run the full gamut from hope and anticipation I can't wait and viii all the way to despair and impatience and doubt and cynicism and disappointment enter Joseph I would argue that Joseph's story is a paradigm for how you and I are to live and live well in that gap between the dream and the fulfillment of the dream because for Joseph and my guess is it's the same for you I know it's the same for me that journey from dream to the fulfillment of the dream is anything but a straight line it's more of a zigzag it's two steps three steps forward two steps back it's honestly a very long and most the time a very hard road that in the end is worth it and in the middle is a pain in the butt now it would take all night to read Joseph's story it's about ten chapters long but let's just read a few key moments along the way and talk about what it all means for you and me okay okay um take a look again at verse chapter 37 verse 12 the story goes on now his brothers had gone to graze their fathers flock near we say Shechem it's actually from if you can say that and is just for the heck of it you know and Israel said to Joseph as you know your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem come I am going to send you to them so Joseph goes on an errand for his dad it's a multi-day or multi week journey to check in on his brothers now skip down to 18 they saw him in the distance in route and before he reached him they plotted to kill him here comes that what dreamer that's what he's known for a dreamer they said to each other come now let's kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say hey that's a ferocious animal devoured him then we'll see what comes of his dreams this by the way just makes me feel so much better about my parenting skills right babe like after a few days with my kids over Thanksgiving I have two boys are always fighting but this we've yet to reach anything close to murder all right I have one wife not four I feel like I'm actually doing all right okay and in the story so they conspire together and they plot and they take Joseph and they first throw them into a cistern to kill them later but then they look up and on the horizon they see this caravan of traders slave traders and they come up with an idea why kill him when we can sell the dude and make some profit off of his body and skip down to 28 so when the Midianite merchants came by his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the sister and sold him for 20 shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites who took him to Egypt now here's all I want you to notice Joseph has a dream and then the very next story is the exact opposite of that dream instead of Joseph's brothers bowing down to him Joseph is bowing down to all sorts of other people Joseph goes down to Egypt not up to the Father and he goes down not as a master but as a slave then if you know the story it goes on to make matters worse he is a slave and actually does a great job to this Egyptian by the name of Potiphar but there's a run-in with Potiphar's wife and Joseph is innocent but there's a false accusation and in the end he is in prison and then we read this turn over to chapter forty years go by Joseph is now was a slave now he is in prison some time later the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt so those aren't just like people that work in the kitchen those were both like advisory roles to the king or in this case to Pharaoh Pharaoh was angry with both of them the chief cupbearer and the chief Baker so he puts both of them into the prison and lo and behold what a coincidence it's the exact same prison where Joseph is and on the first night both the cupbearer and the baker have a dream and wake up all distraught then look at this six when Joseph came to them the next morning he saw that they were dejected so we asked Pharaoh's officials who were in custody with him in his master's house why do you look so sad today we both had dreams they answered but there's no one to interpret them then Joseph said to them do not interpretations belong to God tell me your dreams and so the baker and the cup heir tell Joseph the dreams Joseph interprets the dreams then a few days go by and both of the dreams on the third day come to pass one of them is put to death and the other is put back to the right hand of the king but then look at the closing line of the story verse 23 the chief Cup however did not remember Joseph he wet he forgot them now notice the story goes on Joseph interprets other people's dreams but his own dreams are unfulfilled just imagine that for a minute right you have this dream this thing in you you feel like it's from God and literally your life is a hundred and eighty degrees bent in the exact opposite direction and you can interpret but you can't actually live into your own dream the Baker has a dream three days later it comes to pass Joseph has a dream years go by and nothing he is literally left to rot in a dungeon turn the page chapter 41 verse 1 when 2 full years had passed Pharaoh had a dream so now just everybody's dreaming it's like right and left it's the new thing to do and goes on there's the dream look at verse a in the morning his mind was troubled so he sent for all the magicians and Wiseman if Egypt Pharaoh told them his dreams but no one could interpret them for him if you ever had a dream that you really feel like it is from God or there's something to it but you have no idea what it means and you and you feel tension and confusion and distraught and that