Death of a Dream

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

What would you do with your life that would honor God and impact people for good if you knew for sure you couldn't fail?

Think you have unlimited money?

Unlimited help?

What would you do with your life if you knew you couldn't fail?

That would really honor God and impact people for good?

Let me put it another way.

What is it that's wrong in this world that when you see it and when you're up close to it, it makes you angry?

I mean mad.

That's wrong.

That's unjust.

That shouldn't be that way.

Or what is it that when you get close to something that's wrong and it breaks your heart, you're so sad it's hard not to cry.

You see, those two questions tap into a dream that God has prepared just for you.

Part of His purpose for your life.

More than career and family and future and things that we're all going to go through.

Behind all of that, God has a dream for your life.

He has a dream to do something in you, we'll learn.

And he has a dream to do something through you.

Something actually that no one else can do quite like you because no one else grew up where you grew up.

No one else was in the family that you grew up in or lack of.

No one else is made exactly like you.

No one else thinks exactly like you.

No one else has exactly your personality.

And God has prepared you, we'll learn for a good work.

This is crazy.

From the foundations of the earth.

The one who spoke galaxies into existence wants to do something in you and through you.

There's some notes if you pull them out and if you have a pen.

Let's do a quick review.

In case you weren't here or in case you just need the reminder like me.

We learned last week that it's time to dream.

And that first God has a dream for your life.

Ephesians 2 10.

It's on the screen.

From the foundations of the earth, there is a good work that God has prepared just for you to walk in.

Second, it gets even better.

God's dream is better than your dream.

Whatever success would look like, whatever you think would be the most awesome thing, if only this, this, this, and this would happen, God's dream is exceedingly abundantly beyond what you could ever visualize, what you could ever come up, whatever you could imagine, according to the power that mightily works within you.

If you're a follower of Jesus, the Spirit of God lives inside of you.

And he's working in you so he can work through you.

And he's birthing this dream that from the foundations of the earth, God knowing everything about your family of origin, about your gifts, your talent, your personality, your struggles, that he's shaping.

And he's dropping this dream in.

And little by little it gets clearer and clearer.

And it's better than going public.

It's better than finding the right person.

It's better than this picture of a family, if that's it.

It's better than some dreams you've had for vocation.

All those things may fit in.

But it's bigger.

And that's why we have to dream.

The third thing that we learned last week is God is not in a hurry.

His timing is perfect.

Since we live by the Spirit, Paul said to the Galatians, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

See, the fact of the matter is that for those of us in this room that have trusted Christ as our Savior, there was a day when we realized we fell short.

We fell short, we're not the people.

We needed Christ.

We needed forgiveness, we needed new life.

In the empty hands of faith, we turned to Jesus, we asked him to forgive us.

The Spirit of God came into our life.

The Bible says we were pulled out of the kingdom of darkness, placed in the kingdom of light.

His spirit sealed us.

He dropped inside of us spiritual gifts.

We became sons and daughters of the living God, and he has a plan and a purpose for our life.

And the Spirit of God living inside you manifests the personality and the power and the presence of Jesus.

And so we live.

The Apostle Paul would say, it's no longer I who live, but Christ lives within me.

And the life that I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

That's Galatians 2.20.

And so what he really wants you and me to do is let me work in you, let me work through you.

Because here's the crazy thing about God's dreams.

The journey is pretty challenging, but the rewards are spectacular beyond what we could dream, both in us and then through us.

Ryan gave us the arc of Joseph Life last week.

His first 17 years was from a pretty dysfunctional family.

He had a pretty big ego.

He bragged a lot, he tattered on his brothers, and he was the, you know, the beloved child.

He got the nicer clothes, the whole dit.

And then after age 17, we're going to learn that he gets sold into slavery.

And for the next 13 years, difficulty after difficulty after difficulty will shape his life.

And it's called the formation detour.

I mean, I got this dream, this is where I'm going to go.

And God says, wait a second, you're not ready.

I need to do something deeply in you before I can really use you.

Because what we'll learn is that Joseph's life, once he matured, would save not only the nation of Israel, but all the nations in that time as this huge famine came across the land.

And then from age 30 to uh age 110, that's a pretty long life, he fulfilled his destiny.

God transformed the relationship with his brothers, his fathers.

And because of him, many people were saved, whole nations.

But what we're gonna see is that in the early times, he feels like this dream's impossible.

One young brother out of twelve.

During the time of detour, it's confusing.

I'm gonna read the story in just a minute, and I just have to believe as I read that story, Joseph is saying, wait a second, where's the part come where my brother's bowed out of me?

