Genesis: I have a Dream

If you don't know who I am, I'm Brandon. I

am the lead pastor of the church. Glad that you're here.

Last week, I was standing next to Morgan during church

and he leans over next to me and he says,

the last two months have been a bunch of random services, Brandon,

so we haven't had a normal Sunday in a while. Well,

we're back to normal, so I'm really excited. The next

four weeks, I'm going to be helping us finish up

the series on Genesis. And my belief is that God

has something for you every week. You're not going to

want to miss. You'll realize that by the end of

the message today, but you're not gonna want to miss

any of these messages. And again, if you have missed

several of our Genesis messages, encourage you to go back online,

check them out, hear them, get caught up because it'll

just enhance your learning and what the Holy Spirit wants

to do in your life. Next weekend Youth Camp weekend.

I gotta be honest, I'm a youth pastor at heart.

Once a youth pastor, always a youth pastor. The only

reason I'm not a youth pastor today is I'm too old.

I don't like all nighters, but I love camp and

youth camp is that time where something crazy can happen.

You can take a teenager whose life is heading this way,

they go to camp, they have an encounter with Jesus

and it changes literally everything. They are never the same again.

That's why I love camp so much. Students that are

here that might be going to Bible Camp this next weekend,

some of you, God is going to deposit a dream

in your heart and thirty years later you will be

living out that dream. And see it's the one thing

that every one of us here this morning has in common,

is that each one of us had a dream. Some

of us are here in the service and we are

literally living out that dream that God gave us. There

are others of us we're in the process of seeing

that dream come true. But there are others of us

we're wondering what happened to that dream. But every one

of us has had a dream. Today, I want to

share with you some words of advice from one dreamer

to another, from the story of a dreamer. I want

you to grab your Bibles and want you to turn

to Genesis chapter thirty seven. I am proud to say

that at ten o'clock last night, I was notified that

my giant print Bible arrived. It's pretty sad when you

move on from fine print, small print, large print. Now

I'm on giant print. I don't know what comes after this,

like a verse on every page, and it's this thick.

But I can read this. I'm gonna believe for the

next ten years. So here we go. Genesis thirty seven,

Verse six. Joseph said to them, listen to this dream

I had. We were binding sheaves of grain out in

the field, when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright,

while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.

I want to ask everyone to close your eyes repeat

this prayer after me. Everyone say, Dear Jesus, speak to

my heart, change my life in Jesus' name. Amen. For

the next four weeks, I will be preaching, finishing up

our Genesis series. I want to bring some of you

up to speed on where we're at in the story

as we begin to look at Jacob's sons. In particular,

a guy by the name of Joseph Die popping this

chart up last week. If you miss die sermon. You

should go back listen to it. She preached on Genesis

thirty eight, which is kind of a story about Judah

and Tamar. That's smack in the middle of the story

of Joseph, but great sermon. So just to remind you,

this whole journey began because God gave a word. Abraham,

this pagan guy, no relationship with God. He has a

supernatural encounter with God where God says, if you will

leave everything you know and go to a place that

you've never been and obey me, I'll bless you. In fact,

all nations will be blessed because of you, and I

will make you a great nation. So Abraham and his

wife Sarah, they go. But shockingly, in Abraham's mind, the

fulfillment of this promise has to do with me having children,

and his wife was barren. One of the things I

want you to learn is that sometimes delay is not denial.

Sometimes we get a promise from God and we don't

see it overnight, and we think God has forgotten us,

We think God has skipped us over, that God isn't

gonna do it well. In his eighties, Shockingly, Sarah becomes pregnant.

They give birth to their son Isaac. Crazy though, God

gives Isaac the same word he gave Abraham. He said,

you are a child of promise, the promise I gave

your dad. I'm going to fulfill. You're gonna become a

great nation. All the nations will be blessed because of you.

So Isaac thinks, well, this will be my kids. So

Isaac and Rebecca have twin boys, Jacob and Esau. A

few weeks ago I preached on Jacob and Esau. You

need to go back listen to those messages. They're titled

Breakthrough Part one and two tells the story of Jacob

and Esau. Incredible story, but bottom line, Jacob was one

of those least likely guys for God to do something

good through because he was a deceiver, a liar, manipulator

at his core. But he had an encounter with God.

We wrestled with God and God changed him forever. In fact,

God changed his name to Israel. What's gonna get confusing

over the next several meets is that as you read

from Genesis thirty seven to the end of Genesis, and

whenever Joseph's dad is referred to, sometimes it will be Jacob,

sometimes it will be Israel if you're new to church.

