The Vision Line

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And uh we are on the look for our sharpies.

They're somewhere, but uh, if you want to sign this, we got some.

Here comes Maylin.

Thank you, Malin.

Anyhow, you're the man.

Look at that.

They were found.

Um, I thought we had some church thieves among us.

Very good, very good.

Well done.

Anyhow, as service closed, if you didn't get a chance last week to put maybe your word for the year or a prayer or just your family name, our commitment at this line is that we are as a church family going to hold the line together.

So, in that vein, turn your Bibles.

Genesis chapter 37, and uh this really could be a Vision Sunday message in Genesis 37 because it's all about Joseph having a vision.

Genesis 37 · chapter mention

He has some dreams.

And everybody loves, I hope that in 2026 or a new year that you love dreaming or someone who has a vision until the dream or vision comes to you with a cost.

This story starts out with a dreamer, but Joseph, as you find out, has a dream.

He has a coat of many colors, and he has some siblings that are jealous.

That's the biblical recipe for violence, in case you're wondering.

And so we meet up with Joseph, and he walks in, and we're gonna catch us in the story, and he says, Good news, guys, I've had a dream.

You are all gonna bow down to me one day.

I can think of about 14 different better conversation starters than that.

But that's Joseph's intro to his brothers about his dream.

And Joseph was a dreamer.

And before we pray, I want to ask, what about you?

Lord, we love you.

We thank you this morning for your word.

We ask that you get us behind it.

God, I pray for the next few moments that we could just quietly be relieved of all of the stuff that's going on in our mind.

Lord, help us for a few moments to hear from you, to hear from your word, to hear from heaven.

God, that we would be moved by the things that you want us to see in this passage.

And uh, Lord, I know some people just need some rest.

I pray they rest in your word.

Some people today just need motivated, I pray that they find that in your word.

Some people today need some change, and we know that your word will do it, and we ask that you would.

So move us out of the way and speak Jesus in your name.

Amen.

Point number one this morning is this a dreamer of God's vision.

A dreamer receives God's vision.

Look at verse 1 through 5 in Genesis 37.

Now Jacob dwelt in a land where his father was a stranger in the land of Canaan.

This is the history of Jacob.

Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brothers, and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives, and Joseph brought a bad report, highlight that, of them to his father.

Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age.

Also, he made him a tunic of many colors.

But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him.

Now Joseph had a dream, and we'll get back to that.

But letter A, we see Joseph had a beloved destiny.

To understand Joseph's destiny, you gotta understand a little bit about his father and his history.

Jacob's family history is this.

Jacob fought with his brother for a birthright, usurped him, and got that birthright.

Then Jacob fell in love with his cousin, and he married his cousin's sister because he was deceived, and then he married his cousin, Rachel and Leah, and then what got involved in that situation was a couple of concubines.

That's modern-day terms for his side person.

Okay.

And this story of Jacob becomes like late-night television, real quick.

There's 11 siblings to Joseph, there's four moms, there's one household, and then there's Jacob.

But I want to tell you, even though he wrestles with God, gives his heart to God, it didn't erase his mess.

It didn't erase the situation that had been built.

And I want you to gain this quick idea.

God gives dreams, but it doesn't mean your situation will feel like a dream.

Y'all hear me?

Joseph is in the midst of this mess by being born.

Joseph is welcomed into the world of this heavily blended family and this situation.

And so I need you to know that God can give you a dream without cleaning up all the circumstances.

Amen.

Well, it says that Jacob had a clear favorite, and that was Joseph, the son of his old age.

While Joseph was just a boy, something important happened.

Joseph was a boy, and a few chapters before is this encounter that his father has with God.

I don't know what happens in Joseph's life if Jacob doesn't have this encounter with God, but Jacob meets with God face to face at the Jabok River, and one of the commentators said this about Jacob's face-to-face with God there at the river.

He said, This is the magnificent defeat of the human soul at the hands of God.

You see, Jacob, Joseph's father, was a work in progress.

How many of you got a dad who's a work in progress?

Where's Weston?

I see you.

This happening a few chapters back shaped Joseph's destiny.

And I and I have a lot in my heart that coincides because while I was in my mother's womb, my mother had a face-to-face with my father, and she said, Either you're going to give up this drinking and go to detox, or me, my sister at the time, and me who was inside of my mother were leaving.