Where's the part you know gonna come soon here?

Like when I'm, as he's in chains, learns a new language, a new culture, and finds that nothing's working right.

And then finally, it's pretty miraculous how God used him.

I'm gonna talk about how God takes that dream that he puts in our heart.

And if you're thinking, I don't know exactly what mine is, I tap into those two questions.

And what is it that just it's so wrong or it needs to be changed, or this is what could be.

It'll be unique to each one of us.

But here's what I want you to know it's a very unusual way that God takes the dream that he puts in us and brings it to reality.

And during the road, there's times where it feels like he has just exited your life, you're all alone, it makes no sense, and that's why the story of Joseph is in the Bible.

Follow along from verse 12, we're gonna read the death of a dream.

Soon after Joseph's brothers went to the past pasture their father's flocks at Shechem.

When they'd been gone for some time, Jacob said to Joseph, Your brothers are pasturing the sheep at Shechem.

Get ready and I will send you to them.

And Joseph said, I'm ready to go.

Go now and see your brothers and flocks and see how they're getting along, Jacob said.

Then come back and bring me a report.

So Jacob sent him on his way, and Joseph traveled to Shechem from their home into the valley of Hebron.

When he arrived there, a man in the area noticed him wandering around the countryside, and he asked him, What are you looking for?

I'm looking for my brothers, Joseph replied.

Do you know where they're pasturing the sheep?

Yes, the man said.

They moved on from here, but I heard them say, Let's go to Dotham.

So Joseph followed his brothers to Dotham.

It's about another fifteen miles from where he was, and he found them there.

Then Joseph's brothers saw him coming.

They recognized him in the distance.

As he approached, they made plans to kill him.

Here comes that dreamer, they said, Come on, let's kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns.

We can tell our father a wild animal is eaten him.

Then we'll see what becomes of his dreams.

But when Reuben, it's the oldest brother, heard of their scheme, he said, uh, he came to Joseph's rescue.

Let's not kill him, he said.

Why should we shed blood?

Let's just throw him into an empty cistern here in the wilderness.

Then he'll die without our laying a hand on him.

Reuben was secretly planning to rescue Joseph and return him to his father.

So when Joseph arrived, his brothers ripped off the beautiful robe he was wearing.

Then they grabbed him and threw him into the cistern.

Now the cistern was empty and there was no water in it.

And then just as they were sitting down to eat, they looked up, and they saw a caravan of camels in the distance coming toward them.

It was a group of Ishmaelite traders taking a load of gum, balm, and aromatic resin to Gilead down to Egypt.

Judah said to his brothers, What will we gain by killing our brother?

We'd have to cover up the crime.

Instead of hurting him, let's sell him to those Ishmaelite traders.

After all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.

And his brothers agreed, so when the Ishmaelites and the traitors came by, Joseph's brothers pulled him out of the cistern and sold him to them for twenty pieces of silver.

And the traitors took him to Egypt.

Some time later, Reuben returned to get Joseph out of the cistern.

When he discovered that Joseph was missing, he tore his clothes in grief.

Then he went back to his brothers and lamented, The boy is gone, what will I do now?

Then the brothers killed a young goat, dipped it in Joseph's robe in his blood.

They sent the beautiful robe to their father with this message Look at what we found.

Doesn't this robe belong to your son?

Isn't it interesting?

It's not our brother.

He's your son.

Then their father recognized it immediately.

Yes, he said, It's my son's robe.

A wild animal must have eaten him.

Joseph has clearly been torn to pieces.

Then Jacob tore his clothes and dressed himself in burlap.

It's a sign of mourning.

And unlike a few days, Jewish culture, he would mourn for forty days.

He would go out from the camp and weep and mourn and sit in sackcloth.

He mourned deeply for his son for a long time, and his family tried to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted.

I will go down to my grave mourning for my son, he would say, and then he would weep.

Meanwhile, the camera shifts.

The Midianite traders arrived in Egypt, where they sold Joseph to Potiphar, an officer of the Pharaoh, the king of Egypt.

And Potiphar was captain of the palace guard.

So you get the story.

He has a dream.

He's pretty immature, doesn't handle how he gets this dream in terms of relating to other people.

But inside of his heart of hearts, he's got to think, you know, God gave me this dream.

That's how God worked.

I mean, they didn't have Deuteronomy, they didn't have the Bible.

God often speaks in dreams when his word's not available.

We do a lot of work at Living on the Edge in the Middle East.

And it used to be maybe five, six, seven years ago, I would be one degree away and I would meet someone who would say, Oh, we're ministering to this guy, and he's a key guy, he's an imam, he's doing Bible studies, literally.