Totally confusing. I get it. It's the same person. So

just know that. So Jacob eventually starts having kids. He

has twelve sons through four different wives. I don't agree

with it. It's in the Bible. It's not something you

should practice today, but it is what it is. So

Jacob is actually in love with Rachel, asks her father,

who is his uncle? What do I need to do

so I can marry Rachel? Says, work for me for

seven years. He worked for Laban seven years, and Laban

was a deceiver and instead of giving him Rachel, Jill

gave him Leah instead. Afterwards, Jacob is, like, you deceived me.

I wanted to marry Rachel, and you gave me Leah.

Laban says, work for me for another seven years and

I will give you Rachel two. It's getting complicated. Well,

both Leah and Rachel had made servants, Zilpah and bill Ha.

Here's how the sons came. Well, Rachel was barren, but

Leah gave Jacob four sons. Rachel got jealous of her

older sister, grabbed her maid servant bill Ha gave him

to gave her to Jacob. Jacob sleeps with her. She

has two sons for Jacob. Well, Leah, who's now having

trouble having children, decides, well, if Rachel can do it,

I can do it too. She gives her maid servant,

Zilpa to Jacob again, it's just in there. I gotta

be honest. Leah's maid servant, Zilpah, gives Jacob two more sons.

Leah gives him two more sons. Finally, proving delay once

again is not denial. Rachel becomes pregnant and gives birth,

first to Joseph, who we're gonna talk about, and then

gives birth to Benjamin. Key part in this whole story

is that while giving birth to Benjamin, Rachel, the wife

that Jacob loved, died during childbirth. In this whole time,

it builds to the story of Joseph. Joseph is the

longest individual story in the entire Torah five first books

in the Bible, besides Moses. Joseph is widely considered by

secular historians as one of the most compelling and profound

stories ever written. And so today, as I introduce you

to Joseph, I have five words of advice to a

room full of dreamers from a dreamer about the story

of a dreamer. And here we go. Number one. First

word of advice, be careful who you share your dreams with.

Jacob lived in the land verse one, where his father

had stayed, the land of Canaan. This is the account

of Jacob's family line. Then we immediately jump into Joseph,

so it shows you how important of these twelve boys,

Joseph is. Says. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was

tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilha

and the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives. Okay, a

couple of things I want you to point out here.

Number one, Joseph was seventeen. This man, he was a man.

Back in this culture, by the time you're seventeen, you're

usually married, you're usually well in your career. You were

a young man. This is not a seven or eight

year old. When you've seen Sunday school pictures or cartoons,

Joseph is always seen as like a little boy. No,

Joseph is a man. He's out taking care of his

father's sheep with his brothers, whose mother were Zilpa and Bill.

Haw what you're gonna discover amongst those twelve brothers, there

was tears of those brothers. The sons from the maid

servant were at the bottom, The sons of Leah were

net but the sons of Rachel were the sons that

were loved the most by their father. Jacob. Not saying

it's right, it just is, and Jacob loved Joseph the most.

So Joseph is out working the land with his brothers

from Zilpah and Bilh, and the Bible says he brought

their father a bad report about them. You're gonna find

out really quickly why Joseph's older brothers can't stand him.

First off, he's a tattletell. He's a snitch. If any

of you are the oldest in the family, Nate Bargatzi

does an incredible bit on being the oldest in the family.

If you're in a Nate Bargatzi's comedy, he says, when

you're the oldest in the family and you show up,

your parents weren't ready for you. He was like, you

came out and you were a surprise. They didn't know

what to do with you. They didn't know how to

take care of you, they couldn't afford you. And then

your younger siblings come and it's like they're born into

families where your parents are millionaires. Yea. And he talks

about that if you've ever had a younger sibling, I

have a little sister, and my little sister growing up

loved to tell on me, and it didn't matter if

it was true or not. My parents believed it. Joseph's

brothers didn't like him because he was a snitch, He

was a tattletell. Then the story goes on Israel again.

Jacob Israel, same person loved Joseph more than any of

the other sons because he'd been born to him in

his old age. Not only was Jacob's favorite, but Jacob

made no effort to hide the fact that Joseph was

his favorite, and his brothers resented him because of the

favoritism that his father obviously showed him. And goes on,

and it says Jacob made Joseph an innate robe for him.

When his brothers saw that their father loved him more

than any of them, they hated him and could not

speak a kind word about him. So it says they

gave him this ornate robe. You know about this robe.