She said he wasn't an angry drunk or anything like that, but he was losing money, making bad choices, and she had this altercation with dad, and dad chose to go to detox while I was in my mother's womb.

And my dad came to know Jesus Christ.

A man came and shared him the gospel while he was in detox, coming off of all that.

And so I never once, growing up, knew a man who was drunken.

I never once knew that life, that side of what could have been, what might have been.

What I knew was that God sovereignly got involved before I was ever born.

So I understand when Jacob, Joseph's father, wrestled with God, that it had ripple effects that went down.

And so that happened to Jacob.

And here's Joseph.

Albeit, Jacob's life changed.

There was still 12 children and four wives in the house.

Y'all with me?

You might be getting godlier, but you still got some problems.

And so that is where Jacob, Joseph's father, is, and I, you know, remember some things my father told me.

He said, Rick, I've kept this as simple.

He says, if you make your bed, you've got to lay in it.

The Bible says you are the reaper of what you're sowing.

Oh, that's verse one.

Verse two, we meet Joseph.

Joseph, I want to talk about him for the next several weeks.

So you need to know that Joseph, the name Joseph, means Yahweh or Jehovah has added.

God increases.

That's going to be an important part of knowing about Joseph as we go throughout this story.

But Joseph is the youngest.

When we find him in chapter 37, verse 2, he's the youngest on the field, but he's the one on the field with his brothers that's wearing cleats.

If you know what I'm saying, look at verse 2.

Why is he wearing cleats?

It says he's out there with Zilpah and Bilha, his father's wife's son, and Joseph.

Got them cleats on, and he was ready to get back home to bring a bad report.

Anybody got a brother or sister like that?

You're gonna have a hard time, I think, in the next several weeks to find much fault in Joseph.

So I want to point this one out because I'm a sinner.

And, you know, Joseph seems pretty like he's on the up and up most of the chapters of Genesis 37 through.

So when he does something wrong, I want to point it out.

I want him to feel a little human, like I feel.

So Joseph runs back to tell, you know, he's HR with cleats on, and he watched his brothers do something, and he reports the summary.

Right?

Joseph was a snitch.

Y'all feel me?

And I know we're in church, but you know, snitches get stitches.

Y'all with me?

And uh Callie got a progress report from a teacher once, and it said, Callie has a strong desire and sense of justice.

And I said, Heather, I don't know what that means.

What are they telling us?

I said, Heather, is our daughter a tattle?

So I brought Callie into a meeting with her seven-year-old little self.

And I said, Are you a tattle?

Is that what this progress report is telling me?

She looked at me and I said, You're grounded.

No sandbox, there'll be no swings, no cartoons.

I said, That's it, you're grounded for the next month.

Ask Heather.

I'm joking.

I didn't ground her.

But that strong sense of justice, let me tell you, is still there.

Some of y'all got a kid with a strong sense of justice, it's still there.

So that is sort of the picture of Joseph.

Well, that if that's not enough, we're gonna get into some more that his brothers can probably find a little fault with letter B is that Joseph was bestowed with dreams.

Write that down.

Bestowed with dreams.

We gotta dig in a little bit to what this dreaming is before we jump into why his brothers had a problem with it.

But a dream here, there's some distinction.

A dream in Scripture can mean a couple of things, but this one with the distinction that someone was sleeping, and God gave them a vision, a prophecy, something with a meeting.

And church, I need you to hear this under this little context, but there is about 12 times in the Old Testament and New Testament that you will find specifically someone sleeping, and God gives them a warning, a prophecy, or a sign.

Joseph is one of two people that I've been able to find that has had a dream and that can also interpret dreams.

So you could say Joseph and Daniel are pretty rare people in Scripture, and that'll help you as we move forward.

But 12 times in Scripture, there's 3,400 unique names in Scripture.

12 times somebody had a dream, was asleep, that I can find.

You may find more, but me and Google and the internet.

3,400 people, 12 times.

That's a pretty unique occurrence as someone asleep has a dream and it's interpreted.

Visions you can find.

I'm not talking about a vision.

That could be awake or you know, God showing up in the daytime vision.

There's people, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Paul, Peter, John's book of Revelation.

They had visions.

But just context, 1,500 years of scripture, 12 specific occasions that I could find.