And uh and he's doing Bible studies in the mosque, sharing Jesus with people.

Why?

Because he had a dream, Jesus showed up at his bedside.

In more recent days, I keep meeting individual people who, when I ask them, Well, how did you come to know Christ?

And it would be, Well, I had a dream and Jesus appeared and he explained it to me, and I got up and then I searched, and or he was at the foot of my bed.

God speaks in dreams, especially he's more miraculous where people don't have God's word.

And so Joseph is believing this is this is a part of the journey, this is a part of what I'm supposed to do.

And then he's got to be thinking right about now.

Think of just summarizing that story.

He obeys his father, he did what he's supposed to do.

That's gonna be really important when you start thinking about your dream.

Because we're gonna see a process that when you obey God and do exactly what he wants you to do, it very often gets worse before it gets better.

Second, he's betrayed by family, he's sold into slavery.

And then think about this in terms of how it really works: a new world.

He was the object of affection, now he's a slave.

He doesn't know the language, he doesn't know the culture.

Before he was, you know, Mr.

Special, and now he's a nobody.

Beyond a nobody, he's a slave.

He's just a piece of meat.

He's got to learn a language.

Maybe some of you came to this country as uh as immigrants, or you have friends who came here, and how foreign it was to come to the United States is as wonderful it was all you know built up to be.

And now there's a language you don't know.

And uh my my son-in-law came from Armenia when he was about eight or ten years old.

Neither of his parents spoke the language.

It's a long story of why they had to flee to get here.

And he said, you know, 10 I was in school.

I didn't speak English.

His mom and dad had great business jobs in Armenia, but they came here and it was like, hey, no credentials, we don't know the language, that they found themselves working at Minnie Marts, learning the language, later educated themselves and him as well.

But I want you to picture being alone, feeling forsaken.

Um, I don't know, have any of you ever been betrayed?

Maybe by a boyfriend or a girlfriend.

Ever been betrayed by a spouse?

Ever had a really, really close friend, and then you find out they said some things or they betrayed you, or you've been in business, especially business with another Christian, and they rip you off.

Can I get a nod here or there?

I I think it's one of the most painful things we ever experienced.

All the things I've experienced in my life, betrayal, someone you really trust.

So let's let's not make this a nice little Bible story.

He's got to be discouraged, depressed, alone, alienated, and wondering, where God are you?

And it raises the question if God gave him a dream and we happen to know the ark of the story, guess what?

Joseph doesn't know the ark, does he?

He doesn't know that he's gonna rescue the nation of Israel and other nations and that God's gonna use him in great ways.

All he knows is God spoke to me, and now I'm a prisoner.

And it's gonna get worse after he after he's sold into slavery, he'll get falsely accused, he'll end up rotting in prison.

People who promise to remember him don't remember him.

And he's got 13 years of, I have this dream, but my personal experience is God abandoned me.

It's gonna be really, really important.

Uh think of this.

I was this morning pondering this whole message and think Genesis is the first book of the Bible, right?

Anyone know off the top of your head how many chapters in Genesis?

50.

50, all right.

Way to go.

So 50 chapters.

It's the most important book, right?

It's the foundation.

Who is God?

How did creation happen?

What has happened in the world?

How does God operate?

13 of 50 chapters, do the math.

26% of the very first book is about one man and his story.

Why?

Why is it so pivotal?

Why is it so crucial?

Why is it emphasized so much?

Because a good and loving God who created all that's good, once sin enters the world, the biggest question is: how does a good God watch over my life in a fallen and evil world where I get injustice?

And the answer is Joseph's story.

A sovereign God will take the worst that comes at you and reorganize it in a way as you draw close to him to bring about the very best despite the evil that comes at you.

When he gets to the very end of his life, his brothers still don't get the still don't get the picture.

Says, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good to bring about this present result to preserve many people alive.

As you turn the page at the very top, here's what I want you to get.

The ark of Joseph's life is a pattern, not an exception.

As I have been had the privilege of kind of doing college ministry as a basketball coach and then later being a pastor for many years, I meet so many Christians that get are so disillusioned with God.

I don't get it.

He made all these promises, and my life's a mess, and this happened to me, and they did that.

And part of that sort of that prosperity teaching that you've heard, it seeps in everywhere.

Somehow we unconsciously think, if we obey God, you know, like I'm in his word every day, even, and I'm in a small group, you know, I'm doing community, like he said, I'm discovering my gifts.

I even give the first portion of my money to God and I'm trying to share my life with people at work.

I mean, how how can I be more committed than that?