itch in your mind then the chief cupbearer said to Pharaoh today I'm reminded of my shortcomings Pharaoh was once angry with the servants and he imprisoned me and the chief Baker in the house of the captain of the guard each of us had a dream the same night each dream had a meaning of its own now a young Hebrew was there notice he does not even remember his name just it's just anonymous a young I don't even remember his name a servant of the captain the guard we told him our dreams he interpreted them for us giving each man the interpretation and things turned out exactly as he interpreted them to us I was restored to my position the other man was impaled so Pharaoh sent for Joseph that's right and he was quickly brought from the dungeon when he had shaved and changed his clothes he came before Pharaoh so there's a twist in the story out of the blue out of nowhere Lee go if you're just if you go from the dungeon to right in front of the most powerful man on earth at that time and Pharaoh said to Joseph I had a dream and no one can interpret it but I've heard it said rumor is that when you hear a dream you can interpret it notice 16 I cannot do it Joseph replied to Pharaoh but God will give Pharaoh the answer he desires can notice just for a moment all of that cocky ego it's all gone it's been beat out of him by prison and years he's older he's a bit wiser now there's a humility about Joseph oh I can't do it but there's still a faith God can and he Pharaoh tells the dream then in the story Joseph interprets the dream then skip down to 39 then Pharaoh said to Joseph since God has made all this known to you there is no one so discerning as wise as you so when he was young he was an arrogant fool now he's marked by a humility and he's thought of as the wisest man in the Empire right and you would imagine it would be pretty hard to impress somebody like Pharaoh you shall be in charge of my palace and all my people are to submit to your orders only with respect to the throne will I be greater to you Wow okay so now the dream is just starting to come to pass the slave is now everything is turned upside down or right side up and he's made into a ruler but still the brothers are not in the story and it's been years since that dream and years sounds the brother turned to chapter 32 look down the bro in the story there's a famine now that all has to do with Joseph's stream if you know it there's a famine and the brothers are you know multiple week journey up to the north and the family Joseph's family of origin is out of food and starting to go hungry and so Jacob the dad says alright boys you go down to Egypt and buy we have money but we don't have any food go buy food so the brothers come down and guess who is the one there to sell the food it's little brother Joseph take a look at 6 now Joseph was the governor of the land the person who sold grain to all its people so when Joseph's brothers arrived they bowed down to him with their faces to the ground are you picking that out as soon as Joseph saw his brothers he recognized them but he pretended to be a stranger and he spoke harshly to them where do you come from he asked from the land of Canaan they replied to buy food although Joseph recognized his brothers they did not recognize him then he remembered his dreams can you imagine you're just at work one day you know running the Empire whatever it is you do saving the world from starvation you know one shady business deal at a time whatever and in walk your brotherís there's Reuben there's Judah there's all the men that sold you into slavery and after all of these years that itch in the back of your mind that would never go away was that dream from God or was I crazy is there a God is God actually with me or I'm I all alone in the world and then there are the brothers next thing you know bowing down in front of you just like in the Jean no next in the story there's a whole bunch of drama that we don't have time to get into turn over to chapter 43 long story short the brothers go back home still no clue that was little brother Joseph go back home a few more years go by they run out of food again they take a road trip down to Egypt to buy more food again and then we read this chapter 43 look down at verse 26 when Joseph came home they presented to him the gifts they had brought into the house and they wet bowed down before him to the ground are you picking this up right we read it not once but now twice then there is more drama a whole lot of stuff and Joseph just can't keep it in anymore chapter 45 verse 1 then Joseph could no longer control himself before all of us attendants and he cried out get out of here leave me alone and then Joseph verse 3 said to his brothers I am Joseph is dad still alive but his brothers were not able to answer him because they were terrified at his president's presence and you would be too can you imagine dang little brother that we sold into slavery it's on the second most powerful man on earth and our life is literally in his hands but then Joseph said to his brothers come close to me imagine the fear the trepidation when they had done so he said I am your brother Joseph the one you sold into Egypt and now do not be distressed do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you for two years now there has been famine in the land over the next five years there will be no plowing and reaping but God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a very great deliverance so then it was not you who sent me here but God he made me