Someone sleeping had a dream.

Two named to have a dream and interpret out of 3,400 names.

This is an extreme, this is what I want you to get.

It's an extremely rare gift.

A dreamer and an interpreter.

I woke up at 3 a.m.

That's the Christian time to wake up and have a vision.

Okay?

So 3 a.m.

I woke up and I called the pastor the next day.

I got the courage to share the vision.

I said, Pastor, I could see it in my dream.

I don't know if I was still dreaming or I woke up, what happened, but I said, the Calvary Baptist Church needs its own gym, like anytime fitness in the dome part of the building.

People will come in droves, Pastor.

I said, we can get equipment.

Can't you see it?

Men could work out with men, women could work out with women.

And I was like, I think God gave me this dream.

And he said, okay, Rick, if God gave it to you, then you make it happen.

And I was like, what did he say?

God gave me that dream, so you, the pastor, would make it happen.

What are you talking to me?

I'm just a youth pastor over here.

You don't see this?

Can I tell you?

That dream never happened.

Angie came to me.

She said, Pastor, at 3 a.m., God woke me up.

That's the time.

And she said, Pastor, you are today.

Now, granted, I was not even teaching Sunday school at the time to teenagers, okay?

You are to take all these teams, and we're getting ready to start in like seven minutes.

You're gonna take all these teams and you are going to teach them today.

Me and all the other youth leaders are gonna go up here to this room and we're gonna pray.

God told me that.

And I said, Oh, I still young, okay?

I said, Oh, God, God told us.

And I didn't want to fight with that.

I said, Oh, well, God told you, Angie.

Well, okay, go pray.

And so I got my Bible and I was like, four minutes.

And I looked at the teens and I read something.

And then I said, uh.

And I read something and I looked at I had nothing, but God told her.

Now, people want to debate some in this area, and I want to tell you, I believe God moves in these ways.

I believe in God's miracles.

I love it.

What Adrian Rogers said.

He wrote a book, Believe in Miracles, Trust in Jesus.

Okay.

So I believe that God has done things and God can do anything, but I have a couple of red lights with this that I want you to hear, and a green light with this when it comes to vision and dreams.

Scripture addresses this.

So if you can put up the red lights, it says in Deuteronomy chapter 13, 1 through 4, if there arises a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or wonder, and the sign or wonder says, Let us go after other gods which ye have not known, and serve them.

Deuteronomy 13 · chapter mention

You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or the dreamer of dreams.

The Lord is testing you to know whether you love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul.

Walk after the Lord, bear after the Lord, keep the Lord's commands, obey the Lord, serve the Lord, and here's our word for the Hold that line, hold fast to the Lord.

Jeremiah, another red flag, Jeremiah 23, 16 says, Thus says the Lord of hosts, do not listen to the words of the prophet who prophesies to you.

They make you worthless, they speak of their own heart, not from the mouth of the Lord.

So the red light is you have to test whether or not this is of the Lord or not.

And I'm gonna give you the green light in a second, but hear me, as a pastor, I know there's a lot of context, Acts 20 tells us something, recommends to a pastor this shepherds, Acts 20, 28 through 30, keep watch over the flock, be careful, because wolves will come in from even among your own and to store the truth in order to draw disciples after them.

Red light.

Alright, green light.

So what do we do?

Because somebody's gonna come to you.

I'm bringing all this because you're gonna encounter an Angie, you're gonna encounter a somebody at some point, and somebody's probably gonna say to you, I have a word.

And what do you do with that?

Well, this is what you do.

This is the green light, this is what you always can know.

Second Peter chapter 1.

2 Peter 1 · chapter mention

And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as light shines in the dark, knowing this first that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation.

It's saying you have this word of God.

In 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 says this, that you are to test the words, test these things, and it says, if it's pure, if it's right, if it's of the word, then it's fine.

1 Thessalonians 5 · chapter mention

If it's not, then you ignore those things.

So I want you to hear about Joseph and the specific gift he had, but I want you to know this, church.

Every dream, every vision, every word must be verified by the word of God.

If it contradicts this truth, if it contradicts the word of God, then it's something that you forget.

Now, Joseph, he had this gift, and it was a rare gift.

But I believe this, and I think we can make this practical.

