Lemonade Worth Waiting For

Amen.

So glad to have you here.

I want to say hello to everybody here in person.

If you're here in person, why don't you put your hands together?

Welcome everybody online.

Before I uh get into today's message, I do just want to take a moment, if you would give me a few moments, to just uh express my gratitude.

Shane mentioned, uh want to be clear, I'm not 50, all right?

I'm 42, and uh uh I feel like I'm 30, honestly.

I feel like I'm 30, 32.

I give all the glory to God and orthopedic one.

I got a punch card over there.

I'm one ligament away from a freebie.

And um, but no, I I I've, you know, birthday week, I was kind of in my feelings all week, just looking back at God's goodness in my life and how grateful I am uh for my family, how grateful I am for my health, how grateful I am for you, for this church.

Uh you guys are a lot of fun.

You're a joy to be around.

You've been very kind, kind, kind to me, kind to my family.

Uh I receive a lot of support around here.

I've got friends around the country every once in a while who will call me uh sad, stressed out, because uh uh essentially they feel alone, sometimes they feel attacked.

And I have to tell you, I I get the most amazing support.

Often I'll receive letters or messages from people uh who are just encouraging me from within this church.

And so I just want to say thank you for your support, for being in my corner, and I don't take for granted the privilege of doing this.

You know, you've you've given me a role in your life, and I take it very seriously.

I try to do my best to serve serve you well, but I I do it out of gratitude to God and gratitude to you.

You could be other places doing other things, and and so I just want to say thank you.

Um I'm gonna jump into the word.

We're in a series called Lemonade, which is why I'm up here in a big yellow uh sweatshirt, all right, looking like a big lemon up here.

Uh I went in my closet, I'm like, I got anything yellow?

Okay, I gotta stay on theme.

But um uh lemonade, we're talking about, you know, sort of this adage when life gives you lemons, you turn them into lemonade, which can be a little cutesy, but it's not.

I mean, really, if you've been given something you didn't ask for, but you've been asked to deal with it, it's not cute, it's not easy, it's not fun.

And some of you are going through the maybe the hardest season of your life, and so I want to speak uh encouragement to you from God's word.

We're in Genesis chapter 37.

Genesis 37 · chapter mention

Uh, we're in a life of a man named Joseph.

We see actually last week we started talking about the downline that came before Joseph, his grandfather, or his great-grandfather, his grandfather, and his father, and we saw there were some behaviors that sort of cascaded down, and now they made their way to Joseph.

And Joseph comes to a place where he goes, Look, I can't control what my great-grandparents and my grandparents and my parents did, but now it's my time, and I've got to do with my life, you know, what I believe is the right thing to do.

And some things need to stop with me.

And and we see actually Joseph's father Jacob uh went through a painful experience where his father preferred his brother over him, which you would think would have such an effect.

You'd go, I will never do that to my kids.

You'd almost think you would make a point to do it, but to say, I won't do that.

But uh Jacob ended up sort of complicating his life.

He had four uh four wives, twelve sons, and he selects his son Joseph to be his favorite.

He gives him these special gifts, he makes it very clear and plain that Joseph is his favorite.

And so now his eleven sons feel jealous and alienated, and it creates dysfunction.

So he does the exact same thing that was done to him.

And yet we see uh Joseph, what's he gonna do with his life?

Here we go, Genesis 37.

We're gonna start in verse 5.

It says one night Joseph had a dream, and when he told his brothers about it, they hated him more than ever.

Hey, listen to this dream, he said.

We were out in the field tying up bundles of grain, and suddenly my bundle stood up, and your bundles all gathered around and bowed low before mine.

How many of you know that's really gonna help the jealousy and the family dysfunction?

You know, it's a crazy dream I had.

I don't know what it means.

Verse 8.

His brothers responded, Oh, so you'll think you'll be our king, do you?

Do you actually think you will reign over us?

And they hated him all the more because of his dreams and the way that he talked about them.

I want you to, I want you to catch that.

We're gonna come back to that in a moment.

