We had a Wonderbar experience last Sunday. Do you know what I did there? My German. I don't be glad it What September fest I the point was I hope I hope you call it the point it was to be a reminder of who we are our Purpose in our identity what a church is what it's supposed to be was a great week I encourage you never forget we are an ecclesia We are not a church and if you have no idea what I'm talking about I'd encourage you to go back and give the lesson or give the teaching a listen to it It's gonna be important as we go forward if you were with us all summer You know that we had a series that stretched this fan of the summer and we were looking at what have become known as children's stories in the Bible That have and contained very adult lessons now We looked at I think most of them the famous ones Jonah and the whale Samson and Delilah Noah's Ark But there's a pretty famous story that I intentionally skipped over because I wanted to unpack it in well I'm more detailed than one Sunday would allow and yes It too has a little golden book associated with it Joseph and his coat of many colors you might know the story or you might not know the story You might maybe you're familiar with the name of Joseph.
This is not Jesus father Joseph It's very different Joseph, but if you don't know the story you are familiar with the concept you've heard of it at least It is the inspiration behind Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Records shattering multi-award winning show Joseph and the amazing Technicolor dream coat It's been performed hundreds of thousands of times and multiple runs on Broadway in over 80 countries I read this week over 20,000 schools and theater groups have performed Joseph and his Technicolor dream coat What's amazing is that again if you read the story it has almost nothing to do with this coat But somehow this is what we call out of these stories and share with our children It's likely in the crowds the size will have in the service and next one that summer several of you have performed in Joseph and his dream coat So ubiquitous is the story that even Kramer on Seinfeld you remember that episode even Kramer right took a turn of channeling his inner Joseph and his famous coat But the story is not just culturally pervasive It is within the canon of the scriptures especially regards to the origin stories of man The ones that are in the book of Genesis the first book in the Bible this story of Joseph this singular story Is itself the fourth and final and and I would argue the fullest revelation of cycles of Themes that are revealed in Genesis that flow all the way through the Old Testament and then into the life of Jesus and find their full and complete Vision in what John wrote in the book of Revelation Those themes and specifically the two that we're gonna dress over the next couple weeks include the themes of exile and homecoming You know these themes exist the theme begins without a me right in the first movement in the in the scriptures Their sin results in their exile from the garden and then what happens? We pick up with a story of Cain and his brother Abel and Cain kills Abel and what happens the Cain Cain is exiled from his family And from his home all of that is is because of a sibling rivalry which winds up in murder Again, these are all themes that get picked up in the story of Joseph and that theme of exile an eventual homecoming It finds their greatest fulfillment in Joseph's story But today before we get started I because we're gonna be talking about dreams I want to unpack another theme it is a repeated theme in the scriptures But it finds its greatest revelation in the life of Joseph's Joseph It's this idea of dreams This morning before we get into the life of Joseph whose nickname by the way is the dreamer when he would show up They'd go oh here comes the dreamer. I want to look at this concept of God and his people and and dreams Exile and homecoming and what they have to do with one another this summer in several of the stories that we looked at over the summer We looked at how this people is called out people of God Israel how they had been taken captive by the competing world empires of the day There were 12 tribes in the land of Israel in this land of this promised land 10 of those tribes The tribes of the northern kingdom had fallen to the Assyrian Empire Their best and the brightest of those 10 tribes were taken into bondage back to Assyrian cities like Hala and Habor Now the southern kingdom of Judah they were overrun by another world power the Babylonian Empire and again What happened the best and the brightest of Judah were taken back to Babylon? These stories of exile by these world powers are the times where Daniel this is why Daniel was in Babylon He was in exile right this is what was going on in the story of Esther that we looked at the people were in exile in beginning to return home That happened when the third great world empire came on the scene the Persian Empire which conquered Babylon which had conquered Assyria There was a king King Cyrus the great he began to allow the Israelites This was in that Esther story we look at to return back to Israel and to rebuild their temple that the Babylonians had destroyed In terms of dates we're talking this is around 500 BC Now this temple that God's people go back to build it's known as the second temple Babylon Babylon had destroyed the first Rome would destroy the second It found its ultimate grandeur and completion under King Herod King Herod was a famous builder in Judea And if his name sounds familiar, it's because King Herod he was a Roman Jewish client King He was the king of Judea when Jesus was born It was King Herod who the wise men went to see looking for the baby Jesus and it was Herod and it attempted to maintain his power and Position you tried to kill Jesus by ordering the murder of all the male children under the age of two in Bethlehem Believe it or not we are not far from starting Christmas series around here So we'll pick this up in a few weeks But what is any of this all of that history?