father to Pharaoh Lord of this entire household and ruler of all Egypt and the story goes on what a story right and that's the short version if you're new to the Bible go read it on your own week off now there's a lot that we can learn from this story about how to live in that gap between a dream and the fulfillment of that dream so now I don't want you to notice four things about Joseph's dream when the dream finally comes to pass it is one different to harder three longer and four better a short word on each first off different Joseph's in the dream sees all of his brothers bowing down to him but he does not see Egypt he does not see slavery he does not see prison he does not see a seven-year famine he does not see any of that he sees a little but he is blind to a lot and dreams are often like that the reality is - the dream with the tree is to the seed all of the raw materials are there in that seed but it's just a sneak peak it's just a fraction of the whole when we get a dream from God whether is a literal dream when you were asleep or more of a vision in your mind's eye or a desire or an idea whatever it is you might get 10% of it or 20% of it or if you're lucky 50% but there are whole bits and pieces whole chunks that are missing when we see the future most of the time it's fuzzy it's not clear Yoda even said something about that he was very wise right Paul yet another wise man who actually was a real person said something very similar he said quote now we know in part but then in the future the resurrection of the dead then we will know as we also are known one of my favorite quotes about prophecies from the theologian NT Wright who says this quote all prophecy about the future is signposts pointing into the fog I love that think of a road trip to San Francisco or to the coast signposts pointing into the fog it's this way right and that's all that you get it's not a photograph but the signpost pointing into the fog and that's because the point of a dream isn't to tell you what's going to happen in the future it's to tell you how to live in the present let me say that again the point of a dream or a vision or prophetic word over your life or a sense from God isn't to tell you what's going to happen in the future it's to tell you how to live in the present in fact God seems to be against his people knowing the future there is an ancient sin that we read all that we read about all through the Old Testament that was called divination where men and women would divine the future through a witch or spiritus or medium of some kind and divination is still alive and well why because there is a human bent and all of us whether it's in the occult or right in the church to want to know the future whether it's through astrology or a palm reader or through long rage business planning and reading in this seminar or like in the church tradition I grew up in like crazy end-of-the-year prophecy update things about the end of the world in Revelation and a chart of exactly how it would happen week by week by week for the seven-year tribulation like what and the war where are you getting this my goodness we want to know the future because we think that knowledge is power and we think that if we can know the future then we can have control over the future and if we can have control over the future then we don't have to trust God and pretty much none of us want to trust God at least not until we're pretty far down the path in our apprenticeship to Jesus back the main thing that I have come to believe God is teaching me and you in the years over our maturity is to trust decline in anxiety and arise and trust in peace and hope and surrender to the Living God God doesn't want us to have control he wants us to have faith that's why God will rarely if ever tell you what exactly is going to happen instead he will tell you just enough about tomorrow to show you how to live today all right this is what you focus on I do this all the time God show me what's coming not to control the future and so I don't have to trust you like he won't play that game and if he does it's because of your immaturity not because of your maturity and he has something better for you but because I need to know what do I focus on right now what do I give my time to my money to my energy to what am i how what should I be on the lookout for and watch out for right now what do I need to know about this season of life and is there a pitfall I need to avoid is there something I need to focus on in a relationship or a life or a work thing like those are the questions to ask and because of that when the dream does come to pass most of the time and again this is all like as a general rule stuff tonight most of the time it's a little bit different or even a lot different than we were expecting I have learned the hard way that when I have a dream that I really feel is from the Spirit of God that I should expect it one to come to pass but to it to come across quite a bit different than what I see in my mind's eye so first different second harder as I said Joseph in the dream he sees this picture in his mind's eye of his family bowing down to him but he does not see the slave trade he does not see the cistern he does not see Potiphar's wife and the false accusation and the dungeon and and nothing like he does not see sees all of the good and none of the bad we do this am i right all of us if you're anything like me when you get a dream or when you get a vision for your future you romanticize it right the future at least