Not just his dreams, but it said the way he talked about them.

Joseph had a little swagger to to to not just the way he uh heard the story, but the way he told the story.

And it rubbed them the wrong way.

Verse 9.

Soon Joseph had another dream, and again he told his brothers about it.

Listen, I've had another dream, he said.

The sun, moon, and eleven stars bowed low before me.

Uh let's pray.

Lord, I pray in Jesus' name you would give me the ability to um to speak your word.

Uh, give me an ability beyond my own.

Lord, I'm not able to change anybody, but you are.

With you, all things are possible.

So, God, I pray that you would cause your word to come alive, that through the power of your Holy Spirit, you would bring customized application to each open heart.

And Lord, we will be careful to be not just hearers of your word, but doers of your word in Jesus' name.

And all God's people said, Amen.

A few weeks ago I preached a message on community, and I talked about what it looks like to be in healthy community, and I asked everyone in the church to fill out a survey so that we could sort of assess the health of our church.

And we defined health in five different ways, and so it was a five-question survey, and there was a little bit of demographic on the front end, uh, demographic information that really helped us to get an idea of where we're at.

About a thousand of you filled that out, and it was a great data point.

We actually gave the survey to some data analysts who did about 30 hours worth of work and gave us back a report that our staff has been pouring over ever since, so we can learn how to serve this church better.

Uh so for all of you that filled that out, thank you so much.

We're putting it to good work.

Um, one of the things that that I um personally learned from this and one of the areas of community is support.

So sometimes when you know you're going through something and you gotta have support.

So we want to find out how many people here feel adequately supported.

Like, if you feel adequately supported by people outside the church, but you're going, hey, I got all the support I need, well, I'm not gonna try to force support on you.

Like, no, you need more.

You're like, no, I'm good.

So so we're trying to find out where everybody was at.

Support was one of them, and what we found was when you laid the demographic information over the survey, that the uh the group in our church, the age group that feels the most unsupported in our church are people in their 50s, between 50 and 60.

I found that interesting.

I was kind of surprised, honestly.

Actually, I thought we would hear from the young families going, man, you know, I got my career by the tail, I've got these kids I'm trying to raise, I feel like I got more to do than I can do.

And yet, when I went into the comments, a lot of, I mean, we had hundreds and hundreds of comments, uh, I read, I learned some things about what it's like to be in that 50s range, 50 to 60.

And one of the things that they talked about, people in their 50s, and maybe some of you in here, this may resonate.

Uh, people in their 50s are are usually, if they if they had their own children, they're in between their parents and their kids.

So they have aging parents who, you know, being a kid of an aging parent is difficult because you're trying to help them make sure they got their stuff squared away, uh, depending on what's going on in their mind, their body, uh, their finances.

It's a difficult thing to try to take their keys or to work with them towards solutions that can be really, really challenging.

At the same time, you have grown kids, if you have kids, you have grown kids that are now adults, and that's an interesting thing to try to parent adults, and then some of them now are having kids.

So I'm supporting my kids, my grandkids, and my parents, and nobody's supporting me.

Nobody's waking up going, I wonder what the 51-year-old dude or the 53-year-old lady, I wonder if she has enough support.

No, everybody's going to them for support, and nobody's supporting them.

Uh, I hadn't thought of that, but I want to say thank you for giving that information.

We're beginning to look and pray and plan.

How can we support better?

Another thing, I started doing informal surveys with people in that age group, friends of mine, and say, hey, what are you what are you dealing with?

And one of the themes that came back is the idea that in your 50s, you're starting to deal with dreams that you had at a young age and the fact that some of them aren't going to come to fruition.

In other words, those ships have sailed, and you go, you know, I thought I was gonna do this when I got to this age, but it hadn't happened.

And I'm at the place if it hadn't happened yet, it's probably not going to happen.

And to look back at life and to go, you know, my kids are, excuse me, my kids are raised, and and I'm learning of some things that I wish I would have done differently, but I can't go re-raise them.

You know, part of growing up is you mature over time, which means some of your values shift.

