Dreams of God

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, January 3, 2016.  The Bible verses used are Genesis 28:10-22.

            In some ways, this is my favorite Sunday.  It’s the first Sunday of the new year.

            I’ve always loved the new year.  Partly that’s because of all the football games, of course, but it’s more than that.  The new year represents a clean slate.  It represents a fresh start.  We have three hundred sixty-five days—well, three hundred sixty-six, because it’s a leap year—well, but it’s three hundred sixty-four because it’s already the third of January—anyway, we have a whole bunch of days ahead of us in which anything could happen. 

Literally, anything.  We could meet all kinds of new people in 2016.  We could go to all kinds of places we’ve never been before.  Some of us will have additions to our families, some of us will change jobs, all kinds of things are going to happen in 2016.  Things that we cannot even imagine happening right now are, in fact, going to happen in 2016.  For all we know, the rapture might happen in 2016.  I’m not predicting that it will, because that’s something only God knows, but there’s no reason I’m aware of that the rapture could not happen in 2016.  We don’t know.

            What would you like to have happen in 2016?  What are your dreams for the coming year?  Money?  Love?  A better job?  Better health?  More satisfaction out of life?  Stronger faith?  A better relationship with God?  None of those are mutually exclusive, of course.  But think about it.  What are your dreams for 2016?

            And what are your dreams for this church in 2016?  What ministries should we be doing that we’re not doing?  What ministries that we are doing should we expand?  How can we better reach people?  What can we do to make disciples of Jesus Christ, which is what Jesus told us the church is supposed to do?  What are your dreams for this church in the coming year?

            And with a new year, we start a new sermon series called “Dream On”.  We’re going to look at some of the dreams and dreamers who are important in the Bible.  We’re going to look at what their dream was, what the circumstances of that dream were, and what that can tell us about our own dreams.  And we’re starting today with the dream of Jacob.

            Jacob was on a trip.  It was a trip he was taking for a couple of reasons.  Partly it was to find a wife, but mostly it was to get away from his brother, Esau.  Some of you may remember the story of Jacob and Esau, how Jacob first tricked Esau out of his inheritance and then tricked him out of receiving his father’s blessing.  Esau, as you might guess, was really mad at Jacob and threatened to kill him.  So, Jacob’s mother, Rebekah, sent him on a trip.

            Night came, Jacob went to sleep, and he had a dream.  He saw a stairway reaching to heaven, with angels going up and down it.  That was not the big thing about that dream, though.  The big thing about that dream was what God told Jacob.  In that dream, God promised to give Jacob and his descendants the land he was in.  God promised that Jacob’s descendants would be like the dust of the earth and would spread everywhere.  And God promised that God would watch over him and never leave him until all this was done.

            Now, Jacob was pretty clearly an ambitious man.  That’s why he tricked his brother the way he did.  But I suspect this was a dream far beyond anything Jacob had ever thought of.  God was going to give Jacob a land that he did not live in and his descendants were going to spread all over and be a blessing to everyone.  And no matter where he went, God would watch over Jacob and keep him safe and eventually bring him back to this land.

            I think what’s really interesting, though, is Jacob’s reaction to this.  I suspect he was happy about it, but that’s not his first reaction.  His first reaction was “Wow!”  His first reaction was amazement.  His first reaction was to be in awe at what had just happened here.

            He said, “Surely the Lord was in this place and I was not aware of it.  How awesome is this place!  This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”  And he worshipped God—that’s what that bit about setting the pillar and pouring oil on top of it was about.  It was Jacob’s way of worshipping God and thanking God for this dream God gave him.

            I think that as we think about our dreams, both for ourselves and for the church, there are some important lessons we can get here.  The first one is that, while it’s fine for us to have dreams, our first question should not be “What is my dream?”  Our first question should be “What is God’s dream for me?”  And “What is God’s dream for our church?”

            The Bible does not tells us what Jacob’s dreams for himself might have been.  But we’re given no indication that it was anything like this.  It seems more likely that Jacob’s dream was simply to take over for his father Isaac, to take ownership of Isaac’s land and flocks and so forth.  To be given a completely different land, and to have God’s blessing in this way, probably is not something that even occurred to him.  This was not Jacob’s dream for himself.  This was God’s dream for Jacob.

            You know, I’ve had lots of dreams in my life.  I suspect you have, too.  When I was a little kid, I dreamed I’d be a ballplayer.  For a while, I dreamed I’d be a musician.  Later I dreamed that I might be a judge, or that I might hold a political office.  There are all kinds of dreams I’ve had in my life.

            But the thing is that none of those dreams were God’s dream for me.  And in fact it seemed like, any time I tried to make one of my dreams come true, not only did I not make any progress toward that dream, but God would deliberately take me in a different direction, farther away from my dream.  It was only when I put my own dreams aside, and started listening to what God’s dream for me was, that my life turned around and I actually made progress and started getting somewhere.

            Now that’s not to say we should not have dreams for ourselves or for our church.  But it means we need to constantly ask ourselves some questions.  We need to ask, “Why do I have this dream?  Where does this dream come from?  Is this a selfish dream, something that I want and that I think will make me happy?  Or is this a dream that will help other people, that will allow me to serve God better?  Is this my dream because it’s what I want?  Or is this my dream because I believe it’s what God wants?”

            And we should ask those same questions in regard to our dreams for the church.  Again, “Why do I have this dream?  Where does this dream come from?  Is this a selfish dream, something that I want and that I think will make me happy?  Or is this a dream that will help the church fulfill the great commission, to make disciples for Jesus Christ the way Jesus told us to?”

            And I certainly don’t exclude myself from asking those questions.  Pastors can get caught up in having selfish dreams, too, just like everybody else does.  Selfish dreams personally, and selfish dreams about the church.  As we have dreams about the future of the church, we all need to do what we can to make sure they’re God’s dreams for the church, not just our dreams.

            And in finding God’s dreams for our church, there’s something else we need to do.  We need to be thankful to God for that dream.  And I’m not just talking about thanking God after the dream has come about.  That’s important, of course, but we need thank God before that.  We need to thank God as soon as the dream comes to us.

            That’s what Jacob did.  When Jacob got that dream from God, he did not wake up and go, “Huh.  That was interesting.  It’d be kind of cool if that actually happened.”  We’re told that the next morning, Jacob set up a pillar and poured oil on it in thanks to God for the dream he’d been given.

            In other words, Jacob did not wait around to see if this dream from God was going to come true.  He knew it was going to come true.  He had no doubt about it.  This was God’s dream for him, and if the dream came from God, then it had to come true.  Jacob did not need to wait and see if this was going to happen.  For Jacob, it had already happened.  And so, he gave thanks.  He gave thanks not for what God had done, but for what he knew God was going to do.

            That’s what we need to do:  Thank God for what God’s going to do.  The Bible tells us several times that no word from God will ever fail.  When God gives us a dream for ourselves, when God gives us a dream for the church, we know that God’s dream is going to happen.  It may not happen right away.  It may not happen as soon as we want it to happen.  It may not happen in the way we expected it to happen or wanted it to happen or thought it would happen.  But it will happen.  We can know it will happen.  And we should thank God that it will happen.

            God had a dream for Jacob that was beyond any dream Jacob had for himself.  God has a dream for you that’s beyond any dream you have for yourself.  And God has a dream for this church that’s beyond any dreams we have for it.  At the right time, God will give us that dream.  And when God does, we can and should thank God, because we know that dream will happen.