Every person here can be a dreamer.

Meaning, every person here should be someone who aspires.

I want you to think ambition.

Now you might not have the 3 a.m.

word of God dream that comes to you, but you can aspire and have ambition and scripturally set your mind in the vein of Romans 8.28, and we know that all things work together for good to those who are called according to his purposes.

God has a will and a plan, and in that vein, God can give a dream.

And I want you to hear me, to dream big.

Aspire for great things for the Lord.

Proverbs 16.3 says, Commit your way to the Lord, and he shall bring it to pass.

Matthew 6.33 says, Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all things will be added unto you.

Philippians 3.14 said, Press toward the mark of the high calling of God through Christ Jesus.

And so we aspire.

Aspire in God's direction using your gifts.

And that's what Joseph was doing.

Joseph was using his gift.

And know this church, Ephesians 3.20 says, He, God, is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think.

Aspire and love God, dreaming and aspiring to hold his line through his word.

Second thing we're gonna see.

Dreamers.

This is you dreaming, aspiring, resist grudging voices.

We'll get back to his brothers.

Just for context, I want to read three and four again, and we'll go down to six.

Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children.

You can see a conflict brewing.

Because he was the son of his old age, also he made him a tunic.

There's that coat.

But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him.

Let's look down at verse six through eleven, see what transpires through these dreams.

Okay.

So he said to them, Please hear this dream, which I've dreamed.

There we were, binding sheaves in the field.

Then, behold, my sheaf arose and also stood upright.

And indeed your sheaf stood all around and bowed down to my sheaf.

And his brother said to him, Shall you indeed reign over us?

Or shall you indeed have dominion over us?

So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.

Then he dreamed still another dream, and told it to his brothers, and said, Look, I have dreamed another dream.

And this time the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars bowed down to me.

So he told it to his father and his brothers, and his father rebuked him and said to him, What is this dream that you have dreamed?

Shall your mother and I and your brothers indeed come to bow down to the earth before you?

And his brothers envied him, but his father kept the matter in mind.

So letter A, I want you to see.

Joseph embraced risk.

He embraces risk.

God gives him this gift.

God put some things in his life, and Joseph embraced risk.

One of the risks was walking around in this yip-stripe, fruit-flavored peacocking coat, right?

Like he walked around in this coat, and his brothers, see now, I think Joseph probably owned it.

I don't know.

I don't know if his brothers ever said something smart to him, and Joseph was just like Yeah.

The coat.

Like it was code, like, what'd you say?

I'm gonna tell dad.

What'd you say?

You see the coat, right?

Y'all have any mic drop moments like that in your house?

My dad had a mic drop moment.

Like there was nothing you could say about it.

Dads, some of y'all are gonna write this one down.

My dad said this, and it was the end of every argument.

He said, I pay the bills.

And there's nothing you can argue.

Every argument ended with I pay the bills.

Because like it doesn't matter if I think I'm stronger than you, smarter than you.

The reality is I cannot take care of a family like you can.

I pay the bills.

Mike dropped.

That was it.

I tell my kids, if you want to pay a mortgage payment, you can make a house bill.

Or you can make a house rule.

Make a house payment, you can make a house rule.

I've yet to get one.

And so he said, I pay the bills.

Joseph, I think.

Pointed to the coat.

And maybe that meant I'll tell Dad.

And we know that he would because he did.

He ran back.

He put them cleats on.

We call this coat the coat of colors.

The Hebrew is the katones passen.

And it's a phrase that points to function.

It wasn't about fashion.

This coach, this coat was a long full robe that would go down to the ankles and cover the wrists.

And here's the thing: it was not a work garment.

You wouldn't wear it out in the field.

It was about favor.

It signaled something to people about promise, about rank, about future.

And I want you to know something and just compare, church.

The Bible in Romans says this about you and me that know Christ.

Romans 13, it says, be clothed in Christ and therefore make no provision for your flesh.

Church, God has clothed you not with fabric, but with identity.

And knowing that should help you because Satan wants to stop you in the midst of what you're doing and detour you from what God has for you.

And when Satan wants to detour you, I think you can go to Satan and go like this.

Mic drop, Satan.

You remember what I'm clothed in?

Because I'm not going to be detoured.

I'm going to hold the line of what God has told me to do through his word.