What does any of it have to do with the concepts of exile and homecoming and dreams? Well, let me show you in the time of Jesus at this temple this grand temple that that Herod had completed on at least three times Three separate occasions annually as as described in the books of the law and the prophets in the Old Testament Jews would pour into the city of Jerusalem and eventually they would make their way up to the temple The pilgrims though prior to going to the temple they would need to ceremonially cleanse themselves Prior to going to the temple to worship God and to offer sacrifices Now one of the places that existed we know from the scriptures outside of the walls of the temple was a place called the pool of Siloam It served it was one of what were many places called mikvahs in Hebrew it was a place for ceremonial washing So during these times when Jesus was alive Millions of these pilgrims would pour into the city and they would need to go to these mikvahs to wash prior to going up to the temple By the way, if you're familiar with the stories of Jesus And I know I know many of you are if this pool of Siloam sounds familiar This is the place where Jesus told the blind man that he was healed to go and wash himself See here's the thing though for centuries No one knew where the pool of Siloam was now You know man does what he does and and so we erected a place where people said here is where it was and and we threw a church on top of it We didn't but somebody did and there was a ceremonial location there So elusive though where the actual place was the actual place and remains of this pool that historians actually began to debate And wonder if the pool in the miracle media was just well, maybe it was just allegorical That is until June 2004 when construction workers were sent out to repair a large sewer pipe on the south of the temple mount And when they got there and they begin to dig up the sewer pipe they stumbled upon two ancient stone steps Further excavation revealed that these steps were the steps that helped you enter the pool of Siloam this monumental pool I I you know, I have a pool in my backyard It was there when I bought the house and not a huge fan of it And I dump a ridiculous amount of money into it and it's 20 feet wide Which is a pretty wide pool the pool of Siloam was 225 feet wide It was significant in the city now. Why do I tell you all this well for one? I want to validate the historicity of this story that I'm about to share with you You need I need to know we don't just believe blindly.
Okay, the Lord never called anybody to check their brains at the door What I'm going to show you here is history. It's it's proven history and you can go and look at these places I'm gonna show you these places in Israel. So here's what we have so far, right? We've got verified history.
We have a Babylonian exile We have a return to Israel. We have a temple that was rebuilt in grandeur completed by Herod We have this pool, right that people would go to wash themselves in prior to going to the temple What does that even have to do with dreams stick with me, all right? After bathing in the mikvah the pilgrims would make their way to the temple mount and they would begin to climb up 60 meter wide stairs known as the southern steps to the temple gates these have now been discovered also You can go and stand on these same steps What you need to think through is you look at those steps are that millions and millions of of sandal feet climbed those same steps including The sandal feet of Jesus who John the Baptist memory said he wasn't worthy of holding them Jesus climbed those steps Now here's what tradition holds that at these annual ceremonies these three annual feasts where the Jews would pour into town Go to the mikvah cleanse themselves walk to the temple and begin to climb the steps as they did as they climb the steps Priests would be climbing the steps with them. There were 15 steps and on each of the steps on the way up the priests along with the pilgrims They would pause and they would sing each step had a song associated with it That song is actually a song and those songs you may have heard if you look them up in your Bible You'll see that over these 15 Psalms.