There has been Broadway shows about this coat. People talk

about his coat of many colors, his fancy coat, this

coat that Jacob or Joseph was given. Scholars have debated

about this coat. For jen there's all kinds of theories

about this coat, but there's really only two things they

agree on about this coat. Number One, it was a

tunic that was long sleeved. That made it unique because

most tunics were short sleeved because men worked with their hands,

they would take care of their shepherds, they would work

on their dad's farms and things. And if you were

given a long sleeved tunic, it was assumed you'd never

work a hard day in your life. It was meant

that you were gonna beat royalty, that you were gonna

be a leader. And so Jake Joseph's tunic was long sleeve.

But you have heard that it was a coat of

many colors. What does that mean? Well, back in this

point in history, different nations were known for the colors

that they were able to create on fabrics, and because

of the flowers that were there, they had certain colors.

So this nation would be known for blue, this nation red,

in this nation purple in this nation yellow. And this

was a primary import from these nations. Now, when you

grew up in this time, you rarely left your village

yet alone went to another nation. And this coat that

was given to Joseph was fabric that his dad had

collected from nations around the world at great expense. And

when he had this coat made, he had all the

fabric and all the colors from all this different nations

put together and given to this long sleeved tunic to Joseph.

In other words, it was a rich garment of a ruler,

not what a shepherd would wear working in the fields.

Think of it this way. It's Christmas time. Dad has

a present for all twelve sons. Eleven of the sons

open up their present. It's Dickies overalls. Not bad, kind

of cool, but Dad's implying something. He's implying, Uh, these

are gonna get dirty. They're very well made. They are

gonna withstand the tension that you're going to experience from

the job that you're gonna work for the rest of

your life. And then Joseph opens up his package and

instead of Dickie's overalls, it's a protest suit and Dad

is making it very clear he is not going to

work a hard day in his life, and in fact,

he's probably gonna rule over you. And that infuriated his brothers,

and they hated him because of it. Be careful who

you share your dream with. Verse five. Are you guys

still with me? All right? Joseph has a dream, and

when he told it to his brothers, they hated him

all the more. You were gonna notice Joseph's lack of

self awareness. Joseph's dream came from God, but it was

his youthful arrogance and his lack of judgment that let

him brag about it to his brothers. The ironic thing is,

years later, you're gonna find out Joseph becomes known for

his ability to interpret dreams. But this dream didn't need

an interpretation. It was obvious. I want you to picture this.

You can't stand your brother. You are jealous of your brother,

You envy your brother. Your brother gets up in the morning, says, guys,

gather around. You're sitting around the breakfast table, and he said,

I had a dream last night. Any of you have

a friend or a coworker that always wants to overshare

their dreams, like We used to have somebody on our staff.

Every morning, the staff person would go around and tell

us about all their crazy dreams they have the night before.

Most of the time your dreams come because you ate

too much pizza the night before. But sometimes your dreams

are from God. But be careful who you share them with.

Joseph says this, all right, guys, man, there was a

green field. Each one of us was a sheaf of grain,

and my sheaf rose above all of your sheaves, and

your sheaves bound down to my sheaf read the room. Joseph,

needless to say, his brothers hated him all the more.

As a British comedian who's famously quoted as saying people

who insist on telling their dreams are among the terrors

of the breakfast table, Joseph probably should have been more

diplomatic in the way he shared his dream, and maybe

who he shared his dream with. Second word of advice

from one dreamer to another. God will always confirm your dreams.

If your dream is from God, God will confirm it. Man.

I remember the time I shared my dream with the

wrong person. I'd gotten saved at sixteen, very clearly called

into ministry at seventeen. I must have been about seventeen

or eighteen, because I remember the place, and we were

driving in my car and I was sitting in the

next to a buddy of mine and we were talking

about what we wanted to do with our life. He

shares that he wants to do ministry someday, and I

thoughtlessly shared this. I said, I have a dream too, man.

I see myself as a leader to leaders, I said, someday,

I think I'm gonna pastor a church, and I'm gonna

have all these pastors like you that are gonna serve

underneath me. That didn't land well. I'll never forget his

response to me. It was the reminder, be careful who

you share your dreams with. Looks at menia, says Brandon.

I don't know if I see that in you. Fair.

I remember when God confirmed my dream. But a couple

of years later, I was just about ready to start

Bible College and there was a camp revival happening up

north and I went to one of the meetings. I

don't remember anything about the meeting other than I responded

to the altar call and I found someone and I

asked him to pray for me. And I said, my

name is Brandon. I believe God has a word from

you for me, And this is honestly what he said.

