The Danger Of A Dream | Pastor Steven Furtick

this is a scripture in Genesis chapter 37 verse 5 that has in it so much so so 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 would challenge you not to because this is where the Sermon starts today in Genesis 37 verse 5 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 13 years of pastoring that you just need to leave a little room for some things that have been in your heart this particular message 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 but just one verse to get us started in Genesis chapter 37 verse 5 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 gonna go fund you they're not and that everybody's going to support you and understand you don't expect 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 watch your TED talk but this message is for somebody who has a god-given dream or you're starting to sense it and I just pray 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 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 would say that some of the things that stand out to me about my childhood particularly my teenage years are some of the 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 17 on was to be a pastor but before that I wanted to be a punk rocker and I almost had the chance because I was at the North Charleston Coliseum have I told you this story Robert best story ever Green Bay 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 the most excited or whatever the case was and he put his Fender Stratocaster around my neck true story I'm 15 years old and I played the guitar solo for a 3-chord song called knowledge by the band Operation Ivy I still remember how the song went but I'm not gonna sing it for you right now because it's a waste of time we need to get better Genesis 37 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 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 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 the highlight of the show he stole the show his words 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 critic said it and and so I called in I called the radio station I was like you gotta put me through that's me he's talking about I'm about to go to school right now I gotta leave in like five minutes my mom's waiting for me 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 cause I told him I had a band and he was like bring your demo tape by and we'll play it on the air but we didn't have a demo tape but that's alright because we uh we eventually saved three hundred dollars made a demo tape I took it to the critic he played it on the air and when I was leaving 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 and 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 Charleston South Carolina and that'd be pretty cool gig for a 15 year old so I lock myself in the room 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 about this because I promise I know you didn't come to hear me talk about my nostalgic 15 year old memories but I'm talking about a dream my mom walks in picks up the tape and all of the songs on the tape had cuss words in the title and and then even the name of the band had a cuss word 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 ministers daughter had old-fashioned Monks Corner values and she's like what is this and I was like this is the band I'm auditioning before and she said if you think I'm gonna let 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 [beeps] 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 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 of Monks 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 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 as the original dream the Bible says that when Joseph was 17 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 if we want to 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 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 is that Joseph was different and one thing I've noticed about having a dream is that a dream makes you different Joseph was different from his brothers not only in his aspirations but he was he was from a different mother they shared the same father Jacob 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 Holly you're my favorite wife by the way just wanted to put that in this message had given him a son 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 if you've read the story lately but you remember he bought him a Gucci coat and and Joseph's always wearing it around all the time he's like you like my coat and his brothers are like we hate your coat you like you like my coat you you like my coat either they're like we hate we we hate you we we hate you because you're different 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 people eventually come around and respect what stands out but what happens to most of us is that the 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 one thing I'm proud about when I read about Joseph and and 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 it may have been unwise but I'm proud of him that he was not afraid to show up in the room looking different because he was clothed with the fabric of the favour of his father and I wonder are you courageous enough to wear your coat because a lot of times what I found is 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 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 wear my coat even if people criticize me for it I'm not ashamed to walk in the love and the favor of God oh we need some Christians 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 you see what I'm saying a dream will make you different and it takes courage to be different it takes courage to speak different if you get up 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 text different it'll make you different dream will make you different and I'm glad that Joseph had the courage to be different and I wonder do we have the courage to be different the weird thing about 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 guests 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 I don't want to say Amen to the preacher today it's the truest thing like you're attracted to something because it's different and they even said it's a marriage that before marriage opposites attract and then opposites attack because you're attracted to what's different you're drawn to what's different not at first at first you fear it 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 it's different that's why they crucified Jesus you know you don't have many preachers they can put Lil NasX 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 shout I'm 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 and there's always a temptation you know 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 I don't just dream of making it through the day I don't just dream of surviving my life I don't just dream when you get a dream it'll make you different 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 20 pounds the first thing that everybody around you is gonna say is you're now fun anymore you used to be so much fun you used to just eat all the time... 