They're called the Psalms the songs of ascent Many you know some of the songs of ascent many of the lines that you've memorized maybe or you have hanging like Some kind of thing in your house these are real lines that were recited that were sung on those 15 stairs I lift up my eyes to the hills from where does my help come from my help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth Some of the same song on those steps that you just look at unless the Lord builds the house those who build it labor And then unless the Lord watches over the city the watchmen stays awake in vain Some of the same song aloud on those steps 15 steps 15 songs They're sick with me on the seventh step interesting side note in the Bible the number seven it often connotates the concept of completion perfection Exoneration and healing the fulfillment of a promise. That's what seven represents in the Bible on step seven They would sing Psalm 120 because the Psalms of ascent or some are excuse me 126 The Psalms of ascent are 120 to 134 Here is what they sang on this on the seventh step of of healing and exoneration and perfection They would pause and they would sing when the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion other translations say when the Lord brought back his exiles to Jerusalem So this is a Psalm of remembrance it begins with a remembrance of all that we just talked about all of those years of exile Because of their disobedience because of their turning their backs on God they wound up being taken away in captivity to Babylon for over 70 years Three generations right we hear at 70 years in Bible terms like that's nothing But remember that would be three full whole generations There were many women and children that were born captive in Babylon exiled in Babylon and they grew up and died captive in Exiled in Babylon and now they're back they're back in the city of God They're back in this place of promise and they're remembering on step seven that despite all of their unfaithfulness over the centuries and they're Unwillingness to yield to God God has really been at work and faithful to them all along even though for decades He appeared to be nowhere. He was still everywhere even though for 70 plus years It seemed like things were out of control God was still in control Their destinies were still in his hands And then then check his next line out because there's something that happens and this is the theme of one really underlies This whole series for the next couple of several weeks There is something that happens to people who are freed from captivity and exile and returned home This is what happens when the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion We were like those who dreamed They would get to step seven and they would sing of what happens to people when they have realized We are free from our captors and our captivity when they return from exile. They began to dream again The song continues our mouths were filled with laughter our tongues with songs of joy And then it was said among the nations the Lord has done great things for them The Lord has done great things for us and we are filled with joy apparently It was important for God's people to not rush up the steps But the pause because he wanted them to remember God is in the habit of causing us to pause as we did this morning and remember They were to remember for a moment their their captivity and their bondage and their oppression They're hopelessness there their homelessness and then they would look up at the grandeur of the rebuilt temple Their city the city of God bustling again with the people of God all returned to their homes And as they did they would remember that when they were exiles and captives and pilgrims that when they come home They are to dream and to laugh their tongues are filled with with songs of joy So outrageous is their overflow of hope and dreams enjoy that watching nations would look and say geez look at what God has done for them now Fast forward if you will with me to the time of Jesus Jesus who to climbed those same steps who sang on those steps those same songs Jesus would become for his people a final and greater Micva than the pool of salom Jesus would cleanse and we just celebrated it would cleanse his people from their sins not merely Ceremonially but fully and completely and once and forever and finally Jesus who climb those steps and sang that song Jesus would do what Jesus would set his people free from their bondage and their captivity in in your case in my case It's to the slavery of sin and death Jesus leaves behind his ecclesia his his assembly right?
He's a lead behind a building a formalized religious institution with all kinds of hierarchical structures He leaves behind people and those people we are told right are being conformed into his image and on this mission united around his purpose What Jesus did for once and for all what the mitt would did for the Jews annually and ceremonially What did that cleansing and homecoming from the exile of sin and death due to the church this early church? Well as it began if you were here last week When the Romans were looking for words to describe this new assembly of Jesus these people that had been cleansed and set free Remember the words they were using to describe them revelers party circus When the captives really understood they've been free from their captain captivity in exile and and that they were being brought back in and back home Here's what happened to the early church keeping in mind what would happen to the Israelites as they hit step 7 Here's what happened to the early church now that we're staying in Jerusalem God fearing Jews from every nation under heaven Remember what the Psalmist said that it would be said among the nations the Lord has done great things for them When they heard this sound crowd came together bewilder me because each one heard their own language being spoken Utterly amazed they asked are all of these who are speaking gallelujah How is it that each of us is hearing them in our own native language? This is the Holy Spirit falling and people are beginning to speak in the tongues of different nations and everybody all of these nations that are gathered Are hearing this message in their native language and in the midst of this representative of every nation as the church is born Peter stands up walk on water Peter right that Peter I will never deny you until I do three times Peter Peter now Just kind of full of the spirit he stands up Here's what the scriptures say he stood up with the 11 other disciples He's raised his voice and he addressed the crowd fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem Let me explain this to you listen carefully to what I say if people are not drunk as you suppose It's kind of funny actually right it's only nine in the morning I mean they might be if it wasn't nine, but it's early No, this is what was spoken by the Prophet Joel in these last days these days of this new covenant in these last days God says I will pour out my spirit and all people guys listen this your sons and daughters will prophesy your young men will see visions and your old men Will dream dreams? It's the same story Assembly of Jesus now cleansed made right and whole and pure by Jesus and when they are what do they do they?
dream again and as they do the nations take note guys there is something and you and I know this there is something about captivity and bondage and exile which dashes dreams which causes them to die to they're not even really be like They're just not exist But there's something about homecoming and freedom which got which allows God's people the choice and the freedom and the ability to begin to dream God sized God oriented God glorifying dreams again It's the nature of the spirit of God to put dreams in the hearts of the people of God of the people that he has set free It is the nature of the spirit of God to give dreams to the people that he has brought home God has not raised up a dreamless church whose pews are just filled with dreamless people God has raised up an assembly of dreamers and and visionaries people who see things that don't yet exist But that God could make happen people who don't spend their lives asking why but start to believe will why not God's people have been set free to dream When's the last time? When's the last time you you had a dream Here's it when the spirit comes God's gonna pour it out on all people did you catch that not just some if you were here Right last week. That's what the church model is that God's spirit is well. It's just poured out on some those people It's those people that are at the top of the religious structure.