He said, ironically, earlier in this week, God gave me

a very clear word for Brandon. He goes, But I

thought it was for my son, he said. But I'm

gonna share with you now the word that I thought

was for my son. But maybe it was for you,

Brandon instead. And he prophesied over me Jeremiah fifteenh nineteen

through twenty one. Now, if you know me at all,

you know that that verse is my life verse that

I quote that verse over myself. It was different than

my original dream, but it took both of those things,

blended them together and allowed my dream to even come

more to life. If God has giving you a dream,

God will confirm your dream verse nine. So here's what

happens to Joseph. He has another dream, and what does

he do? Tells it to his brothers. Listen, He said,

I had another dream. He said, this time the sun

and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.

And he says, this time the sun and moon that

represents his parents, Mom and Dad, They're gonna bow down

to me. And the eleven stars. Can you be more obvious?

He has eleven brothers. The eleven stars are gonna be

bowing down to me. He actually decides to share this

dream with his dad, you know, the dad who loves him.

He's dad's favorite. The dream even irritated he did his dad.

There's a commentator who made this statement about Joseph sharing

his dream with his dad, says Jacob was angered by

Joseph's dream. He was at that moment he realized that

his favoritism towards Joseph. This is from a Bible commentator

had gotten out of control. That Jacob had created a monster.

This whole section ends with verse eleven, which reminds us

that his brothers were jealous of him and hated him

even more. Third word of advice for a dreamer. Dreamers

aren't guarantees. Dreams aren't guarantees. Word of advice. I'm adding

it on because they kind of go together. The enemy

is aware of your dreams. So you're sitting here, you

have a dream. I want to be honest with you. Your

dream is not a guarantee. Your dream is your potential.

Your dream is what could be. But it's up to you.

Whether that dream is I want to be a teacher,

a professor, or a doctor, an attorney, an entrepreneur, whatever

it may be. That dream is your potential. But it's

going to take hard work, grit, determination, stick to itiveness

to actually have that dream become a reality. You don't

trip and your dreams come true. Your dreams don't just

come true because you have one. You have to work

for them. That is the reality of dreams. And be

aware of this. The enemy knows your dream too, And

if your dream is from God, that dream will advance

the Kingdom of God into the enemy's territory, which means this,

he will do everything in his power to make your

dream not come true. All of hell will come against

you to try to keep that dream from coming to

If you have areas of your life where you're weak,

you struggle, you trip, you fall into sin. The enemy

will get you there because he wants to get you

to sin, because he wants your dream to die. But

here's the deal. If the enemy can't get you to sin,

he'll get you to settle. I've said to this whenever

I mentor people in leadership. Good is the enemy of

the best. God has his best for you. But if

the enemy can't get you to sin, he'll get you

to settle. And the whole time you'll be thinking, well,

this is good, and the whole time the enemy's thinking, well,

it's not quite what that dream. They've advanced a little bit,

but not as far as they could have. We don't

know how much time lapsed between verse eleven and verse twelve.

But here's what happens next. His brothers had gone to

graze their father's flocks near Shechem in Israel. Jacob said

to Joseph, as you know your brothers are grazing the

flocks near Shechem. Come, I'm going to send you to them.

Pop up the map so give you an idea of

what was taking place. So Jacob, the eleven brothers, their moms,

and now their families all resided in the region of Hebron.

But the brothers were grazing their sheep and cattle up

near Shechem. This is about fifty miles away, or about

a three day journey, so they're up here. Jacob slash

Israel sends Joseph to go visit his brothers. So he

does the three day journey up to Shechham and when

he gets there, he finds out that his brothers aren't there,

and he starts asking around if anyone has seen them,

knows where they're at, anything like that, and finally finds

some people that say, oh, that group they went on

ahead to Dothan. Well, Dothan, you'll notice, is right above Shechem.

It's about fifteen miles away, or another day's journey. So

Joseph travels three days from here to here and another

day to Dothan. Even to this day, if you're in

the city of Dothan and you can look out what

seems to be miles because of where the city is located,

and you can see people coming. So back then they

would be in Dothan and they could see other shepherds coming,

or they could see traders that were making their way coming,

and they could see them from a long way out.

And the brothers looked out in the distance and they

saw that stupid coat. I gotta be honest, why was

Joseph wearing this coat? Three day journey from here to there,

another day journey there, at least a week round trip,

and he's wearing his protest suit on the journey. Why

is he doing that? Well, I think for only one

reason show off time. I'm gonna stick it to my

brother when I show up to check on them for Dad.

