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We Need to Dream
Genesis 37: 12-20
I want to start tonight by getting into our text. Look with me in
Genesis 37, and we will start in verse 12. (Read Text)
I think that it is interesting how Joseph’s brothers recognize him. They
say “Look here comes the dreamer.” And while they didn’t use the term
“Dreamer” as a complement we understand that dreams are wonderful
things. What do you dream about?
What are your dreams for your family?
What are your dreams Financially?
What are your dreams Physically?
I believe each one of us has a dream placed in our hearts, a vision deep
down inside that speaks to the very soul. Dreams are very important.
Let’s look at a few things that dreams do for us.
First, dreams gives us direction.
Have you ever known a person who doesn’t have a clue about what they
want in life, but are successful? Neither have I. Our dreams give us
something worthwhile to aim at. It is a compass, telling us the
direction to go. And if you move in any direction other than toward your
dream, you’ll miss out on the opportunities necessary to be successful.
A dream also increases our potential.
Without a dream, we may struggle to see the potential within ourselves
because we are unable to look beyond our current circumstances.
Following our dream, we begin to see ourselves in a new light, having
greater potential and capable of stretching and growing to reach our
dream. Like with the life of Joseph, every opportunity we meet, every
resource we discover, every talent we develop, becomes a part of our
potential to grow toward that dream.
Thirdly our dreams help us to prioritize.
It not only gives us hope for the future, but power in the present. A
person who has a dream knows what he or she is willing to give up in
order to succeed.
Unfortunately, many people do just the opposite. Instead of
concentrating on their dream and letting go of less important things,
they try to keep everything going so they have more options. And they
never quite succeed. If you spend so much time keeping things going,
preserving the options, you never quite move forward to the dream.
And I believe that a dream predicts our future.
It gives us a mental picture in our mind, making us participants not
spectators, so we are not blown by changing winds, but focused on what
lies ahead. It doesn’t mean we have any guarantees, but it does increase
our chances of success tremendously.
Dreaming is dangerous work, today you see from Josephs life that
dreaming can get you into a lot of trouble. Look back at our scripture
reading today. In verse 19 and 20 we read, "Here comes that dreamer!
they exclaimed. “Come on, let's kill him.
All the people that affected a change in history have been dreamers. All
the people that are honored by Gods word have been dreamers. Noah,
Abraham, Moses, Joseph, David, John Baptist, Jesus. The ultimate dreamer
has always been God, In fact every dreamer that has ever lived in the
kingdom of God did nothing but embrace Gods dream.
It is a great tragedy in the church is to lose our dreamers, dreamers
are like the spies who go ahead of us and spy out the land, and bring us
samples of the promises to come.
It is a greater tragedy is for us to kill our dreamers, because they
bring us samples and evidence of more and better things. Their dreams
call us beyond our traditions, and past experiences, and convict us of
settling for less than Gods best.
I believe that there are 2 classes of Christians in the church. Boat
sitters and Water walkers
or Dreaders, and Dreamers. Dreaders say, boy I’m sure thankful for this
boat now I won’t have to get wet. If everybody will just be calm and
quiet we won’t get any water in the boat.
Dreamers say: It’s a nice little boat and it will help me get out to
where Jesus is so I can start walking on the water. Thanks for the ride,
but Jesus is walking on the water and I’d rather be out there with him
on the water than sitting in this boat. Dreamers know: You can’t walk on
the water while sitting in the boat, to walk where Jesus walks there are
some things you got to let go of.
Dreamers are dangerous people, they’re always rocking the boat, there is
always something better that has caught their attention, and they refuse
to be satisfied without it.
There are not many dreamers today. Many of them have been killed. It was
Joseph’s brothers that wanted him dead, his dreams threatened them. But
in the end they couldn’t kill him. So they did the only thing they could
do to stop the dreams, they put him in a pit. Now this pit wasn’t the
Marriott. IT was cold, dark, and probably damp. It was filled with the
stench of animals that had fallen in and could not get out. This was not
a place for dreamers; this was the place that dreams come to die.
Dream killers have not changed through the years. Still today we tend to
get threatened by dreamers so we try to place them in a pit. Not a
physical pit but a pit just the same. What are your pits? What is Satan
using to take away your dream and song?
Maybe you have spent time in The Pit of Doubt
When I have doubts, I grumble, fuss, murmur. Actually when I doubt I
have a very biblical attitude, I act just like the Children of Israel
the first time they came to the Promised Land. If you remember the story
you know that it was their doubt that kept them from realizing their
dream.
Joshua knew that the issue was not the giants or the fortified cities;
it was their faith in God. That why he pleads with the people let’s not
rebel against our God. The real issue was their faith in God not these
other things. If our faith in God is going to fail us, it will do so as
we are stepping out in faith to realize our dreams. I wonder how many
times in our life our faith has failed us as we start dreaming?
