Dirty Praise
Genesis 37:19-27
I. It all started with a dream!
A. Joseph was loved above all Jacob’s children.
1. Favor will cause others to be jealous. When God places his favor on you others can’t help but notice.
B. At the age of 17 Joseph would have 2 dreams; in the first dream he saw bound sheaves in a field. His sheaf arose
and stood upright while his brothers’ sheaves bowed down to it. In the second dream he saw the sun, moon, and eleven
stars (representing his father, mother and brothers) bowing to him. After he tells the dreams; his brothers hate him
because of the meaning that he would be exalted.
C. Shortly after the dreams; Joseph is sent to check on his brothers. When they see him coming they conspired
against him saying, “Here comes the dreamer. Let’s kill him then we shall see what will become of his dreams!”
1. There are those that just want to kill someone’s dream. It is sad to say but there are people that will do whatever
they can to side line someone’s dream, even in the Church.
D. I want to talk to real people that feel disappointed by their dream. The Bible says in Pr 13:12 ¶ Hope deferred
maketh the heart sick: but [when] the desire cometh, [it is] a tree of life. Right now you’re just sick and as far as you
are concerned that tree was cut down.
1. Joseph had a promise; here he is feeling good; For all the promises of God in him [are] yea, and in him Amen,
unto the glory of God by us, but now he finds himself in a pit. I want to stop here for just a minute and tell you; if
somebody told you when you became a Christian that all your problems would be over, and that you would never be
hurt again, you would never cry again, you would never suffer again…They Lied! Mt 5:45 That ye may be the children of
your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just
and on the unjust. Ps 34:19 Many [are] the afflictions of the righteous: Joh 16:33 In the world ye shall have
tribulation: Php 1:29 For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for
his sake;
a. Christians have problems too, Christians get sick, Christians get in debt, Christians get divorced, Christians get
their hearts broken, Christians get in places they shouldn’t be. Sometimes you fall in, sometimes you jump in, and
sometimes you’re pushed in. Regardless of how you got there or why you’re there, a Pit is a Pit and if you stay there you
will die. Dreams die in the pit, ministries die in the pit, gifts, callings, marriages, die in the pit.
b. The pit is just a pothole along the way to your promise; I am declaring to you that if God spoke a Word over
you, made a promise to you; regardless of your circumstance you are coming out. I wish somebody would go ahead and
prophesy to themselves and say, “I’m coming out”. Nu 23:19 God [is] not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of
man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do [it]? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?
Gods word will not return unto Him void, but it shall accomplish that which He please, and it shall prosper [in the
thing] whereto He sent it.
E. From Genesis to Revelation God is turning it around.
II. Judah got him out.
A. It wasn’t his coat of many colors that got him out, it wasn’t his anointing that got him out, and it wasn’t even his
dreams that got him out. It was Judah (JUDAH means PRAISE).
B. It may not be pretty (In fact it may be dirty), but give God a Dirty Praise; a dirty praise is when nothing is going
right, when all hell is breaking loose in your life. How many know that some people have a problem with real praisers?
Real praisers get loud, real praisers get undignified, real praisers can get messy, they don’t worry about their hair or
their makeup, real praisers can get offensive to pretty praisers. pretty praisers on the other hand know how to control
their praise, pretty praisers, never mess up their hair and their makeup never runs, they don’t get loud, and they
wouldn’t think of running or jumping, or dancing.
C. Joseph was in a pit and they expected him to die there, but Dirty Judah got him out. Jeremiah was in a pit and they
expected him to die there, but some Dirty rags got him out, Paul and Silas were in the Inner prison embarrassed,
humiliated, beaten black and blue, but in the middle of their pain they gave God a Dirty Praise and God shook the prison
off its foundations, and every cell was opened and every prisoners bonds were broken.
III. There is more to the pit than just a place of praise. Your pit is a by Divine design.
A. When designing a building the architect and engineers work together to design the foundation of the structure. A
smaller building like a house would not require the same foundation as a skyscraper. A house may only require a
foundation to be dug down a few feet while larger buildings can require a foundation to be dug down in excess of 150ft.
such as in the case of the tallest building in the World the Burj Khalifa standing at 2,722 ft with a 163ft foundation.
B. I always looked at this story in 4 stages, the Pit, Potiphar, Prison, and Palace. I tried to figure out what stage I was
in, how close to the Palace am I, surely by now I am in the Prison and next in line. God reminded me that it all started
with the pit. The pit was the starting place for the process to get Joseph ready for the palace, had there been no pit
there would have never been a Potiphar or a prison. You don’t get through in stages; it’s the pit to the palace.
1. The pit you are in now has a purpose, it is the foundation of your destiny, your promise; had Joseph never been
placed in the pit he would have never seen the palace.
2. I know you feel like the pit you are in now is more of a grave than a foundation.
3. When you started this walk it wasn’t deep, you were tripping over all the roots sticking up, but the longer you
stayed in the hole the deeper you got, what used to trip you doesn’t any more, what should have bothered doesn’t
anymore etc… you are getting past the soft stuff making your way to solid rock.
4. You need to know that everything you are going through has a purpose. Joseph never blamed God for his
circumstances he saw that God was ordering his footsteps; Ps 37:23 The steps of a [good] man are ordered by the
LORD: God showed him the end so he could get through the middle of his hell.
a. In the end he told his brothers ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, his
brothers were always part of the plan, the pit was always part of the plan, being sold as a slave was part of the plan,
Potiphar’s hoochie mama of a wife was part of the plan, the prison and the butler forgetting about Joseph was all part of
the plan. The pit you are in now believe it or not is all part of the plan.
5. God is getting you to a place where He can build His promise to you, know this the deeper your pit is the greater
the foundation, structure, the promise, the blessing; I know its uneasy and uncomfortable, I know it seems like it’s all a
cruel joke God is playing on you, but don’t rush God, don’t get in a hurry, I know you want the dream now, but the
vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will
surely come, it will not tarry.