Then why did I get laid off when it wasn't fair?

Why did my mom get cancer?

Why did my brother and it's like if you do those things, isn't God supposed to make your life wonderful?

Aren't you supposed to be successful and happy and go public and get a lot of money and have a wonderful family and sing kumbai around the table, Thanksgiving?

That's an American prosperity myth.

That's not Christianity and it's not the ways of God.

But if you buy into that unconsciously, you can get very upset with God and very disillusioned with life.

What you're gonna see, notice in your notes, this this process of God speaking to us and has it having a plan for our lives, and then a season where he delays, it's the pattern.

Look at your notes.

Abraham.

God says to him, I'm going to make you a great nation out of your genealogy.

That's Genesis 12.

He makes that promise to Abraham when he's 75.

Guess when the sun comes?

125 years later.

That 25 years, a lot of ups and downs, a lot of struggles, a lot of sin, a lot of dysfunction.

God fulfilled his promise and Abraham got to know God during the journey.

Or Moses, right?

He grows up in Pharaoh's house, he's got the greatest education.

I mean, he's the prince, he's got the future in front of him, and something, you know, like he goes on Ancestry.com or something, or me 23, and he says, you know, I kind of want to know my roots.

And he goes, Wow, I'm a Hebrew, I get that.

And so he goes out to his Hebrew brother and he goes, Man, this is sick.

This makes me angry, this makes me sad.

They're getting beat up.

I'm gonna help them.

And so he kills an Egyptian, and 24 hours later, words out and he runs for his life.

Right motive, maybe not the right method.

He wants to deliver his people.

Guess what?

It's a dream God put in his heart.

He needed 40 years of training to become the kind of leader with the character of a leader that could deliver them.

Or David.

Right?

He's the youngest.

God seems to take ordinary people.

You know, the youngest, not necessarily the smartest.

He gets anointed as king.

You're the king.

Saul blew it.

He's all about himself, he's all about pride and arrogance.

David, oh, me?

You know, I got a little slingshot and I've killed a giant, but I mean, you know, really.

And then for the next 15 years, really, he ends up dodging spears and hiding in caves and getting his wife taken away from him.

And after about seven and a half, he becomes the king of Judah.

But it's 15 years before David is the king in Jerusalem.

Why?

Why does it take so long?

The Apostle Paul, right?

Killing Christians, dragging them out of houses.

Let's get rid of them.

Men, women, children.

I hate them all.

They're defying the great God.

Boom! Jesus knocks him off his feet.

He sees and meets the risen Christ.

And so he goes to Arabia for three years.

Goes back to his hometown of Tarsus for another nine or ten.

From the time that he met Jesus to the first missionary journey, 13 years.

What's God doing?

Why does he delay?

Why is it that he's made some promises to you?

Why is it that you have some dreams in your heart, that you've taken some steps, and right now you're saying, God doesn't feel very close, and I this doesn't look like it's working out the way I'd hoped.

God, are you there?

A young woman after the service.

Could I ask you a question or so?

And I said, I said, sure, you know.

So I said, I don't can't stand up real long.

So we sat down and really loves the Lord going to local university.

And she goes in this journey, I'm really wanting to do what Jesus wants me to do.

And He's put some things on my heart.

But could I ask you something?

I said, Well, sure.

She said, Did you ever go through a time where as you were doing that, you felt so alone?

I mean, just so alone.

And I said, Yeah, I really have.

I think David felt really alone at times.

I think Abraham thought.

Is this ever gonna happen?

I think Moses probably gave up hope.

It took a burning bush to get his attention.

Here's what I want you to understand.

There's a principle behind all of this, and actually it's in the text.

In Psalm 105, it's interesting how sometimes a part of scripture will look back and give us a window into what God was doing.

In verse 16, it talks about this famine that went all across the world.

And then it says in verse 17, then he, God, sent someone to Egypt ahead of them.

What's that mean?

It means the brothers didn't send him, God sent him.

Joseph, who was what?

Sold as a slave.

They bruised his feet with fetters and they placed his neck in an iron collar.

Not really a good plan.

Doesn't feel really good to Joseph.

Until the time came to fulfill his dreams.

The Lord tested Joseph's character.

You see, God, here's the principle.

Write this down, and I think there's a fill-in.

God must work deeply in you before he's going to work significantly through you.

Say that with me.

God must work deeply before he works significantly.

If you can get that, you'll understand why it's lonely and why it seems unfair, and I don't get it.

And I, God, if you if we're going to do these things, how can these things be happening to me?