Jesus is in charge.

I'm clothed in him.

1 Corinthians 6.19 says, What know ye not?

That your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

And so we can remind him.

Well, Joseph embraced risk.

The second thing, other than wearing the coat, we know that he had this audacious dream.

That's one thing to have the dream.

Another thing to share the dream with his brethren.

Joseph had to have a certain amount of confidence or what I like, like holy naivety, if that's a word.

Like Joseph just believed so much that he thought people would be excited to share this dream.

There's some other people in scripture that have a holy way about them like that.

Caleb had a vision like nobody else.

Do you remember that?

Everybody said that land is too much, the giants are too big.

And two out of twelve came back, and Caleb was one, and he said, We can take that land.

It's ours for the taking.

He just believed, he had a confidence.

Esther said, Maybe when she received a letter back, I'm here for such a time as this.

If I go in and I'm killed, so be it.

You know what they were missing, church?

They were missing cultural fear.

I think many times today people don't want to embrace risk because culture makes us fearful of what could happen.

Businessmen, you know what they say today, right?

In order to make big moves, somebody has to take the risk.

Somebody has to own the risk.

If you never risk being misunderstood, you may never walk in your calling.

Let me say that again.

If you never risk being misunderstood, you may never walk in your calling.

I told the share team this morning when God called Heather and I to Alabama, a whole lot of people in Indiana, a whole lot of our family in Delaware, and people in Houston and Texas said, I don't get it.

I don't understand what would make you, the things you're saying, it doesn't make sense.

But this is what I know.

God gave us a dream.

God gave us peace about a path that He was opening up.

So Joseph shared these dreams.

Church, what risks do you need to consider?

If fear were no factor for you, what might happen in your life?

Joseph embraced risk letter B.

Joseph, because of the risk he embraced, evokes resentment and ridicule.

You're like, of course he does.

Hear this.

So Matthew 5.10, church says, Blessed are the persecuted for his name's sake.

When I look at today in our culture, there is really an assault on spiritual things.

And there's different meanings of spiritual things.

Because if you went to somebody and said to a coworker after you know the break, you went back and said, you know, after break, you know, I held some crystals and I lit some incense and I got in touch with my inner spirit, they'd say, Oh man, that's awesome.

That's I'm I'm really that's sweet.

I'm glad to hear that you're getting in touch with that side of you.

But if you said, I went to church and I found out that I'm a sinner and I began to kind of work on this specific, and you named the sin in front of them, they would say something probably like, Can we change the subject?

I really don't know if I want to keep diving into this with you.

You see, the mirror of truth exposes sinfulness and it makes us uncomfortable.

Joseph's brothers did not like what he was saying.

They say that.

Shalt thou, who are but one, reign over us who are many?

Thou who are the youngest over us who are older?

And so they understood that a firstborn, typically, a firstborn was the one that would take the family name, that would take the family inheritance, that would continue the family and assume family leadership.

So his brothers are naturally skeptical and they're just angry about the words that he's saying.

Now, hear me, these guys were also born in a family mess.

So they're in all that, and it seems like they resent Joseph for the things that he shared.

Resentment, church.

Lundine says, resentment gives tense muscles, a headache, and a sore jaw from clenched teeth.

We're holding on to pain even though you don't like being hurt.

That's what resentment does.

Ephesians 4, 26 says, to be angry and sin not.

Hebrews 12, 15 says about resentment, that's it's it's a bitter root.

So let me just three practical things.

If you're dealing, or someone you know is sort of dealing in the arena of resentment.

Number one, in 24 hours, if something makes you feel that way, claim it and say it before God.

24 hours.

Don't let a day go by.

The Bible says this, couples, this will help you.

Don't let the sun go down on your wrath.

Get it out before you go to sleep if you can.

Okay?

But don't hold on to something.

Say it before God first, and then if you can get to the person.

But here are the things that happen.

So you need to say this to God.

God, I feel overlooked.

God, I feel threatened, or I feel hurt.

And then say the thing.

Get it out before God.

You can look up Psalms 32 when David finally got out.

It says that his bones, his muscles were aching from the groaning of holding on to the weight of sin.

He was becoming a bitter person.

Two.

About resentment.

Bless them.

Whoever the them is, bless them.

Do this.

Pray for their success.

