F4F | Steven Furtick and The Danger of a Dream

Fighting for the Faith

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Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Rosebro. I am your servant in Jesus Christ, and this is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the

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Word of God. Today we're gonna be heading over to Elevation Church, and the best thing

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I can say is if you haven't already availed yourself of the teaching titled, Pirate Christian's Guide to Understanding the

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Old Testament Part 2, then you need to watch or listen to that first before you get to today's installment of Fighting for the

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Faith. We're gonna be heading over to Elevation Church, and we're gonna be listening to Stephen Furtick.

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Stephen Furtick is the king of the Narcissites, and Narcissus is a form of scripture twisting where you take the biblical text and you make them about yourself when you're not the hero of the story.

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And so in the teaching titled, Pirate Christian's Guide to Understanding the Old Testament Part 2,

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I did an extensive teaching on the story of Joseph and demonstrated the connection points on how it connects back to Christ.

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It's a type and shadow story that has a lot to do with the life of Christ, including the death and resurrection and exaltation of Christ, his humiliation, state of humiliation, him being a slave, and the connection points back to Jesus are incredible.

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They are uncanny in the details, and I didn't even do an exhaustive look at the story.

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But Stephen Furtick is a guy that we've noted since he's come on the scene that he engages in Narcissus, the reading of the love of yourself into the biblical text, and makes himself the center of the story, makes you the center of the story, and the story of Joseph that Stephen Furtick engages in here is just quintessential

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Narcissus. It's really a complete mess because the story isn't about me.

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It's not about you. It really ultimately has to do with Christ. So let's head over to Elevation Church, shall we?

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And the name of the sermon we'll be listening to a portion of is titled, The Danger of a Dream. And let's get to it.

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Here we go. This is a scripture in Genesis chapter 37 verse 5 that has in it so much, so many of you who know the story of the biblical character

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Joseph will be tempted to fast -forward again to the end of the story, and I would challenge you not to because this is where the sermon starts today in Genesis 37 verse 5.

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For a few weeks out of every year, I plan my teaching to be independent of a series.

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A theme, but then I clear parts of the calendar intentionally. I've learned to do this now in 13 years of pastoring, that you just need to leave a little room for some things that have been in your heart.

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This particular message leaves some room for some things that have been in your heart. I was able to share some of the content with our staff last year and really been waiting for an opportunity to share it with you, and so I'm very excited about it today.

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But just one verse to get us started in Genesis chapter 37 verse 5. The Bible says

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Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers they hated him all the more.

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So for everybody who's thinking that when you get a good idea everybody's gonna go fund you, they're not.

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This story isn't about you, and you'll note that the first mistake he makes is that somehow thinking that you coming up with a good idea is the same thing as the dream that Joseph had.

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Joseph's dream was a prophecy. Yeah, it was a prophecy from God, and so the origin for it was

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God. You coming up with a good idea is not a synonymous concept with Joseph's dream.

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And so here the Narcissus begins, and this guy has refuses, the best way

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I can put it, refuses to recognize that the scriptures are about Christ. He thinks this is about you.

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You having a good idea has nothing whatsoever to do with this story.

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And that everybody's going to support you and understand you. Don't expect that, because this message, I want to speak to you about your dreams today, the dreams

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God has put in your heart. What dreams has God put in my heart? What are you talking about? I talk about it from an unusual subject heading called the danger of a dream.

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And this message comes with a warning label. If you'd like your night... The danger of a dream.

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I had to clean my ears out. What on earth are you talking about? So you'll note then he thinks the story of Joseph is normative.

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Oh, if you're a audacious believer in Jesus Christ like Stephen Furtick is, oh you're gonna get a dream and it's oh it's just like Joseph and it's oh it's dangerous man.

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This is nonsense. I pointed out that Judah didn't get a dream. Reuben didn't get a dream.

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Yeah, none of Joseph's other brothers got any dreams at all either.

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You know, so you know why? This is nonsense. This is ridiculous. Where in the

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New Testament are we told by Jesus? Oh, you should expect that you're gonna get a dream just like Joseph's.