Well, if they happen to Abraham and Moses and David, and we could go through church history and we could go through anybody that I've ever known that God uses in any significant way, I will tell you this.

He had to do something very deep in them before we could do something great through them.

Unfortunately, many, many of us, when it gets hard, we assume God doesn't care.

And we either give in and try and find our meaning and our fulfillment elsewhere, or we give up.

I guess I didn't hear God.

It's probably just a dream.

Probably just me.

And from the foundations of the earth, that dream that God put in your heart is stillborn.

And the people that could have been loved, the people that could have been delivered, the lives that could have been rescued, the companies and the neighborhoods, or whole people groups that God would have used you or me in.

God has to figure out a different way through someone else.

And the person who loses is us.

We're going to do something that's a little bit crazy.

We're going to do like a super rapid Bible study, and then I'm going to tell you two stories.

I didn't grow up opening the Bible or reading the Bible.

And if the principle that I call a timeless principle, if it's true, it'll change your whole perspective of your relationship with God.

Completely.

So to me, it's like, I mean, you may like Ryan.

You might think his dad, he seems like he's okay.

I wouldn't believe me.

How do you know what I just said is true?

How do you know God does have to work in you deeply before he works through you significantly?

I'm glad you ask.

Are you ready?

Now I'm gonna go pretty fast.

And and you have all the verses.

But I want I want you to get, as I go through it, I'm gonna go through fairly quickly, I want you to be thinking, in is it in you?

Is this thread, is it true?

Because if it's true, then you will begin to get a new set of glasses and you will look at adversity and pain and suffering and difficulty and betrayal through a whole new set of lenses.

Like, oh, this is normal.

This is normal because God is in the process of making me more and more like his son.

And the way he does that is he doesn't cause these things, but he allows them, and how I respond will create in me a very loving, kind, joyful, peaceful person.

So Jesus teaching.

Truly, truly I say to you, John 12, 24, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone.

But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit.

Jesus is speaking about his death.

And what he's saying is, in agricultural community, if you have a seed and you can put a seed here, and if it remains by itself alone, it is a seed.

But if you take an apple seed or seed of wheat and you put it in the ground and you water it, what happens?

It comes up and it becomes an apple tree with many, many, many apples.

There's something about nature.

God reveals himself everywhere.

In fact, early on, read Genesis.

I did a study on the word seed.

It was so exciting.

I mean, it was to me, maybe I haven't to you, so seed, seed, seed.

But it was like it'll say, it'll say, and he made every crop in the land, every plant, and it bears seed after its own kind.

And then when he talks about, when Adam and Eve have a baby, it says, out of his, doesn't say out of his baby, it says, out of Abraham or Adam's seed.

And all through, when you go through the genealogies, it'll be the seed, the seed, the seed.

Something has to happen to a seed for it to bring forth much fruit.

And it's death.

We all want resurrection power.

But the death precedes it.

Notice what Jesus said as he was preparing the disciples.

This is the very last night.

Guys, here's the goal.

We're going to transform the whole world.

But here's what I want you to know.

These things I've spoken to you about the Spirit, these things I've spoken to you about my plan.

These things I've spoken to you about my death and my resurrection.

These things I've spoken to you so that in me you can have peace.

In the world you'll have tribulation.

But take courage of overcome the world.

God never promised it would be easy.

In fact, he promised you would bear a cross that would be challenging, it would be difficult.

What he promised is you'll never go alone.

And it's in the midst of the painful, difficult times if we turn and lean in, that he begins to really manifest himself to us.

Paul would say to a little church in Philippi, for to you it has been granted, the word is grace.

For Christ's sake, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake, experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me, and now here to be me.

Have you ever thought that part of a grace gift from God is you not only get to believe, but you get to suffer?

I mean, we live in a world where any kind of suffering, man, you've got to have a pill for that and get rid of it as soon as possible, right?

Relief is what we look for in life.

Paul says there's something about in a fallen world, Joseph's story tells us this is how it works.

And then the apostle Paul will give us basically the big process.

In the first two verses of Romans 5, he's gonna say, This is how we got right with God.

And then he's gonna say, Here's the process where God's will of making us like Jesus, and this is how it works.

Therefore, he says, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Well, what's our new standing?

Through whom we also have obtained an introduction by faith into his grace in which we stand.

We are loved, we are valued, we are forgiven, we've been adopted, we've been sealed by his spirit, we are God's sons and daughters.

And he says they glorify in this.

And not only in this, but we exalt.

The word is we rejoice, or literally, we boast in our, look at this process, our tribulation.

Well, why?

Knowing tribulation brings perseverance.

You don't give in, you don't give up.