What I mean by that is when you're young, there's some things you thought were really important, then when you get older, you're like, that ain't that important.

And then there's some things you didn't think were important at all that you get up here and you're like, that was really important.

And so now you've come to this enlightenment, but now I'm at a place where I got years behind me.

I can't go back and redo that decade or that decade or that decade.

So now I'm just dealing with the feelings of have I really lived a significant life?

Did I do all I was supposed to do?

Did I maximize my potential that God gave me?

Did I seize those opportunities?

Did I live a really great, successful, significant life?

Was it good enough?

Did I do enough?

Am I in the right spot?

You know, I think when you're younger, you you start to think about being great and doing something important, right?

That's why if we were to bust up into an elementary classroom, we're like, what do you guys want to be?

We would hear whatever they think is great.

Hey, I want to be a nurse, I want to be a doctor, I want to be the president, I want to be a pro ball player, I want to do whatever, whatever they thought was significant life.

And so, you know, you you sort of put a bullseye on the target and you get the proper education, and then and then you start listening to successful people talk about stuff.

And you're like, okay, so now I gotta I gotta learn about managing my time and energy, and I gotta learn about systems and processes, and I gotta learn about leadership, and I gotta learn how to build the team, and I gotta learn how to put the goals on paper, and I gotta learn how to work my way to it, and and to maximize my my talents and my abilities and focus on my strengths and do all this kind of stuff to learn how to squeeze all the potential out of your human capacity, out of out of your human potential.

But even that stuff, because what is your potential?

Like, what is it?

How do you how would you even quantify that?

Sit down and try to think, what is my potential?

I mean, what is it?

You you you can't say, like, you know, my potential is an 82.3.

82.3 of what?

Like, what are you talking about?

So you could say, well, potential, I think I could make this much money, or or potential of I think I could have this much respect, or I think I could function in this role, or I think I could own a business, or I think I could lead a b organization, or I think I could teach in a university, or I think I could, whatever it is.

What we tend to do is sort of look for heroes and look at their lives, and now they've set the bar somewhere, and now we're trying to kind of get there, and we're hoping that when we get to that place, then not only will I have the social proof and the metric proof, but I'll feel really fulfilled.

Man, I love this work I'm doing.

I'm doing it in adequate quantity, and my quality of life and my feeling about my work is so good.

The problem is it's so vague, it's so hard, it's so hard to put that bullseye on the target.

So I think every honest person, no matter how successful they are, find themselves going, but did I do enough?

Did I do it big enough?

Should I have done more?

Am I in the right place?

Well, then you come to church and a guy stands up in a yellow sweatshirt and he starts talking to you about purpose.

Okay, purpose.

Hey, it's not just about your gifts, it's not just about your potential, but God, Almighty God, has created you with a divine purpose.

It's not just about you, it's about your purpose.

God has a plan for you, and then he starts preaching.

Jeremiah 1, and before I formed you, I knew you and I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations.

And he preaches Romans 8:28, and God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:28

It's all about his purpose and his divine purpose in your life.

And then he preaches Ephesians 2.10, you're God's masterpiece.

Who created in Christ Jesus what?

To do good works that he prepared for you in advance.

And then he preaches Proverbs 19:21.

Proverbs 19:21

Many are the plans of a man or woman's heart, but it's God's purpose that prevails.

And so now it's not just my talents and my gifts and my abilities and my dreams and my aspirations.

Now I'm connected to God and his divine purpose, which is awesome, but still kind of scary because I'm like, well, what if I fail him?

What if I don't do enough of that?

What am I shooting at?

How do I know if I'm doing it well and doing it right?

Let's go back to Joseph.

You know, he's 17 years old and he's got this dream, this impression in his mind.

And it's like symbolic.

There's bundles of grain bowing down, and his is standing up, but it's like, what does that mean?

And it's clearly it's something having to do with some kind of empowerment and some kind of leadership, but but it's like bundles of grain bowing down.

It's like if you ever had a weird dream and you're trying to tell somebody about it and you feel weird, you're like, I don't know, man, I was running through the field with no shoes, and then I was falling down a waterfall, and then I woke up in Vegas.