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 you set that's real for your life and if it's true with the diet it's much more true with destiny 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 Christians are supposed to see different think different understand different it's a different perspective 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 through a lot of things 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 it's 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 so we make it what it's not and we miss what it is because it's really common for people to say follow your dreams yet if you study the life of Joseph and I mean really read every single word jot and tiddle every single indention every single period and 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 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 let anybody talk you out of your dream if your mom told you that you're gonna be the next you know the next whatever just hold onto your dream and then anybody who doesn't agree with your dream is a hater maybe not 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 just a 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 he was called and chosen and there was all kind of conflict that came along and we're like Joseph had a dream do you have a dream would you like to open your own company be like Joseph have a dream and then you can make it from the pit to the palace hold on in the pit because there's a palace on the other side 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 to bless it watch this 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 and then and then it becomes very devastating watch this because your dream can become a distraction 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 I'm sick of talking to him he's like hey guys guess what I had a dream you want to hear my dream they're like no we hate your dream we hate your coat we hate your voice we hate you you're different but he didn't really he didn't really care if they wanted to hear it he was gonna tell him anyway 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 in leading him to the place where he could do the dream that God put in his heart did you feel God on that one I just said 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 37:4 says if you delight yourself in the Lord he will give you the desires of your heart and he will take the desires that you had and purify them and he will rinse them and he will separate the wheat from the chaff to bring you to an ultimate place of purpose but when Joseph started sharing his dream with his brothers it was all about him he had a dream and we it was it was awesome we were binding of sheaves of grain and we were in like your sheaves started bowing down to my sheaves and and isn't that awesome and they're like no it's not awesome we hate your dream we hate your coat we hate you and he's like but but then I had another dream and in this dream there were 11 stars I don't know why Joseph sounds like Keanu Reeves there are 11 stars and a Sun and a moon and they were all bowing down to me isn't my dream awesome and they're like no we don't we don't like your dream in fact we hate your dream so much that we are about to push you in a pit and leave you for dead and if it hadn't have been for Reuben who decided we should at least get 20 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 issue like caravan they would have left him for dead 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 an Ishmaelite caravan was setting out to bring whoever they would pick up along the way back to the place of slavery 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 Potiphar's house he served so well in Potiphar's house that everything Potiphar put under him prospered and so when Potiphar saw how Joseph served he promoted him to a position of influence but he wouldn't have 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 the more different from culture you will be and it's alright to be weird and it's alright to have hope and it's alright to have vision and it's alright to know who you are 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 can you relate to this how sometimes marriage looks different in the distance than it does after 20 years I need all my people who have been married over 20 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 so much different not like the movies that I saw not like the songs that I heard different it's just different 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 our staff members was having a baby the other day and he was telling me how happy he was and he was like I always dreamed of being a dad and that made me feel sorry for my kids cuz I'm like I didn't even like kick in as a dad until they were five you know that's so worthless 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 finished their meal so you know like now there is no greater delight in my life than my kids 30% of 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 when I did it God gave me the desire for it but it didn't start as a dream it started as a duty this is so critical for a world in a time where all we're ever told is follow your dreams there is no record in Genesis 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 where the Bible says and Joseph remembered his dream and pushed on through because when life gets hard you gotta have a dream and sometimes life will give you hurdles but you know this is really awkward this little motif I've gotten myself into right here this little this spastic motivational speaker thing that I've set up here but just follow your dreams you know what I can't find in Genesis where Joseph followed his dream what I saw in Genesis was Joseph's dream followed him so watch this I don't follow dreams I follow Jesus and when I do dreams follow me Joseph's dream followed Joseph it followed him to Potiphar'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 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 you just need to see it differently the fact of the matter is 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 