I'm a bit of an idealist I'm worse than most but still I think it's a general rule most of us imagine something that we feel like God is stirring up in us for the future it's it's romanticized it's warm and it's fuzzy and it's perfect and there's Adobe Photoshop just all over it and when we get there we'll just be so happy and we'll never be sad ever again any married people in the house tonight yeah any single people in the house tonight yeah come on how many of you single people want to get married thank you for the courage to put your hand up all right all of you that are too-cool-for-school we know you're crying into your beer every night all right whatever it is no that's okay that's great it's great to want to get married but the temptation is to romanticize it literally in your mind's eye it will be like this it will be like that he will be so amazing that's a great one and we'll like my soul mate somewhere out there doesn't the Bible teach that somebody out there is a perfect that somebody custom made by God just to fit exactly into my know the Bible teaches that you're born sinful and so is every other person on the planet best-case scenario you have somebody that like their sin is a kind of okay fit with your sin best-case scenario right I love Keller I love Tim Keller's point that on one level every single person on the planet is a bad fit for you it's just that some are a lot worse than others all right Wow you're like that's really cynical it's biblical actually but we forget that the romantic Hollywood ask think honestly the older I get Tammy and I reading a book about this right now I think more and more is actually alive from the pit of hell because it is disillusionment and disappointment waiting to happen there's a healthy kind of romance and other scent how can i think with creativity and love and a servant's heart to make this dinner or this experience or this picnic special for somebody I care about and there is an unhealthy kind of romance how can I get the next emotional hi how can i one-up how can I keep this alive and what if it was never made to be kept alive what if God is doing something totally other in your life and in mine you know what Paul writes about marriage he writes quote those who marry will face many troubles in this life and I want to spare you this call me cynical that's a verse in the Bible right and all the married couples you can't laugh right now but you all know that's true and honestly I think that is one of the reasons why the divorce rate is through the roof right now because so many people go into marriage with stars in their eyes and it's not that marriage is bad marriage is good it's that marriage is hard and some sure a bit harder than others but I don't think anybody has it easy and love self-sacrifice defined by Jesus which is self sacrificial love to put the good of another above your own that is never easy and that will never come naturally to you and that will AB and that will flow and of course the invitation of Jesus is to love a person exactly as they are through every stage through every age through every size Jean through every everything to love somebody exactly as they are my point is it's really easy to romanticize the future whether it's marriage or your career or a thing you want to do for God or the like what it's really easy to romanticize it in your mind's eye you know we think that life is the straight linear kind of arrow to success my therapist calls it the gospel of upward mobility we think about how that has started to creep into the church we have the sense like life will just keep getting better and better and better and better and then I'll like go from this to wealthy to super wealthy to and then all this I'll turn in famous I'll be beautiful and like okay that's an exaggeration but we have this thing it will just get better and better hashtag the best is yet to come isn't that a Christian hashtag right now when the reality is yeah there's a bit of truth in that but life is not always exactly like that last year I wrote a novel in like as a hobby in my free time I wrote a novel for my three kids just to like nerd out and have fun and and I had no clue what I was doing so I went off and I read a number of books about literary criticism and I read this one called plotting structure by James Bell who does some great work on plot and I thought was really fascinating he breaks down literary structure into two major plot categories and the first is what he calls a commercial plot so this is anybody see the last Thor a few weeks ago okay that's a good movie all right and an attractive man that that's a whole thing so so you know that spot we're like if you've seen the movie where his head gets his hurt there's hair get shaved off I'm not gonna tell you how or whatever but it's like his hair gets shaved off that's from the trailer you should know that by now and where I'm sitting there watching it with my we have all my children there and Sunday leads over to Tammy and goes oh he looks like daddy if only she just got glasses apparently her eyesight is not all that good oh if only that was true but this is Thor right like it's right out of the gate and you hit an obstacle and you push past it and you hit an obstacle and you push past it and you hit an obstacle and you push past it and then you get to the end let's save the whole planet on the spaceship and I won't give it away you need to go see it it's a great film all right my point is like this is like this is every blockbuster movie in