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The life of Joseph is a type and shadow that exemplifies

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Christ and the whole story itself is a salvation story. Yeah, and Joseph becomes the

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Savior in the story. Again, if you haven't availed yourself of a Pirate Christian's Guide to Understanding the

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Old Testament Part 2, you really need to do that before you continue with this with this installment of fighting for the faith.

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Nice little comfortable version of the way life is supposed to be. Slip out now, click off now, watch a

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TED Talk, but this message is for somebody who has a God -given dream or you're starting to sense it, and I just pray.

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Are you starting to sense the God -given dream? Totally missing the point. In fact, let's pray right now.

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Lord, open our hearts to receive what you say and then give us the courage to obey it.

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That's our prayer in Jesus' name. Amen. False doctrine here. Totally false doctrine.

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Creating a false expectation. God has not promised you a Joseph -type dream.

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I wonder a lot of the time what my kids will remember about their childhood, and I'm scared they'll remember all the scenes

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I want them to delete. It seems like they remember the times I got mad more than the times I bought them stuff, and I don't like it, but I would say that some of the things that stand out to me about my childhood, particularly my teenage years, are some of the more random incidents.

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One thing that I remember from my childhood, and my mom remembers it a little differently than I do, but she's out of town today so I can tell this story the way

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I want to tell it, is when I was auditioning for this band, and I won't bore you with the long story, but my dream from age 17 on was to be a pastor, but before that I wanted to be a punk rocker, and I almost had the chance because I was at the

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North Charleston Coliseum. Have I told you this story, Robert? Best story ever. Green Day was playing at the

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North Charleston Coliseum, and Billy Joe Armstrong called me up on stage and gave me his guitar to play a guitar solo, and it was something he had been doing every night on tour.

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He was looking for the most talented kid in the room, which that night was me, or just whatever kid looked the most excited or whatever the case was, and he put his

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Fender Stratocaster around my neck. True story. I'm 15 years old, and I played the guitar solo for a three -chord song called

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Knowledge by the band Operation Ivy. I still remember how the song went, but I'm not gonna sing it for you right now because it's a waste of time.

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We need to get back to Genesis 37, but what that set off was kind of like a chain of events where I became a lot more popular in school, and I was so excited the next morning

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I woke up, and I was listening to the radio, and the

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DJ, his name was the critic, was talking about the Green Day show, and I was getting ready for school, listening to the radio, still excited, only slept about an hour, excited to get to school, excited to be like how you like me now to all the girls who didn't pay me attention the day before, and he goes, oh, he said, the

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Green Day show last night, he said, it wasn't a very great show, but there was one part, he said, there was a kid who got up on stage and ripped on guitar.

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He was the highlight of the show. He stole the show. His words, not mine.

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I'm very humble. I would not say it that way, but that's the way he said it. That's the way the critic said it, and so I called in.

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I called the radio station. I was like, you gotta put me through. That's me he's talking about. I'm about to go to school right now.

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I gotta leave in like five minutes. My mom's waiting for me, but that was me he was talking about on stage that played guitar. Put me through to the critic, and they put me through to the critic, and I said, hey, that was me you're talking about.

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He said, well, hey, kid, bring your demo tape by because I told him I had a band, and he was like, bring your demo tape by, and we'll play it on the air.

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We didn't have a demo tape, but that's alright because we eventually saved $300, made a demo tape. I took it to the critic.

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He played it on the air, and when I was leaving, this is several months later, he said, by the way, I am putting together a band.

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It'd be kind of cool to have a 15 -year -old kid in the band, so if you want to audition for it, you can learn these songs, and you can audition for my band.

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Well, I thought that'd be amazing because we'd be playing at the music farm, and we'd be playing all around Charleston, South Carolina, and that'd be a pretty cool gig for a 15 -year -old, so I lock myself in the room.

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I start learning all the songs on the tape. A tape. A tape is, um, and my mom walks in.