It's hard, it's difficult.

You hang in there.

And perseverance does what?

Proven character.

You become more like Jesus.

Pretty soon you you look at things the way Jesus looks at things.

Pretty soon, regardless of circumstances, there's more love and there's more G.

There's more G.

How about that?

There's more of Jesus operating.

There's peace, there's joy.

Over time, as you persevere, you find that you become more patient.

You're good, you find yourself being kind to people that normally you wouldn't be.

You find that you're starting to discipline yourself.

These are fruits of the spirit.

Proven character, and proven character doesn't disappoint.

Why?

Because it leads to hope.

And hope doesn't disappoint because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

See, there's this thing that happens during the adversity.

It's like this, you know, like coal under lots of pressure over centuries become diamonds.

God allows these challenging, difficult times.

For Joseph, 13 years.

13 years of being falsely accused, of being a slave, of realizing it's not fair, of being abandoned.

And all during that time, something was happening where what?

God was refining his character.

Because when God wants to do something great through a person, he has to do something deep in a person.

Because if success comes too early, what he does through you, you make it about yourself.

You know, uh, how many influencers or star athletes or movie stars at 20, 22, 25, 23, early 30s who get millions and millions of dollars.

How do most of their lives play out?

Oh, it's wonderful, right?

They all their relationships are really good.

They seem to have a lot of peace.

They they blow through tens of millions of dollars.

Their relationships are usually like a series of the next one, the next one, the next one.

They often find themselves addicted to either alcohol or drugs or both.

Their lives are train wrecks.

Follow child actors.

The number of child actors whose life comes anything but a train wreck is about this big.

Or do a study on people, they've done this, people who've won the lottery.

You'd think, it's great, I got five million dollars or ten million dollars or twenty-two million dollars.

Fast forward five to ten years.

The family's broken up, their life is a mess.

Most of them would say, I wish I would have never got the money.

God cares for you so much that if he's gonna do something significant through you, he has to get something deep in you where you have character, where you have trust, where you have humility, where you can handle success.

Um, you know, a 70 or 80-story building, you know, skyscrapers.

If you've ever seen when they're getting ready to build one, and you think, men, what in the world are they doing?

They go down anywhere from 55 to about 125 feet down in the ground until they hit bedrock to go up 70 stories.

Because the higher the building, the deeper the foundation has to be.

Some of the worst things that you're experiencing right now, the most challenging things, are really the grace of God shaping your life to help you have the kind of character that can endure how he's going to honor and bless your life and use you moving forward.

And so if you don't have this story, then you'd be in the dark.

God, what's going on?

By the way, Joseph didn't have the story.

But as you'll read as the series goes on, there's a little phrase, and we don't know how, but it says, And the Lord was with Joseph.

The Lord was with Joseph.

And as lowest times, the young lady I talked to, uh, they had a good conversation.

I could tell her heart's really, really tender.

I said, you know, she asked me about my time being lonely, and I shared a little bit, and I said, you know, of course, you know, I wanted the right relationship, and of course, but in my deepest, deepest loneliest times, I got to experience something that I didn't want.

I got to experience Jesus actually becoming intimate and close to me and solve the deepest loneliness in my heart.

That no person can, no success can, no great job can, no if we have kids can, no, we went public can.

And here's the deal.

You're human and I'm human.

And that means when things are going great, we don't need God very much.

We don't pursue him very much.

But in our greatest need, we become very humble and dependent and hurting.

And God runs to meet us.

I uh I had a dream, and then God gave me a dream.

And my dream growing up, my my wife and I were both kind of in that on the side of dysfunction, you know, in the ark, both came from alcoholic families, and my dad was a really great athlete in multiple things, and so I wanted to prove I was okay, so I, you know, I was undersized.

So basketball became my dream, my love, and I practiced incredible hours.

And uh basketball scholarship was all that I wanted to prove to my dad, and so I did, got a basketball scholarship.

And then as I was there, then it was like, okay, I'm I'm really gonna show him and I'm gonna show everyone else.

And basketball became just an object that really I learned later it was it was an idol because it wasn't about basketball, it was about me.

But I mean, I eight, nine hours a day and all those drills, and so as a freshman, it was the the rules changed where freshmen could play on the varsity team, and I got some time even as a freshman, and things are really looking good, and so as a sophomore, I'm I'm really, really ready.

And then I was I played baseball as well, and I came out of the batter's box and I tore uh from my hip all the way down uh my quad, and that pretty much ruined that year.

And so the next year I really worked hard because I was gonna show my dad and I was gonna show everyone, and in my mind, it was I'm gonna score 25 a game, and it's all Jesus, it's all Jesus.