You know, as you're like, sounds like an acid trip.

You're like, I know, man, it was uh, I don't know, man.

It was I don't know what it means.

Uh he's like, yeah, there's these bundles of grain.

Okay, and then he's like, yeah, and then the sun, moon, and stars bowed down.

And yet he senses deeply, believes deeply, that this is a message from God.

It's sort of a symbolic message.

And especially in the Old Testament, God would often use dreams.

And yet you're going, I'm on a mission to follow God's purpose, and it has something to do with bundles of grain and sun, moon, and stars bowing down.

I don't know, man.

What is that?

Like, am I supposed to be a farmer?

I don't am I supposed to be a science teacher, astronomer?

I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

And so the fear of not getting it right is there.

And then you have Joseph, right, who has this dream.

He starts telling people about it, and even his own dad sort of scolds him.

He's like, dude, that's kind of grandiose, okay?

Sun, moon, and stars bowing down, calm down.

And it upset his brothers, and his brothers sell him into bondage.

So immediately after he articulates his dream, his life goes sideways.

If you've ever had, when I say dream, I don't just mean what happens in the REM cycle.

I'm talking about a vision in your mind's eye of your life and where you sense God taking you.

And then it goes from that to like everything goes wrong.

He goes into 14 years of hell.

He's sold into slavery, and yet he does the absolute, we're gonna talk about this in a couple weeks, like the process of development that God brought him through.

But Joseph, my goodness, keeps landing on his feet.

This dude, you can't keep him down.

Whatever they do with him, he bounces back, okay?

So he goes into slavery and he's sold into the home of Potiphar, who was wealthy and had a bunch of businesses and a big estate.

And Joseph comes in with the right attitude and he's like, Man, this is great.

You know, I could have been sold to anybody, but what an opportunity.

And so Potiphar promotes him to the top of his business.

He's essentially the vice president of his business.

And so he's running the show and he's doing the systems and processes and he's got the infrastructure and he's building this thing out.

And while that happens, he catches the eye of Potiphar's wife, is eyeballing him, and she throws herself at him.

And Joseph is like, no, no, no, no, no.

He's like, I'm not gonna do that to Potiphar.

I'm not gonna do that to God.

That's not where I want to go.

And so he rejects her, and as she's spurned, she decides to lie.

So he tried to rape me.

So Potiphar became angry, and so now Joseph, who has turned his lemons into lemonade once, gets thrown in prison.

So now he's in prison, falsely accused.

He actually did, not only did he not do the wrong thing, he did the right thing and got thrown into prison for doing the right thing.

So here he is in prison and in prison instead of taking six months of self-loathing and going, God, how could you?

You see what I've been doing, what happened in my dreams.

He goes in and he starts being productive in prison to the point that he curries favor with the warden.

They put him in charge of the other inmates.

So here you have an inmate running the other inmates.

Truly, the inmates running the prison.

And so while he's there, then the most peculiar thing happens when you think about it in context.

These two people come to Joseph, and they've been having weird dreams.

And they're like, I don't know what these dreams mean.

These two people, one of they both reported directly to Pharaoh.

Pharaoh got angry with them, threw him in prison.

One of them was a cupbearer, the other was a baker.

They come to uh uh Joseph and they're like, you know, we have these dreams, we don't know what they mean.

Joseph said, you know, I mean, I'm just a dude, but if you tell me your dream, I'll pray.

And if God gives me, you know, anything, I'll give it to you.

And so the the cupbearer is like, yeah, I've been having this dream.

He tells him, and Joseph said, God gave it, gave me the um uh translation of your dream.

He said, Um, basically, you're gonna get out in three days.

You're gonna be restored to your position.

Things are about to go really great for you.

He's like, Really?

He's like, Yeah, man.

And then the baker's like, well, that's cool, man.

Uh what about mine?

And then he tells him his, and and and Joseph goes, You want to know?

He's like, Yeah, man, of course I want to know, man.