and I believe in dreams I had a dream about you I dreamed that you would be here in this church and God did that but it's a lot different than I thought it would be cause y'all are different and it's it's different y'all are different you're different than the person 3 seats down from you and you grew up in Vacation Bible School and they're thinking like Joseph wasn't that Jesus' dad and they're like this I don't and I'm trying to preach to all these different people it's just different it's different cuz you picture like you Joseph had a dream have you got a dream everybody's got a dream you know the dream Dr. King had a dream you have a dream it's not the same kind of dream you don't think this was a this was a dream that Joseph didn't decide for himself don't follow your dreams 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 would sing as an expression or as an anthem of faith it wasn't my dream but God took that desire and he gave me the dream and I don't have to be the one singing the song I just want to be a part of it it's the value of a bigger picture but your dream can be a distraction because now you're not following Jesus you're following your dream and when your dream takes you down an 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 when you're frustrated in ministry remember that some of you were watching Elevation 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 next time you next time you have to get here and the volunteers don't show up and next time you have to just just say to yourself this is the dream huh 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 he'll 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 kind of dream by the time Joseph's dream finally came true because dreams do come true it was two decades later not only had he been falsely imprisoned 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 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 an Instagram expectation but we serve a dark room God for the four of y'all who are clapping Imma keep preaching when you get your picture really developed by a professional they don't post it 10 seconds after they took it with a prefabricated filter by Instagram incorporated 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 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 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 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 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 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 gonna 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 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 not in the form of shiny stars it was in the form of his 11 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 their hands out and realizes this is the dream I'm at the center but it's not for status it's for service has God been trying to get you to see that in your own life lately we 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 gonna do through your life is what he is going to allow you to contribute to somebody else's are you open to that dream when when the angel came to Mary 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 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 and what if your kid doesn't turn out to do what you wanted them to do what if God has a different dream for them what if it's better what if it's deeper what if the reason God let your dream die is because it wasn't big enough when we put too much pressure on a dream to come true we allow our dream to become a distraction from the season that we're in and I preach 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 the dream came it was in the form of his brothers it was in the form of his responsibility it was in the form of a duty you don't have to have some grand dynamic dream to serve God stop feeling guilty because you don't have some huge dream to to end cancer or to or to start anew to start a new ministry or to maybe like be the next Bill Gates or Elon Musk or go to space maybe you don't have the talent for that 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 somebody here watching online who is standing right in the middle of the dream but it looks different than it did in the distance this is the dream to know him to serve him to love him and there's two types of people in the room some of you are discouraged because you had a dream and it didn't happen hasn't happened yet don't know if it will and others are disillusioned because you're in your dream but it's different than you thought it was gonna be you're standing at the middle but it's your brothers around you it's your 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 you could put your notebook down I'm done teaching 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 are you open to a different dream 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 gonna 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 did it and it is in the process of doing it and it is in the process of accepting it that greater faith is born 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 hear what they need to hear from you because it didn't turn out the way they dreamed it's different 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 that may never come or let go of the one that was this is the dream somebody make that confession this is the dream so God give them the perspective to go back into their lives go back into their homes go back into their jobs and see it how you see it in a world that's obsessed with status and position make us servants of purpose to serve your purpose in every season that we're in and to find our satisfaction in that thank you for watching the Elevation Church YouTube channel don't stop here join the eFam our online extended family and join us live every Sunday subscribe to this channel so you don't miss a single video or live stream and share this with a friend you can also support the ministry by clicking the Give Now button to help us continue to reach people around the world for Jesus Christ thank you again for watching god bless you

Channel: Elevation Church

Views: 781,448

Rating: 4.8945327 out of 5

Keywords: elevation church, pastor steven furtick, steven furtick, stephen furtick, furtick steven, elevation church 2019 sermons, steven furtick 2019 sermons, the danger of a dream steven furtick, the danger of a dream elevation church, the danger of a dream, steven furtick sermons, elevation church steven furtick, church, church online, sermons 2019

Id: RH0hAEOYKsI

Length: 39min 17sec (2357 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 08 2019