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Again, I gotta ask, what on earth does this have to do with the story of Joseph? Answer, nothing. It has nothing to do with Joseph.

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One night, this is all I'm gonna say about this because I promise I know you didn't come to hear me talk about my nostalgic 15 -year -old memories, but I'm talking about a dream.

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My mom walks in, picks up the tape. Yeah, talking about a dream. And all of the songs on the tape had cuss words in the title, and and then even the name of the band had a cuss word in the name of the band, and Buck's laughing because the name of the band is so inappropriate,

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I can't say it in church. I can't even allude to it in church, but that was the band I was auditioning for, and my mom, who was a

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Methodist minister's daughter, had old -fashioned Monk's Corner Values, and she's like, what is this? I'm like, this is the band I'm auditioning before.

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Do you think it's old -fashioned Monk's Corner Values or maybe biblical values?

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You know, just throwing it out there. And she said, if you think I'm gonna let you go audition for this band, you've lost your mind.

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If you think I'm gonna let you audition for a band called the Beats, then you've lost your mind.

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To which I said, then I'll run away from home. You will not stand in the way of my dream.

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Right? Because a dream will make you bold.

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A dream. Again, Joseph's dream was a prophetic dream.

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The source of that dream was God. I demonstrated that from the

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Psalms in my teaching on the Old Testament, part two. And we never got to find out whether or not

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I would have had the courage to pack it all up and head out on the mean streets of Monk's Corner on my own to chase my dream, because I auditioned for the band and I didn't make it.

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But the point of the story... Notice what he just said there. He said he auditioned for the band, but he didn't make it.

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I want to point something out. That's a breaking of the commandment. The commandment says, you shall honor your father and your mother.

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That's what Scripture says. But there's a prophecy given by the Apostle Paul regarding the last days.

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2nd Timothy chapter 3. Understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.

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For people will be lovers of self. Lovers of self. We have a term for that. It's called narcissists.

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And Stephen Furtick, by making all of the scriptures about himself, I would say he falls into this category.

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But it gets a little bit worse. They will be lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, and watch this, disobedient to their parents.

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Yeah, I would argue that Stephen Furtick is a narcissist and that he's definitely just talked about how disobedient he was to his parents.

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And it just slips right on by and nobody even cares. He flat -out disobeyed his mother.

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His mom said, you are not to audition in that band. You will not audition for that band.

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And he did it anyway. Listen again. I'll back this up just a few seconds. Back it all up and head out on the mean streets of Moncks Corner on my own to chase my dream because I auditioned for the band and I didn't make it.

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But the point of the story that I'm trying to tell you... I auditioned but didn't make it. I disobeyed my mother.

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Is this, that a lot of times the dream we start out with, the dream that we think we see in one stage of our life, will show up later in our life in a different dimension.

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And it will be such a different dimension that we will not even recognize the dream as the original dream.

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What are you talking about? This has nothing to do with the story of Joseph. So let me see. When I was in high school,

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I wanted to be a naval aviator. I wanted to fly F -18s. I wanted to be a fighter pilot.

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And that was the dream. And that didn't turn out that way.

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So now I do fighting for the faith and I'm also a pastor. What's the connection?

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It's not the same dream and I cannot say that God himself was the one who gave me the dream to fly

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F -18s for the US military. Definitely not. The Bible says that when

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Joseph was 17 years old, he had a dream given to him by God.

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Psalms make that clear. And his brothers hated him all the more for it.

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That phrase, all the more, lets me know that Joseph's brothers already didn't like him.

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Well, if you had read the text in context and started at the beginning, which was just a few verses before you started, you would already know that they hate him because his father loved him more than they did.

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Even gave him a really cool coat. And we can argue, if we want to, about whether Joseph was wise to share with his brothers the content of his dream.

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There is such a thing as talking too much, posting too much. There is such a thing as sharing too much.

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There is such a thing as as thinking that everybody else wants to hear what God has put on your heart.

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But one thing that we can conclude from the text, even from a biological perspective, is that Joseph was different.

