Keion Henderson - The Coat Pocket

We’re going to close out Chapter 37; a date will start in another chapter as we discuss our series on overcoming the ordinary. Today, we look at Genesis 37, verse 15. How many of you have been getting something out of this series so far? The Bible says in Genesis 37: 15, «And a certain man found him; and behold, he was wandering in the field. And the man asked him, saying, 'What are you looking for? '» As the King James Version says, «What seekest thou?» He said, «I’m looking for my brothers; tell me, I pray thee, where they feed their flocks.» The man said, «They have departed from here, for I heard them say, 'Let us go to Dothan.'» So, y’all remember Sunday when I talked about how he went to Shechem, but they were not there, so he ended up having to go to Dothan? They were not where he expected. He goes to Dothan, and the Bible says in verse 18, «And when they saw him coming afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him.» They said one to another, «Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, therefore, and let us kill him, or slay him, and throw him into the pit and say, 'An animal has eaten him up, ' and we’ll see what becomes of his dream .» Verse 21: «But Reuben heard it, and he delivered him out of their hands and said, 'Let us not kill him.' Reuben said unto them, 'Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him, ' that he might rid him out of our hands to deliver him to his father again.» Now, you remember all of this is about a coat and a dream. He hasn’t done anything to anybody, but he has a coat. I want to talk about something today that I think will help you because a lot of us want the coat, but we’re not aware that something comes in the pocket. I want to talk today about the coat pocket. I want to discuss the part because there’s something in there that you’ve got to pay attention to. Don 't just get excited about the coat; I want you to dig in that pocket. There is something in there. Give your neighbor a high-five on your way down and say, «The coat pocket.» You may be seated in the presence of the Lord.

So, one day, my wife and I were out of town, and wherever we go, if they have an outlet, we’re going to find it. I think it 's glorious; an outlet is kind of ritualistic. No matter where we go, she’s already researched where the outlet mall is. So this particular time, we’re out of town, and I go to a store — I think it may have been Saks or something like that-and they had this coat. Man, I’m going to tell you, I want to wear it in the summertime; it was so cold. I got the coat, put it on, and dug my hand inside the pocket. Have you ever had clothes with those silica beads inside them-those beads in the little package? Now, I’m going to tell you right now, I always used to ask myself, «What in the world are these for?» Because the only thing it says on the package is «Don 't swallow them.» I’ve always asked myself what those beads were for. For me, I just took them out of the pocket and threw them away. Sometimes they come in other things that you buy; boxes, they come in all kinds of stuff. I did not know that these beads absorb moisture. See, young people, you don’t remember this, but our fathers, forefathers, and grandfathers didn’t have those beads; they had mothballs. And you knew the sister who had the mothballs because she smelled. Come on, church! Have you ever been by somebody, and you could smell that they had all kinds of mothballs in the house? Right? I didn’t know these beads absorb moisture. I didn’t know what they were for. I also did not know that you could reuse them. Did you know that, when you look them up, they actually tell you that you can reuse these beads in any part of your house where there’s moisture? I didn’t know that! So you could sit them in your closet, put them in shoes, put them in safes, you can put them in all these different places where there’s moisture. And I thought about, wow, how many of these packages of reusable materials have I found in pockets that had other usages, but because I didn’t understand them, I discarded them? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve purchased little containers of odor and moisture absorbers, and I didn’t know that all my life I’ve been getting them for free! This brings me to the idea of how many things have come in the pockets of your experience that you have thrown out and not used because you didn’t understand their value at the time? You didn’t know it because it didn’t come in a shiny package. It didn’t come with instructions, and since you’ve never seen anybody else use it or don’t know what to do with it, you discard it because we typically throw things away we don’t understand. So I looked at it and thought I should talk to you about how to be ready with what you do. The next time you find something in your pocket, it has value, it can be used, it has a purpose, and just because you…