Speak well of them, and serve them quietly.

It is really hard to do those things and stay angry or get bitter with somebody.

For some of you here, you're going, man, but Pastor, you don't know that my family member, it's been a long time and I've been hurt.

I know.

And I know it hurts.

And I know that there's pain like that.

But I know that bitterness and resentment is the thing that affects you.

And I want you to be able to forgive and you be able to move on.

And so bless them.

Pray for their success.

Speak well of them, serve them quietly.

And the third thing is just an understanding.

Holding the line is refusing to carry what God never told us to hold.

God didn't tell you to hold that thing.

God didn't tell you to keep that thing.

God didn't tell you to store it up, backlog, and keep it.

In fact, he said, forgiveness.

Seven times seventy, he told the disciples.

So don't hold wrong.

Don't hold pain.

Don't hold unforgiveness.

The third thing dreamers resolve to God direct adventures.

Verse 12 through 17.

Then his brothers went to feed their father's flock in Shechem.

And Israel said to Joseph, Are not your brothers feeding the flock in Shechem?

Come, I will send you to them.

So he said to him, Here I am.

Then he said to him, Please go and see if it is well with your brothers and with the flocks and bring back word to me.

So he sent him out to the valley of Hebron, and he went to Shechem.

I want to pause there and we'll go back from 15 through 17 a moment.

Letter A is this Joseph was blessed in assignment.

He's blessed in assignment.

Jacob, his father, says, Go and see about your brethren.

Go and see.

This seems like a simple, even maybe like a mundane task.

Go and see about your brethren.

When I became a pastor, I thought that working at a church, it makes you picture and dream about these amazing milestones.

You think, man, I'm going to come in and this week probably 40 people are going to stop by and just get saved.

I think we're going to see hundreds walked out of addictions.

I think we're going to keep people from losing their marriages.

And you just picture all these amazing things.

And there might be a day where we can't even keep the people.

They'll just be knocking on the doors outside that want to get in, Benji.

Right?

You picture these amazing things.

But you know what?

Sometimes Tuesday feels like moving chairs.

Sometimes Wednesday feels like rolling up some heavy tarps and mopping a floor.

And sometimes church work is going to somebody's house who you really don't think likes you.

And to pray for somebody.

Sometimes it's going to a hospital, sometimes it's this.

And you think about these great, amazing things.

But God's work sometimes is show up on Tuesday.

Don't discount the dream that God's put in you.

But what happens in the day today?

Some days are just ordinary.

This is what I have to say about those days.

Hold the line.

Hold the line in the ordinary, hold the line in the extraordinary, but keep holding the line.

Some days are just regular days, thousands of days that you know what?

They shape a beautiful life in ministry.

If you can hold the line and see God in all of the ordinary, when you can see God and pray over a chair being moved, and you can feel God's presence as you pray when you move tarps and say, God, right here, come in this place.

You know, I believe that's what happened to Moses when he said, I don't, he's not going to get into the promised land, but he said, Along the way, I'm going to meet with God in the tent of meeting.

I'm going to find God in place to place.

Look at Joseph's response.

He said, Go see about your brothers.

And he said to him, Here am I.

The word is hineni, and it means attentive and readiness to follow.

That phrase, hineni.

Where else have you seen this phrase in scripture?

Isaiah's response to God's, Whom shall I send?

You know what he said?

Hineni.

He said, Here am I, send me.

The priest Eli commanded Samuel, if you hear the voice of the Lord, this is what you need to tell him.

He says, Here am I.

When God called Moses from the burning bush, Moses said, Here am I, Hineni.

Before Joseph has any platform, before Joseph will find is in charge of almost all of Egypt.

Before Joseph is any of that, he had to obey his father at home.

Hinen, here am I.

Joseph was sent.

His father said, Go and see.

Check on your brothers at Shechem.

Now, you have to understand in chapter 24, Shechem was not the easiest task.

In Shechem, in chapter 24, Jacob's daughter Dinah was defiled, and Joseph's brothers, Simeon and Levi, murder all the males in the city of Shechem.

It was a whole scene.

Right?

Think about this family.

You got murderers, four moms.

I mean, it's a it's madness, but Jacob looking out for his son says, I need, I hadn't heard from the boys in a while.

I need to know that your brothers are okay.