Give me the news.

He goes, in three days, you're gonna get out and they're gonna kill you.

What?

He's like, Yeah, they're gonna impale you, man.

You're gonna be impaled in three days.

Like, get ready.

He's like, Are you sure you got that one right?

He's like, I'm positive, dude.

So God bless you, man.

And then and then he goes, and then he goes, he's like, you know, I don't need anything from you.

I don't need anything from you.

And then he goes over to the uh to the cupbearer and he said, Look, when you get out of here, don't forget I helped you.

He's like, I'm in here, I was falsely accused, I didn't do anything.

So if you get out of any way you can help help me out, please do.

And it says, watch this in Genesis 40 in verse uh 22, it says, uh, everything happened as he predicted.

Verse 23, it says, Pharaoh's cupbearer, chief cup bearer, however, forgot, he forgot all about Joseph, never giving him another thought.

Uh, it sounds kind of sinister, but I don't think it was.

I honestly think he was so excited about getting out, he forgets about Joseph.

And for two years he forgets about him until Pharaoh starts having crazy dreams, and he goes, Oh, he goes, dude, I messed up.

I forgot.

There's a Hebrew slave in prison that God tells dreams to, and it's that that brings the connection.

Now, pause on that for a quick second.

I want you to think about this.

I want you to think about Joseph's position.

He's had a dream, some kind of symbolism, some kind of direction, sun, moon, and stars, and bundles of grain that has not come to fruition.

In fact, not only has it not come to fruition, everything in his life is going in the opposite direction.

If the sun, moon, and stars bowing down is empowerment, and that's over here, he's going over here a hundred miles an hour in slavery, in bondage, imprisoned.

And yet he has this dream, and yet God is using him in prison to help other people with their dreams.

If you're Joseph, you gotta be thinking, does anybody else see anything wrong with this picture?

Okay?

I had a dream at 17 of empowerment.

I had a dream at 17 I was gonna be a leader.

I had a dream God was gonna do something otherworldly with my life.

And yet here I am, and somebody comes to you like, hey, I have a dream too.

To even have the presence of mind and the resilience to go, tell it to me, let me help you with it.

Because God, you gotta think, you'd be tempted a little bit to go, get your dream out of my face.

You want to talk about dreams?

Let me tell you about mine.

And the fact that he has unfulfilled dreams, and yet God is using him in a season where he's limited and confined and in bondage to actually help other people with their dreams while his dreams remain unfulfilled.

I I just want to go there for a minute.

I want to sit there for a minute.

I want you to think about that.

I want you to think about the fact that God might be using you to help somebody else in an area where you have a desire, where you have some hopes, and yet you find yourself going, at what point, Lord, is it about me?

At what point am I gonna get mine?

When's the door gonna open for me?

And yet you have Joseph who somehow finds it within himself to not focus on himself, but to help someone else with a dream when dream is kind of a sore subject.

How do you get there?

You know, I think what it really honestly gets down to is deep in your heart of hearts believing in the purpose God has for your life and the dreams that He's given you, the visions that He's given you are not yours.

It's dream ownership.

Who owns it?

So if it's my dream, if it's just Greg as a young man, thought what would be really Cool to do, and I put the bullseye on the target, and me and my life coach and uh schemed it out and strategized it, and this is these are the alignments that I need, this is the connections I need, and this is the coaching I need, and this is how I'm gonna get there, which is all good.

That's a huge that's a part of the development we're gonna talk in a couple weeks.

But but what if if it's only that and it's all my idea, and it's about my glorification, and it's about bowing down to me, and the fact that I would be empowered and I would be elevated, if that if it's that and it and it came for me, I dream this dream.

It's my dream.

Then when it's going as sideways as it went for Joseph, you would be terrified and I would say demoralized, depressed, and and ready to cut bait because you're going, this isn't gonna happen.

I'm not able to get myself out of this.

But when you believe that the things that God is leading you to are connected to his purpose and it was his idea to begin with, what if it doesn't work out?

It wasn't your dream anyway.