Doubting is always the easiest choice to make because faith requires
action and doubting requires nothing. The Israelites said in Numbers
14:2- … If only we had died in Egypt or in this desert. Listen to what
they are saying. It would be better for us to stay here or go back to
Egypt where it was safe. But to go forward would require us to fight.
The most likely consequence of doubt is that I will miss out on what God
has in store for me. God says in Numbers 14:20-23… not one of them will
ever see the land I promised on oath to their forefathers. Because of
the pit of doubt we miss God’s best for our life.
The Pit of Comparison
There are a lot of Christians who spend so much time looking at what
every other church and denomination is doing that they don’t have any
time to look at their dreams. Success is not based on attendance or
contribution. It is based on the hearts of those gathered to do the
Lord’s will.
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 3:6 I planted, and Apollos watered, but God
made it grow. I have to remind myself that this is God’s church and He
will make it grow when our hearts are ready for growth. Now while that
sounds so simple I must ask you are your hearts ready for this church to
grow? Are your hearts prepared to realize the dreams of our members?
None of us here would sit back and pray that God would till the soil and
plant the seeds for me to have a harvest. We know that we have to get
out there and break the soil and plant the seeds if we are going to reap
the benefits. In the same way we can’t just sit back and pray that God
will advance our faith, or make us better people. We must do the hard
work of study, prayer, and meditation so that we will be able to receive
the harvest of souls when they come.
God is not concerned about what I think about everyone else, God wants
me to be concerned with Him.
The Pit of Failure
A lot of times we let our dreams die because we are afraid of failure.
Let me remind you of three things we need to remember about failure.
Remember Everybody Fails - Have you made mistakes? Welcome to the human
race. It just means you’re alive. In James 3:2 (NIV) it says, “We all
stumble in many ways.”
We’re all living proof of this verse. Failure is a part of life. You are
going to fail, that’s what the Bible says. Nobody’s perfect.
The closest you’re ever going to get to perfection is when you are
filling out a self-description on a job application. Because you don’t
discuss the failures, do you? You describe the successes. And when
you’re describing yourself, or handing them your resume about yourself,
that’s the best you’re ever going to be. But everyone fails. Even those
who are the best at what they do, do not do it right all the time.
Realize It’s Not Fatal - When we do fail, we often over exaggerate the
effects of that failure. We blow it out of proportion. It’s not the end
of the world. The fear of failure is far more damaging to your life than
failure is. With failure - you fail, you pick yourself up and you go on.
The fear of failure - you can let that haunt you for years and years.
Everybody falls. Everyone of us here tonight have done a moral or
Spiritual belly flop. The only difference between successful people and
unsuccessful people is not that successful people never fail. They do
fail. They fail as much if not more than the unsuccessful. What is the
difference between a failure and a success in life? Successful people
simply get up and keep on going.
Let me redefine failure for you: Failure is refusing to try again. It’s
saying, “I blew it. I tried out for baseball but I didn’t hit the ball
on the first swing so I give up. I had a dream but it is just too risky
so why even try.”
How did you learn to ride a bike? You get on it, fall off. You get on
it, you fall off. Finally you get on it and stay on it for five seconds,
then ten seconds. But if you keep giving up when every time you try
something and initially you don’t have success, you’re never going to
succeed in anything. Failure is refusing to try again.
Lastly I want you to Recognize The Benefits of Failing
We usually think of failure as a negative experience. But wise people
learn from failure. Wise people use failure to their advantage. Wise
people make the most of failure. They learn from it, they grow from it.
They use it as a stepping stone. They get back up and try again.
Thomas Edison failed 9,999 times before he figured out the light bulb.
He said, “They were not failures, I just learned 9,999 ways it wouldn’t
work.” We rarely learn from our successes. But we can learn from our
failures. And God uses those in our lives for multiple benefits.
God uses failure to educate me. Mistakes are a learning process. Some
things we only learn through failure.
God uses failure to motivate me. We don’t usually change when we see the
light; we change when we feel the heat. And there’s no heat quite like
the heat of failure. Proverbs 20:30 - “Sometimes it takes a painful
situation to make us change our ways.”
Sometimes God has to use a little pain to get us to change, to steer us
in a new direction. And sometimes, that only comes through failure.
God uses failure to cultivate me. It can actually cultivate my
character, can help me grow in my character.
Romans 5:3-4 - “We can rejoice when we run into problems and trials for
we know that they are good for us. They develop strength of character.”
We need to realize that every one of God’s dreams and impossible at
first. If they weren’t we would buy into it easily, but God wants for us
to depend on Him. What are the pits that keep you from realizing the
dream that God has for you?
I know that individually we can attain the Dreams that God has placed in
our hearts, but together the dream gets realized muck quicker.
What pit are you in tonight? What is keeping you from Dreaming. Today
God offers to take you out of that Pit and let your mind see what He has
in store for you and this church. Are you willing to come and get rid of
everything that entangles you?
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