Go and see about your brothers.

Go and see about the brothers that you've kind of already irritated.

Go and see about some people that probably gonna reject you when you get there to see them, but go and see about them.

Well, let's look at verse 15 through 17 and see what happens.

Now a certain man found him when he got to Shechem there.

He was wandering in the field, and the man asked him, saying, What are you seeking?

So he said, I'm seeking my brothers.

Please tell me where they are, feeding their flocks.

And the man said, They have departed from here, for I've heard them say, Let us go to Dothan.

So Joseph went after his brothers and found them in Dothan.

So we see here that Joseph, let her be, is brave in adherence.

He listens to what his father said, but he comes up to Shechem.

And there's a certain man.

Rabbinic tradition says it was the angel Gabriel.

A lot of commentators will debate about this certain man, but he's not named.

We don't know.

But this certain man directs Joseph.

If this certain man wasn't there, does Joseph wander back home?

What does Joseph do if he doesn't meet this certain man in Shechem?

Church, this is what I want you to hear.

God's given you some dreams.

God will place sometimes people in your pathway.

God will sometimes place problems in your pathway.

Divine certain men, divine certainties in your path, and what will follow at first, this certain man, it seemed like this is a direct link to some problems.

God has a vision and a plan and a purpose.

And God uses open and closed doors in your life.

God will put you in places with people, He'll put you in places and circumstances, and it's vital that you're holding the line just in obedience.

You don't see that Joseph veers left or right, he comes across this certain man, and he's continuing to hold the line with his gift.

He said to his father, Henani, here am I.

If you're not holding the line on Tuesday in the ordinary, when God begins to unravel the path that he has for your life, will you follow it?

Joseph did not have to go to Dothan.

His father said, Go to Shechem and see about your brothers.

He didn't have to go to Dothan, but a certain man said, I saw your brothers over here.

And you know what Joseph doesn't say, Well, I made it to Shechem.

I can go back to Daddy and say, I've been to Shechem.

Brother's not there.

I don't know, Dad.

But he listened and obeyed what his father said, and his father said, Go see about something.

Go see about your brothers.

Joseph didn't go to Dothan to chase a dream, but he went to Dothan to finish an assignment.

You know what it means to have vision?

To have vision means you can see something, but you see something through.

Joseph was not about to go back to his father without vision of his brothers.

He didn't say, but I only packed my bag for Shechem.

I don't have enough to go any further.

I'm not equipped to go further on this journey.

I only packed for Shechem.

No, he was told to go see about his brothers.

This is, he didn't say, God, this is not what I expected.

This is longer than what I wanted.

This is further than I thought I had to go.

This is not even what dad said.

So, church, in 2026, if God revealed a dream and it was different from what you expected, would you be open to doing and holding the line in it?

What if the dream that God showed you didn't include what you originally thought?

What would happen if God said, I have a dream for you?

And you said, But God, it does involve dot dot dot, right?

Doesn't your you've given me this to do, God.

Isn't this what I'm supposed to do, God?

And God said, I just need you to listen and obey.

I need you to say, Nani, here am I.

You see, Joseph held the line when no one was applauding, when the assignment felt small, and when the road went further than expected.

You might be in Shechem right now.

And there's a big dream, and God is saying, Go and see.

Will you say today, hear am I?

I want to close.

I was thinking about some missionaries in the past.

And I thought about the tragic.

It's both tragic and it's victorious.

But the life of David Brainer, David Brainer was a young missionary, and most of his adult life, he had tuberculosis.

And God gave him a call.

He said, I need for you to go to the Native American tribes of New England.

God called.

And he was isolated, he was overlooked.

But this is what you see in his story.

David Brainerd Church did not negotiate with God about the task.

In his journal, it was found words like this.

I was willing to go anywhere.

I aspired to do anything and endure so long as God would be glorified.

That was his here I am.

That was his dream.

David Brainerd, as he was serving in New England, died at the age of 29.

Never had a large ministry.

Many of you know his name still today.

Never had a large ministry.

Never seeing success by worldly measures.

But spiritual giants of the faith, many of them alike, faith like William Carey and Adaniram Judson said, We went because we saw Brainerd went.

He held his line, and his line outlived him.

And we wanted to hold like Brainerd.

Would you bow your heads and close your eyes this morning?

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