the summer this is a page-turner novel if you have one this is a TV series you just can't put down it's a commercial plot then there's another type of plot that is called a literary plot this is a pulitzer prize book right and if you read fiction I read about a novel or two every single week and I alternate back and forth between like a commercial kind of novel and a literary novel and you get to the end of a literary novel and it just doesn't really end it just stops you know what I'm talking about and you're just kind of sad wow that was really smart and I'm just super depressed now you're like wait what was the point of that like and it's just kind of up and it's down and it's more about the inner journey then it is about action right it's less about let's go take on this alien and it's more about like what is going on deep in your heart and then sometimes the ending is hopeful other times the ending is not it's downbeat or it's ambiguous or you kind of wonder why now here's what I'm going with this is the story of Joseph a commercial plot or a literary plot what's it more like it's far more like a literary plot right especially if you keep reading we ran out of time all the way to the end of the story and actually his story is quite a bit better than most but if you really want to know how to read the Old Testament even if you're not a reader I would go read one or two Pulitzer Prize winners just to get a feel for how that kind of literature works and how a lot of those stories and honestly one of the most helpful things you can do to make sense of the Old Testament is go read a few like really snobby literary works because the Old Testament is brilliant literature and you get to an end of a lot of the stories it's just kind of like this weird ending you like David's this man of God and run after and then the end of his life he's like kill that person and he has like a young concubine in bed with him and his sons a mess and his family's a disaster and this is the man effed and then the story ends this is one king who does like awesome and then you get to the end and then at the end he turned away from God and had a foot disease that's the end of the story like what what author would end a story like that like it was just great and he caused a revival and then he kind of turned away from God and ended up with the foot disease so watch out what's the moral of that story like like wash your feet every night if you sin a lot I mean I don't what's the point and it's because they're not always to give you the shot and the arm there to empathize with the human condition my point is that why is most of the Bible far more literary than commercial and it's because most of life is far more literary than commercial we rarely feel like Thor maybe that's just me at the end of the day often we feel more like Joseph where is God again in my life and I thought that was from him and what is this and I'm confused that's more what it's like to be human but so often we just like Joseph are blind to that reality so first different second harder third as long as I'm just here to encourage you longer longer okay do the math with me there are eight chapters in the story and upwards of 22 years between the dream and the fulfillment of the dream Joseph is 17 when he dreams he's 30 when he becomes the ruler of Egypt but nine more years go by seven years of plenty and then two years of famine before the dream even starts to come to pass 22 years my friends is a very long time as is often said there is a time gap between the conception of a dream and the birth of a dream often God just like he did with Mary on that first Christmas will impregnate your heart with something a vision for your future and the role you are to play in the family of God but it's long before that dream will actually come to birth in the world if you're anything like me you hear from God and you think great let's do it I had a dream a few nights ago woke up early a dream journal out writing it down I was like okay let's Thursday sounds good does that work for you Jesus all right what if what if that reality is months away or years away what if it's 22 years away often the dream comes long before God's timing as a general rule the larger the dream the longer the waiting period and the smaller the dream the shorter the way small dream short wait large dream long wait but either way this waiting period is usually way longer than we expect did you see that one line at the beginning of chapter 41 quote when two full years had passed again the Bible is scripture it's also literature you have to pay attention to the details that one short throwaway line has so much to say think about it for two years Joseph is just sitting there in prison can you imagine how he would have felt during that time no word from God no prophecy no access to the Holy Spirit like you and I know like wake up in the morning make your comic Chemex in the jail cell open to a psalm do a little listening prayer it's a picture from the Holy Spirit like ah that feels really good go to your bridge town community on Thursday night share a meal share your heart it's really hard I just feel like I'm waiting I'm waiting to I'm with you it's okay like community or no you're all by yourself in a cell no other worshipper of the one true God anywhere near you no prophetic word over your life and you're just stuck there waiting right now I'm I mean if you read through the Bible in a year anybody in the room I'm guessing at least a few of you yeah and so I get you