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The story of Joseph is not about God laying a dream on your heart.

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It is a story of how God saved the people of Israel through a famine, through a

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Savior that he sent ahead of them, who was betrayed for pieces of silver, sold into slavery, falsely accused of something he didn't commit, ends up in prison for 13 years, and then eventually is released after a man who was a baker was hung on a tree.

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I'm just saying, it's about Jesus. It ain't about you, and nor should you read the story with some kind of expectation.

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God's gonna lay a dream on your heart. And one thing I've noticed about having a dream is that a dream makes you different.

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Joseph was different from his brothers, not only in his aspirations. Yeah, yeah, let's see.

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Understand this, in the last days there will come times of difficulty. People will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self - control, brutal, not loving the good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness and denying its power.

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Avoid such people. But he was from a different mother.

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They shared the same father, Jacob. And if I listed their names, you might recognize a few of them.

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They were the patriarchs of the tribes of Israel, but Joseph didn't come through the same mom that his brothers came through.

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He was the son of Rachel, the pretty one that his dad really liked. And when

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Joseph saw that Rachel, his favorite wife… Holly, you're my favorite wife, by the way.

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I just want to put that in this message. Had given him a son. He liked him extra special, and he treated him special.

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And he felt differently about Joseph than the other boys, to the point…

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I don't know if you've read the story lately, but you remember he bought him a Gucci coat. You're preaching a sermon.

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Are you too busy to read out the story? You got something better you should be doing on a

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Sunday? Why don't you just read the story to them? Why don't you preach it to them?

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And Joseph's always wearing it around all the time. He's like, you like my coat?

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And his brothers are like, we hate your coat. You like my coat? You like my coat?

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They're like, we hate you. We hate you because you're different.

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Okay? The text doesn't say anything about they hated him because he was different.

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You just inserted that into the text. And you just said that when you have a dream, it'll make you different.

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You're filling these people's heads with narcissistic nonsense. Now, I have a teenage son right now, and one of the things that I'm trying to work out with him in real time is that people accept what is the same, but they eventually respect what is different.

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Notice we're learning a lot about Stephen Purdy. We're learning this much about Jesus, and we're learning this much about Joseph.

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We're learning a lot. And he thinks he knows what this text is about, but he's totally wrong.

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He has no clue whatsoever. Or if he does have a clue, he's rejected it flat out that the story is about Christ.

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So he's not reading it out, not reading it in context, and he's filling everybody up with this idea that, oh, yeah, you're going to get this

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God -sized, God -given dream, and it's going to make you different. You're going to be special. Yeah.

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It's all about you. People eventually come around and respect what stands out, but what happens to most of us is that the moment we start to realize the differences between us and other people, we downplay our distinctives in order to fit in and conform with culture.

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I'm almost speechless at this point. This guy is literally feeding these people ego -inflating nonsense and trying to make it look like this is what the

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Bible teaches. One thing I'm proud about when

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I read about Joseph, and I know it's weird to say that I'm proud of Joseph like he cares, but I'm proud that he had the courage to wear his coat anyway.

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You know what I mean? It may have been unwise, but I'm proud of him that he was not afraid to show up in the room looking different because he was clothed with the fabric of the favor of his father.

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I wonder, are you courageous enough to wear your coat? A lot of times what

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I've found is that God will begin to show you things about yourself, about your life, about your calling, about your direction.

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How about their sinfulness, their need for a Savior, just how far short of the glory of God they've fallen, things like that.

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About what he's put inside of you, about the gifts he's given you, but someone will actually beat the distinctive out of you if you don't know clearly enough that I have a calling from God who is greater than people, and if he is for me, who can be against me?

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Oh, look, it's the first version of a standing ovation, man, as he continues to just scratch their itching ears, telling them what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear.

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This is all mythology. This is not sound doctrine. This is not what the story of Joseph is about at all.

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Touch somebody next to you and say, I'm going to wear my coat. Utterly clueless.

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Even if people criticize me for it, I'm not ashamed to walk in the love and the favor of God.