It's his dream the whole time.

This is what God has put in me.

So let's just think about this for a second.

Okay, we're in Genesis 40.

Um, the story of Joseph goes another 10 chapters.

So we're you got we we go all the way to chapter 50, but let's pretend that it didn't.

Let's just pretend for fun today that the story stops at chapter 40 of Genesis, and the whole thing ends with the cupbearer gets out, his dream is fulfilled, and Joseph spends the rest of his life in prison, never becomes prime minister, never gets elevated.

He spends the rest of his life in prison interpreting dreams for other inmates and helping them get out.

Would that have been a less significant life?

You'd have to think from a human emotional level, if if if that was the case, if he if he dies, if he died in prison and he spent the rest of his life just working with whatever inmates were around him, and okay, cool, I made the warden's life easier, and I'm working with these inmates and I'm helping him with his dream, and he sees one guy leave and another guy leaving, and another guy, and he just sees people leaving while he stays.

You have to think there's a part of him that's like, what's up, God?

Well, what about the sun, moon, and stars?

And what was that?

What was that bundles of grain thing?

But what if the bundles of grain thing was all about the work God wanted to use him to do in prison?

What if it was that?

And that's a fun story, and if you're not careful, you only preach one part of it.

Hey, look, man, if you can't be faithful to help somebody else in their dream, God will never make you prime minister.

But if you'll help them with their dream, God'll make you prime minister.

What if he doesn't?

What if it stops at chapter 40?

What if you spend the rest of your life helping people, other inmates with their dreams?

You say, well, Greg, that wouldn't happen because that's how God prepares people so he can make them prime minister.

Tell that to the Apostle Paul, who wrote the better part of your New Testament, who died in prison.

Died in prison, wrote many of his books in prison, often wrote from prison to people he had met in other cities and other prisons.

And some of his most effective, long-lasting, purposeful, significant work took place in prison.

He was decapitated in prison.

He never became prime minister.

And yet, is his life or his work any less significant?

I encourage you today to fall out of love with whatever specifics you have attached to the sun, moon, and stars and bundles of grain.

Because often we have an impression from God to go in a direction and we think it means X, and we think it means Y, and we think it means that we're gonna end up in this place with these people doing this work, and it'll feel this way.

Joseph never saw himself in Egypt.

He never saw himself in bondage, he never saw himself in slavery, he never saw himself in prison, and he never saw himself in the Egyptian government.

So when you get too attached to the specifics, is where I start hearing people going, I just don't know what's up with God, because I had a dream about these bundles of grain, which means that I'm gonna work here and do this and do that, and you have no idea.

What you have to do is go, it's this is God's thing.

And so, what this means in terms of what it where I end up geographically or what my net worth is or where I'm working or what how this even ends, I'm going to just trust that it's his dream, his purpose, and I'm gonna follow many of the plans of a man's heart.

Don't fall in love with your plan, fall in love with his purpose, and that way you start seeing prison cells as open doors.

Yeah, it's slammed behind you on the way up, but it opened first.

It was an open door.

You walk through the open door.

Paul gets to this place when he writes to the Philippians, feel the tone of this.

He's writing to people in Philippi, who many of whom he met in a Philippian prison, and he's writing it years later, Philippians 1, 12 through 14.

He said, I want you to know, dear brothers, by the way, he's writing it back in prison, most likely a Roman prison.

He's writing to the people of Philippi, and he's like, Listen, yeah, I'm in prison.

He said, I want you to know, brothers and sisters, everything that's happened to me here, okay, all this you know, prisoner stuff has helped to spread the good news.

I've never been more effective than I am right now.

It's crazy.

I tell you, you know, they lock me up, but it's backfiring on a man because the good news is spreading.

Verse 13 for everyone here, including the palace guard, knows that I am here in chains because of Christ.

Okay?

All right, so so I'm encouraging the inmates, but I tell you what, man, I got the guards, they're right there, man.

They're right there.

I'm doing some of the most effective work.

Look at this, verse 14.