No, no, it was really all chip, all chip, but you know, we're all deceived.

And so uh third year, I'm I'm gonna stay at campus and I'll I'll take a couple classes, but I'm gonna play in the league, I'm gonna lift.

I had these ply metrics, I'm gonna get my my jump higher, and I mean I gained wear a weighted vest, and I ran the stadium stairs, and man, this is my year.

I'm a junior, it's my turn, here we go.

Ingram, ingram, ingram, you know.

And so uh a week before the season starts, I get in a crazy flu.

It spent all summer gaining 10, 15 pounds, I lost 12 pounds, never came back.

And uh then in the middle of that season I broke my fifth metatarsal, and it was like the velvet vice of God.

By my senior year, we had six different coaches, we had a big blow-up, we had a drug problem, people were getting rested off of our team, guys on the team were selling drugs.

It was it was like a soap opera.

And uh, got into the middle of it after a guy tackled me in the middle of a practice because he thought I had snitched to the coach, and apparently it was someone else.

And I remember coming to the point finally where, Lord, if I never pick up a ball, if I never play again, uh, I want your agenda for my life.

It's an idol.

I want to do what you want me to do.

And after all the coaches and all the stuff in the middle of the year, and it was just chaos.

Well, all that resulted in a great record.

We were six and twenty-six.

That means six wins, twenty six losses.

So when we go to the year-end tournament, we're the lowest team.

We play the number one team, not in our league, the number one team in the nation.

And it was just like, whatever, Lord.

Coach comes to me and says, You're starting tonight.

Oh, great.

That's what I wanted the whole time.

Played the best game of my life.

We, until the very end, we were we were down two points, and I got fouled with one second left on the clock, and I had a one-on-one.

And in my arrogance, the coach came and said, Aim for the back of the rim.

Your legs are tired, trust me.

Aim for the back of the rim.

And I still remember walking over and going, you didn't know what he's talking about.

I I visualized, I put it right over the top.

And I'd done this in my driveway a thousand times.

This is it, baby.

Here we go.

You know?

Perfect, it felt great.

Hits the very front of the rim, drops off, we lose.

Still very arrogant.

And then God did something unusual.

Two weeks later, I got a letter from some group that said, we're putting a basketball team together, we're gonna play all the Olympic teams in all the countries of South America and all the selection teams, and we'd like you to join us.

So I ended up two different summers, and then later with a team from Australia throughout the Southeast Asia.

And God's just like chip, I wanna I want to work through you, but you weren't ready.

You had to come to the end of yourself.

And for some of you, that's a relationship right now.

Or it's your job, or it's a sport, or it's or it's a it's a dream that really what is driving you is not God, what do you want to do in me and what do you want to do through me?

See, he always has two agendas.

God wants to do something in you, make you like Jesus, and then he wants you to be a part of this plan of his to love people in radical, powerful ways.

And when I finally said, you know, okay, I played more basketball games with better competition in one summer than I did in four years, and then did it the next year.

And then an Australian team needed a point guard, and of all things, I'm the point guard, and they got an NBA guy to be the center.

And and guess what?

God's saying, guess what?

Basketball's not the issue.

Your job's not the issue, the relationship isn't the issue.

I have to work deeply in you.

Are you gonna draw near to me and be a son or a daughter that's really all in?

And during that time, you know, I apparently God had worked enough that he was ready to do something that really surprised me.

I mean, I got finally took me about a year and a half to ever get in the Bible regularly.

I just couldn't get up.

Anybody?

Anyone in that?

You know, I promised myself I'll read tomorrow.

And then the alarm would go off.

And well, I promise I'll do that next film, right?

And I finally did, and then I finally got in a small group, and then finally got him one and I started leading one, and then I could struggled with sin, and then I started memorizing scripture, and that for me was like a turning point.

God gave me victory in some key areas.

So now we fast forward, I'm on this team.

It's the second team, second summer, and we're playing an outdoor stadium in uh Argentina, about 10,000 people playing against their Olympic team or selection team or whatever, and we're doing Bible studies with the guys, and there's this missionary.

And the game's over.

We've shared our testimony, sang a song, and they can fill out a little thing to get a gospel of John if they want to.

This guy grabs my arm, this missionary takes one of those plastic uh milk carton type things, puts it over, lifts me up, sips me on it, gives me a microphone, and says, Preach to him.

I'm a school teacher and a basketball coach.

What?

I said, What do you want me to say?

He said, I see you reading the Bible every morning.

Whatever you read, tell him.