know at the end of the year if you read through the Old Testament December is like all the minor prophets with their short prophets and so I think I'm a few weeks behind I'm in Daniel where are we supposed to be right now Bethany yeah so you're behind - that makes me feel so much better that makes me feel so much better wherever I'm a few weeks behind but we're we're into it one of my favorite things to do when I read through all the prophets is just to count up the little time gaps between each prophecy you'll notice the beginning of each one there's a little line it's like in the second year of king somebody you've never heard of before and the fourth month doctor that the word of the Lord came and then there's a chapter with a vision or something one of my favorite things to do is to count up the time gaps in between and you realize man it's easy to read that story and think man Jose or whoever is just hearing from God right and left and realized oh that was over 20 years there were four four times of hearing from God over two decades Daniel I think there's six over 30 years or something like that I'm sorry 60 years six over 60 years it's once a decade and it's easy to forget in the long slow work of God in our life and waiting is hard am i right I should know I'm really bad at it my personality is kind of long-range strategic planner living in the future is easy for me living in the here and now present to God present to the man or woman in front of me or my child to a cup of coffee or a good meal is much harder but all that to say the gap between the dream and the fulfillment of the dream is usually much longer than we expect even in this series on identity and calling it's really easy for you to get off track and look up at people that are ahead of you on the journey and say oh she has it all together he has it all together he's in a vocation she's in a vocation they know exactly who they are and who they aren't exactly and look at what they are doing in the world is healing and those renewal and it's easy to like not imagine them as a 21 year old or imagine them like when they were in high school when they were 25 or you know I love what I'm doing now I feel like it's right out of who God made me to be I've worked here for 15 years and before that I was an intern I made $800 a month with no health insurance like and that wasn't even a lot of money back it was just like it's so easy I remember working at a coffee shop just thinking where is God in my life I like coffee but it wasn't like a cool coffee shop where you make a living wage and people like oh you work at heart you're cool no it wasn't like that at all it was lame it was by an airport and the coffee was terrible and it was so and I had to wear like this Italian apron it was so bad it's easy to forget when you look up at people ahead of you man it was a very long time to get where they are and you have your own journey to go on it's a little helpful sometimes to look ahead oh look at them look at her look at him but sometimes it's not you had your own journey you have your own identity you have your own calling and God is at work in your life you just have to wait for it and then finally so different harder longer and then finally better when Joseph's dream finally does come to pass it's different it's hard it's longer but it's also better than he ever expected and when I say better not necessarily by you know human metrics but by the metrics of God Joseph's dream or at least his interpretation of his dream was all about his own glory like his ego is just dripping off the page in chapter 37 and he did get glory eventually but man did it come at a high cost after decades of suffering and pain and rejection and humiliation and in the end the dream actually wasn't about Joseph at all it was about saving the family of God for the family line in order to eventually assure and the Messiah of Israel and the world to put the world to rights but before God could bring the dream to pass he had distributive all Joseph's ego and even its idolatry and that is God's MO he takes our dreams that most of the time are all about us and our own glory and then he'll make us wait he'll make us face disappointment things won't go exactly as we hope will won't exactly hear from God on the way we want to we'll live and the confusing kind of in-between and the beautiful thing that happens in that waiting period is if you let God into you that dream is stripped of all of its ego and it's idolatry down to the raw essence the part of it that is from God and you were stripped down to and so am i and we grow or set free for the need for that dream to come to pass and we grow and mature into the kind of people who can steward the fulfillment of that dream with wisdom and humility and christ-like character when people have dreams come to pass too early it is rarely a good thing and if you don't believe me Google Justin Bieber right because they don't have the character yet to Stuart it so let's buy four Lamborghinis and race down the street and get high it's like they don't have the wisdom and the humidity in the christ-like character yet to steward it or even to enjoy it because at that point it's an idol or its entitlement both are bad options so first God has to deal with the idolatry of the dream because often the dream becomes our God rather than a gift from God we want the dream more than we want the God who is the giver of the dream we think that the dream will satisfy us and make us content when no dream can do that no