Because of my imprisonment, not in spite of my imprisonment, but because of my imprisonment, most of the believers here have gained confidence and boldly speak God's message without fear.

God's using me to encourage because of my imprisonment, the people who would have been feeble, who would have been weak, who would have been going, I'm just gonna do my time, are now bold because of my imprisonment.

God sent me here.

They thought they were locking me up, but they actually opened a door.

This is where God has sent me to be.

Listen, you gotta fall out of love with the specifics of your plan.

Fall in love with the purpose that God has on your life.

Because if that's the case, you can do it anywhere.

You can do it anywhere.

Paul does it anywhere.

This is again, he's writing to the Philippians.

It's kind of where he learned this.

They put him in the inner dungeon in Philippi, and this is when Paul and Silas start singing hymns at midnight in the inner dungeon, in shackles, everything falls off, door flings open, and they don't leave.

They stay put.

Why?

This place ain't so bad.

We haven't church in here.

There's an energy in here, there's a freedom in here, there's a peace in here.

The shackles never held me down anyway.

Those doors that close behind.

Look, God opens and closes doors.

I'm walking in his purpose wherever I'm at.

What if Joseph's story stops in chapter 40?

And instead of becoming the prime minister, he spends the rest of his life interpreting dreams and getting people out.

Determining and speaking uh dreams, interpreting dreams, getting people free.

Interpreting dreams, getting people free.

What if that was his life?

Would it be less significant because he never got to the point of prime minister?

I don't think so.

So look what happens next.

Pharaoh comes and he well, Pharaoh is you know having these reoccurring dreams, and he's he tells his cupbearer, man, I can't stop dreaming this thing.

I don't even know what it means.

And the cupbearer's like, ah, I failed.

He's like, There's this guy, and so he goes and gets him, and Joseph stands before Pharaoh.

Pharaoh's like, Can you interpret my dream?

He's like, I don't know, man, maybe.

He's like, it's a God thing, so tell me, and I'll pray and we'll see what's up.

And so he does, and he goes, God gave it to me.

What is it?

He goes, God's telling you about your next 14 years in the 14 years of this nation.

He's like, Well, what?

He goes, Well, the first seven, there's gonna be unbelievable abundance and prosperity in the land.

There's gonna be more food than you need, way more.

Don't eat it all.

Do not eat all the food because after the seven years of prosperity, there's gonna be seven years of famine where the land won't produce food.

And if you eat it all up the first seven years, everyone's gonna starve and die the next seven.

So he said, Man, you need systems, processes, you need um, you need organization, you need to mobilize, you need infrastructure, okay?

You need storage barns, you need more barns and storage than you've ever had.

And so you gotta put this together.

It's a 14-year plan.

And Pharaoh said, You're hired.

I want you to run it.

I want you to run it.

Now look at this.

Look what happens next.

Okay, he while he's standing here in his inmate clothing with the numbers across his chest, Pharaoh said to Joseph, I hereby put you in charge of the entire land of Egypt.

Look at this.

Then Pharaoh removed his signet ring from his hand and placed it on Joseph's finger.

And look, he dresses him in fine linen clothing, and he hung a gold chain around his neck, and then he had Joseph ride on a chariot reserved for the second in command.

And wherever Joseph went, the command listen, look at this.

Wherever he went, the command was shouted, Kneel down.

So Joseph, so Pharaoh put Joseph in charge of all of Egypt, and Pharaoh said to him, I am Pharaoh, but no one will lift a hand or foot in the entire land of Egypt without your approval.

Boy, that's a fun story.

And you and you gotta wonder, you gotta wonder what 17-year-old Joseph would have thought if he knew that that's what the dream was about.

Remember what it says at the beginning?

It wasn't just when he told the dream, it was how he told the dream.

Yeah, someday everybody's gonna bow down to me.

Someday I'm gonna have linen clothes and chariots, I'm gonna have gold chains.

I'm gonna have when I go, people are gonna kneel down because the big dog is in town.

It was how he said he wasn't ready because at 17 he thought the sun, moon, and stars in the bundles were about him.