It's the goody-to-shoes. It's it's the holy rollers It's the whole year than those those are the people that God uses those are the people that God gives dreams to it It's not for common people like you and I That is a lie that is not what God is up to in these last days God says I will pour out my spirit on all people on Everyone your sons and your daughters. This is crazy in the first century your daughters not just your sons your daughters, too They will prophesy it won't just be the priests who are gonna proclaim the words of God It's not just going to be the religious hierarchy. That's going to tell people of God's plans and purposes your young men will see visions And your old men will dream dreams Friends if this is your church experience and I know I'm responsible for many of your church experiences If week after week in church the message of Jesus's life and death are proclaimed that's good The truth is he's come to set you and I free from our bondage to to our slavery to our to our past and to our brokenness and to our Sand and to death it's good if that is preached week after week indeed It is but when is the last time you heard it explain to you?
When is the last time you heard it explain to you that every single one of you man and women old and young is to be dreaming dreams If he's pouring out his spirit on all the people then that means that God has a dream for Diana God has a dream I could go through the room right for Greg God has a dream for you If it's the nature of God right to put God sized dreams God wanted to dreams and the hearts of people He's set free it's the nature of the spirit of God to give dreams to the people he's brought home to himself God has not raised up a dreamless church Here's where you and I get mixed up though God is this is where we get confused God is not in the business of making our dreams come true That that is a promise of late night preachers God is not in the business of making our dreams come true Our dreams are way too little they're way too common They're certainly myopic and oftentimes if we're honest just that right selfish What God wants to do is God wants to give you God wants to show you God's dream for your life Now when I was five I wanted to be a gas station fan. I really did I want you know I achieved that dream in my teenage years. I have to tell you it was not all it was cracked up to be When I was 10 I wanted to be a singer If you say anywhere near me during worship, you know that that dream has not yet come to fruition But then something and I thought about I asked myself these questions right something happened to me I mean it's happened to you too something happened in my dreams when they became first they became common and then they Disappeared which makes perfect sense because if it is the nature of the spirit of God to give us dreams Then it has to be the nature of the enemy of God to steal dreams right to just The bell you to to them to crush them to take them away It's as if they they're just gone Somewhere along the line almost all of us have stopped looking for what God's unique dream for our lives were and we've settled for common pedestrian myopic dreams that are just they're the dreams of the day the dreams and you know the reason that that Assyrian Babylon would take All the best and the brightest back is because they wanted the best and the brightest to be shaken free from from the truth of the God Yahweh of Israel and I wanted them to begin to begin to be cold just culturally immersed in the lies of Assyrian and in the lies of Babylon and to Begin to dream the dreams of the Babylonians and not of God's people And I think we dream the dreams of the Babylonians sort of speak our dreams are all common. I mean we just be honest What what do we dream about more money?
Bigger house nice a car hotter spouse full 401k Condo in the villages when we get old These are not dreams. It's not even life In fact what I would actually tell you is you and I like the scripture say like a dog to its vomit We return to our bondage Jesus said he came so that we made of life and life abundant and that isn't it Jesus said his church and his people free so they might dream again, but we keep settling for so much less There is an enemy that exists in the battle for our souls and I'm coming to believe as I thought about this that his chief weapon is dream-dashing Now he has lots of tools in the tool bag to apply to the crushing of your dreams. Sometimes he tells us not now There's too much at risk you're too young That's the kind of thing you do later when when you've got more money and you're settled and you're set and there's more time But according to Peter it was to young men and women who God would give vision Sometimes he he comes along and he tells us well, it's too late too late miss the boat You know you have your shot, but you're too old These are days gone by just yet a mobility scooter in a condo in DelVoca Vista face too Call their life But Peter said that when when Jesus came in these these last days of his spirit being poured out that when it was Sport poured out on old old men they would begin to dream dreams A lot of lies out there But but the scripture seems to indicate that it doesn't matter that if it's the days of your youth or the days of your old age today Is the day to dream not tomorrow? You are not too old and you are not too young for others For others the enemy has used well, it's used others to dash God's dream in our lives over the next few weeks We're gonna be looking at this life of Joseph the dreamer and the dream that God has foreign gives Joseph and what you'll see in the scriptures It doesn't take very long for Joseph to realize what other people can do to your dreams people can do a number on your dreams Joseph had a couple of them We'll go over them next week, but he goes and he shares them with his brothers and the scriptures say that Joseph had a dream And when he told it to his brothers, they hated them all the more I would tell you in this broken world in which we live people hate dreamers, don't they?