marriage can do that no career can do that no whatever can only God can do that and you don't have to wait for that in the future that is available to you right here and right now this morning I was thinking about that line in Philippians I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me people tear that out of context and leverage it as some little self-help line for I can do this thing or I can get a wife or I can start a business or I can make money or I can plant a church or whatever and in context what is he writing about if you know Philippians he's writing about contentment and he's saying I've been poor and I've had plenty of money and I have learned to be content in any and all circumstances quote I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me you want to know what's way harder than starting a business or having faith or raising money or whatever your mountain is what if you're Goliath is is being content in the here and now and the one and only way to do that is through Christ Jesus who strengthens me in the here in the now whether you're in your dream job or you are some dead-end minimum-wage thing that you are just God saved me whether you're brand new and you can't wait to go to work every morning or you've been there for a while and you're dead tired whether your marriage is a dream come true or something else whatever it wherever you're at you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you you can be content you have everything you need to live the way of Jesus to live what Jesus called life to the full right here right now 17 years old in high school 82 years old a gal I was chatting with this morning and nearing the end of your health you you have everything you need right here right now and you can do this through Christ Jesus there's no other way whose strengthens you but God will often let you sit there and wait and how often even let that dream die in order to free your heart from its need for the dream to come to pass for its idolatry to bring you up to a place where you are content with God Himself with food and with clothing and anything else you see I have shelter I have a heater I have a community I've been read I can write I have a job where I make them like anything else is all bonus and then at that point you're finally ready for the fulfillment and you're ready to enjoy it as a gift you're full of gratitude all the entitlement is gone and you're ready to steward the dream or the fulfillment of the dream with wisdom and humility and christ-like character that's why dreams so often go through the cycle of death burial and resurrection just like Jesus there's a death to the dream and Abraham and Isaac kind of moment there's often a burial you just feel it's over and dead but then frequently not always frequently if the dream is from God there is a resurrection but when it comes back to life it is never the same it's better not better by our human metric system but better in all the ways that matter most and we find that it was more than worth the way so to recap different harder longer better sounds like a Nike advertisement but actually I would argue it's a biblical theology of dreams but I would argue that you could lay this template over pretty much any character a new dream in the Bible Moses and his dream of the Exodus Paul and his dream of apostle to the Gentiles David and his dream for the temple or whatever it is as I said before God's people have always been dreamer to end and Gerald is and route up here to lead us in a little bit of listening prayer but I think this weekend is just a call to dream and to dream well dream way bigger than just a tired old uncreate ofamerican dream don't dream about yourself I mean dream about the role you are to play and the sure but don't dream about like a bigger house or a new car or a new cell phone or whatever it I mean there's nothing wrong with that stuff but dream into your identity and your calling open up your mind's eye and even your heart to the Holy Spirit and allow God to drip deep into you a dream and when it's different trust God that's what he's after is your trust that's where freedom comes when it's harder don't give up man so many people never experience the fulfillment of a dream because they bail way before you just don't give up just give it wait go when it's longer wait we inherit the promises in the language of Hebrews through faith and patience faith some of you that's a word for you tonight faith and patience is the need of the hour and when it's better call over your friends and throw a party and the best thing about a dream coming to pass is not a dream coming to pass it's that you have been changed through the process of dreaming one of the most important things in that story is that Joseph's brothers don't even recognize him that's what God will do with you and your transformation if you open up your life to his dream and you wait and decades often go by not months decades God will transform you and people won't even recognize you and it will be a beautiful thing let's stand and pray [Music]

Channel: Brian Bull

Views: 406

Rating: 4.4285712 out of 5

Keywords: Solid Rock, Solid Rock A Jesus Church, The Bridge, A Jesus Church, Bridgetown, Bridgetown Church, Gospel, John Mark Comer, Portland, Portland Oregon, Sermon, Church, Pastor, bible, dream, discover, discovering, identity, calling, called, hard, kingdom, kindgdom of god, love

Id: VWaRACmOsCM

Length: 46min 56sec (2816 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 18 2018