I happen to have read Psalm 19 that morning.

It was a beautiful starry night.

You know, you're in another country, you just do what they say.

Stop! Look up at the stars, the heavens declare the glory of God.

Come down here.

I will introduce you to the one who made all those stars and made you.

Right now.

Little boldness I didn't know I had.

A couple hundred people come down.

Give them the gospel.

So he kind of coached me, gave him the gospel.

Like 50 people come to Christ.

Well, then each night he he starts putting me on this little thing.

Well, I go back to coaching, and pretty soon they're asking me to speak at a youth group or this or that.

I needed a stress fracture.

I needed my quad to be pulled.

I needed to be betrayed.

I needed to have four, almost five years of college for God to do something in me to prepare what he wanted to do through me.

And by the way, that that that was just the beginning of that journey.

How about you?

Where are you at?

Little by little, uh one of my dreams was to have a woman.

The thing I prayed, I shared with the gal I sat down with.

I said, you know, I got to the point where I prayed God would give me a girlfriend and later a wife who loved Jesus more than me.

Because I'd been through all the dating ups and downs.

And he did.

And she came from an alcoholic family.

And she had a lot of pressure.

She had two kids.

She had two kids, and her husband left with some other woman.

And she spent lots of hours in a closet crying out to God and asking, What do you want to do in me?

What do you want to do through me?

And then we met.

And then we got married 47 years ago.

And you know, sometimes I meet people and they, you know, they have this really distorted view.

I was just with an organization this last weekend, and you know, a couple people came up to me and like, oh, I've been listening for all these years, and you wrote all these books, and you know, you know, I just laughed.

No, no, no.

Here's what you understand.

Um, this is a broken basketball coach who was hard-headed, that God had to humble, and he uh he just uses regular ordinary people.

And I found a woman who loved Jesus more than me, and we got together and said, Would you teach us how to be parents?

Would you teach us how to raise our kids?

And no matter what, we're not going to make decisions based on money, and we're not gonna make decisions based on circumstances.

We want you to use our life.

God loves to do extraordinary things through ordinary people to extend exceeding grace to undeserving recipients.

There are no superstars in the body of Christ.

There's no real superstars in business.

I don't care if they're worth billions or what.

You get to know real people.

Everyone is insecure, everyone has fallen, everyone has struggles, and you are on a Joseph journey.

You'll notice the very last line is adversity and suffering are God's tools to develop the character needed to steward his blessing and fulfill his promises.

You see, if God gives us success and there's no foundation, you will just think it's about you.

And you'll be blind and you'll be seduced, and you'll just be one of those many, many people who started well and don't finish well.

And so don't despise the pain.

Don't despise the journey.

I hope it's not 13 years for you.

I I did the math and I realized that when I was 25, I had to start career completely over, give up my dream of being a major college basketball coach, forget that I'd already been to grad school, start over with a wife and two little kids, moved to Dallas at 25, and I was 40 years old when a businessman took some of the messages and threw them on the radio that changed the trajectory of my life.

And I needed all 15 years.

And what I can tell you, if God has done anything through my wife and me, we are deeply aware that it has nothing to do with anything special that we bring.

Other than we're not gonna bail out of the process.

We're gonna take the Lord's Supper now, and I would remind you that the person who modeled this perfectly, remember, he was human.

He learned obedience by what he suffered.

Um, he did not, if there was any other way, not my will but yours, I'm gonna ask you to close your eyes and bow your head, and the band's gonna come.

And then just say, Lord, I want to cooperate with what you're doing in me.

I want to believe some dreams.

I want my life to count.

Lord, before I take this bread that represents your body and I dip it in this wine that represents your blood given for me, I want to repent of life being all about me.

You're a good God.

You want to do great things, you love me.

Lord, help me to sign up for the work that comes in me before you do the big things through me.

And so as you ponder with that piece of uh cracker or bread in your hands, and you think of the wine that it's it's dipped in.

Thank Jesus that he was willing to model for us to die to himself, to be resurrected that we might have eternal life with him now and forever.

May you never forget how kind and how good God is.

He wants the very, very, very best.

But the path is narrow and sometimes painful.

Lord Jesus, thank you for walking that narrow road.

Thank you for dying in our place, and thank you that you have been raised from the dead, and that when we believed on you, we were raised with you, with power to walk in newness of life.

Just take a moment before you take some time to get up and take the Lord's Supper, and the band will lead us.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

Please subscribe to our podcast for access to every episode as they're uploaded.

And hey, we'd love to connect with you.

Take a next step by filling out our virtual connection card at awakeningchurch.com slash card.