I'm wearing the coat with the long sleeves. I still

have the product price tag hanging. So his brothers see

him off in the distance. They were consumed with envy

and hatred. I heard it said that envy is the

precious daughter of the devil, that it follows in his footsteps,

hindering good and promoting evil. Proverbs ten twelve tells us

that hatred stirs up conflict. First John two nine. Anyone

who claims to be in the light but hates a

brother or sister is in darkness. One John three point fifteen.

Anyone who hates a brother is a murderer. Envy and

hatred church always lead to malice. Envy causes inward pain

when we see others be blessed. Malice produce this satisfaction

when we see others fail. The combination of hatred and

envy it is lethal. That day, Joseph's brothers didn't need

to be convinced to hurt him. They didn't need to

be tempted to hurt him. They just needed an opportunity.

They decided, let's take Joseph, rip off that stupid coat

and throw him down into a cistern and let him die.

That region's got cisterns everywhere. A cistern is basically a

hole that is dug to collect water rain water, so

they can have water for their crops. The holes were

so deep that if you ended up in one, you'd

need help getting out. As Joseph got closer, the older brother,

Reuben said, why are we Let's not waste this opportunity.

Let's throw him in the cistern and then let sell him.

So when Joseph came, they grabbed Joseph, they stripped his

jacket off, and they threw him down into the cistern.

I want to show you how bad this was. The

next verse tells us that as they sat around that cistern,

they ate a meal together. I want you to picture

the level of indifference they had towards this brother, who

he probably was injured once he was thrown into the cistern.

He is in the cistern begging and pleading for his life,

and his brothers are eating lunch. While they're eating lunch,

they look up and some Egyptian traders come by. Some

people they were heading to Egypt to offer them spices

and different oils that Egyptians wouldn't use for embalming. And

they got this idea, Let's sell Joseph to them. Fifth

word of advice from one dreamer to another from the

Story of a Dreamer. Dreams get refined in Egypt. They

pulled Joseph up out of the cistern. They hand him

to these traders. They take his coat, They kill a goat,

take the blood of the goat, put it all over

the coat, and they run it back and they show

it to their dad. And here's what happens verse thirty two.

They took the ornate rowe back to their father and said,

we found this. Examine it to see if it is

your son's robe. Jacob recognized it and said it is

Joseph's robe. Some ferocious animal has devoured him. Joseph has

surely been torn to pieces. Then Jacob tore his clothes,

put on sackcloth, and mourn for his son many days.

What you're going to find out over the next three

weeks that Jacob mourned for Joseph for twenty years. All

his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he

were refused to be comforted. No, he said, I'll continue

to mourn until I join my son in the grave.

So his father wept for him. Dreams get refined in Egypt,

and that's what we're going to talk about next week.

Portion ends. Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar,

one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard. I

want to ask you to close your eyes. There's some

of you that came to church today and during worship

you felt something different. As the message was preached, something

began to stir in your heart. That is the Holy

Spirit calling you, pulling you. So my question for you

this morning is this. If you were here today and

you do not know Jesus, but you want to, I'm

gonna count to three, and when I say three, I

want you to raise your hand. I also know that

there are some of you. You're here, You've prayed prayers,

you've went to church. But as I talk about things

like jealousy, envy, hatred, you know that that has taken

root in your heart. And if you were to be honest,

you'd have to admit, at this moment I am far

from God. But if you were here this morning, and

you want to say, Pastor Brandon man, I want to

leave this place committing to be right with Jesus. When

I say three, I want you to raise your hand.

Here I go. If you do not know Jesus but

you want to, or you're far from him and you

want to leave right with him. And I say three,

raise your hand. One, two, raise your hand now three

hands up everywhere. Awesome, you can put them down. Would

everybody do me a favor? Stand up on your feet.

I'm gonna close my portion by leading you all in

a prayer. And I want everyone to pray this prayer.

But for those of you it's probably twenty of you

that raised your hand. If you pray this and you

mean this. When you pray this, you get to leave

this place knowing you are right with Jesus. Your sins

are forgiven. So I want to ask everyone to close

your eyes. Repeat after me. Everyone say, Dear Jesus. I

stand before you today. I admit I've messed up. I've

made mistakes. But today I ask you to forgive me.

I invite you to come into my life and to

change me. I chew from this day forward to serve

you with my life. Thank you for forgiving me and

for saving me. In Jesus' name, Amen,