That the bowing down, so he needed 14 years of crushing, 14 years of things happening against his will, 14 years of development.

We're gonna talk about it in a couple weeks.

Development, development.

I kind of want to preach it now, but I only got two minutes and 22 seconds.

He had to go through a process, so that when people bowed down, he didn't go, he went, that's who I'm called to serve.

God prepared him for 14 years for this next 14 years.

14 years in prison, 14 years in bondage, 14 years to save a nation.

And it wasn't about the linen clothes.

At 17, it would have been about the linen clothes, it would have been about the chariots, it would have been about, but but look, look what here's what it was about, verse 47.

As predicted, seven years the land produced bumper crops.

And during those seven years, look at all the work he did.

He gathered all the crops grown in Egypt and he stored the grain from surrounding fields in the city and he piled up huge amounts of grain like sand of the seashore.

Finally, he stopped keeping records because there was too much to measure.

You know what that is?

That's a lot of really hard, dirty work for seven years.

It's not about the linen garments, it's not about the chariots, it's not about the gold, it's not about the kneeling, it's about understanding I've prepared you to do important work.

Important work.

I've prepared you, I've taken you through some things, but I gotta take you through some things so that you know when you see people kneeling, you don't think that you're empowered over them.

I've empowered you to serve them.

This isn't about them bowing down so you can glorify yourself until you go through that process to understand this is not about you having power and glory.

This is about you being empowered to serve and glorify God.

You gotta get that.

And when you understand that, the miracle and the power of this text is not in help somebody with their dream and you'll be prime minister.

The power of this is that you come to a place of such lockstep with the purposes of God and glorifying God that you can be just as happy in prison helping somebody else with their dream as you are riding in the chariot.

That's the message.

That's the message.

If you only preach one part of it, you only get half the message.

Yes, God sometimes will test you.

Are you willing to serve another person's dream when yours are unfulfilled?

Sometimes there is a testing of your heart, the contents of your heart.

Are you in that place?

Are you owning it?

Is it still your thing?

Is it still your idea?

Is it about your respect, your position, your place?

Is it about you?

Or have you given, is it God's thing?

Lord, I want to live your purpose.

Sometimes God will test you with that person in front of you who has an unfulfilled dream.

Well, you got all kinds of unfulfilled dreams, and yet you help them with theirs.

And sometimes that leads to a promotion of prime minister.

But the power is that even if it doesn't, even if it doesn't, I'm not any happier in the chariot than I was in the prison cell.

And so we have Joseph who gets a promotion, we have Paul who gets decapitated in prison, both who live significant lives, successful lives, powerful lives, purpose-filled lives.

Today, by the power of God, may you be stripped of the fear that just by following God and serving his purpose, maybe somehow I'll still not get there.

Am I doing enough?

Are you doing what God gave you to do?

Are you walking through the doors God's given you?

Are you serving people?

The people, are you loving God and serving people?

Loving God, loving people, serving God, serving people.

Are you doing what God?

Joseph didn't all of a sudden become more talented when he got promoted.

He was that dude in prison.

He was already that dude.

He'd become that dude.

What if I'm that dude and I never get out?

That's not your call.

Your call is to walk through the doors God's given you, to love God and love people, serve God and serve people, walk in purpose.

Today I pray you would be stripped of the fear that I didn't do enough.

I didn't get to where I wanted to be.

Look, if God's got you in Egypt, he's got you in a prison, he's got you in this place, bloom where you're planted, be fruitful where God's put you, be on purpose.

I'm living in purpose.

Whether you lock the door behind me or whether you're driving a chariot in front of me, whether you're kneeling down before me, or whether you're sharing your dreams with me, it doesn't matter.

I'm gonna walk in the purpose God has for my life.

Be free today.

Be free today of the fear that your metrics won't add up.

Be free today from the bondage of feeling that my fulfillment lies in how fulfilled I feel.

You may have no feelings of fulfillment, and yet you stand back and go, Am I walking in obedience?

Am I trusting God?

Am I making the most of the opportunity that God's given me?