It's almost as if I thought about it It's almost as if that someone wakes up To what God is doing in this world in their lives and as they wake up and as they arise and they begin to dream again Everybody gets ticked off and tells them to go back to sleep This week, I don't know if you saw this fascinating to me as I was working on this talk lady Gaga actually shared her modern day version of this story I know all about Lady Gaga. Don't email me This is this is a bigger story than that Stephanie Germanata, I guess is Lady Gaga's real name She briefly attended NYU's Tisch School of the Arts before she left in 2005 to pursue a music career now at the time She just started performing under her stage name and the word of her performances was spreading quickly among her peers And that led her peers to create a Facebook group called we have the picture of it. There it is. That's the Facebook group They made Stephanie Garminata you will never be famous and people joined to the group In the group for all of Facebook to see the members ridiculed her dreams of becoming famous.
They mocked her performances They they laughed at her aspirations Someone created a tick-tock this week That's gone viral with the pick of that old Facebook group And they followed it up with a list of her numerous accolades including 13 Grammy wins and Oscar and all kinds of awards Lady Gaga herself came across it this now viral video and she commented quote some people I went I went to college with made this way back then This is why you can't give up when people doubt you or put you down you've got to keep going I remember when God gave me the concept of beyond the walls and and taking people to Guatemala I remember being in a picnic of a high school a high school friend And I was there with some family and was a lot of people around and we had just taken our first trip And I told you all this story and I was telling what was going on and how we were gonna go back and what we were gonna do and and and he Announced to everybody. Hey everybody listen to this John thinks he's gonna change the world I went out with a very good friend of mine still one of my best friends that he didn't mean anything negative It's just that we don't like it when dreamers show up and I said man John this trip changed my life and he laughed I said what he laughing everybody says trips to stuff like that changes a life He goes trust me. It doesn't change your life. I'm here 20 years later to tell you it changed my life Sometimes it's not just the words of others.
Sometimes it's their actions their betrayal their lies their addictions their struggles We can let people destroy gods dreams for us, but heck let's be truthful for most of us We don't need to have other people destroy gods dream dreams for our lives We're perfectly capable of destroying God's dreams for our lives ourselves right our stupid self-centered decisions our jealousy our lusts are our bad nights Our our misplaced passions our angers our addictions our insecurities you name it and the evil one We use it and the dreams of God not for our glory and our riches But the dreams of God for the role we can play in his coming kingdom. They just get buried under avalanches Decades of bad luck and bad decisions and bad breaks and bad people and God's people stop dreaming and start going to church services But I got to show you got a bigger dream for you I want to show you one last historical truth I'm indebted to Louie Gigglio who brilliantly pointed this out He had taken a pilgrim itself with members of his pastoral staff to these archeological sites that I've been showing you He stood on that seventh step that step of healing that that step of promise fulfillment And when he went to visit the site at the pool of salom the archaeologists pointed out to him that ever since that sewer pipe broke in 2004 when they discovered the pool it was then the archaeologists understood that it had to there had to exist coming from that Pool what is referred to as the pilgrims road there had to be a pathway from that mikva that would wind its way up to the temple Where they would climb the steps and sing the song and so they kept digging and digging and sure enough They discovered right it was right there where they thought it would be this is a model I know it's not a great picture But there's the pool of salom down at the bottom and and you can see there's the path of the pilgrims and after they had cleansed themselves They would walk and they would sing the Psalms along the way and up on the right hand side of the temple wall That's where those southern steps are and they'd climb up onto those southern steps And they'd stop at some or stop at step seven and sing Psalm 126 about dreams Now here's what's cool as they dug they discovered that road There's lots of videos on this you should go check it out It's fascinating the only problem with the discovery of the road is that it was buried under centuries layers and layers of the city of Jerusalem And now there were existing on the ground on the top layer homes everywhere over over the road And so here's what they've done they have begun to dig under all of those homes and they're reinforcing the ground and creating this Concrete tunnel as they go again, you can go online and check this out They're excavating the pilgrims road from underneath all of the sentiment and rubble and they're doing it bucket by bucket It's hilarious They've got a little thing that they pick a bucket of dirt and it goes up and gets dug out The hope is that very soon they're almost done with this you and I could go to Israel and you could go to the pool of salon And you could walk