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Oh, we need some Christians who don't check their coat at the door of culture, who are unashamed to be optimistic about the future because you know

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God is already there. If he is the author and the finisher of your faith…

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This is demonic. You see what I'm saying? A dream will make you different, and it takes courage to be different.

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It takes courage to speak different. If you get a hold of a dream, or better said, if a dream gets hold of you from the throne of God, it'll make you walk different, talk different, think different, eat different, drink different.

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Understand this. In the last days, there will come times of difficulty. People will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, having an appearance of godliness but denying its power.

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Party different. Text different. It'll make you different. Yeah, you're going to text differently.

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Maybe you'll text with your pinkies rather than your thumbs. Dream will make you different, and I'm glad that Joseph had the courage to be different.

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I wonder, do we have the courage to be different? The weird thing about our church is that a lot of times people will be attracted to our church because it's different.

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It's different, all right. Different Jesus, different gospel, different doctrine than biblical

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Christianity. It's different, all right. And then when they get to the church, they'll start trying to tell us how we need to make it like the church that they left to come to the church that was different.

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This has nothing to do with the story of Joseph either. Man, not only did he find himself in the story of Joseph, he found

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Elevation Church in the story of Joseph. They have the courage to wear their coat, you know. I don't want to say amen to the preacher today.

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It's the truest thing. You're attracted to something because it's different. They even say this in marriage, that before marriage opposites attract and then opposites attack because you're attracted to what's different.

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You're drawn to what's different. Not at first. At first, you fear it. That's why they had to take the

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Old Town Road off of the billboard charts on country music because it was too different.

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They couldn't find a category for it, and they said, it's not country enough, but it's not rap enough, and we don't know what it is.

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It's different. That's why they crucified Jesus. You know you don't have many preachers that can put

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Lil Nas X and Jesus in the same paragraph. They crucified Jesus because he was, you know, different.

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It's weird. Jesus said that no one takes his life from him. He lays it down of his own accord, and he bled and died for our sins.

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But he was so different. We don't know what to do with him. He's grace and truth. He's different.

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Somebody shout, I'm different. And I don't mean different in style. I mean different in substance.

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I don't mean different just for the sake of difference because that's frankly kind of a… Yeah, the thing is they're the same like all of us, sinners in need of a

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Savior, and Stephen Furtick is trying to convince them how different they are. I think you get the point.

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I mean, Scripture explicitly says that in the last days that people are going to follow doctrines of demons.

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In fact, let me see if I can find that real quick. I mean, yeah, in 1 Timothy 4, the Spirit expressly says, in the latter times some will depart from the faith, devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared.

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Yeah, I would put Stephen Furtick into that category as well. It's just, wow.

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So, I mean, just the comparative work is stark. And you'll note that in order to make this text about him, he can't read the story.

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He can't actually exegete the text. He can just kind of work through little pieces of it and then twist and mangle it and spin it to be about him and about you.

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But when you read the story in its entirety and you consider how it relates to the story of Christ and how uncanny the connections are, you can see what's really going on in the story of Joseph.

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And that's the thing. Stephen Furtick is one of the most popular evangelical preachers on the planet today.

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But the thing he's doing is filling people's heads with narcissistic nonsense. He doesn't preach Christ.

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He doesn't preach Christ named crucified for our sins. He doesn't call people to repent. He calls people to think of themselves as different, to have the courage to wear their coat and nonsense like that.

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It really is truly a mess. So if you found this helpful, and I pray that you do, if you find this helpful, all the information on how you can share the video is down below.

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And of course, Fighting for the Faith, we're supported by the people that we serve in our YouTube audience as well as our podcast audience.

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So if you don't already support us, and we truly do need your support because we've noted now for a little bit more than a week that YouTube is systematically demonetizing all of our videos now, which basically is cutting off a pretty significant portion of our revenue stream.

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So if you don't already support us by being a crew member, and we really would recommend that you join our crew, all the information on how you can support us is down below in the description of the video.

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So until next time, may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and His vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.