on on this this pilgrims road just like Jesus did from the pool of salom to the temple stairs In fact, I have to show you this one last picture because it reinforces the message that gigglio said came to him as he stood on These grounds in one corner of the dig it's actually as I understand it right by a parking lot They've decided not just to take away all of the layers of sediment that have built up over the last 2,000 years The idea is not just to expose the road But to leave the remains from each and every period in the history of Jerusalem So people will be able to go and see time period by time period You can kind of see those are the upper level where the houses all are that's what exists now and as you go down You'll see different layers of of Jerusalem civilization What gigglio said struck him in that moment was that for millennia people assume the pool of salon might not actually have existed That the pilgrims road where the claims people of God would walk up to the temple to dream again It might not have existed but it was there the whole time God knew it we just hadn't found it yet. It was buried underneath all of the rubble and Googlio would say gigglio would say the stones don't lie and what they say is that God has been with you and for you the whole time You might have others or others might have or life itself might have put layer after layer after layer of darkness and doubt and despair All of the hurt and hang ups and the heartaches They may all have buried your dream in what is seemingly a millennia of broken promises and broken hearts But underneath it all all of the self-inflicted harms and other inflicted runes the pilgrims road is still there now You may have not seen it for years But that doesn't mean that buried underneath all of life's disappointments and concerns It's not there and I am here to tell you this morning as we start on a series on dreams that God is calling his church God is calling his sons and his daughters God is calling young men and old men to get back on the pilgrims road No matter what has covered it up and begin to walk back to God and begin to dream again God is not stymied by stolen dreams God wants to lift your life out of the rubble God wants his people to dream again Super interesting the word dream in that Psalm. I've been reading Psalm 26 in Hebrew It can be translated to be healthy and whole God wants his people healthy and whole Cleanse people forgiven people restored people dream God wants you to be healthy and whole and to dream And so as we get started in this series, this is my prayer for you This is my prayer for me I have to tell you this is challenging for me because I kind of do have something that I feel like God wants me to do And there's a piece of me that's like, you know Why would I want to do that?
As we get started in this series This is my prayer for all of us that we begin to dream again and not a little pedestrian common dreams God sized God oriented world changing dreams Sammy I was thinking of you this week Sammy started in one of our reboot classes two three years ago And she got a God sized dream to to quit her job and to study trauma recovery And and she's on her way towards doing that and and here we are two or three years later We don't have one trauma reboot group. We have three but we've had to close them I don't know what your dream is but I'm telling you if you would allow yourself to open your eyes to what God wants to do with you In your life, it would change your life I'll give you a bigger dream Can you imagine what would happen if everyone in this church that calls this place home if everybody allowed God to give his dream to us For our life what would happen if we dug through the rubble and we put our feet back on the pilgrims path and we began to walk again I would argue you don't have to imagine because the Psalmist wrote the pilgrims sang out on step seven the step of that promise Remember what the song says? When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dreamed when the Lord restored our health when we were made whole again We began to dream our mouths were filled with laughter our tongues with joy God's people became joy filled revelers That was true for the captain's return to Israel It was true for the early church It should be true for this one just fun fueled people and then it was set among the nations The Lord has done great things for them The Lord has done great things for us and we are filled with joy One of the blessings to me this year is I've been reading or listening to the Daily Audio Bible every day and as you go through the Old Testament Many times the prophets of God when God was saying he was going to allow his people to fall into these captives The prophets would say well God don't do that because you know everybody knows that you're God and if we fall into captivity Everybody's gonna make fun of you. They're gonna think you're you're toothless.
They're gonna think you're not the real God I mean and that's what's happened the best and the brightest have been hauled off the temple has been destroyed Everybody in the known world at this point is thinking that Yahweh the God of Israel is a joke and maybe that's what's happened to you Maybe everybody thinks you're a joke maybe but everybody's laughed at your dream But the story of the scripture is that God is saying I am gonna raise up from the rubble Men and women and when I do they will dream again their mouths will be filled with laughter and joy and everyone is going to look at them And they're gonna go look what God has done. This is the promise of God for you and for me It's time to dream again. Let's close us on